Time passed second by second, and Angel kept a constant watch on the fluctuations of the Heart House.
Although he could not peer into the specific circumstances within the Heart House, he could roughly infer what was happening inside from the fluctuations of the illusion.
At first, the fluctuations surged sharply. After reaching a certain peak, they slowly declined, but they did not fall back to their starting point. Instead, they continued rising and falling without end.
By Angel's estimation, if Shalu had truly encountered his own inner demon—or rather, an obsession demon—then they should have been locked in battle at this moment, restraining one another as the fight fell into a stalemate.
About five minutes later, the illusion fluctuations finally began to drop, and they plummeted off a cliff. If represented on a coordinate axis, they would have fallen vertically from a certain point, the horizontal coordinate unchanged while the vertical coordinate returned to zero.
The moment he saw this, Angel turned to look at Shalu.
The Heart House sat on the table, while Shalu lay sprawled across it, his body enveloped by the Heart House's energy.
As the illusion fluctuations returned to zero, the energy shrouding Shalu gradually withdrew as well. The instant it vanished completely, Shalu suddenly opened his eyes.
As though he had awoken from a nightmare, he jolted upright, one hand pressed to his chest as he gasped for breath.
Only after quite some time did Shalu's breathing gradually settle.
"I'm not dead? Where is this?" Shalu turned his head and looked around, his gaze finally settling on Angel and Frod some distance away.
"Rest assured, you're not dead." Frod's eyes were fixed on Shalu as well. "Looks like you went through quite a nightmare. I wonder if you'd be interested in telling us about