Real or Illusion

He found that the scenery around him had gone completely dark.

Day had turned into night, and the lush jungle had become bare stone ground. Silence reigned all around, without a single soul in sight. The brother and sister who had been following Benjamin had vanished completely, leaving only a faintly reddish full moon in the sky.

Though he had been mentally prepared, Benjamin's heart still sank at that moment.

So it really was an illusion...

In those brief seconds of Void, he had not even had time to sort things out, much less devise a countermeasure. Yet the system suddenly spoke up, shouting in his mind, "Quick! Make a soundproof ice sphere!"

Hearing that, Benjamin seemed to recall something as well, and his expression sharpened. With no time to hesitate, he immediately cast magic at his fastest speed. In that fleeting instant after emerging from Void, he wrapped himself inside a huge soundproof ice sphere.

Then, Void ended completely.

"...Did it work?"

Standing inside the ice sphere, Benjamin gazed at the pitch-black night outside and asked hesitantly in his mind.

"Yeah. It really is a little terrifying. Even I didn't notice when you entered the illusion," the system said slowly. "But... this really is different from ordinary Mind Arts. The outside is filled with a strange sound wave, very similar to the wailing of ghosts beneath the abyss."

Benjamin nodded, his expression turning grave as well.

Ghosts...

The brother and sister had mentioned before that when some elders of the Overseas Sect died, they became things like "ancestral spirits" and guarded the island for them. Could it be that the people on this island had already mastered the ability to freely control ghostly illusions?

If that was true, then both he and The Church had underestimated the strength of