Illusion

"Everyone, hold your breath!" Su Qianxue shouted, sweeping her crossed hands outward.

"Spatial Barrier!"

A translucent barrier instantly unfurled, enclosing all six of them.

This was one of her signature abilities, capable of blocking most physical and energy attacks.

But the black mist seeped through every crack, actually managing to penetrate the barrier slowly.

"There's something strange about this black mist!" Chen Mo exclaimed. "It's interfering with my perception!"

The next second, two team members' eyes went blank, and their bodies froze in place.

They were Zhao Gang and Li Wei, a B-rank enhancement type and a C-rank agility type respectively, both at the early Divine Sense Stage.

"This is bad!" Gao Yuan shouted. "It got them both!"

The Nightmare entity let out a piercing screech, and an eerie smile appeared on its distorted human face.

"Human fear... is a rare delicacy..."

The small clumps of mist around it simultaneously condensed into human shapes and lunged at the remaining four.

Su Qianxue gritted her teeth, curled her right hand around empty air, then slashed it down.

"Spatial Blade!"

An invisible blade shot from her hand, instantly sweeping through three of the oncoming humanoid mist forms.

All three were severed at the waist, dissolving into black mist.

But the next second, they re-formed.

"Physical attacks have limited effect. The Nightmare has low resistance to energy," Su Qianxue quickly assessed the situation. "This thing is harder to deal with than the intel suggested."

Gao Yuan charged forward and threw a punch at a re-formed humanoid mist shape.

Energy glowed around his fist, and his punch blasted the humanoid mist apart again.

"Team leader! I'll hold off these little monsters. Find a way to deal with the big one!"

Su Qianxue nodded, fixing her gaze on the Nightmare's main body at the center.

She took a deep breath, cupped her hands around empty air before her, then slowly drew them apart.

"Space Folding."

This was another of her abilities. It folded and compressed the area of space occupied by the target, destroying it directly from within.

But the instant she activated her ability, the Nightmare's main body suddenly shuddered violently. Its human face turned toward her, and a dim red light flared in its hollow eye sockets.

"Mist Illusion Dream Shadow."

Su Qianxue suddenly felt a sharp pain in her brain.

The world before her began to twist.

She saw her clan's ancestral residence, its brightly lit main hall.

The grand elder sat in the seat of honor, watching her calmly. Her mother sat beside her father, wiping away tears, not daring to raise her head.

"Qianxue," the grand elder's voice rang out. "Have you given any thought to the matter with the Zhao Clan?"

Su Qianxue tried to speak, only to discover that an invisible force had sealed her mouth.

"If you refuse, you're disregarding the interests of the entire clan," the grand elder continued. "Did you think running off to Jiangcheng would make everything all right? Did you think we didn't know about your little maneuvers?"

Around the hall, the elders of the Su Clan appeared one by one, all watching her with those cold eyes.

"Agree to it."

"This is for the clan."

"You have no choice."

The voices grew more and more relentless, like countless needles piercing her brain.

Su Qianxue clenched her teeth, digging her nails into her palms.

It's fake.

This is an illusion.

She knew it was an illusion, but those words, those eyes, were too real.

So real that she nearly broke down.

Just as her consciousness was about to sink into it, she abruptly regained clarity.

She was at the Peak Source Energy Stage, after all.

She was an S-rank spatial-type Awakened.

An illusion from a B-rank entity was not enough to deceive her.

But this Nightmare had dredged up the very scenes she did not want to remember, and that was why she had nearly succumbed.

She had never wanted to be someone weak, at the mercy of others.

"Break... apart!"

Su Qianxue's eyes snapped open. She crossed her hands before her, then tore them outward to either side.

"Spatial Rift!"

She tore apart the very space she occupied, forcibly severing her connection to the illusion.

The world before her shattered like glass.

She was back in the factory building.

Only two seconds had passed outside.

Gao Yuan was still fighting the small clumps of mist. Chen Mo was retreating while shielding Zhao Gang and Li Wei, who remained trapped in the illusion, while another team member, Wang Gang, was keeping the enemy in check with ranged attacks.

But the Nightmare's main body had already moved to within five meters of her.

Its distorted human face was almost pressed against her, red light flickering in its hollow eye sockets.

"You... actually broke free of my dream."

The cold gleam in Su Qianxue's eyes intensified.

"You made me see things I didn't want to see."

She curled her right hand around empty air, then clenched it hard.

"Spatial Compression!"

The space around the Nightmare's main body instantly collapsed inward.

This was her strongest single-target attack, compressing the area of space occupied by the target into a single point and utterly destroying it on both the physical and energy levels.

The Nightmare let out an agonized scream. Its enormous mist body struggled wildly, but the force of the spatial compression was too powerful.

It tried to seep out as black mist, but even the black mist was compressed along with it.

Three seconds later, the Nightmare's main body had been compressed into a fist-sized black sphere, suspended in midair.

Su Qianxue reached out and clenched her hand. The black sphere shattered completely, vanishing into nothingness.

The small clumps of mist all let out piercing screeches, then burst apart one after another, dissipating into the air.

The factory building instantly fell silent.

Su Qianxue stood where she was, panting lightly.

That succession of high-level ability techniques had taken a considerable toll on her as well.

"Team leader," Chen Mo said excitedly, "you're incredible!"

"I was careless this time. That's what gave the Nightmare its opening." Su Qianxue waved a hand and walked over to Zhao Gang and Li Wei.

Their eyes were tightly shut, their brows knitted, and their expressions pained. They clearly had yet to escape the illusion.

"Team leader, what do we do about these two?" Gao Yuan walked over, his expression grave. "I've heard the Nightmare's illusions are very hard to break. It's a good thing you managed to break free just now, or there's no telling how this would've ended."

Su Qianxue crouched down and sensed their mental fluctuations.

Indeed, the Nightmare's anomalous energy still occupied their mental seas, continuously generating hallucinations.

Though this energy was not strong, it was entangled with their own mental power. Rashly expelling it with outside force could hurt them, unless they could break free themselves.

"Let's take them back first." She stood up. "The bureau should have Awakened who specialize in mental abilities."

Jiangcheng Paranormal Bureau, Medical Center.

Su Qianxue stood outside the observation room, looking through the glass at Zhao Gang and Li Wei lying side by side inside.

Both were pale, their brows tightly knitted. Their bodies twitched from time to time, their expressions shifting between fear and pain. They were clearly still struggling within the illusion the Nightmare had left behind.

"Team Leader Chen! How are they doing?" she asked the medical team leader, who had just come out.

The medical team leader was a middle-aged woman in her forties, surnamed Chen, and the bureau's most experienced medical-type Awakened.

She shook her head, her expression grave.

"We've tried every method available. Sedatives, mental power guidance, even forcibly severing their connection to the illusion. None of it worked."

"The Nightmare's anomalous energy is too deeply entangled with their mental power. The slightest mistake when intervening with outside force will cause irreversible damage to their mental seas."

Su Qianxue clenched her fists.

"How much longer can they hold on?"

Team Leader Chen fell silent for a moment, then answered honestly, "At the current rate their vital signs are declining, three days at most."

Three days.

Su Qianxue closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

She was a spatial-type Awakened. She could handle paranormal entities with composure, but against this kind of mental trauma, her spatial abilities were utterly useless.