Cloud Thinking

"So, this group of people broke into your house, killed your double, and then were killed by your people and thrown into my room?"

Helia briefly explained the current situation to Eric, who had regained his sanity, but it was obvious that any one of these events alone would be confusing, let alone a series of them happening one after another.

"Yes." She nodded, "And I suspect that we are now trapped in an illusion."

No wonder she always felt something was strange since she returned to the palace, but she couldn't tell what it was. It turned out that she was dragged into a fantasy world with Eric's nightmare as the background.

Even her own great strength was useless, because in Eric's impression, she was the delicate and weak sister who needed protection.

Eric's inaccurate understanding of her undoubtedly affected Helia who was in the illusion and put some restrictions on her.

It was like the real Helia and the Helia in Eric's dream overlapped, and the two were slightly neutralized to become who she is now.

"Illusion?" Eric squatted down and examined the dead body over and over again. Both the touch and the smell were extremely real. How could it be an illusion?

"To be precise, it should be your nightmare, brother." Helia said, "Because you just..."

She chuckled twice, and seeing Eric's embarrassed expression, she stopped talking.

She continued to analyze, "They broke into my house and killed me, and then trapped my brother in a nightmare..."

Eric followed her train of thought and continued, "Two royal heirs have been harmed one after another, and Stella is studying in a college far away in the south. Hector is still young and can't take on the responsibility..."

The two of them turned their heads to look at each other, and saw the same shock in each other's eyes, and said in unison: "Father!"

Their target is Claude!

The position of heir is left vacant. If Claude is eliminated, the empire will be leaderless. One can imagine what the fate of this lion will be.

But Helia quickly refuted herself: "No, no, isn't it said that the emperor of the empire has divine power and will not be killed easily? Father will definitely not just..."

"Aya." Eric stopped him, looking at her with a heavy look in his eyes, "Father once told me that the divine power does not protect the emperor of the empire, but only the imperial regime."

"What do you mean..." Helia didn't understand.

Eric closed his eyes, sighed, and explained: "The empire does not need to be named after the Abrahamic royal family. Anyone can sit in that position and anyone can become the monarch of the empire."

"As long as the empire does not fall, is not destroyed by the power of the gods, and does not collapse in an unusual way in a short period of time, the life or death of the monarch does not matter much."

"The imperial regime is what the God of Order took away from the three ancient races and gave to us. It is what the so-called divine power really wants to protect."

Helia had not expected this to be the case. She was quite surprised when she learned this part. After all, with the so-called divine power protecting her body, she thought that the position of the emperor of the empire could be very stable and safe. At least she didn't have to guard against all kinds of assassinations.

Unexpectedly, this divine power did not protect the emperor of the empire at all, but only protected the imperial regime.

In other words, Claude is still in danger!

Helia held her head in her hands, feeling that she had been troubled recently and had no time to rest.

"Now, how do we leave this illusion prepared for me?" Eric asked.

He was not a magician and had only a vague understanding of this damn illusion, so he had to rely more on Helia to break the deadlock.

Then, stop these bastards' plan.

They messed up my lair and gave me so much to do. When I catch them, I'm really going to peel off their skin and use it as a rag... Helia thought.

"If you want to break through the illusion, you must first distinguish clearly what is real and what is fiction."

She looked around the room carefully, but this was not her home, and she couldn't tell what was real and what was fake.

Thinking of this, Helia suddenly remembered what she had eavesdropped on downstairs before, and couldn't help asking: "Brother, when I was downstairs, I heard someone reporting to you about Sister Starley..."

Eric knew that Helia always loved her beloved sister who came home halfway, so he did not hide anything: "Well, let me report to you about Stella's recent situation in the academy. Nothing is wrong, don't worry."

Instead of having her doubts resolved, Helia became even more confused. "But, did you specifically instruct your subordinates to investigate? Why would you be reported this?"

Eric thought about it carefully and realized something was wrong. "I never gave any instructions. They came to report it themselves."

"I thought it was my father who asked them to come, so I didn't suspect anything, because sometimes after my father finished handling government affairs, he would have someone pass on the relevant decisions or information to me."

"But now that I think about it, I also find it a little strange."

Helia reasonably suspected: "In other words, that part of the information, or the people who came to deliver the message, might be false."

Eric quickly figured it out: "The reason why I came to report about Stella is to reassure me and make me believe that although Stella is far away, she is safe."

"Maybe they did it to Starley too! They're lying to me!"

Helia's eyes suddenly turned cold, and if you listened carefully, you could hear the pure sound of her teeth grinding.

First, she was angry that these rats in the gutter attacked her beloved family. Second, she was angry at herself for being so stupid that she didn't even realize that there was a group of people planning such a big game behind her back. Now she was in the game, but she knew nothing about the identity of the other party.

This feeling of being played around with by others really made her angry.

Eric put his arm around her shoulders and patted her twice. "Aya, it's okay. You have to trust Starley. She's very smart, and her father has someone to protect her."

"Yeah." Helia raised her hand and held Eric's hand on her shoulder. She needed this timely comfort.

When Eric thought of his two sisters being in danger, his sapphire eyes turned as cold as Helia's, or even colder.

"The people who came to report are still in the study downstairs. Do we need to get rid of them?"

"Is the way to break the illusion to eradicate those fabricated illusions?"

Eric looked like he wanted to stab those damn things through with one sword.

Although Helia had studied magic related to illusions and magic tricks before, it was obvious that she had not learned enough, because there were not many people who could use this kind of magic, so at this moment she was not sure whether it was right to do so.

Out of caution, Helia decided to observe for a while longer. "Let's go out and take a look at the situation first."

The two men stepped over the corpses on the ground, pushed open the door and stepped into the dim corridor. The corridor where guards were supposed to be stationed was now empty and eerily quiet, as if they had stepped into another world.

Helia walked in front, holding a small flame in her left hand for lighting, and stretched her right hand back, just in time to catch Eric's outstretched hand, and then held it tightly.

"Brother, follow me closely from now on and don't get lost."

Eric looked at Helia's obviously taller and broader back, and couldn't help curling his lips. He tightly held the hand that Helia was holding, and quickened his pace to catch up with her.

It seems that the feeling of being protected by my sister is not bad, right?

Going down to the study, the room that should have been brightly lit was now dim. Not to mention people, there was not even a shadow of a monkey!

Eric took a few steps forward and rummaged around on the desk for a while, confirming that it was indeed the same as when he left. There was no change, except that the person who was supposed to be waiting in the room to obey his orders was missing.

"The person who created this illusion seems to be keeping an eye on our movements." Eric analyzed seriously, "Before we realized it was an illusion, they were trying to blur the boundary between reality and illusion, fabricating something based on reality in an attempt to deceive and alienate us."

"But what the other party didn't expect was that you, Aya, were not in the room. They only killed your stand-in, not you."

"And you happened to follow the clues and came here, joined me, and found something wrong, and deduced that this was an illusion."

"Since then, the owner of the illusion no longer concealed himself, nor did he bother to disguise himself. Strange phenomena occurred frequently, hiding the reality under the illusion."

"Before, I was looking for the part that was different from reality in reality, but now I am looking for reality in fantasy."

Helia gave him a thumbs-up in approval and a wink.

I just want to say that he is worthy of being her brother. He is so smart. He understood everything without her saying a few more words.

This is what siblings are like.

Facing his sister's praise and admiring gaze, Eric coughed twice and raised his hand to hide the smile on his lips. "But right now, the surroundings are still the familiar scenes. At least for me, I don't see any..."

Before he could finish his words, he heard the study door being slammed by something, making a loud "bang".

Helia looked over warily, and saw several shadowy figures through the crack in the door, banging against the door one after another, making ping-pong noises, eager to come in.

"Ouch, something unfamiliar is coming~"

Helia tilted her head and raised her hand to summon a huge flint, which enveloped the entire room in flames and made her snow-white face look somewhat terrifying.

The door was knocked open by the monsters outside and they rushed in, but what was waiting for them was a flaming sword that cut them in half. The remaining body was burned to ashes in the flames.

Soon, footsteps were heard again in the corridor, and more monsters rushed over. Helia then realized that this was the shadow ghost she had encountered in Camelin's sea of ​​consciousness before. Could this matter be related to the group of indestructible pagans?

Similar scenes made her wonder if she was trapped in someone else's sea of ​​consciousness again. While killing monsters, she called out to Watersise loudly in her heart. Unfortunately, just as she didn't expect, her soul was stripped out again and stuffed into an illusion.

Wouldn't that leave Watersiser alone, no, a god, outside? And let the other party occupy his body?

She almost died before and became a wandering ghost in another world because her body rejected her soul.

The problem was solved at that time because of the presence of the half-elf Clemini, but this time, he has disappeared long ago. If she can't return to her body, she will really have to hold hands with her mother and be a ghost in this palace!

However, compared to worrying that her soul would not be able to return to her body, she was more worried about herself staying outside and being controlled by Watersise. It was highly unlikely that the Father God would use her body to do something dangerous in a sensitive place like the palace...

But on second thought, Helia still couldn't confirm when and where she entered the illusion.

And it is obvious that they entered the illusion in the form of conscious bodies. So, what will happen to the physical bodies left outside?

If by some chance someone wants to deal with their bodies without their souls...

After all, the soul and the body are inseparable, and a person is not considered alive without either part.

Since we can rip out their souls and place them somewhere else, there's no reason not to do anything with their bodies.

She was fine. I guess the guys who accidentally discovered that she was not dead and were ready to kill her again ran into Watersise who occupied her body...

Tsk tsk tsk! It would be better to meet her! I hope they didn’t get too happy… (Put your hands together)

There was no problem on her side, but Eric's side was a big problem! These thieves were able to break into her room by overcoming her layers of defense. Eric's side was probably going to become a den for thieves to come in and out all the time, right?

We can't procrastinate any longer, we must make a quick decision.

Not only for her brother, but also for her father. At least these two people must not get into trouble at this critical juncture.

After chopping down another group of shadow ghosts, Helia signaled Eric to follow. They had to leave here before the shadow ghosts had time to regroup and revive, otherwise they would be trapped here by these immortal monsters.

Eric held a sword in his hand and chased Helia while helping to deal with the shadow ghost that was chasing after him.

Although his aggression is not as exaggerated as Helia's, he is not weak either. After all, he is the prince who is known as the "Little Sword Saint", so he does not need Helia to protect him all the time.

After clearing out the shadow ghost blocking the road ahead, Helia grabbed Eric's hand, and the other party immediately followed in tacit understanding.

He didn't ask where Helia was going or what the next plan was. He just went wherever Helia went and attacked wherever Helia pointed.

The two of them hadn't spent much time together, but they surprisingly had a very good understanding of each other. This made Helia wonder in her heart, is the connection between blood so strong?

Helia took Eric to the Amber Palace.

That was her territory, she was more familiar with it, if there was anything unusual she would be able to discover it and perhaps find help.

However, the owner of the illusion seemed to have noticed Helia's intention. Before they walked out of Eric's Tanzanite Palace, those troublesome shadow ghosts disappeared, replaced by frames of pictures.

She saw with her own eyes Eric's shadow passing through the bodies of the two and walking towards the corridor at the back, while he was talking to Vikes beside him, discussing the internal management issues of the Magic Knights.

"This is..." Eric followed his own shadow doubtfully, "My memory?"

Helia nodded uncertainly, and felt more and more that this place was like someone's sea of ​​consciousness, except that the memory fragments were directly spread out, appearing before her eyes one by one in an orderly manner.

The further they walked, and the further they went from the Tanzanian Palace, the more memory images appeared.

And according to Eric, the time of these images was pushed back further and further, and even his childhood memories were dug up.

The two finally stopped at a ray of light and looked at a slightly sad figure. It was the young boy Eric. He grabbed the railing in despair, crying and roaring again and again.

Because his sister went missing, and after he finally found her, she went crazy again.

That was a pain that neither Helia nor Eric wanted to talk about again.