CHAPTER 45: CHAPTER 44: PARADISE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FOREST (18)

The masked man advanced calmly while the spirits tried to lunge at him from every direction.

But it took him only a single moment to get rid of them. He raised his gun with just one hand and, with every swift motion, fired a bullet.

The spirits vanished the moment they were hit, dissolving into dust that scattered through the air.

The Great Autumn Spirit’s clone disappeared entirely after the very first shot he fired at it. Nothing remained of it except the fading traces of light drifting into the sky.

He moved forward until he reached where Oliver and Aria were standing. He stopped for only one moment, then raised his gun toward Aria and fired.

Aria bent lightly at the last second, her body twisting to the side, feeling the heat of the bullet brush past her cheek.

She shouted, clenching her fist,

"What are you doing, you lunatic?!"

He didn’t respond. He didn’t even look at her. He kept firing at her with complete coldness, as if he were dealing with a monster that needed to be killed immediately.

Aria kept dodging the shots, teeth clenched, her body floating above the ground.

That’s when Oliver stepped in, his voice exhausted and stripped of his usual energy.

"Stop, can you stop attacking her?"

The masked man stopped, but he did not lower the gun immediately.

He gave Oliver a brief glance through his one visible eye before slowly lowering the weapon.

"Who is this hybrid?"

Oliver answered while looking around at the corpses and at the fog beginning to spread everywhere.

"She’s the one who helped me stay alive here. Without her, I wouldn’t have lasted a single minute."

After that answer, the masked man said nothing.

He turned around and started running across the square, shooting the scattered spirits as he moved.

Aria took a deep breath, her shoulders relaxing once he moved away. Then she approached Oliver.

She spoke while looking at him.

"I told you he’s your father."

He didn’t respond. He was staring at Eleanor’s clone’s corpse.

Aria followed his gaze, and when she saw the body, she tried to ease the weight off him.

"You know this isn’t real, right?"

"I think so."

"There’s no reason to be this sad. In the end, it’s just a clone. A construct made of memories to look like someone you probably knew, but it’s not her."

He stayed silent for a moment.

"If everyone here is just a memory and not real people, do they realize that? Do they know they’re just reflections of people who once existed? Or do they actually believe they are those people?"

"I don’t know, and I don’t think we’ll ever know."

She turned to him and smiled.

"Anyway, your father is here, and he’s getting us out of this place."

"I told you he’s not my father."

She put a hand on her hip.

"I told you before if he shows up to save us then he’s your father. Didn’t I say that?"

"Weren’t you the one who said he’d show up only because there’s a mythical creature here?"

"How do you explain that he stopped shooting at me the moment he heard your request and saw your condition?"

"Maybe he decided to listen to me. There’s no deeper reason behind it."

"Seems like you have a problem accepting reality."

"I’ll accept reality when what you’re saying makes sense, but this? It’s all nonsense."

"The first stage is denial. We all go through it."

"I’m not denying anything."

While they argued, the masked man moved through the village streets, eliminating the remaining spirits quickly.

He was searching for the sage, Lemur, and the others, and it didn’t take him much time.

He found the sage running for his life, with Lemur running right behind him, and behind them a massive swarm of large spirits.

The sage shouted at Lemur, breathless,

"Why are you running behind me?! Didn’t I tell you to stay away?!"

"That gesture means stay away for you humans? Strange, we use it to mean come closer. Humans are extremely odd."

The sage didn’t understand a single word Lemur said.

He opened his mouth in disbelief, closed it again, sighed, and kept running.

The spirits closed in fast, but the masked man lifted his gun and fired several consecutive shots.

Each bullet hit its target, and the spirits vanished instantly upon impact.

The sage and Lemur stopped running, turned around at the same moment, and stared at the masked man standing in front of them.

Lemur blinked several times, then ran toward the masked man.

"Commander, I knew you’d come back to save me!"

His voice was full of joy, but the masked man immediately raised his hand.

Then he pulled a small bottle from his bag, filled with a dark purple liquid.

He opened it and poured some of it onto Lemur’s shoulder.

Immediately, a faint purple glow wrapped around Lemur’s body.

The masked man walked toward the sage and poured some of the same liquid on him.

The exact same thing happened to the sage, the purple glow engulfing him as well.

He closed the bottle tightly and placed it back into his bag.

"You and the little gray one go stand beside Oliver and that old woman."

He didn’t give the sage time to reply before heading off to locate the rest of the group.

He did the same with Allen and the others, but their reaction was completely different from Lemur’s and the sage’s.

When he poured the liquid on them, it was like they woke up from a long dream.

Their eyes widened, but the masked man didn’t give them time to ask questions. He pointed toward Oliver.

"Go to him."

Then he returned to the battlefield, facing the spirits that had turned into beasts.

Everyone gathered in the square.

Oliver, the sage, Lemur, Allen, Maron, and the two other men.

They watched the masked man slaughter the beasts while the faint memories slowly returned to them.

They remembered everything they had done since entering the village, but in a blurry way, like recalling a pleasant dream that suddenly turned into a nightmare.

It didn’t take the masked man long to finish off all the spirits.

With the fall of the last one, the illusionary villagers began fading away gradually, their bodies dissolving into black mist that scattered into the air.

The masked man walked toward the group.

As soon as he arrived, Allen rushed toward him, grabbing the collar of his coat and yanking him violently.

"What is this place?! What’s happening here?!"

The masked man gripped his coat firmly, then shoved Allen back hard, making him stumble, nearly falling if Maron and the two other men hadn’t caught him.

The masked man straightened his coat collar.

"I’ll explain this simply. We’re currently inside an illusionary zone created by a mythical creature. Its function is to deceive you and then consume your memories gradually. It starts by manifesting them convincingly so that you don’t notice anything wrong. And under its influence, you won’t feel the danger until it’s already too late."

Oliver and the sage exchanged a brief look.

Then the sage asked,

"And how do we get out of here?"

The masked man raised his gun.

"By killing its proxy."