Chapter 65: Xu Ran: Actually, I am also a Mechanism God!-Começando como um bebê, cultivando o Dao e tornando-se um Lorde(Brisa que desperta da embriaguez)

Amidst a battlefield littered with 'corpses', Xu Ran's mind raced at lightning speed, attempting to comprehend everything unfolding before him and unravel the tangled threads to pierce through the fog.

Once he understood what was happening on the battlefield, a strategy to break the impasse gradually began to emerge in the depths of his heart...

One thing he could be certain of was that everything he was currently seeing and experiencing was a [Large-Scale Illusion].

Or to be more precise, it was not merely a [Large-Scale Illusion], but was also intertwined with mental shocks.

The immersive, hyper-realistic illusion, coupled with emotions of terror, despair, and suffocation, was jammed directly into people's minds, forming this flawless [Illusion] that was nearly impossible to resist.

If one simply allowed the [Large-Scale Illusion] to assault their inner core, lost their self-confidence, lost their will to fight, and instead of pondering the life or death of their comrades chose to flee backward, then today would be an inescapable death trap!

Cowardice and flight would instantly turn the [Large-Scale Illusion] into reality!

Every single practitioner outside the safe zone would have their heads explode and die.

"Fortunately, I didn't run..."

"This is all thanks to my survival ability. Just a moment ago... at the exact instant the heads of all the practitioners, including the crystal beasts, exploded, I still believed in my own ability to escape and knew I would definitely not die."

"Therefore, my very first reaction was merely a brief moment of panic. I didn't think about fleeing immediately."

"Moreover, in the split second after the explosion occurred, I felt no grief, no anger, only confusion... My emotions did not fluctuate violently, which indicates that my conviction was resilient and remained uncrushed by the mental shock. This was crucial."

Xu Ran took a deep breath, and his heartbeat gradually returned to a steady rhythm...

When the explosion happened, his heart had hammered like a war drum, as if hinting at just how terrifying and hopeless the scene before him was.

Yet at this very moment, having pushed through it, those scenes of ultimate terror could no longer cause any fluctuations in his state of mind.

"No..."

"Fear is actually still breeding in the depths of my heart?"

Xu Ran furrowed his brow.

He realized that an uncontrollable fear was breeding deep within his heart, eroding his conviction.

"That shouldn't be happening."

Xu Ran focused his mind and silently cast a Fear Cleansing on himself.

"No effect?"

"I clearly and consciously understand that I am no longer afraid, but my body, my heart, and my head are all telling me that I am terrified?"

Xu Ran felt this was utterly bizarre.

He realized this was the true terror of the [Large-Scale Illusion]—it was a series of interlocking rings.

Even if one temporarily maintained lucidity, the [Large-Scale Illusion] would bit by bit use the most realistic, most immersive fear and despair... to assault the conscious mind and deceive the conscious perception of the lucid person...

Thus causing the conscious person to lose their sanity in subsequent assaults and plunge completely into the abyss.

"The [Large-Scale Illusion] wants to erase my lucidity, make me completely lose the ability to resist, and sink entirely into the [Large-Scale Illusion]... It's moving so fast, am I actually starting to waver?"

"The other practitioners on the battlefield are probably experiencing this step of sinking back into the illusion right now!"

Without a doubt, Xu Ran's guess was correct.

The members of the four God-Slaying Squads had, at the very moment the [Large-Scale Illusion] descended, instinctively perceived it as an illusion, maintaining a brief moment of lucidity... and attempted to charge out of the battlefield to launch an attack against the controller lurking behind the scenes.

Take Xiao Xue of the Fiery Prison God-Slaying Squad, for example.

The moment her surrounding compatriots and comrades instantly had their heads explode into bloody mist, her chest heaved violently. Sweat drenched her body.

She widened her mouth, staring blankly at her surroundings, gazing at her teammates plunging from mid-air.

She found it impossible to accept that this scene was truly happening!

"No, impossible! Our Fiery Prison God-Slaying Squad couldn't possibly be killed by resentment beasts in an instant! We cannot possibly be this fragile!!"

"It's all an illusion!"

Xiao Xue gritted her teeth, her retort filled with grief, indignation, and sheer disbelief.

This was fatal.

Because one of the pathways for an illusion to invade is through violent emotional fluctuations.

Her grief and indignation became the optimal medium for the [Large-Scale Illusion] to invade her mind.

She didn't even realize it herself... boundless despair had been planted in her mind, and she no longer believed the sight before her was a phantom... She was controlled by the illusion, lost her mobility, and was dragged into boundless darkness...

"Defeat... Our Fiery Prison Squad has actually suffered such a defeat..."

Xiao Xue's eyes lost their light, and she collapsed weakly onto the ground... watching helplessly as the battlefield turned into a river of blood...

That blood came from her compatriots, from the comrades she lived and breathed alongside every day...

More and more blood poured into her eyes...

She was completely submerged... entirely losing consciousness...

...

The exact same scene played out for every member of the Fiery Prison God-Slaying Squad. In the beginning, they wanted to fight desperately, but watching their teammates die tragic deaths before their eyes filled their hearts with uncontrollable grief and indignation, which turned into a burden that subjected them to even more severe erosion.

This was a meticulously constructed trap that exploited the brilliance of human nature.

It exploited the camaraderie within the God-Slaying Squads.

The Fiery Prison God-Slaying Squad was utterly defeated.

Meanwhile, the Soul-Purifying God-Slaying Squad had likewise sunk into the [Large-Scale Illusion]...

Even Captain Lin Feng, who excelled at deduction, lost the majority of his sanity when he saw all his teammates explode in such tragic postures. Sweat soaked his entire body, and his heart beat as though it might shatter.

"No!"

"Impossible!"

"How... how could we face such a disastrous defeat?!"

Lin Feng rushed forward rapidly, wanting to catch the bodies of his teammates, but how could one person catch six bodies? He only heard a few heavy, muffled thuds.

His teammates' bodies slammed heavily onto the ground!

This only intensified the pain and grief in his heart.

"No, this must be an illusion, a nightmare!"

Lin Feng felt his hair stand on end and took two steps back. He tried to calm his mind and conduct serious deductions, but the very next second, his train of thought was swallowed by despair, grief, and fury...

The [Large-Scale Illusion] was not simply an illusion; it also packed a mental shock that invaded the mind along the path of grief and indignation!

"I can't tell the difference anymore..."

"This isn't an illusion..."

Lin Feng knelt down powerlessly, prostrating himself completely, as viscous blood rapidly swallowed him...

At the same simultaneous moment, Uncle Ye Ping was also eroded until he lost all capacity for resistance...

Just as Ye Ping fell, Xu Ran, who was deep in thought, suddenly felt his head swell with a dull ache.

"It's becoming increasingly pressing. It seems, much as I anticipated, the others must have lost their capacity for resistance during the second wave of assault."

"What a flawless [Large-Scale Illusion]... Mental-attribute mixed with idealistic illusion... bizarre and seemingly insolvable!"

"If I had panicked just a bit more, perhaps everyone would have been instantly killed."

"Judging from the current situation, however, since I am still standing... it means my compatriots on the battlefield are not yet in mortal danger and there is still room for redemption."

"As long as I can find the flaw in the [Large-Scale Illusion]..."

"What was the plan I had in mind just a moment ago?"

Xu Ran tapped his forehead, realizing that the [Large-Scale Illusion] was causing him to forget his own train of thought. Wisps of intangible, untouchable, and imperceptible power were eroding his sanity.

Xu Ran rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"I remember now—Conviction! Confidence!"

"As long as I firmly believe my teammates are fine, the large-scale illusion cannot complete its descent! As long as I am confident enough, the large-scale illusion cannot corrode me."

"This is somewhat similar to my Super Burst Slash; they are both idealistic divine skills."

Muttering to himself, Xu Ran broke into a brilliant smile.

"What a coincidence, I also possess an idealistic blade technique. I, too, walk the path of invincible confidence."

"You complete the [Large-Scale Illusion] by destroying your enemies' confidence, while I condense my own confidence to slay my enemies! As long as my confidence is invincible, I can slash through everything, including the [Large-Scale Illusion]..."

"Let's see whose confidence is superior..."

Xu Ran closed his eyes tightly.

"Clang—!"

His longsword was drawn with lightning speed.

His self-confidence, entwined with his willpower, focused intently to search for the "enemies" that might be lurking nearby.

At this moment, Xu Ran's entire body was enveloped in blazing red flames.

That was the light of confidence, the conviction of invincibility.

The red radiance resisted the erosion of the [Large-Scale Illusion], and Xu Ran's mind became even clearer.

At this very moment, his state of cultivation opened up to him in a sudden flash of enlightenment.

Although he had closed his physical eyes, his senses opened wide at this instant. Perhaps due to the unfolding of the [Large-Scale Illusion], his conviction expanded through it at an astonishing speed.

In an instant, he saw an overhead panoramic map of the entire battlefield.

Bizarre seeds condensed from conviction were distributed across the center of the battlefield, continuously emitting mental shocks and mental pollution.

That pollution bore a striking resemblance to resentment.

"The [Large-Scale Illusion] can condense conviction into seeds, attach them to crystal beasts, and then have the crystal beasts carry this conviction into the battlefield... to form this setup?"

"Indeed, what seemed like a terrifying [Large-Scale Illusion] actually harbored premeditation and deliberate methods beneath the surface..."

"You are becoming less and less terrifying... Heh."

Xu Ran sneered.

The deeper his understanding and the more intelligence he gathered, the less effective the terror, fear, and suffocation jammed into his head by the [Large-Scale Illusion] became against him.

On the contrary, Xu Ran's confidence burned fiercely at this moment!

"As long as I slash apart these conviction seeds—I don't even need to destroy all of them—I can shatter the [Large-Scale Illusion]."

Xu Ran spoke with absolute certainty.

An invisible, human-shaped figure wreathed in roaring red flames swung the longsword in his hand.

Wherever his gaze reached, hundreds of conviction seeds were shattered into pieces.

"Woo—"

Like the mournful wails of distant whales, the large-scale illusion suffered damage, and the originally flawless scene was forcibly torn apart!

Much like the curtain of a shadow puppet show, a corner was sliced away, revealing the truth lying behind it—

Over two hundred practitioners broke free from the [Large-Scale Illusion]!

"Huh? Er-Gouzi, didn't your head explode into a bloody mist? Why are you fine? You made me cry my eyes out!"

"Talk nonsense! It was clearly your head that exploded into a bloody mist..."

"It was definitely both of you!"

"No, it wasn't just the two of us. Just now, apart from me, the heads of every single compatriot exploded into a bloody mist, including our commander, including the God-Slaying Squad..."

"I saw that exact scene too, I was scared out of my wits, swallowed by blood pulp, unable to even breathe... I was dying of despair!"

"Yet now we are all completely unscathed, so we just experienced an illusion?"

"It must be! Look over there, that area is probably still trapped in the illusion!"

"We need to find a way to wake them up!"

The substitute paper dolls and the paper doll legion all returned to their original states.

Xu Ran, in his invisible form, gave a faint smile.

His paper doll legion and his substitute self were both completely intact.

"As expected, it was a bizarre large-scale illusion..."

Xu Ran patted his back.

Dry.

Sweat-free.

"I wasn't even sweating..."

"Therefore, all that fear, terror, despair, and even the hammering heartbeat were merely the mental disorders inflicted upon me by the [Large-Scale Illusion]..."

None of it had actually happened.

It was simply indistinguishable between true and false.

If he had truly believed the illusion, if his confidence had been crushed by the horror, he would have instantly sunk into the phantom realm and waited for everyone to sink before having his head explode and die.

Unfortunately for them... Xu Ran also possessed an idealistic divine skill...

Precisely because he possessed the [Super Burst Slash]... he paid exceptional attention to matters of confidence.

When the [Large-Scale Illusion] attempted to destroy his confidence, he keenly sensed that something was amiss.

"This is truly... a coincidence..."

He had only just unlocked his idealistic blade technique five days ago, and today he encountered an idealistic opponent... He had to admit, the opponent had delivered themselves right to the edge of his blade.

With that thought, Xu Ran smiled sharply and casually activated [Fear Cleansing].

[Fear Cleansing] not only cleared away negative emotions; the surrounding practitioners instantly recovered their conviction: "It's an illusion! This is nothing more than a mere illusion!"

"There's no need to fear it! Without the illusion, the bastard behind it is worth nothing!"

The practitioners muttered amongst themselves, and this kind of confidence acted as the most lethal solvent against the [Large-Scale Illusion]. A corner of it had already been slashed open by Xu Ran, and now, assaulted once more by this surge of confidence...

It was like the falling of the first domino.

The first tile fell.

The second, the third, the fourth—a chain of dominoes clacked as they toppled over...

The [Large-Scale Illusion] shattered instantly like a fragile glass bead.

The human practitioners who had collapsed onto the ground snapped out of it one after another, scrambling up from their fallen postures.

The third defense line...

The second defense line...

The first defense line...

Human practitioners opened their eyes wide, staring at the surrounding crystal beasts whose heads had all genuinely exploded into bloody mist, feeling their hair stand on end.

"This..."

A warrior's eye sockets turned red: "Commander, your head is still here! It didn't shatter!"

While this sentence sounded extremely jarring at first, at this moment, the commander let out a roar of laughter born of surviving a calamity: "Your head is still here too! All the warriors' heads are intact!"

The Commander-in-Chief: "So we were all dragged into a collective phantasm at the exact same moment?"

"So real, such a terrifying illusion... It was suffocating. I couldn't break free at all. I lost..."

The powerhouses of the first defense line retreated successively.

The members of the Fiery Prison God-Slaying Squad and the Soul-Purifying God-Slaying Squad who had been stationed at the third defense line to protect Xu Ran leaped into mid-air, entering combat readiness while casting their gazes into the distance.

Liu Yan: "A large-scale phantasm just occurred. I saw your heads explode into bloody mist in an instant... and then all the other human practitioners and those stupid crystal beasts met their doom at the exact same moment!"

He rapidly shared his intelligence with his teammates.

Xiao Xue: "Me too. Aside from me, every living being on the battlefield had their head explode into bloody mist."

A-Hao: "My perspective was similar to yours. We were probably dragged into some kind of [Super Illusion] with massive coverage. But look, the crystal beasts on the battlefield seem different from us. We survived the phantasm, but they were wiped out cleanly, even cliff-realm crystal beasts had their heads explode and died."

Xiao Xue: "What happened? Did someone on the human side break the super illusion?"

Lin Feng: "Someone definitely broke the [Super Illusion]. If it hadn't been broken, the thousands of elites on our human battlefield would likely have ended up just like the crystal beasts on the ground, dying with exploded heads."

The members drew in sharp breaths of cold air.

"Who broke the illusion? Was it you, Brother Feng? You're good at deduction."

Lin Feng shook his head: "It wasn't me, I fell into the trap."

Xiao Xue: "I fell into it too."

Liu Yan looked sheepish: "I fell into it as well..."

Other members: "Same here..."

Ye Ping suddenly had a vague, inexplicable premonition: "There's a high probability it was Xu Ran?"

Uh...

Everyone felt a deep realization in their hearts, but at this critical juncture, they didn't turn back to look at Xu Ran.

Lin Feng: "Probably. But we have no way to inquire about it right now. Outside the safe zone, there should be a god-level crystal beast staring at us from behind. I can sense its gaze. We must escort the warriors in retreating as quickly as possible."

"Xu Ran, you retreat back to the safe zone as well."

Liu Yan: "That kid is extremely cautious; he's probably slipped away long ago."

Lin Feng: "...Alright... That certainly sounds like his personality..."

The two God-Slaying Squads hovered in mid-air. Below them, the human warriors retreated rapidly like birds returning to their nests.

On the cluttered and devastated battlefield, the horn of retreat echoed through the clouds. Ever since the illusion was broken, the retreat horn had been blowing continuously until all human warriors safely retreated back into the safe zone, whereupon it abruptly ceased.

The Fiery Prison God-Slaying Squad and the Soul-Purifying God-Slaying Squad also let out collective breaths of relief.

They landed back within the safe zone.

Liu Yan: "They actually didn't launch an attack against us... I thought it was going to be a fierce battle."

Ye Ping gave a faint smile: "They probably had some kind of scruples... After all, we broke a bizarre divine blessing divine art on our end."

Lin Feng: "Perhaps. But that gaze was truly dangerous."

...

Two thousand meters away.

A bizarre, blood-red gaze stared intently at the retreating human warriors.

"Your godhood ascension ritual actually failed. Such a bizarre and invincible supreme divine art—even I didn't know how to break free from it, yet it failed? How is that possible?"

The Sand Calamity was profoundly surprised.

When the bizarre godhood ascension ritual descended, even it had experienced hair-raising chills and felt the threat of death in a split second. It had even felt that the Primordial Witch's divine godhead was already a certainty.

It saw zero possibility of failure!

The horrifying scenes that were impossible to shake off, coupled with the successive, wildly bizarre mental shocks, were enough to make even gods meet their doom. How on earth did human practitioners manage to survive such a death trap?!

The Sand Calamity found it incomprehensible.

"Did something go wrong somewhere? It doesn't matter. Make the preparations more thorough next time, and the godhood ascension ritual will be completed perfectly."

It did not believe that human practitioners had destroyed this supreme divine art.

However, upon the scorpion's back, the purple sweet-potato infant's face flushed purplish-red. Its slender eyes narrowed into slits, and two streams of blood spurted from its eye sockets.

Its purplish-red infant cheeks were filled with exasperation, and the veins on its forehead bulged like earthworms.

"It wasn't that my preparation was insufficient; there was an idiot on the battlefield, yes, that damn dog who controls the puppet legion! He... he actually..."

The Sand Calamity was curious: "Actually what?"

The Primordial Witch felt as though a fishbone was stuck in its throat: "That damn dog wielded a red blade and destroyed my divine blessing divine art!"

"How dare he?! He actually managed to ruin my layout! How could he possibly see through it?"

The purple-skinned infant let out a shrill scream, its body trembling with rage.

"If not for that idiot, my godhood ascension ritual would have been perfection itself. Such wonderful flesh and blood sacrifices—four God-Slaying Squads!! Damn it, damn it!"

The Sand Calamity was puzzled: "That guy who controls the puppet legion? I didn't see him wield a red blade... What on earth happened?"

The Primordial Witch gritted its teeth as if chewing on Xu Ran's bones: "In short, it was that damn dog! That damn dog must be targeted for special attention from now on. If there's a chance to kill him, we must never hold back."

Harboring dark ulterior motives, the Primordial Witch concealed certain pieces of information, omitting a detailed explanation to prevent its divine art from being guessed—if enemies learned the detailed information regarding its divine art, they might find a method to crack it.

The world was treacherous, and being cautious was always the right choice. Before tasting failure, it had been unwilling to believe such notions, but now... the brutal reality had taught it a lesson.

The Sand Calamity: "...Was it really that brat? You didn't tell me sooner. I had a chance earlier to blast him to ashes."

With that, the Sand Calamity shook its left pincer. That manic giant eye possessed the ability to instantly kill an enemy from two thousand meters away.

The Primordial Witch: "I was in the middle of the ritual; how could I let you kill him? Once someone of your caliber attacks, my ritual would have been disrupted."

The Sand Calamity: "Pity..."

The Primordial Witch sneered: "Don't underestimate him. Even if your attack had landed squarely on him, it wouldn't have killed him."

The Sand Calamity felt a surge of newfound respect: "Truly an extraordinary fellow. I'll have to be careful around him in the future."

The Primordial Witch shook its head: "However, he must have destroyed my supreme divine art through sheer coincidence... Two years from now, I will make a comeback!"

The Sand Calamity: "...Two years from now, will you still come outside the safe zone to set up such a godhood ascension ritual? What if it gets broken again?"

The purple sweet-potato infant acted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on: "It will never be broken again! Two years from now, I will steer clear of this idiot! Once I complete my godhood ascension ritual, I'll blow his head off!"

The Sand Calamity was slightly stunned: "You've lost your confidence."

Hearing this, the purple-skinned infant collapsed onto the scorpion's back, its heart suffering a violent jolt.

Yes, it realized it had lost its confidence.

Yet it refused to admit it. How could it possibly admit to such a thing?!!

In the showdown of the godhood ascension ritual, the opponent's confidence had actually surpassed its own.

Disgusting!

The purple-skinned infant felt sick to its stomach: "Take me away. Once I ascend to godhood, I'll blast his head to pieces."

It cursed viciously.

The Sand Calamity did not reply.

It raised its eyeball-pincer high. The manic eyeball spun frantically, and wisps of bizarre power rapidly spread. The sandstorm beneath them seemed to turn into an obedient pet, carrying the giant scorpion rolling far into the distance, vanishing from the spot in a flash.

Behind them, Lin Feng withdrew his gaze: "He left. He left with absolute decisiveness."

Liu Yan: "Damn it, talk about rotten luck for us. We actually ran into two mechanic-type monsters back-to-back!"

Xiao Xue: "Actually, we were quite lucky. The first time we wiped out the Flying Head Spectre, and the second time we emerged safe and sound..."

Ye Ping smiled: "Putting it that way, you're not wrong..."

The squad members exchanged smiles. They had truly narrowly escaped death just now; their heart rates still hadn't fully calmed down.

Compared to their restless heart rates, the warriors entering the safe zone had it much tougher. They collapsed onto the ground one after another, panting heavily, drenched in sweat.

This wasn't a lack of discipline; they simply couldn't stand up anymore.

Xu Ran walked among the crowd, casting [Fear Cleansing]... Several thousand progress-farming XP tools had to be utilized to their fullest potential.

Progress +1...

Ye Ping walked over: "Xiao Ran, what are you doing? Weren't you startled?"

Xu Ran shook his head: "No. A mere illusion, not worth mentioning."

Ye Ping: "Uh... I underestimated you. The large-scale illusion just now was broken by you, right?"

Xu Ran nodded: "Pure luck."

Ye Ping felt a surge of profound respect, wearing an appreciative expression that clearly said *I knew you were a god among gods*: "This is no mere luck! Wait, put aside clearing their fear for a moment. Come with me, there's something far more important."

Xu Ran: "What important matter?"

Ye Ping: "Intelligence regarding the opponent must be reported to the Zenith Pavilion immediately, and then handed over to all God-Slaying Squads and safe zones... so that every human practitioner knows about the existence of such a bizarre mechanic monster."

"You wouldn't want it running amok elsewhere, would you?"

Xu Ran: "Though it probably won't be able to cast this move again anytime soon, what Uncle Ye says makes sense. Let's go, I'll share the intelligence I gathered. But there's a reward for this, right?"

Ye Ping answered without hesitation: "Top-tier merit!"

"If it weren't a top-tier merit, would I have come looking for you?"

Xu Ran chuckled: "Heh. Not bad, not bad."

Ye Ping: "Follow me."

With that, the two walked toward the area where the four God-Slaying Squads were located.

At this moment, the Commander-in-Chief of the Seventh Safe Zone felt his legs turning to jelly. Though his body trembled, his gaze was firmer than ever: "I must write down every single detail of what happened today into a comprehensive intelligence report by tonight and submit it to the Zenith Pavilion."

"We must ensure that commanders and God-Slaying Squads in other safe zones learn of this divine-level entity and its bizarre divine blessing divine art at the earliest possible moment."

"Though I still don't know the method to crack it, I must integrate all existing intelligence!"

The Commander-in-Chief gritted his teeth, embodying the spirit of pushing on despite a battered physique.

"Race unknown... but its divine blessing divine art forcibly drags human powerhouses without distinction into a massive phantasm."

"The illusion is formidable, trapping even the eleventh-ranked God-Slaying Squad within it. If the phantasm successfully descends, cliff-realm powerhouses will have their heads instantly explode into bloody mist. Over ten cliff-realm crystal beasts had their heads explode and died."

Muttering to himself, the Commander-in-Chief felt his heart skip beats while panting heavily, walking briskly over to the Fiery Prison God-Slaying Squad and the Soul-Purifying God-Slaying Squad.

"Feng-zi, Yan-zi, do you have any intelligence regarding what just happened? I need to synthesize the reports..."

Liu Yan wiped away the sweat produced by lingering fear: "Not much intelligence. Everyone's perspective was identical: apart from oneself, every other human practitioner and every crystal beast had their heads explode into bloody mist!"

"Under the [Super Illusion], you grow increasingly terrified until you are finally swallowed by blood pulp, completely losing your capacity to resist."

The Commander-in-Chief: "I experienced the exact same thing..."

Lin Feng: "Mm, all identical circumstances..."

The Commander-in-Chief: "Then how on earth was the [Super Illusion] broken?"

Certain practitioners at the third defense line wanted to speak, hesitating repeatedly. When they first woke up, it seemed like the person who had remained the calmest was the [Supernova]?

The [Supernova] had even uttered a strange phrase that caused them to suddenly snap out of it and instilled a baffling sense of conviction in their hearts.

"I think it might have been the one-man-army Supernova!"

A practitioner voiced his guess.

The Commander-in-Chief: "Supernova? Sixth District..."

Lin Feng: "High probability it's Xu Ran... Ping-zi went to look for him. Look, here he comes! The kid looks completely fine, it was definitely him who broke the deadlock."

Xiao Xue smiled warmly: "Hi!"

Xu Ran walked over and cast [Fear Cleansing]...

The panic and suffocation residing in everyone's hearts instantly vanished like smoke in the wind.

The Commander-in-Chief was surprised: "Huh? This... support-attribute spiritual root?"

Lin Feng: "..."

Liu Yan: "..."

Xiao Xue: "..."

The fourteen members of the Fiery Prison God-Slaying Squad and the Soul-Purifying God-Slaying Squad fell into uniform silence: "..."

Liu Yan sized Xu Ran up, utterly baffled: "Just how many cards does this kid still have up his sleeve?"

Lin Feng wore a suspicious expression: "..." Right now, he was incapable of deduction.

Ye Ping spread his hands with a smile: "Don't be surprised, our comprehension spiritual roots are just built this way."

"Oh right, regarding the [Large-Scale Illusion] cast by that mechanic monster just now, Xiao Ran was the sole person to break the deadlock. If you need intelligence, listen closely as Xiao Ran explains the details."

The Commander-in-Chief stared fixedly at Xu Ran.

Though somewhat doubtful, since Ye Ping had stated it so plainly, and neither the Fiery Prison God-Slaying Squad nor the Soul-Purifying God-Slaying Squad raised any objections while all pricking up their ears and focusing intently to listen...

It was most likely the truth.

Sensing the burning gazes fixed upon him, Xu Ran narrowed his eyes and thoroughly explained the principles and mechanics behind the [Large-Scale Illusion].

The Commander-in-Chief came to a sudden realization: "So that's how it is. Mechanic monsters are truly disgusting."

Xu Ran gave a faint smile, suddenly realizing that he was, in essence, a mechanic monster himself as well.

Mechanic Practitioner VS Mechanic Monster.

It ultimately ended with him shattering the opponent's [Large-Scale Illusion] and saving thousands of human practitioners...

Liu Yan: "So as long as people on the battlefield maintain firm conviction, believing that their teammates and comrades haven't died, they can resist it? As for those conviction seeds, how are they supposed to be ferreted out?"

Xu Ran spread his hands: "As for that, I don't know how to teach you. Within its [Large-Scale Illusion], confidence is the key."

"I surmise that if even half the people are confident enough, the illusion will collapse of its own accord, or perhaps practitioners outside the [Large-Scale Illusion] charging into it with enough confidence can also cause it to collapse of its own accord."

"These are merely conjectures, however. Not necessarily correct."

The Commander-in-Chief wore a solemn expression: "Regardless, you have my gratitude. It is thanks to you that we have such detailed intelligence!"

"Such detailed intelligence would normally cost countless lives to exchange for when dealing with other mechanic monsters, but today... we suffered practically zero casualties! Thank you! You will save countless warriors!"

Xu Ran looked sheepish: "It's... really not a big deal."

Lin Feng patted Xu Ran's shoulder: "This is a massive deal. Do you have any idea how terrifying it is to be able to instantly pinpoint a mechanic monster's weakness on the battlefield and break the deadlock?"

Liu Yan: "Indeed, it's downright god-tier. This easily warrants a top-tier merit. You should be allowed to pick two treasures at will from the treasuries of all nine safe zones."

Xu Ran raised an eyebrow: "Really?"

Liu Yan: "Really."

Xu Ran couldn't help his curiosity: "So, are there any treasures brought back from alien stars in there?"

He was still惦记着 (yearning for) his sole red-gold treasure—that red-gold treasure shrouded in interior fog... Could it have originated from an alien star?

The safe zones' treasuries had been collecting various bizarre items for a hundred and ninety years.

If luck favored him, could he stumble upon an item capable of blowing away the fog?

Xu Ran suddenly felt a surge of anticipation.

He had coveted that red-gold treasure for far too long...

(PS: 8,000 words ~~ Satisfying or not?)