Chapter 97 - 95: Hallucination

Chapter 97: Chapter 95: Hallucination

Feng Ling and Huangfu Miaomiao had no reaction.

Pei Xianjue grew anxious and stood up. "Didn’t you hear that? It’s the Hero’s voice!"

Feng Ling paused, then said, "I heard a fox laughing."

Huangfu Miaomiao chimed in, "I heard a normal animal cry. It didn’t sound like laughter."

The three of them exchanged a look, then all turned to Li Qing.

Li Qing: "..."

’So much pressure all of a sudden.’

"Daoist, did you hear anything?" Feng Ling asked him.

"I didn’t hear a thing..." Li Qing replied, sounding a bit helpless. "You’re probably being affected by an illusion. You hear whatever you’re thinking about. I wasn’t thinking about anything just now, so of course I didn’t hear anything."

Pei Xianjue’s heart sank, and she had a bad feeling. "You mean the voice I heard was fake?"

She couldn’t help but look around. "...An illusion? But ever since we entered the village, I’ve only eaten and drunk the food I brought with me. How are those foxes casting illusions on us?"

"Is the fact that we can’t get out also because of the illusion?" Huangfu Miaomiao asked, frowning seriously.

Li Qing said, "There are many ways to induce hallucinations. For instance, patterns with psychological suggestions, music with hypnotic effects, or smoke and strange odors that affect the nervous system... I’m not sure which one it is right now."

"It’s a smell," Feng Ling said suddenly.

Hearing this, Pei Xianjue immediately sniffed the air.

"I don’t smell anything..." she murmured, then looked at the cracker in her hand and brought it closer to her nose. "I can smell the cracker."

Feng Ling tilted her head in thought. "The first time I saw a Fox Demon was on a mountain path. I smelled a rank, foul odor even from a distance. But after entering this village, I’ve encountered Fox Demons several times and haven’t smelled that stench at all. If my sense of smell isn’t failing, then it must be that my brain’s perception has changed, making my olfactory nerves unable to recognize the foul smell."

"So, you’re saying... this place actually stinks, but we just can’t smell it?" Huangfu Miaomiao grew wary. "Have we... been breathing in a stench this whole time?"

"Mm," Feng Ling nodded. "And the more we breathe in, the more severe the hallucinations might become."

Huangfu Miaomiao shot to her feet. "This won’t do! We have to kill all those foxes! We can’t let the hallucinations get any worse!"

Pei Xianjue also hurriedly packed her things, not daring to linger any longer.

Feng Ling remained seated on her ground mat, unmoving. When she saw the other two had finished packing and were both staring at her, she sighed and forced herself to stand up.

Feng Ling had no real interest in killing the foxes. For one, they were too weak; for two, they were a pain to kill.

It was like trying to clear out a rabbit warren—

They arrived at a nearby house. The moment Huangfu Miaomiao opened the door, the foxes inside scattered in a panic. All of them escaped, except for two that Feng Ling, with her swift reflexes, sliced in half with her Bone Blade.

Pei Xianjue had just struck an attack pose, a small flame flickering to life in her hand, but by the time she was ready, the house was already empty.

Huangfu Miaomiao was furious. Stomping her foot, she said, "I’m going to launch a sneak attack!"

Feng Ling nodded. "Alright. A sneak attack it is."

The three of them then moved to a new spot, choosing an old-fashioned house with a small vegetable patch.

Huangfu Miaomiao’s body dissolved into a black shadow that hugged the ground as it moved swiftly forward. The short sword she had gotten from a treasure box was enveloped in the shadow, moving along with her.

Pei Xianjue, meanwhile, took out her gun.

She was probably still frustrated from earlier, so she’d given up on her scimitar and switched to a ranged weapon.

A familiar scene played out again. The door of the house flew open with a BANG, and two or three foxes burst out, scattering wildly in all directions.

Pei Xianjue managed to hit one with a wild shot, while Feng Ling came up empty. Inside, a screeching Fox Demon was completely enveloped by a black Ghost Shadow, then stabbed four or five times by the short sword hidden within before it finally died.

Pei Xianjue walked over to the Fox Demon she’d shot. Seeing it was still twitching, she pressed the gun to its forehead and fired again.

The Fox Demon was as dead as it could be, but she couldn’t help but sigh. She looked up at Feng Ling, her helpless expression seeming to say, ’How long will it take to kill them all at this rate?’

Huangfu Miaomiao’s upper body materialized out of the Ghost Shadow. She caught her breath and said, "The moment I grabbed this one, the others got scared and ran off. It would be great if we could get all the foxes in one place."

Feng Ling asked, "Did they notice you when you went into the house?"

Huangfu Miaomiao shook her head. "Nope. They only noticed me after I latched onto one of them."

"They don’t seem very smart," Pei Xianjue frowned. "But they’re too fast. They scatter in an instant every time, and they love diving into those ruined houses. Should we split up to chase them?"

Feng Ling thought for a moment, then said to Huangfu Miaomiao, "Go check the next house. Don’t attack. Just get a count and come back to tell me how many there are."

"Okay!" Huangfu Miaomiao nodded emphatically.

Li Qing silently glanced at Feng Ling, then at Huangfu Miaomiao, a strange emotion flickering in his eyes.

He said nothing, simply following silently behind the three of them.

They found another residence, this one a traditional courtyard house. Feng Ling stood at the entrance and had Huangfu Miaomiao slip inside alone to scout it out.

Huangfu Miaomiao returned from her patrol. "The side rooms are empty," she reported. "There are four foxes huddled together in the main building."

Feng Ling nodded, stepped into the courtyard, and scanned her surroundings. Her gaze came to rest on a hole in the window of the main building.

A fox’s eye glinted in the hole for a split second.

Feng Ling calmly took out a grenade, pulled the pin, and expertly tossed it through the hole—

BOOM!!!

The dilapidated old house collapsed in an instant, throwing dust and debris into the air!

All four foxes were killed in the blast.

Huangfu Miaomiao’s eyes lit up as she looked at Feng Ling, her expression a mixture of awe and hero-worship.

"I want to try, too!" she piped up, eagerly raising a hand from within her Ghost Shadow.

Feng Ling only had two grenades in her waist pouch; the rest were all in Huangfu Miaomiao’s gridded backpack. At her words, Feng Ling said, "They’re all in your pack. Go on, have fun."

"Okay!" The Ghost Shadow swirled, scooping up a large batch of grenades before zipping off.

A moment later, a series of explosions echoed through the village. BOOM! BOOM! Interspersed between the blasts was the sound of Huangfu Miaomiao’s delighted laughter—

"AHAHAHA! So many points!"

As the laughter reached his ears, Li Qing was filled with an indescribable feeling. He looked at Feng Ling with an even more complicated expression, not knowing what to say.

Pei Xianjue, on the other hand, let out a huge sigh of relief. "As long as we kill all these foxes, we should be able to break the illusion... right?"

Feng Ling sensed Li Qing’s gaze and turned to look at him. "What is it, Daoist?"

"It’s nothing." Li Qing averted his eyes.

Feng Ling studied him for a moment before asking calmly, "Daoist, if we kill all the foxes in this area, will we be able to leave the village?"

Li Qing answered her cautiously. "We’ve already inhaled the scent. I expect the hallucinations will continue for a while longer. However, as long as we eliminate the Maze Creatures that are producing the scent, we can at least ensure the situation doesn’t deteriorate further."

Feng Ling nodded thoughtfully.

Just then, she heard a faint noise from the courtyard house behind her.

Feng Ling turned and went back inside. She found the corpses of the foxes she had just killed twitching on the ground, their blasted-open guts showing clear signs of healing.

Pei Xianjue, who had followed her in, was stunned by the sight. "You can’t be serious! These foxes can come back from the dead, too?!"

Feng Ling turned and raised an eyebrow at Li Qing.

’What was that you were saying earlier?’