Chapter 165: Illusion Within an Illusion

Chapter 165: Chapter 165: Illusion Within an Illusion

"Your Highness... Your Highness..."

As Jeremy’s consciousness surfaced from the chaos, before he even opened his eyes, he heard several urgent calls by his ear.

Your Highness?

Who was she calling?

His eyelids were heavy as if weighed down by stones. It took great effort for him to pry them open into a narrow slit, then slowly open them completely.

What struck his eyes were not the stacked ice jade doors from before, nor that suffocating white expanse, but... a garden as beautiful as a fairyland.

Ribbons of pale pink seaweed undulated with the current like silk. Coral clusters taller than a person bloomed with glowing turquoise flowers. Schools of fish the size of fingernails darted back and forth between the stone pillars, their scales sparkling like diamond dust. Light from above shone down through the water surface, breaking into rippling streaks of light that ran along the white sand.

"What’s wrong? Has the curse relapsed, is your body starting to hurt?"

A girl’s voice rang out beside him, sweet but hurried, full of anxiety.

Jeremy glanced over.

A young girl was kneeling beside the long chair he was lying on. Her long pale green hair hung loose. Her large, round amber eyes stared intently at him, full of worry.

And the lower half of her body wasn’t a pair of legs, but a fish tail covered in emerald green scales, the tail fin spread out like a silk fan.

The exact moment their eyes met, Jeremy confirmed it immediately: the person this girl was calling was none other than himself.

And this girl clearly didn’t belong to the human race, but was... a Mermaid.

An illusion hidden deep within an illusion?

He took a breath in.

Water flooded his lungs. But he didn’t choke. He didn’t suffocate. On the contrary, that water was cool and refreshing, drifting through his chest like a breeze.

Previously, the entire group had to use water-repelling magic to breathe normally at the bottom of the sea. Now the spell had lost its effect long ago, yet he not only didn’t choke, conversely, he felt even more comfortable than breathing on land.

What on earth was going on with all this.

Jeremy’s expression remained unchanged. He brought his fingers up to massage his temples, putting on a tired guise, his voice slightly hoarse:

"I’m just a little sleepy. I want to be alone for a bit."

Lorelin didn’t notice any anomaly. Although still worried, she didn’t dare disobey orders either. She bowed her head, her hands interlaced over her chest: "...Yes. If you need anything, Your Highness, just call me. I’ll be right outside the garden gate."

Jeremy gave a "yeah".

Waiting until the emerald fish tail vanished behind the coral archway, he immediately sat up, scanning his surroundings.

Currently, he was sitting in a pavilion in the middle of a flower garden. The long chair beneath him was carved from a solid block of moonstone, draped with a rug woven from seaweed silk.

Towering palaces surrounded the garden. The architecture was quite similar to what he had seen from the outside at the bottom of the Wasteland sea, the same domed roofs, the same wave-carved pillars, but several tiers more exquisite - and intact.

The entire structures were built from cold crystal and icy aquamarine, transparent to the point that light pierced through the walls. The roofs were tiled with moonlight tiles, each tile emitting a soft halo. Seven-colored coral covered everywhere, from the base of the walls all the way to the roofs. Even the decorative vines draped over the coral branches were strung together from luminous pearls, pearls, and nacre seashells.

The statue on the main domed roof - the one in the Wasteland that had lost its head - was still intact here. A merman, raising both hands to the sky, holding a glowing orb in the palms of his hands.

Everywhere flaunted a wealth that didn’t bother to hide.

The pavilion pillars were made of transparent moonstone, smooth and polished as a mirror. Just as Jeremy stood up, he looked up and saw "himself" reflected on them.

He froze.

An ivory-white robe tinged with an icy blue hue, a high collar hugging his neck tightly. Broad sleeves embroidered with ripple patterns in silver thread, dotted with crushed pearls. When hanging loose, the overlapping fabric layers looked exactly like ocean waves gently lapping against the shore.

Around his waist were tied several strings of pure white jade beads. Every step resonated with a crisp sound like jade falling into a stream.

There was no similarity at all to the uniform he wore when entering the Wasteland. That uniform was now torn and soaked in blood, if it even still existed anywhere.

Most importantly, even his physical appearance had changed.

His facial features were still the same - the bridge of his nose, the line of his eyebrows, the tear mole at the corner of his eye.

But his heterochromic gold and purple eyes had vanished, replaced by icy blue pupils, clear as ice water.

His red hair had also changed color, shifting to a blend of moonlight blue at the roots and cyan at the tips.

The hair was very long, cascading down past his thighs, loosely tied at the nape of his neck with a silver cord, pinned with small sea flowers and a few beads.

A slender circlet atop his head, inlaid with a blue stone in the middle, proved his identity was no ordinary one.

On his auricles grew a thin layer of pale blue fins, transparent as cicada wings, gently vibrating with the current.

The Valmont family mark in the middle of his forehead had also vanished. In its place was now an imprint exactly identical to the totem on the back of his hand, only slightly smaller.

Although the dragon patterns and the six-pointed star were faint, the Ashbloom Flower lying in the middle was exceptionally distinct, red as a freshly fallen drop of blood.

Jeremy raised his hand to touch it. Not hot. Not painful. Just a drawing resting on the skin.

He became even more certain this was an illusion nested within an illusion.

According to the records in the ancient tomes Griffin had once forced them to read, every ruin was accompanied by a corresponding trial.

Only those who pass can claim the treasures hidden within. Those who fail will be expelled, their entire related memories wiped clean, and for the rest of their lives they will forever be unable to find the way back.

If he didn’t guess wrong, he was currently inside that so-called trial. Race: Mermaid. Identity: prince of this palace.

But this totem in the middle of his forehead... what was this about again.

Could the ruin’s trial be related to the dying wish of the array caster in the undersea tower back then?

That person used a magic array to carve this mark onto the hands of the five of them. Now this mark reappeared on the forehead of a Mermaid prince in an illusion billions of years away.

Those two events couldn’t possibly be just a coincidence.

The current clues were too thin, Jeremy also couldn’t analyze any deeper. He stood still for a moment, listening to the sound of water flowing through the stone crevices, the sound of fish flicking their tails, the sound of the jade beads at his waist clinking against each other whenever the current brushed past.

Then he tried summoning his Sacred Weapon.

He originally thought it would fail - in a different identity, a different race, a different timeline, there was no reason for Spirit Covenant 305 to still follow him.

But in reality, it succeeded. The icy purple scythe appeared in his hand, heavy exactly as he remembered. Furthermore, his magic power wasn’t sealed at all, still flowing smoothly through every meridian.

This could be considered a silver lining in the misfortune.