Chapter 171: A Ray of Hope

Chapter 171: Chapter 171: A Ray of Hope

Surrounded by dozens of tier-six and tier-seven powerhouses, Jeremy’s defeat was a matter of course.

He held out for less than three minutes. The bone blade was knocked away at the twentieth exchange. The Azure Serenity flute was snapped in half by a Light Guard right in front of him — although it automatically mended itself and flew back into the ring, the message was very clear: the disparity here was not something that could be bridged by skill.

But his heart and life orb weren’t immediately ripped out.

After his magic power was forcibly sealed with a magic-pattern-engraved collar, he was immediately escorted to the dungeon.

Along the way, the escorting dragonkin didn’t bother to lower their voices. To them, a Mermaid with sealed magic power was no different from a fish on a chopping block — whatever he heard wouldn’t change anything.

Thanks to that, Jeremy managed to piece together some information.

The frail and sickly seventeenth prince in their mouths was not Phoenix.

But rather, Lucius.

The person lying on the torn bed in that dilapidated house — the one he had stopped his hand and couldn’t bear to stab — was the initial target.

And the one called the Ninth Prince, who had pierced through his back, was Phoenix.

The two of them had swapped positions right from the start.

And his whereabouts, ever since leaving the Mermaid royal palace, had been leaked by a mole.

In other words, even before setting foot in the Aetheris Holy City, even before seeing that silver hair amidst the crowd, he was already playing right into this chess game.

The incident of Lucius being hunted by the dragonkin afterward was nothing more than a pre-arranged play, meant to make him believe and follow.

Offering that Illusion Dream Pearl as easily as handing out candy. Even the sentence "Ice Dragons are also of the Sea race, I’ll go with you."

Step by step, they led him straight into the lair.

And they had truly succeeded.

The reason they hadn’t killed him yet was because Lucius’s coming-of-age trial — in his capacity as the seventeenth prince of the Ice Dragon race — fell on a week later.

A live, fresh Mermaid royal prey was the perfect offering for that day.

When the seven-day deadline arrived, he would be skinned and his tendons pulled out, his heart and life orb ripped out right in front of the Ice Dragon ancestral shrine.

After piecing together that picture, Jeremy didn’t know what else to say.

Currently, he wasn’t sure if dying in this illusion equated to death in real life or not. If it did, he was done for.

Although he still hadn’t determined whether those two were real or fake, he should have raised his guard earlier. He shouldn’t have let his guard down just because the opponents wore his teammates’ faces.

In the Wasteland, Griffin had taught exactly one sentence about illusions: the first thing it attacks is not the physical body, but what you believe.

He had heard it. And he had forgotten.

Amidst that smoldering regret, Jeremy was pushed into a cramped and dark dungeon cell.

The sound of the iron door locking rang out, rattling for a moment before stopping. The Light Guards also vanished behind the corridor corner.

"..."

Jeremy sat leaning against the cold stone wall, expressionlessly looking at the tightly shut iron door, and began calculating the probability of escaping.

Magic power seal: one. Ankle shackles: two. Thirty Light Guards outside: three. A punctured hole through his abdomen that hadn’t stopped bleeding: four.

The numbers he calculated weren’t pretty at all.

"Captain?"

Not far away, a familiar voice suddenly rang out.

Jeremy leaned over and looked at the adjacent cell.

It was Evelyn.

It seemed she also belonged to the Mermaid race — pale green scales on her wrists, thin fins at the tips of her ears. And on the back of her hand, the exact same totem mark.

Not just a Mermaid. But royalty.

Some time ago, while browsing the library, he had read news about a Mermaid princess encountering a mishap on her way out of the territorial waters. Could it be her?

Although the other party looked exactly like Evelyn — from her posture of sitting with her knees together to the way she placed both hands on her knees — but with the two bloody lessons he just had, Jeremy currently no longer dared to trust any familiar face.

As a precaution, he still asked a question, his voice calm: "Why are you here?"

"After losing everyone, I was ambushed. When I woke up from my coma, I was already here."

Evelyn stood up from the corner of the room, walking close to the iron bars. Her two wrists were still chained together by a short chain, making every movement require using both hands simultaneously.

There were many bloodstains on her body. One shoulder of her clothes was torn wide open, revealing overlapping whip marks; some had scabbed over, while some were still fresh. It looked like she had suffered no small amount of torture.

Jeremy and Evelyn were not in the same cell. But the two cells were only separated by an iron grate and about five centimeters, so even without magic power support, he could still see every detail clearly.

Upon clearly seeing that miserable state, the suspicion in his heart was suppressed a notch.

No one would construct an illusion and then personally beat it to this extent.

"How are your injuries?"

Evelyn shook her head slightly: "I’m fine. It’s just that my magic power is sealed, I have no way to break these shackles."

Magic power sealed.

Jeremy swept his gaze around the dungeon area.

This area had a total of twelve cells arranged along both sides of the corridor. Aside from him and Evelyn, the remaining prisoners were all Mermaids.

But their condition was much worse. Their bodies were drenched in fresh blood, with countless overlapping wounds. Someone had lost an entire arm. Another had their dorsal fin slashed to pieces.

Currently, all were in a comatose state. Not a single sound, except for the sound of water dripping from the stone ceiling.

Seeing Jeremy’s complexion didn’t look good, and noticing an unbandaged bloody hole on his abdomen, Evelyn proactively asked: "Captain, what happened these past few days?"

Jeremy retracted his gaze, summarizing everything quickly.

Aetheris Holy City. Lucius. Illusion Dream Pearl. The battlefield. Seven days sneaking through fourteen cities. The dilapidated house in the rear harem. And the sword from behind.

After all, having ended up in this state, there was nothing that couldn’t be said.

Evelyn was silent for a long while after listening. It was unclear whether it was out of shock, or because she found the matter too absurd.

Jeremy continued, his voice straightforward: "...Right now I’m not sure if you are an illusion constructed by the illusionary realm, or a puppet whose consciousness has been taken over. So I cannot completely trust you."

"..."

Evelyn seemed to let out a soundless sigh.

Then she raised her chained hands, bit the tip of her index finger, letting a drop of blood pool on the fingertip.

Right in front of Jeremy, she established a blood oath.

The blood left her finger, suspended in mid-air, formed a small seal circle, then shattered, sinking into her chest.

Jeremy didn’t expect her to go to that extent. A blood oath was no joke — once established, a traitor’s soul would be crushed by the oath itself.

But he didn’t stop her either.

Having finished swearing, Evelyn lowered her hands, her voice flat: "Captain, I will not betray you."

Jeremy stared at her for a long while.

Then finally let go of his suspicion.

"...I trust you."

Lucius and Phoenix’s appearances were no different from the genuine articles. But after making a move, the state they displayed had completely deviated from the norm — that naked killing intent, that frivolous manner lacking exactly twenty percent laziness.

As for this Evelyn in front of him, she was exactly like the Evelyn he knew. Not just the appearance. But also the way she paused for half a beat before answering, the habit of clenching her fingers when having to say something she wasn’t certain of, the voice so flat it sounded like reporting tactics.

Those details were not things that could be copied.

If this was also a disguise, then he truly had no way out.

The pain in his abdomen was becoming increasingly unbearable. Jeremy pushed the miscellaneous thoughts aside, tore a piece of cloth from his hem, folded it into a bandage, and forcefully pressed it against the wound opening to stop the bleeding.

It was unclear if it was because they saw he had lost his magic power and had no strength left to resist, but the dragonkin only shackled his ankles. His two hands were left free.

Because the wound on his abdomen was pierced straight through, and he hadn’t had time to take medicine, it was still bleeding even now. Every time he moved, the blood soaked another layer into the freshly wrapped cloth.

If it weren’t for the fact that the seal only restricted the use of magic power, but couldn’t erase the magic power still churning within his body to self-sustain vitality, he feared he would have already died from blood loss and internal organ damage by now.

He barely managed to finish bandaging. Both hands were covered in blood.

A patch of bright red, spreading all the way to his wrists, spine-chilling.

He was just about to ask what Evelyn’s totem task was —

When the corner of his eye caught something.

The spatial bracelet on his left wrist was absorbing blood.

Jeremy’s gaze paused.

When that group sealed his magic power, they had also tried to rob this bracelet. But failed. The bracelet possessed a prohibitive seal — it could not be removed against the master’s will; forcefully removing it would only incur a backlash. The dragonkin who tried to remove it was knocked flying into the wall.

So they switched to another method: sealing the bracelet itself, forcibly severing the contract between Jeremy and the bracelet.

Along the escort route, he had tried summoning items several times. All failed.

But now... the seal seemed to show signs of loosening.

The blood drops touching the bracelet’s body did not pool. They seeped in and vanished.

And where they vanished, the bracelet’s surface flashed with fragmented rays of light.

Jeremy suddenly recalled a sentence his mother — Atalai — once said, on that afternoon before she set off back to the Western territory.

She had slipped this bracelet onto his wrist, and spoke very briefly, true to her style.

This pair of twin bracelets were divine artifacts, bound to the husband and wife.

When necessary, he could rely on the soul mark they left behind to borrow a portion of their power.

But due to the limitations of the rules, it could only be used once a year. Otherwise, the pair of bracelets would also shatter from being unable to withstand it.

The method to activate the soul mark was very simple.

He only needed to drip blood onto the bracelet’s body, accompanied by willpower.

...This belated stroke of luck almost made Jeremy burst out laughing.

Right. Why had he forgotten this point.

That day the two had reminded him of too many things — eating and drinking, resting, don’t get hurt, send a letter back if anything happens — so much that he listened but couldn’t record much of it, and the most important thing slipped right through.

Currently, his father — Elwyn — had touched the tier-eight realm. As for his mother, after her cultivation was destroyed and she started cultivating from scratch again, she had currently also recovered to tier seven.

Even if he couldn’t borrow their entire strength, just a tenth of it would be enough; breaking this deadlock would no longer be a difficult matter.