NOVPUBHerram Prison, fourth basement level.
"So, that’s it."
Jailer Selena slowly opened her eyes, she had roughly finished viewing Hyperion’s dreamscape.
Generally speaking, people with severe emotional trauma are the ones who are trapped so deeply within their dreamscape.
Because in this layer of illusion.
What it represents.
Are the fragile fantasies of one’s heart, or perhaps, irreplaceable regrets as well.
It is a beautiful dream destined never to come true in reality.
Those who can escape from the illusion and remain awake can see the contents of other people’s dreamscapes from a certain distance.
Thus, they can infer the deep-seated pain and weaknesses of the others.
In the area outside the cells on the fourth basement level of the Herram Prison, every step could plunge one into an illusion.
Every time one plunges into an illusion, they fall harder than before.
The deeper and longer the immersion, the greater the possibility that the soul will be completely dissolved into the illusion.
For all the prison officers and prisoners who set foot on this level, the moment they land, they will plunge into an illusion at least once, and the jailer waiting on the fourth floor will be able to see the contents of their illusion.
Although the prison rules prohibit attacking each other, once someone knows the breaking point of a person’s mental defense, even language can cause unimaginable damage and lead to self-destruction.
A delightful chuckle emerged from Jailer Selena’s throat.
As a seventh-level illusionist of the empire, she herself has a very high resistance to illusion magic and is very skilled in escaping illusions. Similarly, if she needs to deal with a prisoner, knowing the other person’s inner pain, she can specifically craft an illusion that will torture them until their spirit collapses.
It is because of this, even on this level, if she were to go one-on-one against Antanas of the Great Demon Clan who has escaped from his shackle, she would still win with certainty.
Even if she left Antanas alone, he would not be able to walk out of the long corridor of the [Fallen Wonderland] on the fourth basement level on his own.
To the Protoss Empire, Selena is a rare talent.
But in Selena’s view, she has never considered this place as a workplace.
This is her playground.
Whether it’s talking a prisoner into suicide or occasionally messing with the prison officers, these are her rare pleasures.
And her exclusive power.
...
In Hyperion’s dreamscape.
She only saw her mother Isatia and father Migaya standing in front of the newly opened shop, holding a box of cake and seemingly ready to go home as well.
The people she should see every day seemed like they had been away for many years.
She even dared not step forward, afraid that she could not distinguish dreams from reality and suddenly it would turn into a nightmare, causing her to lose this flat yet intense happiness again.
But Isatia didn’t hesitate like Hyperion, she walked over with a smiling face as soon as she saw Hyperion.
"Look, Hyperion, we bought you a birthday cake. They say that the cuisine of this restaurant is wildly popular with the nearby residents!"
Isatia held up the box of cake in her hand and said with a grin to Hyperion.
As if she couldn’t wait to celebrate her daughter’s birthday.
"..."
Hyperion didn’t take the cake box for a long time, seeming to be afraid of something.
Eventually, her tears fell, and she threw herself into the arms of those two figures.
"Oh my, what are you doing?"
Isatia showed a shy smile.
Although she didn’t mind being hugged by her daughter, there were still a few passersby looking at them in the street.
For humans, the logical reaction in such a situation should be shyness.
However, considering her daughter’s feelings, she decided to indulge Hyperion.
Migaya just helplessly spread out her right hand, since it was Hyperion’s birthday today, she should just let her be happy.
"By the way, Hyperion, I’m off tomorrow, it’s the weekend. I can take you to Nanwantina. The seaside there is very beautiful."
"Ever since I took you there when you were little, you’ve never stopped asking to go back for quite some time. Although you might not remember it now."
... 𝙣𝙤𝙫𝒑𝙪𝒃.𝒄𝒐𝙢
In the high latitude observation space, the Bingxue Witch clenched her fist. She, who usually remained composed, couldn’t help but worry for Hyperion at this moment.
Hyperion seemed to be in a terrible state, with absolutely no intention of breaking free from the dream.
Originally, during their time in Aestheland Kingdom, she felt that Hyperion was positive and cheerful, and wouldn’t sink too deep into this [Fallen Wonderland], but now she might have guessed wrong.
There were a total of one hundred and thirty-one tiles from here to the teleportation point of the next floor. Each tile would trigger an illusion the moment someone stepped on it, with a short cooldown time.
In the prison guard trial rules of Herram Prison, people could form teams to support each other.
For instance, they could let one person step into a tile’s area and fall into a dream first, then the rest of them would enter his dream over distance and try to wake him up within a certain time. Then, the others would step onto the new tiles one by one, trying not to let one person continuously fall into dreams, and give them enough time to rest.
But there is a prerequisite, that is, someone must walk out of the illusion first with their own strength.
In addition, the jailor, whose mental state seems extremely poor, may also interfere negatively.
As for the actual trial of the Great Demon Clan, a member of the demon race must walks a hundred thirty-one steps alone and comes out from the illusions that he continuously falls into, without relying on the help of any other living beings.
Most of the demon race who undertook the challenge would die within the first twenty steps, dissipating in their indulgence in the dream.
Only those demons who were wicked to the extreme and strong-willed could see through the illusion here, because they had no softness in their hearts, no flaws or weaknesses, and so they could find the boundary between dream and reality in not too deep fantasies and turn it back.
Even for certain extremists, there wasn’t much difference between reality and dream.
Even in a dream, they could make the cruelest move, destroying everything.
For the other creatures, the better and more empathetic they were, the more likely they were to be destroyed in this illusion.
The Bingxue Witch knew that she couldn’t pass the trial of [Fallen Wonderland] of the Great Demon Clan either.
Now, she could only hope that those three who seemed to be Resurrection Believers could help Hyperion.
But so far, those three have been motionless.
It seemed that they were not people who were utterly bad, but also had huge flaws in their hearts.
Except... for the one lying on the ground, there seemed to be a bit of movement...
...
In Herram Prison, the jailor Selena observed these five prison guards.
She was basically invincible on this layer. After seeing through others’ weaknesses, she could even create illusions to play with her opponents, or disguise herself as someone important.
She clasped her hands together just like a pre-meal etiquette, and she couldn’t help but savor the delicious pain of the silver-haired girl.
"But..."
Selena muttered to herself and glanced at the black-haired, green-eyed girl on the ground.
The dream that she fell into seemed unusually grand, and it was continuously triggering the Barrier Formula to deepen the authenticity of her dream so that the entire prison’s magic power would start to move for her maintenance of her illusion.
Jailor Selena couldn’t help but be puzzled. What was the dream that she couldn’t achieve in her heart?
You don’t mean to hope for world peace, do you?
So Selena leaned a little closer to the black-haired, green-eyed masked girl.
She decided to take a look first at what this girl was thinking.
