Chapter 147: Illusion Reflection

Under the bizarre innate skill of the girl monster, Sarah's spiritual energy began to churn restlessly. It felt as though her waist and crotch were rebelling, barely obeying her control. Sarah hurriedly circulated the Imperial Qi Art, transforming her longsword from a thrusting motion into a slicing one, sweeping out from in front of her with a rainbow-like wave of energy.

Third-rank battle skill: Sweeping the Thousand Armies!

The attack range of Sweeping the Thousand Armies was vast, sweeping away the enemy like a violent wind scattering fallen leaves. It sliced through all four monsters and the infant faces right down the middle in one go.

It worked!

Sarah breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed these monsters weren't all that terrifying after all.

Suddenly, she heard someone shout, "Sarah, look out!"

Sarah’s vision blurred, and the severed infant monster vanished. However, a mass of black mist surged up behind her, wrapping around her entire body.

When did this monster get behind her? Sarah turned pale with fright and frantically tried to run out of the black mist. Yet the dense fog felt like a tangible entity, gripping her tightly. Sarah's spiritual energy suddenly weakened, her entire body turning limp and utterly devoid of strength. The black mist wrapped around her and began to soar into the air.

If she were truly dragged away by the monster, she would be done for, completely devoid of any ability to resist!

"Sarah!" Everyone cried out in alarm simultaneously, rushing over to rescue her. But the monster quickly flew fifteen or sixteen meters into the air. At that moment, a figure leaped high into the night sky, pinching their fingers like a sword, and lunged directly at the infant face within the black mist.

Clutching Sarah, the infant monster had no spare capacity to deal with this figure. With no other choice, it released Sarah. The figure caught her, landing lightly on the ground as smoothly as a glider.

The person who saved Sarah was none other than Shi Feng. This display of lightness skill was truly formidable, a genuine reflection of his true strength.

Setting the beauty down with a gentleman's posture, the stallion-like fellow struck a very dashing pose. "Are you alright, classmate Sarah?"

"Ah, yes, I'm fine. Tell everyone, these phantom spirits understand mental attacks!"

Without needing Shi Feng's reminder, Alije had already shouted loudly, "I remember now! These phantom spirits are called Chaos Imps. Their innate skills are Devour and Confusion, the latter being an illusion. Pay attention to concentrate your mental power to resist! Pair up, a strong one with a weak one, and look out for each other!"

With that, Alije concentrated her mental power. Under the shroud of the Chaos Imp's mental wave, her vision flickered slightly, and only two afterimages appeared. However, Alije took a deep breath, and a powerful, milky-white icy energy erupted from within her body. The temperature of the air around her immediately plummeted drastically. Affected by the icy energy, the afterimages instantly vanished. The true form of the Chaos Imp appeared on her right, its movements slightly sluggish.

Yet just that split second of opportunity was already more than enough. Alije's longsword, carrying a biting chill, traced a milky-white trajectory through the air and pierced straight through the infant face in the center of the black mist.

"Waaaah!"

The Chaos Imp let out a miserable, piercing scream akin to a crying child, and the black mist instantly dissipated, dissolving back into space once more.

No matter the circumstance, Alije in combat remained as calm as a block of ice. Urgently, her longsword lashed out with another burst of chill, relieving Calories, who was under attack nearby.

"Kayla, get back, let me handle this!"

Layers of blazing flames ignited on Joanna's body, protecting her like a gorgeous rose. The Chaos Imp that had been attacking squeaked, its entire body catching fire. Unable to maintain its confusion skill any longer, it revealed its true form, whereupon Joanna lashed out with another tongue of fire. This time, the flames were blue, and the temperature was shockingly high. The Chaos Imp, incinerated by the blue flames, flew up into the sky, but the fire never extinguished until the black mist finally vanished amidst shrieks of agony.

Meanwhile, Zhuo Yuqing stood in front of Lulu, waving her hand in a sweeping motion. A translucent barrier resembling glass appeared before her. The mental wave was utterly unable to penetrate the barrier, which abruptly extended outward, instantly trapping two Chaos Imps right in the center, rendering them unable to move.

"Shatter!"

The moment Zhuo Yuqing's words fell, the translucent space shattered apart, tearing the infant faces of the Chaos Imps within into pieces. This was precisely the spatial battle skill she and Luo Chen had once used during their hunt.

The four powerful students in the squad had all protected the weaker companions by their sides. But at that moment, everyone suddenly remembered that the remaining two did not follow the strong-and-weak pairing rule; they were Ye Yan and Luo Chen.

Within the team, Luo Chen's performance had given the members the misconception that the team was composed of five strong members and five weak ones. In reality, among the five strong members, Luo Chen was a "pseudo-strong" because his spiritual energy was only at the fifth rank. Although his skills in dealing with crowd attacks were exceptionally high, no one dared guarantee whether he could truly hold his own when encountering phantom spirits with special abilities.

Therefore, facing the Chaos Imps, Ye Yan and Luo Chen were very likely still a weak-weak pairing. To make matters worse, the ones attacking the two of them this time were actually three Chaos Imps, flying in from three directions and releasing mental waves simultaneously. The three mental waves completely sealed them off in the middle.

Damn it, a mental attack!

Luo Chen, who had remained calm ever since the internship mission began, wore a look of panic on his face for the very first time. Last time in the Forest of Fear, the demonic beast that had almost cost Luo Chen his life was a formidable creature with mental attack capabilities. Now encountering the same type again, he naturally carried some psychological trauma. What's more, mental attacks were unpredictable, which meant he had lost a major advantage.

"Joanna, hurry up and go save my little Yan!" Kayla clearly had little faith in Luo Chen either, anxiously pleading with Joanna. Joanna was just as anxious. Pushing Kayla toward Zhuo Yuqing's direction, she said, "Yuqing, take care of Kayla first. I'm going to help them clear the siege."

The Chaos Imps' mental waves struck the two of them. No matter how hard Ye Yan tried to concentrate, his vision still blurred. On the other side, however, Luo Chen was safe and sound, completely unaffected. It seemed as though he had run into something, but whatever it was had simply bounced right back.

At the same time, Luo Chen in the eyes of the Chaos Imps suddenly twisted and instantly multiplied into several figures. This was precisely the characteristic of confusion.

The flight of the three Chaos Imps became staggering and unsteady, stumbling like drunkards before finally crashing down onto the ground. At this sight, not to mention Luo Chen, even Joanna, who had rushed over to provide backup, was utterly dumbfounded. What happened to these three Chaos Imps? Surely what I'm seeing isn't an illusionary realm, right?

No, their mental wave just now attacked Luo Chen; I shouldn't have been affected. Besides, even if I were caught in the Chaos Imps' confusion, with my mental power, I should have been able to break free from the illusion very quickly.

With a flick of her wrist and a sweep of her sword, Joanna used blazing blue flames to instantly burn the two disoriented Chaos Imps struggling on the ground into ashes. Luo Chen, having regained his composure, also used his Moon-glimmer Dagger to send the remaining Chaos Imp on its way.

The task being accomplished so easily left Joanna immensely puzzled. Could it be that the three Chaos Imps had confused each other? If so, they were far too foolish. Riddled with questions, Joanna walked up to the two of them and asked, "Hey, are you guys alright?"

"Ah, classmate Joanna? We're fine!" Ye Yan still looked somewhat dazed and groggy. When the three Chaos Imps had used confusion attacks simultaneously just moments ago, Ye Yan had been stunned for quite a while before finally snapping out of it, to the point that he hadn't even noticed when Joanna had arrived. From Ye Yan's expression, Joanna could basically determine that he had been confused by the Chaos Imps. What baffled her deeply, however, was that Luo Chen, who had suffered the attack of all three Chaos Imps just the same, showed not the slightest trace of being confused. This was evident from the fact that he was still able to execute moves and slay a Chaos Imp.

Thinking of this, Joanna asked, "Hey, Luo Chen, didn't you experience any hallucinations?"

Luo Chen nodded and said, "No, I'm fine!"

Just then, two more Chaos Imps flew in from the air, and the scene from earlier repeated itself. After releasing their mental waves, one of the Chaos Imps plummeted directly from the sky, while the other flew around blindly like a headless water snake, ultimately crashing heavily into a large tree trunk.

The bizarre scene repeated over and over, allowing Joanna to effortlessly slaughter one Chaos Imp after another. During this time, she also observed the situation of Zhuo Yuqing and the others. They, too, had two or more Chaos Imps attacking them, but those Chaos Imps were entirely normal. In other words, the Chaos Imps' innate skill, confusion, did not interfere with one another.

Then why was the situation on her side so bizarre? Joanna pondered for a moment. This phenomenon couldn't possibly be related to her, as she had previously encountered attacks from Chaos Imps, and they hadn't behaved like this.

Ye Yan should have had no problem either, because he had indeed been confused and deeply trapped in the illusion. That left only one possibility.

The problem definitely lay with Luo Chen!

Luo Chen, for his part, was having more and more fun the more he killed. These Chaos Imps approached him only to drop out of the sky as if cursed, all of them writhing on the ground. Killing them was as easy as slaughtering chickens—hahaha! The psychological shadow Luo Chen had previously harbored toward mental-type monsters also vanished completely.

In the end, nearly all of the Chaos Imps were wiped out. To deal with these monsters possessing illusionary abilities, Zhuo Yuqing, Alije, Shi Feng, and the others had all consumed a considerable amount of spiritual energy. When they witnessed the situation over on Luo Chen's side, every single one of them widened their eyes in utter shock.

Several Chaos Imps lay on the ground, fluttering about like birds with broken wings, while Luo Chen casually walked forward.

It was only natural for them to be utterly bewildered. These extremely troublesome phantom spirits were actually lining up to be dealt with by Luo Chen—what kind of logic was that?

Joanna was among the most perplexed of all. She had witnessed with her own eyes those Chaos Imps throwing themselves at Luo Chen like moths to a flame to be slaughtered. Even if Luo Chen's spiritual energy contained a holy attribute, granting him strong resistance to illusions or even complete immunity to low-level illusions, it still shouldn't have been enough to cause the Chaos Imps to lose control of themselves.

It seemed as though it was the Chaos Imps who were suffering from confusion, rather than the attacked Luo Chen.

No wonder she couldn't figure it out. The problem truly did originate from Luo Chen, or more precisely, from the spiritual pet residing within Luo Chen's spiritual world.

Having witnessed everything through sensory sharing, the pet secretly felt proud: *You foolish, low-level phantom spirits, don't you know that my Nightmare bloodline is innately immune to all illusions and possesses the ability to reflect low-level illusions? The human I've fused with naturally shares that exact same ability. How dare you cast illusions on him—of course you had to be automatically reflected!*

*Low-level phantom spirits will always be low-level phantom spirits, what a bunch of fools!*

*Alright, the good show is over, time to go lose some weight. I certainly don't want to be called a fat bird all the time!*