“Halloween.”
The sound of old dreams is like a cold desert, which brings the temperature in everyone's heart to freezing point.
Yanxin looked at his companion in disbelief.
He clearly remembered how he and Jiu Meng met. It was a few years ago, when they had just left the city-state and stepped into this wilderness. The two had a fierce argument and almost fought. It was Juwan who beat them both up, and then they stopped.
He clearly remembered the memories of the three of them forming a team, hunting, harvesting, and fighting in the wilderness, those campfire-lit nights with bright stars, those laughters, and those bloody battles.
How could such a person be a bug in disguise?
Could it be that these bugs have already been able to mimic humans to such an extent?
The more Yan Xin thought about it, the more terrifying it became.
He broke out in a cold sweat, his face turned pale, and he looked at the dull old dream in a trance.
“Calm down, calm down. Maybe Jiu Meng is controlled by some mysterious force. As long as we leave this ruin, he will get better.”
Yanxin explained that it was not only for the old dream, but also for himself.
At this point, even if Yan Xin refused to admit it, he already knew everything in his heart.
He is not human.
But like those wilderness hunters, they are bugs that think they are human.
The Queen of Insects in the Nameless City has the power to control people's hearts, and naturally also has the power to control the hearts of insect swarms. In order to deceive people who come to the Nameless City, the Queen of Insects controls the minds of some of the insects she gave birth to, making them think that they are humans and wasteland hunters. They walk in the nearby wasteland, luring other wasteland hunters into the city to explore and become the Queen of Insects' bait.
The appearance of this body, these memories, this personality, and even the fear it feels now were all given to it by the Queen of Insects.
Even the feeling of despair is false.
A genuine fake.
Yanxin took two steps back and fell down on the gravel.
He suddenly laughed wildly, as if he was laughing at this distorted world.
His laughter echoed in the ruins of the night and soon trembled.
“Hahahaha…haha…ha…”
Yanxin's voice finally got stuck and the laughter stopped abruptly.
His expression was dull, numb, and rigid, like a puppet that had given up performing.
“Halloween.”
Cursing words came out of his mouth.
The giant wrist just remained silent.
He glanced at Lu Ban, then at his companions.
The fear disappeared from his eyes. He took out the energy bar that Lu Ban had given him from his chest pocket, tore open the package, and took a bite.
“It’s really delicious.”
The giant said as he chewed with emotion.
"Can you please help me with something?"
At this point, even if it is a false memory and personality, the giant arm still wants to resist a little.
"Can you please let me die as a human being?"
He threw the energy bar packaging down and opened his arms.
The corner of Giant Wrist's mouth twitched, and his lips opened and closed, as if he was about to make a sound, but he tried to suppress it. He felt a little painful, and his mouth opened again. This time, even after using up all his strength, Giant Wrist could not suppress the arrival of the instinctive end.
"Ten thousand……"
The painful expression suddenly turned into numbness, dullness, and sluggishness. The moment the giant's mouth lowered, Xia raised her hand.
Bang——
The giant's head exploded, and his whole body collapsed. His blood seeped into the silver sand, revealing a deep color.
In the eyes of Lu Ban who knew the truth, in the field of [True Vision], these three wasteland hunters had already turned into hideous, ugly, black insects.
The power exerted on them has completely disappeared. At this moment, Giant Wrist, Flame Heart, Old Dream, as well as the other team's Iron Fist, Faceless and others have completely disappeared from this world.
Only the monsters that looked exactly like the other bugs were left.
Xia waved her hand to free the other two. She bit her lower lip lightly, seeming unable to accept this situation.
"Are they humans or bugs?"
The young wizard was not sure whether wasteland hunters like Giant Arm, Flame Heart, and Old Dream really existed, or whether they were all fabricated by the Queen of Worms from beginning to end.
Was it true that many years ago, a group of wasteland hunters accidentally entered this place, were killed by the Queen of Insects, and had their memories collected?
Have similar tragedies happened thousands of times in this nameless city?
Although the Queen of Insects has been killed, there may not be similar tragedies in the future, but how many hundreds or thousands of people have suffered from disasters in the past?
Moreover, the cognition of these people has been completely rewritten, and they are unable to perceive it all. So, has the cognition of human beings themselves also been rewritten by some more supreme beings?
Even I, who am here, find it difficult to prove that I am not a lump of flesh, but am just given false memories and a disguised body.
Xia felt that her rationality was set on fire as if by burning wood. Her eyes became blurry and her brain seemed to be drilled into and stirred madly by a red-hot iron rod. The girl could not help but half squat to relieve the pain.
She could clearly see that there seemed to be an invisible finger moving across the irregular gravel on the ground, writing the system's words.
You know the crazy truth
[Sanity -2]
She breathed heavily and her eyes were bloodshot.
At this moment, Lu Ban's hand suddenly placed on Xia's shoulder.
Shia turned to look at her companions.
Lu Ban's expression became serious, indifferent, and lacked liveliness.
His mouth opened and closed, uttering a word that instantly shocked Shia's spirit.
“Halloween.”
The mage girl suddenly straightened up, and the discomfort caused by the decrease in sanity just now disappeared, replaced by extreme tension and conditioned reflex of raising her hand.
Just as the spell on his palm was about to take shape, Lu Ban suddenly grinned.
"It's a lie."
He smiled with a look of success and patted Xia's shoulder again.
"Stop, don't do it, he's one of us, I was just pretending, I was just pretending!"
Lu Ban hurriedly stopped Xia from using the Void Explosion Technique that she had just created to attack herself.
"How is it? Do you feel better now? Not so sad?"
He also proudly asks about Sia's situation.
"…Should I thank you?"
Shia raised an eyebrow.
"You're welcome. It's what I should do."
Lu Ban replied.
Xia threw the Void Explosion in her hand.
An invisible energy ball passed by Lu Ban's ears and flew away, making a sharp explosion.
“…”
Lu Ban felt that he might have just experienced the biggest life crisis since entering the Land of Silence.
"The mission has been accomplished, we can go back now."
Xia put her hands down. She had never felt so powerless since she used magic.
In the past, Xia believed that magic could solve all problems, and if it couldn't solve the problem, it meant that she had not learned enough magic.
But now, she found that some things really could not be solved by magic.
The shock to her cognition made Xia feel far more exhausted than the crazy scene she saw.
"...We can keep in touch in this way in the Quiet Place. If we encounter some missions that we can participate in together in the future, I will inform you."
Lu Ban simply told Xia what Trist had told him, and suddenly an inspiration came to him.
"You don't know a chosen one named Du Danping, do you?"
"who?"
Xia looked confused.
"No, nothing."
Lu Ban shook his head and chose to return.
When he and Xia disappeared into the silver desert, everything fell silent.
But suddenly, a tentacle stretched out from the sand, and then a smaller insect crawled out of the desert. It didn't mutter Halloween, but only dragged its slightly bloated belly and crawled towards a corner of the city in the rising sun.
Just as dawn always comes.
Life will always find a way.