Chapter 485 Illusion

Almost as soon as Vivian finished speaking, a cool breeze swept through the pine forest, brushing against everyone's faces.

In this cool wind, everyone heard a faint sound of fighting and killing, along with a heavy, dark, almost nauseating oppression.

The people in the car exchanged glances, and then Hao Ren clapped the carriage: "Go and see what's going on."

The magic-powered car made a slight humming sound, and the modified engine smoothly increased its output. The three cars sped along the wide forest road, and the cool wind never stopped during this process, and the shouts of fighting and killing coming from the wind were becoming more and more real.

This direction was completely consistent with the direction Leah pointed out by intuition—Hao Ren quite believed in Leah's intuition as a god, so he was now very sure that he was finally approaching the "core" of this forest.

The car passed two forks and crossed a dense pine forest. Finally, the forest road reached its end, and the three cars rushed out of the dense forest, and the environment in front of them suddenly opened up.

A vast open area was hidden in the black pine forest, and on this open land, an apocalyptic battle was being staged.

The dense forest stopped abruptly here, and the large area of land in front of it was like a forest kingdom, with vast, flat land and continuous buildings. Hao Ren didn't know what it looked like when it was intact, but now all he could see was the raging war and corpses everywhere.

Huge columns of smoke rose everywhere, and tall buildings in the distance collapsed in the thick smoke and flames. Soldiers in silver-white armor bravely resisted the invaders on this land. They held energy shields and photon blades, or used remote firearms and staffs to fight against the enemy, and their enemies were the corrupted monsters seen in the forest before, and more other kinds of terrifying creatures.

The number of monsters was like a tide, and the individual qualities were no weaker than those of the silver-armored soldiers. Hao Ren saw that the soldiers in silver-white armor were retreating steadily under the monster's attack. They formed groups of dozens of people and joined forces to support a large-scale military shield, but even with the combined shield, they were still difficult to maintain in the monster group that had formed a black tide. Those glittering shields were like fireflies submerged in mud, and they were extinguished one by one on the battlefield.

In the center of the battlefield was a particularly tall group of buildings—it seemed to be a city, and it was also the place that the soldiers were desperately defending.

Bright shields shone above the city, and countless luminous spires stood in the city. Some of those spires maintained the energy nodes of the city's shield, while others pointed straight to the sky, and dazzling beams of light continuously burst out from their tips, shooting towards the vast sky.

This was the first scene that everyone saw after rushing out of the dense forest.

"War… Warning!" A captain of the guards finally woke up. He drew his sword from his waist with a whoosh, and shouted in a voice that was almost out of tune.

However, Charlemagne immediately stopped the impulsive soldiers: "Calm down!! These are all illusions!"

The prince was also full of tension, and even had a slight cold sweat on his forehead, but he still noticed the true face of the scene in front of him in time—because a ball of silver-white explosion flame burst out a dozen meters away from the convoy, but he did not feel the slightest impact or heat.

Under Charlemagne's loud shout, the soldiers realized that the tragic battlefield in front of them was only part of the "illusion" of the Black Pine Forest. They finally calmed down a little, but everyone still held sharp blades and did not dare to relax in the slightest.

After all, such a large-scale illusion was right in front of them. Even if they were all fake, there would still be endless dangers in the illusion in many cases.

"This time the 'illusion' is different from what we saw before," Hao Ren was also taken aback by the scene in front of him, but he was calmer than everyone else on the scene. As he spoke, he tilted his head slightly to look at Leah, "The scale is very large, and it seems to have lasted for a long time—and it is still continuing."

"No smell…" Leah suddenly said something seemingly irrelevant, "Neither the shadow of reality nor the illusion has a smell."

Hao Ren was stunned for a moment, then suddenly turned to Vivian: "Wait, Vivian, did you say you smelled blood?!"

"That's right, and I can still feel it faintly now," Vivian pointed to her nose, "My sense of smell is not as good as Big Dog, but my perception of blood is not completely dependent on my nose. I'm sure I'm not mistaken."

"There are not only illusions here," Hao Ren made a judgment in an instant, "Everyone, be vigilant—Vivian, you lead the way."

Vivian nodded and pointed to the city in the distance: "The aura is coming from that group of buildings."

Everyone stepped into this "battlefield."

Walking through such a realistic illusion was definitely an unprecedented experience for Charlemagne and others. Countless monsters and strange soldiers were fighting, bleeding, and dying right under their noses. The shouts of killing were deafening, and the smoke and explosions were so real. Except for the lack of the smell of gunpowder, everything here made it hard to believe that it was an illusion. However, these were indeed illusions—

They walked through this tragic battlefield as if they were in no man's land. All the images, whether of monsters or soldiers, passed through them.

Hao Ren asked the data terminal to turn on the recording mode, and he also widened his eyes, not letting go of every detail on this battlefield.

The army outside the city was on the verge of collapse. The silver-armored warriors were being slaughtered one-sidedly at this moment. Mutant monsters were tearing apart the warriors' defenses and flesh, crushing and burning everything along the way. However, the warriors' fighting will was so strong that it was unbelievable. Even though they had fallen into a situation of being unilaterally slaughtered, they did not show any signs of retreat.

They were holding on to this city, truly holding on, as if the entire world would be destroyed after this city fell.

Apart from the army outside the city that was about to be wiped out, the only remaining combat power was the defense turrets on the outer walls of the magnificent city.

Hao Ren saw that the city had a circle of silver shimmering alloy walls, and the top and outer walls of the walls were equipped with countless cannons with long rails. Dazzling electric currents jumped between the rails, and accompanied by continuous roars, projectiles and plasma clusters accelerated to dozens of times the speed of sound bombarded the monsters outside the city wave after wave. However, such fierce firepower could only slightly hinder the monsters' footsteps.

A sharp whistling sound that almost tore the eardrums pierced the air. The sound came from high in the sky. Hao Ren looked up and saw a dark, spindle-shaped substance falling from the sky. In the direction it was coming from, countless huge shadows seemed to be hidden in the turbid sky.

The city's anti-aircraft fire swept across the sky non-stop. They may have been blocking those attacks from the sky for a long time, but now, the anti-aircraft fire was finally stretched thin.

The spindle-shaped black substance crashed heavily on the city's shield and immediately exploded into large masses of mud-like objects. These mud flowed down the city's shield, and dazzling electric sparks burst out where they came into contact with the shield.

A shrill air raid siren echoed in the city.

Hao Ren tapped the shell of the data terminal lightly and said only two words: "Analyze."

"Suspected orbital bombardment. Judging from the attacker's silhouette and impact strength, the probability of it coming from near-Earth orbit is extremely high."

"Why doesn't the defending army have air power?"

"I'm afraid it has already been wiped out—given the level of technology they have shown, it is impossible not to have an air force. The only possibility that an air force has not appeared is that it has been completely wiped out."

"Technical level?"

"At least at the planetary system level—considering that their shield technology is exceptionally developed, this rating can be moderately increased."

Hao Ren nodded slightly and did not continue to ask questions, but looked at Leah, who was widening her eyes and looking around in the front of the car: "The Lahrien you saw more than nine thousand years ago probably didn't have this level of technology."

"Of course not—and I have never seen this war either. The Lahrien I saw were closed and peaceful. Although occasionally a psychopath would pop up and try to destroy the world, they usually couldn't even destroy a village before being killed by the hero who came out of the village—a large-scale war like the one in front of me has never happened."

"You only saw a hundred years, and this war obviously happened before that," Hao Ren looked at Leah, "And it went back more than a little bit. It probably spanned a civilization's era… There are attackers from the universe, and there are skilled weapons for space warfare. This is not something that a closed planet locked in the chaotic sea of the dark realm, which doesn't even know what is outside the atmosphere, can present."

The convoy arrived at the silver-white wall of the city.

No entrances or exits could be seen on the wall, and it blocked everyone's eyes like a smooth, curved mirror—considering the decisive battle outside, even if this city had gates, those gates would probably be closed at this moment.

This battlefield was full of the illusions of the past, and the wall was naturally no exception. The seemingly seamless high wall could theoretically not stop outsiders, but before the convoy entered the city, Leah stopped Hao Ren.

"These are not all illusions. There are solids mixed in here—if you are not careful, you will crash."

After saying that, the little goddess looked at the city wall in front of her and sighed softly: "Let the past be the past."

A large area of walls vanished with the sigh of the god.

Hao Ren saw a pile of collapsed and charred ruins. The huge metal and polymer remains could still vaguely be seen as part of the city wall, but now they were lying broken on the ground, buried by mud.

Vines grew along these remains, and it seemed that they had been spreading for many years, even many eras.

Hao Ren looked back at the battlefield. The soldiers had been completely wiped out, and the monsters were rushing towards the city wall. Obviously, those soldiers who rushed out were simply sending themselves to their deaths. The people who organized this defense did not think about defending anything, nor did they think about saving soldiers. The army that was completely wiped out outside the city was just to buy time.

Now, the battlefield was being gradually swallowed by the black pine forest that was spreading again. In the black pine forest, no remnants of the battlefield could be seen.

The entire black pine forest was probably built on a pile of ruins—Hao Ren couldn't help but think.

However, some ruins of the city in front of him remained, just like the "forest roads" outside, leaving solid traces in this world of interwoven reality and illusion.

"Which part of this place is real and which part is fake?" Lily finally couldn't help but ask, "Is there really anything 'real' in the Black Pine Forest?"

Leah replied indifferently: "It's just between reality and illusion."