The sudden ghostly laugh coming from behind startled Stelle.
Her little gray fur trembled, muscles tensing, and she stood at attention out of instinct.
A newborn less than a month old must not encounter such things.
Stelle's body was stiff, panic in her eyes, her hand gripping the bat tightly.
Walking ahead of her, Nero felt the same thing. That faint sound and the cold wind were right behind them, as if someone had blown on the back of his neck.
A chill shot up from the soles of his feet, rushed all the way to the top of his head, and then poured down like a bucket of ice water.
Nero shivered, the hairs on his arms standing straight up.
For a moment, he panicked, just for a moment, but he quickly calmed himself.
As his mind relaxed, the fist he had clenched when startled began to loosen.
"Hoo…"
Nero lifted a hand and patted his chest. The panic faded from his eyes little by little. He had almost unleashed a big move just now.
For people of the Xianzhou, this kind of thing really was a bit scary, given what they grew up hearing.
Even now, Nero's heart still felt a little jittery.
Stelle was far more nervous than he was. When Nero turned around, planning to check on her, she swung her bat the moment she spun, hitting nothing.
There was nothing behind them. In the corners of their vision, there were only the tall maze walls stretching into the distance, until the long, narrow corridors and forks disappeared into darkness.
But the abnormal emptiness made things even more unsettling, because the sensation from just now had been so real.
Stelle even felt like someone had placed a hand on her shoulder.
She turned her head and looked to Nero for help. "Nero, did you feel it too?"
Nero nodded. "Yeah. But there's nothing to be afraid of. If it can touch you, that means you can touch it!"
As he spoke, he lifted his hand and made a bat-swinging gesture. "So you just beat it up and it's solved."
"But right now we don't see anything… and earlier I didn't feel like I hit anything at all."
"Then that's even less reason to worry! It couldn't even touch you, at most it can just try to scare you." Nero raised his chin confidently, making it hard not to feel like he was right.
Seeing him so confident, speaking logically, Stelle suddenly seemed enlightened.
Her expression shifted, fear and panic fading from her face, and her golden eyes shone with confidence.
"I get it!"
"Good that you do!" Nero nodded, satisfied.
"So, how exactly do you plan on beating me up?" Stelle's voice suddenly turned cold.
In Nero's view, the Stelle who had been so excited suddenly changed expression, her face twisting into a grin. Her golden eyes dimmed, staring at him full of malice.
Looking at this sudden change, Nero's face didn't shift at all. His gaze remained calm. A few seconds later, realization dawned across his expression.
"Oh. So that's the kind of illusion it is."
Nero lifted his hand, flicking two fingers against Stelle's head in an instant. A whirlwind burst outward from him as the center.
The next moment, the eerie Stelle in front of him disappeared, as if the gust had blown away a layer of fog.
Then Nero looked around, nothing in the environment had changed much. He glanced behind him at the real Stelle, who was staring blankly.
"Just as I thought, seamless insertion. That strong interference was triggered by that gust of wind earlier?" Nero asked aloud.
"You f… You already know and you're still asking!?" The Fright Maze cursed, then abruptly stopped itself. Then it shouted again, "Are you a ghost or something!? Can't you just be scared for once?! This is ghost possession!"
Nero crossed his arms and said calmly, "I am from Xianzhou."
"…" The Fright Maze went silent for a moment. "I'm from Xianzhou your ***! Even people of the Xianzhou aren't immune to ghosts!"
"Oh, you mean this." Nero blinked, spread his hands.
"Your setup earlier was decent, but the twist at the end was way too stiff. You should've rebuilt and guided the pacing again in the middle.
"Otherwise, with it like this, even a Xianzhou toddler would kick away their milk bottle and teach you how to scare people.
"No offense, but at the part where your ability should've performed best, mental interference and illusion construction, your score is… zero."
Nero lifted his hand and made a pinching gesture.
He didn't say a single curse word, but through body language and a tone that sounded almost like a professional critique, he shredded the Fright Maze emotionally.
"You…"
The Fright Maze spat out one angry "You," then choked, unable to continue for half a day.
Finally, its mentality completely broke.
"Uwaaaaaaaahhhhh!"
The broken Fright Maze burst into tears.
"How can the Herta Space Station have someone as hateful as you!! Waaaaahhhh!!"
Its sudden breakdown didn't make Nero feel even a little guilty. It actually made him want to laugh.
So Nero delivered the fatal blow.
"What? That's all it takes to break you?"
In just thirty-something minutes and a few sentences, the Fright Maze's dignity, pride, and sense of existence shattered all over the ground.
It cried even harder.
Right after, the entire maze began to tremble, then gradually turned translucent and faded away. The surroundings around Nero slowly returned to the original appearance of the space station.
Because of the Fright Maze's total collapse, the maze it created could no longer hold itself together.
Realizing this, Nero casually set down the Imaginary Overflow Interference Field, which he had been holding the whole time but hadn't even used in the end, then walked over to wake Stelle.
His hand patted Stelle on the back.
"Ah!"
Stelle jerked violently and screamed, then instinctively swung her bat for a good while, hitting nothing but air.
When she came to her senses, Stelle froze for a moment, then looked at Nero beside her with extreme caution.
"Are you a human or a ghost?"
Nero looked at her and held her gaze for two seconds.
"Human."
Noticing Nero's speechlessness, Stelle awkwardly raised a hand to scratch her head. "I just saw you get possessed by a ghost…"
"Mm. I know. I saw the same kind of illusion." Nero nodded.
Stelle looked around at the collapsing maze, confused.
How could the maze be disappearing the moment she woke up?
"Did we already enter the 500-meter range?"
"No."
"Then what's this situation…?"
"I told it its scare tactics were worse than Xianzhou kids'. It broke down."
"Huh?"
"But I was telling the truth. Because the ghost stories Xianzhou kids hear growing up are scarier than the illusions it creates."
Nero put his hands on his hips, full of pride.
"Huh?" Stelle blinked twice in confusion. "Is that something to be proud of? Also, Xianzhou children have to listen to ghost stories?"
Stelle trusted Nero a lot.
So… one dared to say it, and one dared to believe it.
Just then, the sound of explosive crying came from far away, moving closer. A faint-blue cube, the Fright Maze's true body, shot past them like a little kid whose Dao heart had been shattered from getting beaten.
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