Holding the dazzling precious bead in its entirety, Austin looked at the queen lying between the two
shells, carrying the weight of her body.
Austin felt the energy of the bead, emanating and channeling its close bond to the queen. In a little
while, the oneness of the two became more evident—the bead belonged to the queen, and the queen
belonged to the bead.
Witnessing such a process, Austin felt that he must also take the queen with him if he wanted to take
the bead.
If he didn't do so, it would be very difficult to take the bead away. The bead might not even survive
without the queen beside it.
With such a strong bond between the two, it would be nearly impossible for the bead to be separated
from the queen.
Austin carefully ran his spiritual energy, making it flow toward the queen, yet he could not tell if she was
still alive.
The queen lay quietly in a graceful position. With nothing but a thin layer of gauze around her body, she
was almost half naked. Her curves were clearly defined along the edges, and her features were faintly
yet pleasantly highlighted. A string of intoxicating fragrance wafted from her body constantly. She was
indeed a beautiful woman.
"That's it, you are coming with me!"
Austin finally made the decision. He could not resist the temptation of acquiring the bead so he devised
ways to take the queen with him as well.
"There's no harm in trying to refine this bead with the power that I already have."
Austin carefully released his power into the bead, hoping that something good would come out of it.
"The Hallucination Bead!" The name came to him as he ran his spiritual energy to check it.
At that moment, Austin was convinced of what the bead was and what it could do.
Strongly determined, Austin released more of his spiritual power into the bead, refining it further.
After working all day, trying refining the bead, Austin stopped and simply gave up.
"Well, that's a disappointment. I can't completely refine it. It obviously has something to do with it
sharing a strong bond with the queen.
It behaves as if its entire being is a part of the queen.
But, as far as the bead alone is concerned, I am able to control it for the time being.
It seems like the queen has granted me a kind of permission to take part in controlling the Hallucination
Bead on her behalf,"
Austin murmured to himself, bewildered at what he had just realized. What did the queen want? Why
did she even let Austin touch the bead, let alone control it?
Austin held the Hallucination Bead in his hand, running it between his fingers and across his palms,
wanting to decipher whatever secrets it seemed to hold.
Suddenly, "Boom! Boom! Boom!"
A series of loud explosions cut through the quiet air. A tirade of louder noises quickly followed and
overwhelmed the maze which began to shake violently. It seemed that a terrible earthquake was taking
place.
With the intensity of the vibrations, everything in the maze was shaken up and was thrown all over as if
caught in the middle of a strong tornado. Only a divine intervention could save it from being reduced to
ruins.
The strong foundations of the palaces, houses, streets, shops and squares began to crumble, little by
little, and started collapsing in chunks of what used to be roofs, walls, and ceilings. After some time,
what was left was nothing more than minute particles of sand and dust, effectively clouding up the
surroundings into zero visibility. Everything broke, including the illusions and hallucinations that were
densely packed in the space. They all became disintegrated and turned into fragments of hallucination.
The colorful fragments flew like snowflakes being blown away in a storm, filling every corner of the
space, confusing its seekers of truth on whether they were true or false.
To Austin's surprise, every single chunk, fragment, and particle of whatever disintegrated, bonded
together and rushed toward the Hallucination Bead, like metallic dust to a magnetic ball. They were all
sucked into the bead in an instant, leaving no trace of chaos behind.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!" Another round of deafening and earth-shattering explosions followed shortly
after.
This time, the whole maze itself began collapsing and turning into a torrent of fragments of
hallucination. The pieces merged into numerous big rivers while every bit of length of the stream was
swallowed in by the Hallucination Bead akin to a helpless massive whale!
"Aaargh!"
Three mermaid race girls were trapped and waiting for help at a small remaining corner of the rapidly
disintegrating maze. Watching everything get destroyed in front of their eyes, they all screamed with
their screeching voices as their faces turned pale.
They realized that everything around them was rapidly being reduced to dust and was turning into
fragments of hallucination that seethed with violent momentum, losing their grip on reality.
Fortunately, the loose fragments did not attack them. And the mermaid race girls had time to gather
and rushed out of there quickly.
"Oh my gooood! What is going on here?!"
The three mermaid race girls screamed, stunned and in utter disbelief.
Standing in the middle of the endless fragments of hallucination, Austin was able to harvest a lot during
that moment of confusion and chaos.
His spiritual sense force was enhanced just in time due to the fragments of hallucination that flowed to
the bead!
The sphere of spiritual sense in his Soul Sea was slowly and endlessly spinning on its own. It was
getting larger and larger, giving off sonorous sounds like that of a huge bell. The spiritual energy was
like seawater, pouring from an endless sea as its source.
By this time, Austin could feel his spiritual sense power gathering more and more resources. As
expected, he in turn became stronger, feeling its energy radiating, waiting for it to actualize. If such
energy was launched out all of a sudden, the Hallucination Bead could directly attack the enemy and
cause great harm to those around it!
What a defining moment!
When the spiritual sense power was released, it could only be used to attack the enemy's Soul Sea
and spiritual soul.
It could not harm the enemy directly. Take the Flying Swordsmanship for example; the spiritual sense
power could command and direct the sword to inflict massive damage on the enemy, but in the end it
was still the flying sword that cut his enemy.
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