Chapter 26 The Heavy Object

The so-called "Nightmare Descent," as described in the forum strategy, is this: it drags the player into the most unbearable memories of their life, causing intense emotional fluctuations and impairing their spirituality.

Although it sounds mystical, a mere game cabin naturally cannot truly read a player's memories, so for the player it's just a simple test of willpower. If they fail the test, they receive a "spiritual shake" debuff, and that's it.

However, at this moment, Aske felt that something deep in his memory was being torn out by the opponent's ability.

In the blink of an eye, he was standing at the door of the bathroom in his childhood home, his small body about six or seven years old. His dead father sat collapsed on the bathroom floor, the cut wrist from his suicide still bleeding out.

His mother knelt on the tiled floor, her dress soaked in blood. Her body trembled slightly, emitting sobs that were incomprehensible, gradually escalating into desperate, heart-wrenching cries.

That unbearable childhood memory, along with the feeling that the entire world was collapsing before his eyes, resurfaced from the depths of his memories.

What did he do back then? Seemed like he just cried with his mother, right?

Looking back now, it really wasn't worth it.

His small hand clenched in the air as if pulling something out and then he fiercely slashed at the scene before him.

He really pulled out a sword!

Then the entire memory world was cleanly split in two.

Blue blood splattered, and in his vision, he saw the nightmare's expression of disbelief.

It didn't understand why this human, clearly pulled into its woven nightmare and unable to extricate himself, could still draw his sword and deliver a decisive blow that shattered the dream.

Then it realized it had made a grave mistake.

Eleanor was still fighting her father's illusion. Suddenly, the tall phantom shook violently, its shield-raising action freezing in place. Her gaze, full of confusion, turned to where Aske and the nightmare were fighting, her attention immediately captivated.

What a fierce and brutal swordsmanship it was. The sword light slashed up and down, left and right, forming a continuous stream, almost too fast to see how many strikes were made in a second. Only the splatters of blue blood continuously flying in all directions, as if a giant Persian chrysanthemum was blooming in mid-air.

The nightmare, with its back to everyone, was shaken like chaff by the sword light - first the right arm was cut off, then the left, and finally its head and waist, the broken limbs flying out in disarray.

Aske let out a low shout and swung his final horizontal slash through the empty air in front of him. The Teutonic Knight's "Storm Cross Swordsmanship" was not about brute force alone, but rather about being able to control every movement and exert delicacy even amid fierce attacks.

The reason he slashed into the air after killing the BOSS was simply to vent.

His mindset was already unbalanced.

His professional psychological discipline allowed him to quickly adjust back, calming his emotions. Turning around, he saw that the tall illusion in the distance had dispersed with the wind. The puppet created by the BOSS's dream ability couldn't sustain its existence after the BOSS had fallen, as one would expect.

Eleanor, supporting herself on her long spear, stood up swaying and began to remove her armor with difficulty, starting to receive healing from Nora's abilities.

"Heh," Medea, who was stabilizing from her injuries, walked over, looked at the disembodied limbs of the nightmare on the ground, and said with a cold laugh, "I thought nightmares were supposed to be so formidable, and yet we dispatched it so easily..."

Her words came to an abrupt halt because Medea saw Aske's complexion: he wore an ashen expression, like a volcano on the verge of eruption.

"What's that expression on your face?" Medea's voice trembled slightly. Through her ability's vision, she saw that Aske's mind body was also a vivid crimson, clearly filled with extreme rage and a desire to kill, giving her an impulse to flee immediately.

"What's wrong with me?" Aske said slowly, his face straining to form a smile.

"That smile of yours is even uglier than crying," Medea sighed in relief. Luckily, it seemed that he hadn't lost his sanity, at least for now.

"Forget it," Aske waved dismissively and sat down on the stone steps of the altar, silent, absorbed in his thoughts.

The others, after a brief rest, also came over. The most severely wounded had naturally been Eleanor, who had fought the illusion fiercely, while Peggy had been knocked unconscious and fallen to the ground from the beginning, looking disheveled but largely unscathed. Thanks to Nora's healing, both were now back in fighting condition.

"What's with that look on your face?" Nora asked, biting her lip. Seeing Aske's somber expression, she too felt an inexplicable dread.

"What's wrong with my expression?" Aske asked.

"It's like you made a stupid mistake in the arena and then got beaten up by your opponent," Peggy said.

Eleanor burst into laughter. She had initially sparred with Aske for several days at the training ground, so she understood what Peggy meant.

Every fight back then, Aske would beat the opposing mercenary to a pulp, then mercilessly ridicule him. If this great master were truly to get beaten up in return... The thought was unimaginable—probably something akin to his current gloomy expression.

"Oh," Aske said expressionlessly.

"What kind of Spiritual Material does this nightmare have?" Seeing that he was genuinely in a bad mood, Peggy stopped teasing him.

"Hair," Aske said.

So Peggy went to harvest the hair from the nightmare's head, cutting the nerve bundles with her Short Sword while secretly glancing up at Aske's expression.

"Stop looking," Medea's voice resonated in her mind, "He's really not in a good mood right now."

"What's with that expression?" Peggy asked, puzzled. She had been hypnotized from the moment she got close to the nightmare and had been in a deep sleep ever since, so she had no idea what had happened, "I feel like there's a hint of hate."

"It's not necessarily hate," Medea said, "It's just the feeling of carrying some heavy burden."

She sighed in the Mind Communication, looking at Aske's face, dark as still water, and inexplicably thought of her father when she was a child.

That was when Medea was six years old, her father Suleiman had not yet ascended as Emperor of the Seljuk Empire but was serving as Governor in Damascus as a Prince. At that time, her grandfather, Sultan Suleiman, favored another son, her Uncle Alaudin, seemingly intending to pass the throne to him.

Alaudin, often leading armies, had previously assassinated two of his brother Princes for their grandfather, and thus became increasingly arrogant. He once met their grandmother Hafsa outside the palace and brutally whipped her with a horsewhip in front of the Eunuchs, justifying that the Sultan's women should not show themselves outside the palace.

Their grandmother fell severely ill when she returned to the palace and later wrote to their father in Damascus. Suleiman sat alone in the Governor's mansion holding the letter, without consulting confidants, eating, or sleeping—just sitting silently in the room for the entire night.

She had gone to her father that night, asking him to read her a bedtime story, "One Thousand and One Nights." However, her father, in the darkness, simply stared at her with an unearthly cold expression, frightening her into fleeing.

From that moment, the father she remembered, always spirited and with an air of scholarly elegance, was gone, as if he had completely transformed into a merciless Devil.

As an adult with more experience, she could guess what was likely written in that letter: her grandfather Sultan Suleiman had decided to implement the "Brother Killing Law."

This law, issued by "Conqueror" Muhammad II, stipulated that any Prince who became or was about to become Sultan had the right to kill any brothers who posed a threat to his throne.

If her grandfather had indeed resolved to give the throne to his son Alaudin, then Suleiman, as well as his mother Hafsa, wife Roxelana, and all his children would have been executed by Sultan Suleiman—or by Uncle Alaudin once he became Sultan.

But at the time, she, only six years old, did not understand these shadows lurking in the Court. A year later, amidst the open and secret struggles between his sons, grandfather Sultan Suleiman finally recognized that his father Suleiman was the most qualified Prince to inherit the throne, and thus killed all the other Princes and direct relatives.

Another year passed, and the Sultan died in the Court. When his father Suleiman returned to the capital to take the throne, he entered the city on horseback, sneering, "A carpet is big enough for two Sufi Sect Believers to share, yet this world is so small it cannot accommodate two Kings."

The sneer on her father's face at that time had gradually become blurred in her memory. However, what she could never forget was the expression of deep contemplation he had that night in the dark room of the mansion: it was the feeling of carrying an immense burden, full of pain and extreme coldness, both icy rational and filled with frenzy.

It was very similar to Aske's expression at this moment.

"What kind of heavy burden?" Peggy wondered. It was hard for her to comprehend anything heavier than hate.

"Ah, it's that feeling of having no way out," Medea casually replied, "Men sometimes turn into mad beasts, taking on various heavy reasons, and then go to fight and confront the whole world."

"But it's quite intriguing," she whispered with a light laugh.

Aske sat on the stone steps, his hands crossed under his chin, lost in thought. Eleanor watched him carefully and ventured to ask,

"Aren't we going to debrief?"

"You fought well; this should be your first boss fight. For newbies, to perform like this in an opening battle is quite commendable," Aske finally answered after a long silence, "We're now deep inside the island, and if we go further, we'll reach the foot of the mountain. Advancing toward the summit, we'll encounter the second boss. Let everyone continue to strive hard."