Body Double

Within Yogg-Saron's lair, a Yogg-Saron clone, disguised as Aiden, was attacking its own main body. However, the real attacks all landed on the magical barrier that had once been immune to all damage, failing to cause even the slightest harm to its true form.

People believed that this "Aiden" had broken the magical barrier from within, but they didn't realize that this was merely a transformation of illusion, and even this Aiden was fake!

Almost no one noticed anything amiss.

A thick tentacle of Yogg-Saron lashed out at Kayle with a whistling sound that cut through the air. It looked so mighty, but while it might be effective against ordinary people, its speed was too slow for a hero of Kayle's caliber. Moreover, the sound was too obvious, as if it were afraid the enemy wouldn't know an attack was coming.

With a gentle flap of her wings, she evaded the tentacle's attack. The blade of her sword, Light's Judgment, was engulfed in orange-yellow holy flames. With a swing, the holy flames splashed outwards, landing on Yogg-Saron's head and searing a long, charred mark into its skin.

Stimulated by the pain, several giant mouths in front of Kayle lunged at her, but this attack, like the tentacles, was too slow and obvious. Anyone present with even a little awareness could easily dodge it.

Of course, Kayle wouldn't be hit by such an attack.

The battle within the lair was intense. In just a few minutes, Yogg-Saron's main body appeared to be severely wounded. If this Old God didn't have any other powerful means, it would inevitably face the fate of being sealed once again.

However, the battle was going too smoothly. Aside from Medivh, no one else had perished in the battles challenging the Old Gods. Even after Aiden emerged from Yogg-Saron's body, no one was even injured.

Could it be that the Old God only possessed such abilities? Or had the heroes who were fighting it become so powerful?

Kayle recalled how, not long ago, Medivh had single-handedly fought against Cho'gall and the mutated Loken, releasing spells at an extremely fast pace and holding his own. Yet, this Guardian had died inside Yogg-Saron's belly when allied with Aiden.

Kayle had just witnessed how strong Medivh was; as for how strong the Commander was, Kayle was even clearer.

Two such powerful individuals working together ultimately resulted in one casualty, so why was Yogg-Saron seemingly helpless now, when the battle should be even more intense?

Kayle was calmly thinking. She was rarely swayed by her emotions, so Yogg-Saron's mind-altering spells had a negligible effect on her. However, its illusion spells had indeed deceived everyone, and no one had seen through the disguise of the clone as Aiden.

While attacking, Kayle also took the time to observe Commander Aiden: he was wielding the Silver Hand, frantically attacking Yogg-Saron's main body. He easily dodged the evil god's various attacks, and the tentacles and faceless ones that emerged near him were all completely incinerated by his rage.

His leading-by-example actions and impassioned emotions influenced everyone around him. Most of the heroes seemed somewhat overly excited, even euphoric—because they were fighting an evil god who seemed almost helpless against their attacks, simply waiting for death!

But Kayle still felt that something was wrong—especially the bloodshot eyes of Aiden, and the hatred in his eyes that made him seem unfamiliar.

Of course, he should hate the evil god. Perhaps because of the death of Guardian Medivh, it was normal for him, who was usually emotionally reserved, to be so impassioned.

But intuition told Kayle that Aiden's emotions were off. This wasn't the Commander she knew.

With more than four years of time spent together, including in the Emerald Dream, Kayle knew her Commander well enough. He might be impulsive occasionally, and he was very sentimental and willing to take responsibility, but he wouldn't lose his rationality for long!

The current Aiden had clearly lost his rationality.

Kayle couldn't help but form a guess—could it be that Aiden had been affected by the evil god's mind-altering spells inside Yogg-Saron's belly, but he himself hadn't noticed?

The more she thought about it, the more she felt it was correct.

Remembering how, when arranging tactics not long ago, Aiden himself had repeatedly emphasized that when facing Yogg-Saron, one must remain restrained and calm, and absolutely not be dominated by hatred and anger. If anyone felt that they had a problem, they must go to the Mind Well summoned by the Life-Binder Freya to regain clarity.

But now, Aiden was being dominated by hatred and anger, and he was completely unaware.

"Commander," Kayle confirmed that her observations were correct. She deliberately moved closer to Aiden and called out to him, "You need to go to the Mind Well to rest for a while. Your condition is worrying!"

"I'm fine, no need to rest!" Aiden didn't even look at Kayle. His bloodshot eyes were fixed on Yogg-Saron's main body, skillfully dodging its attacks while retaliating.

"I am your leader. At this time, I must lead by example! I cannot let Medivh's sacrifice be in vain! He died to save me!"

Aiden's expression, a mixture of grief and anger, made him look ferocious.

He seemed to be explaining, as if informing others what had happened in Yogg-Saron's belly, and also as if blaming himself, feeling that only by severely damaging Yogg-Saron could he make up for the guilt in his heart.

It wasn't just Kayle who noticed Aiden's abnormality; several others did as well.

For example, the Life-Binder Freya, who had been constantly monitoring everyone's emotional fluctuations. Her main purpose in joining this battle was to ensure that people wouldn't be secretly influenced by Yogg-Saron's mind and ultimately become its servants.

Before the first illusion appeared, everything was proceeding in an orderly manner. However, after Aiden came out of Yogg-Saron's belly, things became a bit strange—Freya found that people's emotions were clearly becoming very intense, with hatred, euphoria, arrogance, and various negative emotions growing, but their minds and behaviors weren't being affected in any way. Even Aiden, whose emotions were the most intense, wasn't being affected in the slightest. It was as if Yogg-Saron had given up on trying to control the heroes through mind spells.

But this was clearly Yogg-Saron's forte. Why would it let go of such a good opportunity?

Freya was utterly puzzled.

As a robot with advanced intelligence, Freya and all the Keepers adhered to a very mechanical logic. Since people's minds weren't being affected, she wouldn't intervene.

The Dreamer Ysera also noticed the anomaly, but she wasn't focusing on emotions, but rather on the surrounding environment.

As a guardian of dreams, she sensed that the surrounding illusions had not disappeared. However, because this was Yogg-Saron's lair, her power to trace the source of dreams was greatly suppressed, and she couldn't clearly distinguish whether this illusion was a continuation of the dream about forging the Dragon Soul that the heroes had just entered, or something else.

After Aiden appeared, the disappearance of the overlapping illusions before her eyes made her no longer doubt everything she saw, but instead concentrated on finding the location of the hidden dream.

Ysera took a little time, and she slowly sensed that the illusion—there weren't just one, but two: one was the illusion of Garona's assassination of King Llane; the other was the scene they saw when they first entered Yogg-Saron's lair.

The former illusion had been mentioned by Aiden during the tactical arrangement before entering. It was one of the three different dreams they might encounter, created by Yogg-Saron's brain.

The latter was a bit strange. It was the scene in Yogg-Saron's lair when Yogg-Saron's head hadn't yet emerged from the ground, and the magical barrier that was immune to all attacks still enveloped the giant pit.

Why would this evil god create such an illusion?

Ysera couldn't quite figure it out.

Another who noticed the abnormality was "Eternal Nightmare" Nocturne. It made great contributions in the last Nightmare Invasion, and its own power has recovered a lot because of absorbing the essence of the Nightmare. This time, many heroes from Valoran came, and as a Transcendent, Nocturne also joined them.

Its ability was initially useless against those mechanical legions. No one expected machines to have nightmares, but later, during the process of the four guardians regaining their sanity, its ability did help.

These guardians were all intelligent robots made by the Titans. They were all mentally controlled by Yogg-Saron, and this power was exactly what Nocturne was good at.

Later, when they first entered the dream, it was also under Nocturne's leadership that everyone found Yogg-Saron's brain. Without a doubt, in this great battle, Nocturne once again proved its indispensability.

The abnormality it discovered lay in itself—Nocturne felt that as the attack on Yogg-Saron's main body began, a dark mental power slowly infiltrated its body along with its attacks on Yogg-Saron.

Nocturne was most familiar with this power—it quickly noticed and captured this energy to study its nature and function.

Soon after, it confirmed the use of this power—it was a kind of dark, maddening mental power. When accumulated to a certain degree, the implanted person would completely fall into madness and be controlled by the person who cast this power.

Coincidentally, Nocturne had witnessed this power when rescuing the four guardians. It came from Yogg-Saron!

After Nocturne thoroughly studied this power, it found that this maddening mental power had accumulated to a considerable degree. It immediately felt bad—Nocturne itself had many ways to ensure that it would not be controlled by Yogg-Saron's mental power. Now it could expel these alien mental forces at any time, but what about others?

You must know that most people don't have its ability. If they waited a little longer, until the maddening mental power released by Yogg-Saron accumulated to a certain degree, I'm afraid that everyone who was unaware would be instantly controlled by it!

That would definitely be a catastrophe!

At the thought of this, Nocturne suddenly became alert. It immediately floated towards Aiden, informing the commander of this matter. It believed that the wise commander would definitely lead everyone out of the dangerous quagmire and resolve Yogg-Saron's conspiracy.

"Commander!" After Nocturne floated over, it conveyed its thoughts, "I suspect that Yogg-Saron's maddening mental power is spreading to everyone..."

Nocturne's arrival made Aiden deliberately take a few steps back, leaving the attack range of Yogg-Saron's head, making a look of listening carefully.

"You mean you suspect that everyone has been implanted with Yogg-Saron's maddening mental power?" Aiden stared at Nocturne, asking word by word.

The words of this nightmare creature immediately alerted this Yogg-Saron's avatar. Now was the critical moment of their plan. As long as three or four minutes passed, it could influence everyone, and then the plan would succeed.

As for the real Aiden, even if he wasn't killed by it, what could that Aiden do if all the heroes on the ground became its servants?

This was a very sensitive moment, whether it was success or failure depended on the next three minutes!

Nocturne raised the question, and Yogg-Saron's avatar immediately pretended to take it seriously, but this was just acting, it just wanted to delay time.

Three minutes, a few words, just go through the motions.

Yogg-Saron believed it had many ways to get through it.

Seeing that its words had attracted the commander's attention, Nocturne breathed a sigh of relief, and then it immediately replied: "Yes, I feel that the maddening mental power from Yogg-Saron has quietly spread to me after we started attacking its main body. This power is exactly the same as the mental power that controlled the four guardians before, I am sure this is from Yogg-Saron!"

"Well, good, your discovery is very important." The fake Aiden nodded cautiously, and then said, "I'll go to the Mind Well to check if I have also been affected by this power."

After speaking, he headed towards the nearest Mind Well.

However, this road suddenly became extremely difficult—enemies several times more numerous than in other places suddenly emerged on the path he was passing, countless Yogg-Saron tentacles and Faceless One guards kept drilling out from the ground, as if afraid that Aiden would quickly reach the Mind Well.

Nocturne was almost dumbfounded, of course, as a semi-solid and semi-illusory creature, it didn't have a tongue.

But according to the commander's current speed, it would take at least two minutes for him to reach the nearest Mind Well.

Nocturne was a little hesitant. Now, every second, Yogg-Saron might accumulate enough maddening mental power to control everyone. Shouldn't the commander's normal action be to notify everyone to take precautions and go to the Mind Well separately?

But after all, he was the commander of it and all the Valoran heroes, and Nocturne estimated that there were still about three minutes left.

"It should still be in time." Nocturne persuaded itself like this.

At this time, Kayle suddenly stiffened, and then she stopped attacking Yogg-Saron's main body, and instead flew towards Aiden.

"I'll come to help you, Commander!"

She received a mental message, and the content of it was almost enough to shock this almost always calm Judicator Angel!