Illusion

"So... What do we do now?" questioned Amelia while observing the ongoing battle from afar.

Since they didn't want to get entangled in whatever battle was happening there, they landed on a small mountaintop a few kilometers away from the battlefield and have been observing the battle.

One army wore armors adorned with the Fiore Imperial family emblem, while the soldiers on the other side donned the insignia of the Arianna royal family. Each army was led by four generals.

"I don't have a clue," answered Anna.

"What I'm wondering about is how come there is such a big battle happening here in the territory of one of our neighbors, yet we didn't know about it," said Lilia, incredulous.

The battle unfolding below wasn't a minor skirmish; it sprawled across several kilometers. It's surprising that no one told Grace about it, especially since there's just one territory between the one the battle was happening and their territories. Alex's lands might be directly affected, so why didn't they know about it?

As the girls chatted amongst themselves to comprehend what was going on, and Cedrix was clutching his head in despair, thinking that he might never see his daughter again if she is indeed there, Alex was sitting silently on the ground, observing the battlefield with a frown on his face.

Several minutes later, he suddenly chuckled. Before the girls could ask him why he was laughing in this situation, he disappeared.

Lilia, Amelia, and Anna looked at each other in confusion, all of them wondering where the hell did Alex go.

However, they didn't have to wonder for long because barely a minute after he disappeared, Alex reappeared with a smile on his face.

"Where did you go?" the girls asked at the same time.

"There," Alex pointed to the battlefield. Before they could chastise him about how reckless his action was, Alex chuckled and said, "it's just an illusion."

"Huh? What is an illusion?" wondered Anna.

"This whole battlefield is an illusion," Alex stated with a wide smile on his face.

Both the girls and Cedrix stiffened in their place, their gazes following Alex's finger until it landed on the battlefield where the two armies were still engaging in a furious battle.

Cedrix, his face full of skepticism, was the first to react to Alex's statement, "Not to doubt my lord's words, but are you certain about what you're talking about? Because this battle looks pretty real to me."

Amelia and Anna nodded their heads in agreement with the old man's words; they also thought that the battle happening just a few kilometers from them looked too real to be an illusion.

Lilia was the sole person among them who didn't directly contest Alex's words. Instead, she focused on the battlefield, a frown gracing her delicate face, and a few seconds later, her eyes widened in realization.

"He is right... that's an illusion," she confirmed Alex's insane statement.

Amelia and Anna glanced at each other, then at Alex and Lilia, not knowing what to say. It's not that they thought that Alex or Lilia would lie to them, but the idea that this large battlefield spanning for kilometers could be an illusion was dreadful.

However, with how seriously Lilia and Alex stated that this was an illusion, the two women had no reason not to believe them.

"What makes you say this is an illusion?" questioned Anna.

While pointing at the battlefield, Alex disclosed, "If you carefully observe the people down there who are supposed to be in a 'battle,' you will notice that they keep repeating the same actions."

To confirm his words, Alex pointed to one of the generals of the Fiore Empire who had been suddenly shot down with an arrow made of fire by one of the generals of the Arianna kingdom.

"This is the third time this same man has died since we arrived here, and in each of his deaths, he is always taken down by an arrow."

As Alex explained, Amelia, Anna, and Cedrix could see the same general who had been killed just a few seconds earlier coming back to life. The peculiar thing was that he didn't reappear at the same spot he was earlier, but hundreds of meters further. However, he wasn't the only one whose spot had changed. The position of the general of the Arianna kingdom who had killed him in the first place had also changed, and much like the last time, he shot a fire arrow that killed the general that had just come back to life. Just like that, the same scene kept repeating itself, but at various places on the battlefield.

"It's the same for all the other fighters. The same action keeps repeating itself but at different places. Yet, it takes one to be incredibly focused to notice it. I don't know the level of the ones who made this illusion, but they are good, really good, and extremely dangerous," Alex stated.

Alex had to hand it to the ones who created this illusion; they were the best illusionists he had ever seen. That was quite the compliment, considering how highly he thought of Iris' skills.

Iris was none other than the wife, or rather ex-wife, of Alex's friend who had killed the previous, Felix.

She was the very one who had given birth to four of Alex's children. Yet, her husband, or his family, never had doubts about the fact that the children weren't his. He never even doubted that she was in a relationship with Alex.

Considering that Felix's own family was a noble family with a good standing in the Fiore Empire, it became obvious that it was nearly impossible to hide such a glaring secret from them. Yet, no one found out until a few months ago. Such a thing was only possible due to Iris's illusion ability.

She was able to make their daughters look exactly like Felix, and even when the latter's family used other ways besides physical resemblances to determine if the girls were Felix's, nothing was found. Hell, the woman was so good at using her illusion ability that her husband never had an idea about the fact that he has never had sex with her!

Each time the poor man thought he was with his wife, he was, in fact, having sex with an illusory version of her. Meanwhile, it was Alex who was railing her!

Even though some of her talent could be explained by the fact that she was a half-elf, one couldn't deny that the woman was also very smart in how she used her ability.

'Now that I've thought about it, I have to go save them, quick,' Alex thought. However, although he thought this, Alex wasn't really hurried.

He was certain that even now he couldn't defeat that woman in a fight, so there was no need to hurry to go save them. If there was a danger that she couldn't get rid of, then that means that even if Alex, with his current strength, went to save her, he wouldn't be able to change much in her situation.

All of that to say that Alex has a very high opinion of Iris when it comes to her illusion abilities. That's why he never thought that he would find someone with much better skills than her.

Iris cast an illusion on her daughters for years, which was quite incredible, but the battlefield in front of Alex spans for kilometers, and only gods know for how long this illusion has been here.

"I'm actually wondering, how come the Imperial family or the nobles in charge of this territory never noticed this? I can understand them not knowing that it's an illusion, but they should at least notice that there's a battle happening here and come investigate, right?!" said Anna with a puzzled face.

"Forget it, it's not our place to think about such things. We are here to save Cedrix's daughter, that's all. The rest doesn't concern us. If the noble ruling this land is incompetent enough to not notice this, then it's his/her problem, not ours," said Alex.

Although he said this, Alex felt that it wasn't so simple. There was surely something preventing others from noticing this battlefield/illusion, which posed the question: how come that his group could notice it?

However, Alex didn't linger on it. He didn't have nearly enough information to deduce anything, so he would just accomplish the mission for which he came and get the f*ck out after doing so.

"But how do we break the illusi-"

Amelia didn't even finish her sentence when the scenery of the battlefield shifted into something else—a forest.

"No matter how powerful an illusion is, its weakness won't ever change. As long as you know that an illusion is there, then it ceases to exist."