Chapter 1264: Suggestion Spell, Ruins of the Empire

However, Xia Duo did not need to organize the entire month of memories, especially those including "Maikade," all at once right now.

With the existence of a personality backup, he only needed to trace his memories back to the moment he entered the Projection Plane, establish a brand-new personality backup, and then temporarily categorize all subsequent memories as "untrustworthy."

It would not be too late to slowly organize them once he reached a truly safe place later.

……

Time within consciousness cannot be estimated by normal time, and Xia Duo did not know how long had passed; he felt as though he had had a very, very long dream.

Upon waking from the dream, through the remaining duration of the Protective Spell in the room, he roughly calculated that he had been immersed in his consciousness for about fifteen or sixteen hours.

Now that the personality backup had been established, all that remained was to restrain the memories of "Maikade."

A person is not a computer; so-called personality backup is more of a state of self-cognition, not truly a Ziliaoku where one can store so-called "personality data."

And to categorize the memories of "Maikade" as "untrustworthy" and temporarily restrain them was not as easy as one might imagine.

It is not something that can be controlled with a simple mouse click; rather, one must use the judgment standards of the past backup personality to evaluate everything currently observed and perceived.

In other words, one must artificially avoid thinking about the memories and thought patterns of "Maikade."

But memories already exist within consciousness; how can one simply stop thinking about them? In fact, everything Xia Duo currently observes and perceives is based on the body of "Maikade."

Trying to deliberately ignore them is truly difficult.

Xia Duo's own exploration of the consciousness domain was not yet enough to perform such complex and delicate consciousness operations, but he still had mind spells.

It is similar to a child's posture correction; those with strong self-control can correct themselves entirely, while those without strong self-control can use the assistance of a corrector.

That is exactly what Xia Duo was doing at this moment; he cast a Suggestion Spell on himself, which allowed him to deliberately ignore all new memories added after entering the Projection Plane.

Although this spell is easily affected by stimulating events and can lead to failure, using it for the short term is not out of the question.

……

After completing the temporary rescue of his own consciousness, Xia Duo could be considered to have temporarily recovered his full Spellcasting ability; only then did he have the heart to check the state of this body and the environment he was in.

From the right leg up to the shoulder, it looked as if it had withered; the dry skin clung to the bone, and the flesh and blood inside seemed to have disappeared.

Even without casting any detection spells, Xia Duo could guess that this must have been caused by extremely strong Negative Energy Erosion, and more importantly—

Those withered areas were slowly spreading to the still-intact areas; if no treatment were performed, it would not take long for this body to become a dried corpse.

He did not know if this was the reason he had not been disturbed for over ten hours; the three High Mage companions who had fled back to this temporary shelter with him seemed to have completely disappeared.

"Could they think Maikade is dead?"

As soon as this thought arose in Xia Duo, a string of memories surged into his consciousness; he pressed hard on his brow, struggling not to recall those memories that did not belong to him.

Despite being affected by the mind spell and temporarily ignoring all memories since entering the Projection Plane, Xia Duo still had a certain understanding of his current state.

He had always had a goal in his heart, which was to find an empty, safe place as soon as possible and then check his own memories.

To achieve this goal, Xia Duo did not linger in this shelter, merely summoning some Positive Energy to linger over the parts affected by the Negative Energy Erosion.

Subsequently, he cast a temporarily created spell—【Control Self】!

This 5th-circle Transmutation spell allowed him to move freely even while losing half of his body's perception.

It was similar to an enhanced version of 【Mage Hand】 or 【Levitation】 or 【Flight】.

Afterward, he cast a Scrying spell; a hidden Perception Field was created and projected outward, and Xia Duo soon knew the environment he was in—

This was a crude underground shelter of unknown depth; along with the "ward" he was currently in, there were three other rooms, two of which were empty, and the other was a storage room containing some dry rations.

"Only me?" Xia Duo pondered.

But even so, such a shelter, of which he had no impression in his memories, was not a safe place, not to mention that Xia Duo had a mysterious intuition in his heart that made him want to leave immediately.

He wanted to trace the source of this intuition, but the next moment, the numbness from the Negative Energy Erosion in his body made him ignore this point; regardless, he had already decided to leave.

……

High in the sky over an unknown region.

Having just Randomly Teleported here, Xia Duo quickly stabilized his body and began to descend slowly toward the ground; during the descent, the dilapidated scene to the northwest of the ground intruded into his field of vision without restraint—

That was a vast Magic Net Riot Zone, where countless chaotic Magic had almost destroyed everything on the Surface, leaving behind only ruins of buildings and farmland that looked like a wasteland.

"Is that the Arcane Empire?!"

Such a guess quickly arose in Xia Duo's heart, and he felt deeply shocked by this guess; when he left the 【Arcane Empire】 before, it was because the Magic Net suddenly collapsed and chaotic Magic swept through the entire city, and he left because he was powerless to resist.

He had long anticipated the fate of the Arcane Empire after he left, but now, looking down at the earth from high altitude, the civilization ruins that occupied a considerable part of his field of vision still truly shocked him.

As far as he knew, the Arcane Empire had a population of nearly ten million at the time; looking at the scene now, it would be a great stroke of luck if even one percent survived.

In other words, that war almost instantly destroyed nearly ten million living people!

Xia Duo was not sure whether this was done by the people of Keman or by several Elven Kingdoms working together, but in either case, it was enough to prove that there was no essential difference between Elves and humans.

There are friendly components, but there is no lack of cold-bloodedness.

As long as he thought that such a tragedy could also happen to Netheril on the Main Plane, Xia Duo felt a sense of horror.

Especially knowing that Seventon had already built a Mythallar, this feeling came even more strongly.

Fortunately, the Main Plane and the Projection Plane were still different; at least he had never heard of things like Mythallar or Floating City in the Arcane Empire.

And on the Main Plane, Iolum inventing the Mythallar was "Prophet information" in Xia Duo's memory, and Iolum's various performances also seemed to verify this.

But as long as the Mythallar did not appear for a day, Xia Duo could never let go of this sense of crisis.

"These Elves are truly heartless!"