Illusion Report

Chapter 321: Chapter 277: Brianna’s Redemption and Happiness

Ashley was the kind of person Brianna had never been able to understand.

Back when Westley needed to rack up action points and get hold of the Illusion Report, he’d done a thorough background check on Ashley Page.

She was born in the slums, raised by a single mother alongside a handful of siblings. To stay in school, she enlisted right after high school graduation. After her discharge, she entered the police academy — and from that point on, she’d been hauling herself upward through the police system with two strikes already against her: her gender and the color of her skin.

Before Westley dropped into her life like a gift from the heavens, Ashley had never received help from anyone. Every step forward felt like dragging herself through mud.

What for? Power? Status?

Brianna had never felt the pull of either — not even after she’d been cast out from her own family.

But Ashley was different. Her hunger for power ran so deep that even Westley had once remarked, almost admiringly: "The Nest really knows how to pick its people."

The appointment letter for the directorship had come out of nowhere, a total surprise — and Ashley had clamped onto it without a second’s hesitation, never once asking what the price would be. Maybe because, as long as she was climbing, she didn’t care what it cost.

As it turned out, nothing — absolutely nothing — could make Ashley back down.

Not Westley’s death. Not the breakdown of her officers and the entire precinct. Not even the residents crawling out through her eye sockets. Ashley Page had endured it all — and through every round of condemnation and interrogation from superiors and the public alike, she’d kept her grip on the director’s chair.

The old Brianna hadn’t understood that. When she was young, all she’d wanted was to travel, to hang the latest works of her favorite painters on her walls, to go grocery shopping with someone she loved and cook dinner together, to agonize over whether or not to get a cat.

In every version of the future she’d ever imagined for herself, there was no role for power to play.

The Brianna of today, though, was beginning to understand people like Ashley.

Power was one of the finest weapons there was against the world’s cruelty and absurdity.

"Power?" Ashley frowned, turning the word over for a moment. "What kind of power? Do you mean like that day when—"

She suddenly pressed her lips together, her throat working in a hard swallow, as though forcing back the urge to be sick.

After a steadying breath, she said, "...The kind of power the Nest has. I can’t use that."

"What do you think Nest power actually is? Maybe that’s where we should start."

Ashley stared blankly for a few seconds.

When she finally spoke, it seemed to have nothing to do with Brianna’s question.

"I... I never married. I’ve always lived alone.

"After that day... I thought — however strange, however disgusting — that it was over. My eyes were still my own, still in my own skull. I was still myself. I dragged myself home, exhausted and shaken and completely at a loss, and all I wanted was a long, hot bath.

"I was soaking in the tub when I noticed the water level dropping. My knees, my chest — they were coming out of the water. I thought the drain hadn’t been closed properly, but when I checked, there was nothing wrong with the tub. It wasn’t leaking. I couldn’t figure it out. I filled it again, and the same thing happened — the water just kept slowly going down."

She lowered her eyes, staring at her own hands.

"Eventually I figured it out. As long as I was out of the tub, the water stayed perfectly still. The moment I got back in, it would start draining away. It wasn’t the bathtub that was leaking. It was me."

Where it was draining to went without saying.

...Interesting, Brianna thought.

She despised Green’s body. There was no way she would ever risk catching a glimpse of the male genitalia between her legs just to soak in a bath — so she had no idea whether the same thing would happen to her.

"I couldn’t make sense of it. I scrambled out of the tub, told myself to have a drink and sleep it off, that everything would be fine in the morning. I went to pour myself something, and then — someone knocked on my head.

"Like knocking on a door."

Ashley rapped her knuckles on the table a few times, then suddenly let out a short laugh — with no trace of humor in her eyes.

Open up, said a thin little voice, rising from somewhere at the back of her skull.

Ashley said she was too terrified at that point, her mind completely blank — she couldn’t process what was happening.

I can already see you through the crack, said that thin little voice.

You’re wearing your bathrobe, standing in the kitchen, holding a glass of wine — am I right? ...Oh my, drinking isn’t good for you, you know.

Worried you won’t be able to sleep? Don’t worry. Open the door and let me in. I’ll help you settle down for the night — how does that sound?

Ignoring me won’t do you any good. Your door is already open a crack.

You don’t believe me?

Well then — why don’t you see for yourself—

Across the desk, Ashley opened her mouth.

Her lips and jaw came apart — upper teeth drifting away from lower teeth — widening to reveal the dim hollow within, and a wet tongue resting inside it.

Brianna stared, her gaze locked on Ashley’s open mouth, unable to look away.

From somewhere deep in her throat, a few fingers were swaying their way upward — feeling out the space around them as though exploring new territory, groping along the teeth and the roof of her mouth.

Those fingers pressed down on her tongue, and Ashley gagged violently.

She clamped her mouth shut and swallowed hard, again and again. By the time she finally forced the fingers back down her throat, she was breathing heavily through her nose, a thin sheen of sweat rising on her forehead.

"You see?" Ashley’s voice came out rough and low. "That kind of power... I don’t want it."

Brianna gave a slow nod.

Ashley wasn’t a Hunter. What little she knew about the Nest had come to her through the most irrational, visceral fear imaginable. The fact that she hadn’t lost her mind was remarkable in itself — her misunderstanding was entirely natural.

"What’s trying to force its way into the world through your body is a Nest resident," Brianna said calmly. "They don’t represent the Nest’s power. The real power of the Nest lives in the Illusions... With an Illusion, anything you want in this world is yours for the taking."

Ashley stared at her, dazed.

There was no harm in telling Ashley about the Nest Dominance Game — because she wasn’t a Hunter, she hadn’t been invited, and without Brianna, even knowing the game existed would get her nowhere. Besides, all the other players could only compete as individuals. Brianna was the only one with the ability to recruit allies.

After Brianna finished her explanation, the room fell silent.

A few seconds passed before Ashley spoke, her voice quiet. "You asked me what I want... My answer is this: I want to go back to the way things were. I want revenge. And I want to keep climbing — all the way to the top of the police system."

She twisted the corner of her mouth into a smile.

"Funny enough, the one most responsible for all this is Chaisi Monroe — I know that. He’s on my list. But the one I hate most..." She paused. "It’s that woman. The woman who goes by Mercury.

"You said she’s a Mercenary? I couldn’t tell at all. She was far more aggressive than Chaisi ever was.

"Chaisi ran. She finished the job, but still didn’t leave. She stayed behind under the pretext of cleaning things up, and she did everything — things that were called for, and things that weren’t. The more unhinged and terrified she could make us, the more delighted she seemed. She walked through the precinct like she was strolling through an amusement park, savoring every nightmare unfolding at her feet. What does she have against us? She wouldn’t even let us die."

Brianna had absolutely no interest in what Mercury had done to this precinct.

When you’ve been burning in hell for long enough, it gets hard to care whether someone else stubbed their toe.

But this — this she could use to win Ashley over.

Since losing Westley, Brianna desperately needed a new and capable ally — someone who could help her stand against Chaisi of the Kai Family and Fu Tailan of the Morgan Family.

"Help me reach my goals, and every wish you have will be fulfilled. That’s my promise to you."

She reached a hand gently toward Ashley across the desk. "Do we have a deal?"

...Ashley had no other choice, and they both knew it.

So when Ashley finally extended her hand and clasped Brianna’s in a firm grip, Brianna felt no surprise at all.

"Thank you." She withdrew her hand and remembered a more practical matter. "That favor I asked you for..."

"Oh, right." Ashley was reminded, and pulled open a drawer. "All taken care of."

"That fast?"

"Called in a personal favor. Since I don’t have a search warrant, I couldn’t officially request a replacement SIM card in the department’s name, so I said you were a friend of mine and had someone do it quietly on the side. Here — take it."

Brianna drew a slow, deep breath, extended Green’s unsteady hand — clumsy, like the hand of someone drunk — and fumbled twice before finally closing her fingers around the old phone on the desk.

According to the rules of the Nest Dominance Game, losing the Black Cube Illusion should have triggered a notification about the Illusion changing hands. But her original phone had likely sunk to the bottom of the ocean, so the message would never have reached it — her assumption was that once she had a new phone, the notification would come through immediately.

Sure enough, the moment the phone powered on, it buzzed and buzzed with incoming alerts.

Facing a loss was never pleasant, but—

Brianna stared at the messages flooding onto the screen.

At first, she only thought, ah, so the Black Cube really did end up in Chaisi’s hands — but then, three or four seconds later, another truth hit her like a block of ice tumbling into her skull, freezing her thoughts solid.

Player Jin Xueli.

The girl at Chaisi’s side — the one whose bearing and face bore an unsettling resemblance to the Brianna of years past — was a player in the Nest Dominance Game. It was she who had handed the Black Cube to Chaisi.

The message stated that Chaisi had pointed a gun at Jin Xueli — but judging by what had happened that night, the two of them had clearly already formed some kind of alliance.

Alliances between players were nothing unusual in the Nest Dominance Game.

Which meant...

It came back to her in a daze — that night, after Chaisi had been transferred to a hospital under the Westley Family’s name, Morando was supposed to have dealt with him then and there.

But Morando had called her afterward and said that someone had shown up out of nowhere and pulled Chaisi out.

Brianna hadn’t asked further — Morando had already been in a terrible state of mind — and she had always assumed the intruder was a Kai Family Hunter, someone with exceptional combat ability or an Illusion powerful enough to suppress Morando, which was why Morando hadn’t been able to finish the job and kill Chaisi.

Funny, wasn’t it — Chaisi had Jin Xueli with him the entire time that night, didn’t he?

And yet it had never once crossed Brianna’s mind that the person who went to save Chaisi might have been Jin Xueli herself. That they were already allied.

It had never once crossed her mind that the reason Morando hadn’t completed the mission might have been because—

Might have been because—

Morando hadn’t been willing to lay a hand on Jin Xueli.

Morando had already met her. Morando had already spoken to her. Morando had already let her go. Morando had already — Morando had already—

"...Are you all right? What’s wrong?"

Ashley’s voice seemed to be coming from somewhere very far away, reaching her ears and dissolving before it could take hold.

"Hm? I’m fine."

She didn’t know how much time had passed, but Brianna heard her own voice — almost cheerful — when it finally came.

"I thought I’d just discovered something terrible. But the more I think about it, the more I realize it might actually be a good thing."

Green’s body had already gone to ruin. It was beyond use.

But that was fine.

Every cloud has a silver lining. Every cloud has a silver lining. Every cloud has a silver lining.

Somewhere out there was the most perfect body in the world.

Once she had that body, the Nest Dominance Game would be down one competitor.

Once she had that body, Brianna could walk back to the side of the person who mattered more to her than her own life — the place that had always been hers.

Her face was wet. Her hands were wet. It felt like being thrown back into the ocean all over again, struggling to breathe.

It didn’t matter. Even if the person Morando loved next was no longer Brianna — it didn’t matter.

Kill Jin Xueli. Slip into her skin. And everything would be all right.

Brianna would be happy again.

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