This Nightmare Behemoth was actually not as useless as Aiden had described.
When the Nightmare Behemoth charged through people's bodies, it would amplify their negative emotions tenfold, a hundredfold. Even the slightest bit of fear, after such amplification, could directly scare someone to death.
It wasn't that Aiden had no way to directly make this Nightmare Behemoth vanish into thin air, but that wasn't a good choice. This was the world inside N'Zoth's body, and things more terrifying than the Nightmare Behemoth were everywhere. If one couldn't overcome the fear in their heart, they would never be able to defeat this God of Nightmare.
In the face of fear, avoidance wasn't the solution. Only by facing it could one conquer it!
With Aiden setting an example, everyone else could face it calmly. Furthermore, the Naaru working together to release a power that soothed the mind greatly weakened the effect of fear. However, when the Nightmare Behemoth charged through the crowd, some heroes were still terrified.
The feeling of being penetrated by the Nightmare Behemoth was truly terrible—it was like being flushed from the inside out by the filthiest things in the sewers, making one feel incomparably disgusted.
Refreshing? Perhaps only those who felt no fear in their hearts would think it was merely refreshing.
After the Nightmare Behemoth charged through the crowd, it disappeared into the deeper darkness behind them, vanishing without a trace.
This black mist was filled with N'Zoth's eyes. It was constantly observing the reactions of these two hundred-plus heroes. It never expected to succeed with a single attack, and had even prepared for multiple attacks to be completely resolved by Aiden alone. But it hadn't expected Aiden to not do that, but instead to teach these heroes how to fight against it.
This was bad news.
Aiden seemed to understand them, the Old Gods, very well, understanding their characteristics and weaknesses, completely clear on how to fight against them, and even able to turn its own kind against it!
N'Zoth realized that it had to use some powerful means.
"See how long you can protect these weak mortals!" N'Zoth roared from within the churning black mist.
It had no way to deal with Aiden, but that didn't mean it had no way to deal with the other heroes.
"Then bring it on!" Aiden responded.
They all stood within the huge defensive barrier he had created. This barrier had good defensive capabilities against real attacks, but had no special protective abilities against illusions. In fact, unless he obscured everyone's senses, as long as people could see and hear, they would be affected by illusions. This was unavoidable.
Just then, N'Zoth launched the second round of attacks.
A cloud of black smoke suddenly emerged from within the barrier, making this only place illuminated by light become dim.
Everyone felt their vision obstructed. Although only a few seconds passed before the holy energy dispelled the black mist, restoring light to the area, the barrier had completely changed—the barrier that had originally only contained two hundred-plus heroes now contained several hundred more people—and they possessed exactly the same appearances as the heroes who had come to punish N'Zoth.
Without a doubt, these were illusions created by N'Zoth.
They were so realistic that people simply couldn't distinguish whether the person in front of them was their comrade or an illusion.
What happened next was predictable. The illusions launched attacks against the real heroes, and through a series of precise and complex changes, when the heroes launched counterattacks, these attacks would always be transferred to their real companions.
Moreover, these illusions weren't just illusions. Their attacks were also lethal. If a hero was hit by an illusion's attack, they would develop a strong psychological suggestion in their mind, to the point that corresponding wounds would appear on their body.
"Don't panic, look for the mark!" Aiden suddenly shouted loudly.
The real Naaru within the barrier used holy light to connect themselves together, while at the same time, holy light symbols resembling the Naaru's bodies appeared on the foreheads of the real heroes.
This mark completely separated the real heroes from the illusions, allowing the heroes to find their opponents.
And although N'Zoth, hiding in the shadows, immediately imitated the exact same mark on the foreheads of the illusions it created, these imitated marks didn't have the power of holy light, and couldn't be sensed by the real heroes, so they had no effect.
After a round of fighting, all the illusions were eliminated, and N'Zoth's second wave of attacks was also resolved.
This was within N'Zoth's expectations. It didn't show anger or lose its composure because of this failure, but calmly said, "You've luckily escaped another calamity. Congratulations!"
"I really hope you mean that sincerely," Aiden said.
"Of course it's sincere, because my warm-up is over, and now it's time to get serious," N'Zoth said with a sinister voice.
It wasn't lying. This time, it had indeed decided to use the most powerful means to deal with those mortal heroes.
It believed that apart from Aiden, not many people would be able to withstand such a test.
"Are you ready to face true fear?"
Black mist once again rose from within the barrier, similarly obscuring everyone's senses, and the Naaru's attempts to dispel the black mist weren't as successful as before. People were still trapped in the black mist, unable to even sense the people around them.
This time, the first voice that came wasn't Aiden's, but N'Zoth's intimidation:
"Feeling lonely? Fear? Feeling helpless?"
"Good, that's right—welcome to the most real world in your hearts!"
"What is reality? Do you think that what you see, hear, and touch is reality? No, no, those are all illusions. Time is false, space is false, the world you see is just the communication of collective will, everything you perceive is just a bunch of false signals. You have never stayed in that world, Azeroth? Valoran? The stars and the earth? No, no, that's just a box that makes your mind produce endless illusions. That is the prison that imprisons your spirit, the shackles of your freedom!"
"You have always been alone, see clearly, the place where you really are—is here!"
Almost all the heroes opened their eyes under the urging of this voice, and then they found themselves in an extremely unfamiliar environment.
Jaina was a famous genius mage of Azeroth, and of course she also participated in this campaign to punish N'Zoth. If this campaign hadn't been too dangerous, and if the Kingdom of Lordaeron couldn't have been without Prince Arthas, her fiancé would certainly have participated in this campaign as well.
In fact, Arthas had strongly requested this, but in the end, Lord Aiden didn't agree to his request, but instead let him stay outside to preside over the battle against the claws of the evil god. This was also quite important, Aiden didn't want to see them fighting against the God of Nightmare, only to have their home base destroyed by the enemy's minions.
At this time, Jaina couldn't feel her body at all, nor could she feel her weight, as if she had become a soul.
If it were normal times, even if she were calm, she would probably be a little at a loss at this time, but before participating in this campaign, Aiden had instructed everyone that N'Zoth was best at creating nightmares and illusions, and no matter what happened, they shouldn't easily believe it, and even more so, they shouldn't panic.
"This is an illusion, a dream!" Jaina told herself in her heart.
She recalled N'Zoth's whispers in the darkness just now, which sounded really creepy, but Jaina recalled Aiden's instructions to them—not even a punctuation mark of what the Old Gods said could be believed!
So that must be N'Zoth saying it to deceive people.
Although it made a lot of sense, wasn't the clever trickster always nine and a half true words out of ten, but always able to make the deceived believe in that half a lie?
Now Jaina felt that her mental power could almost extend infinitely, this state was really wonderful.
She began to observe the surrounding environment, but what she sensed in front of her was a bit surprising—she saw a projection, and the projection showed her own image.
Jaina leaned over and found that this projection was indeed her, and it was her classic image—wearing a sky-blue mage robe and a cloak, and there were even floating words next to the three-dimensional projection, writing "Jaina Proudmoore."
"What the hell is N'Zoth up to?"
Jaina muttered to herself.
She had originally prepared to fight. She thought her enemy might be a ferocious Nightmare Behemoth, or even a powerful Faceless One, or N'Zoth's tentacles, spells, or even itself.
But none of these appeared. She only saw herself.
Jaina was a little curious. She really wanted to know what N'Zoth had arranged this scene for, so she poked her projection with a finger that only existed in soul perception.
And it was this poke that instantly flooded her mind with a large amount of information, which almost drove her crazy!
Jaina let out a painful scream. She didn't know how long it took before she reacted and mechanically sorted out the information she had just obtained:
"Access material library—Jaina Proudmoore, permissions: visitor"
"Open database"
"Collecting data…"
"From timeline T3385136, display relevant information"
Then Jaina saw all the records of herself from birth to the present, and she experienced her twenty-plus years of life again from the perspective of an observer.
She felt that she had forgotten most of this content, but when she experienced it again, she realized that she remembered it again.
If it was just like this, she would only guess that N'Zoth must have used some means to read her memory, or that this evil god itself had been paying attention to her all along, but what she saw was not only these.
A few years ago, Aiden led a small team to Northrend, raided Icecrown Citadel, and prepared to kill the Lich King Ner'zhul with a decapitation tactic. Later, their operation failed, and they brought back a female archmage named Anna.
Although Jaina didn't interact much with this Anna, as a woman, her intuition told her that this Anna definitely had a problem.
It's just that she didn't expect the problem to be so big, so big that it was beyond her imagination!