Date- 13 April 2321
ραndαsnοvεl.cοm Time- 10:32
Location- Southern Region, Southern Capital
The easiest way for a card apprentice to deceive the divine perception of the demigods would be to make their original thoughts with fake thoughts. Wyatt had used this method the first time he met Colleen and other demigods at St. Raymond’s cemetery in Sky Blossom City.
However, the circumstances back then and now were different. Back then Wyatt was not pretending to be unconscious after being severely injured. So Wyatt could not just mask his thoughts by creating a second line of thoughts riddled with the intent to do obscene stuff to Colleen as in an unconscious state one would have no thoughts.
Unless they were dreaming or having nightmares.
Since Wyatt had pretended to pass out from the pain which was the result of backlash of the power he borrowed to face the devil leaving his body. He could continue to project the pain he felt from the tears in his soul to cover the fact that he was not unconscious instead monitoring his surroundings through Hive AI.
Since Hive AI was not a living being, the demigods couldn’t possibly feel its intent so Wyatt was using it to collect and interpret the data from his ears, nose, and skin collected from his surroundings. Meanwhile, the eleven of Wyatt’s mutated soul consciousnesses were projecting eleven different layers of thoughts with pure pain as their intent, with the thoughts of the original consciousness at the bottom of the 12 layers of thoughts. Successfully masking the fact that the original consciousness was monitoring their actions through Hive AI.
This way all Colleen, Henricks, and Joy could perceive through their divine perception was the pain and suffering of Wyatt, eleven times the pain he was feeling from the tears in his soul. If they wanted to perceive this original thought then their divine perception had to be strong enough to bypass the eleven layers of thoughts.
The intent of pain Wyatt’s eleven layers of thoughts were projecting was so intense that the demigods felt his pain not just sense he was in pain. They say the power of thoughts was infectious and could achieve the impossible so imagine what the power of eleven overlapping thoughts could achieve and how contagious they were.
Eleven layers of pain-filled thoughts combined with his selfless act of sacrificing himself to save the world and its people, was enough for Wyatt to gain the full trust and faith of Henricks, Colleen, Joy, or anyone else in this world.
Wyatt processed all these thoughts and acted on them in a mere second as Colleen came forward to carry Wyatt in her embrace watching his body be drained of vitality and leave a skinny shell of a body that began to free fall as he lost consciousness. His prior preparation did help.
While pretending to be in a vegetative state, Wyatt began to watch the situation unfold through Hive AI while his other consciousness project the sharp intent of soul-tearing pain.
Considering that he had incubated the plague in his body, Wyatt believed Colleen would hand over his body to Henricks in order to rid the world of the world-ending plague before it hatched. That was the logical choice. Though the plague was sealed, one could not risk the presence of such a sinister existence in their world as it could bring the end to everything they held dear and knew.
But to his surprise, Colleen did not hand him over to Henricks rather planned to take him back to the royal palace grounds. Wyatt had no idea why Colleen would do this, was it because of guilt? Or her greed for his VR universe? Either way by not handing him over to Henricks, she was basically putting a stop to his plans to gain the coordinates of the world in which Freedom Fighters were hiding in.
Wyatt’s surprise further intensified was he saw that Henricks did not even bother to stop Colleen and ask her to hand my plague-riddled body over to him to properly dispose of it. Thankfully, plague doctor Joy did. But Colleen continued to be stubborn and did not heed Joy’s words of reason. Forcing Henricks to come forward and try and talk reason with Colleen. However, they both failed to persuade Colleen to change her mind.
Meanwhile, the demigods who had recovered, seeing that the devil had died, began to pour out of the royal palace ground and surround them scaring Wyatt that his efforts to con Henricks were going to amount to nothing. So in a moment of fear that Colleen’s stubbornness would ruin his plans Wyatt had Hive AI use the southern royal family’s secured channel to send the following short text,
[Colleen, send me with Henricks. Trust me, I always keep my promise.]
[Kid, I knew you were using your pain to mask your true intent. Don’t worry, I am just helping you sell it.]
Colleen replied immediately, the reason she was able to tell that Wyatt was using pain to mask his true thoughts was because Anna had explained to her why Wyatt was brazenly thinking of doing obscene things to his wife’s grandma with his wife right next to him.
Apparently, in a family full of demigods Anna had to practice something of a similar nature constantly to protect the privacy of her thoughts.
The fact that Colleen never thought of this with a demigod husband, children, and subordinates showed that she was never worried about revealing her true thoughts to people close to her. With her simple, single-minded, and straightforward personality, it was understandable that she never felt the need to do so. Besides no demigod in the southern region would dare to perceive the thoughts of the Soldier Queen.
Since Colleen could figure out what Wyatt was up to it would not be long before Henricks and Joy suspect this. Therefore she had distracted their thoughts by shifting all their attention from Wyatt to her. Understanding that everyone loved a good bargain Colleen figured Henricks would be less on guard against Wyatt if he were to snatch Wyatt from her hands instead of her just passing Wyatt to him. Hence, she acted the part while genuinely doing her best to keep Henricks from snatching Wyatt from her only to come to a realization that she was still far from possessing the strength to contend with the world’s top demigods.