Choke her he did, but he was afraid Adanis wouldn’t be able to swallow that breath in her chest; if things went on, what had started as her "fake fight" might turn into the real thing, and that would be bad.
With that in mind, the Black Earl decided to speak up and ease the mood on both sides.
How to ease it? Naturally, by choosing a topic both sides would be interested in, diverting the current mood and attention. Ideally, this topic would also involve the copper mirror.
"Angel, earlier you and the senior of the Noah line kept talking about making the copper mirror into a ’true’ Twinborn Mirror. What does that mean?" After a moment’s thought, the Black Earl asked.
This question, in fact, was also something the Black Earl himself wanted to ask.
Angel seemed to know a great many things, and because of that, when he spoke with Augustine, a mere hint was enough for the two of them to understand each other. But for everyone else present, including the Black Earl, they had no idea what was going on and could only sit there in a daze, listening.
Since the Black Earl had decided to smooth things over, he might as well ask a question he was curious about himself.
He believed Angel would understand what he was getting at.
...
Angel certainly understood what the Black Earl was thinking. The Black Earl speaking up now was precisely in hopes of finding a topic that would pique Adanis’ curiosity, shifting the subject and her focus, lowering her anger level, and preventing it from building up until it truly exploded.
It was just that the Black Earl’s method of easing tension clearly carried his own agenda; now it depended on whether Angel was willing to pick up the cue.
And Angel’s choice, naturally, was to go along with it.
As for the Twinborn Mirror, his earlier discussion with Augustine had already allowed everyone to faintly guess a few things; moreover, even if he kept it secret now, once the Black Earl went to the Origin World in the future, he would find out sooner or later.
After all, Augustine’s Twinborn Mirror was very famous in the Origin World. By then, with just a bit of associative thinking, Olao’s secret would come out as well, so there was no harm in saying it now.
Thinking this, Angel said, "About the Twinborn Mirror... this actually has to do with a secret tale I once heard, and that secret tale originally came from Lady Isabel of the Black Castle."
Angel could have started from the present moment, but since the aim was to distract Adanis, he simply went all the way back to the source and began from when he met Lady Isabel several years ago.
As for Angel’s ability to tell a story... it was average.
However, his Illusion Technique had very strong expressive power; combined with illusion, he could let people experience full immersion, as if they were personally living through the events.
At first, Adanis still didn’t want to step into the full-immersion illusion, but as the story rose and fell, ever more gripping, she gradually loosened the guard around her heart.
—Hadn’t Angel just said that he trusted Olao, and so trusted her as well?
Those words... should be true, right? Then, could she perhaps interpret it another way: that since Olao trusted Angel, she ought to trust Angel too?
Olao... Adanis stroked the copper mirror. It was ice-cold to the touch, yet in her illusion, it felt as if she were touching Olao’s burning-hot body.
Adanis shook her head, casting aside the fantasies in her mind.
She wanted to understand Olao on a deeper level— not just the copper mirror, but also the things Augustine and Angel had spoken of.
Then perhaps she could try trusting Angel, just this once.
Besides, even if Angel really did try to play tricks inside the illusion, Adanis wasn’t afraid... You could say that the thing she feared least was control-type abilities. She could enter the Mirror Domain at any time; control-type abilities were nothing but decorations to her.
And illusion, in Adanis’ view, was precisely a control-type ability.
With that thought, Adanis took the initiative to drop her resistance, letting her body sink into the full-immersion illusion.
Now, Angel had much more room to operate.
One had to know that Angel’s illusion possessed a hidden ability: the manipulation of emotions. It was exactly because of this ability, combined with the cooperation of the Nightmare Illusion, that his Talent of Hyper Perception had been derived.
Thus, without her knowing it, Angel began to interfere with Adanis’ emotions.
What Angel called interference was not forcibly changing Adanis’ emotions, but rather moistening things silently, letting her become immersed in the illusion and gradually letting her negative emotions fade.
Put plainly, it was just enhancing the allure of the illusion.
In Jon’s words, it was making the "full-immersion movie"’s lens language more emotionally charged; the actors’ performances more moving... In other words, performing "artistic processing" on top of the facts.
And since Angel could perceive emotions, he had an innate advantage in this regard.
Sure enough, as Angel strengthened the narrative quality of the story, he could clearly sense Adanis’ wariness slowly dropping, while her curiosity increased step by step.
And whenever one mystery was resolved and Adanis showed a look of sudden realization, a new mystery would follow right on its heels, keeping her hooked.
With his words and illusions working in tandem, Angel leisurely unfolded the answer to the question the Black Earl had asked.
Interspersed within were some explanations about Mysterious Objects, as well as some Mysterious Objects related to the Twinborn Mirror—for example, the Book of Kael, which was as famous as the Twinborn Mirror.
The narrative kept branching out, yet never straying too far from the topic, fully captivating everyone’s attention.
In the end, accompanied by Augustine’s vision and Angel’s self-effacing remarks, the truth of the Twinborn Mirror was brought to a satisfying close.
The process was somewhat embellished, but the basic content was true.
Only now did Adanis finally understand the causes and consequences of many matters.
For instance, why Augustine had entrusted Olao to Angel? Because Angel was an Alchemist, and one who had reached the mysterious level of Alchemy.
Though there might have been other considerations, at Augustine’s level, his regard for Angel was definitely not without reason.
With Angel as his cultivator, Olao had a sliver of chance to stand on the same tier as his elder brother, Adigu. If it were someone else fostering Olao, that would be far from guaranteed.
Thinking this, Adanis lowered her head to look at the copper mirror in her hand and fell into a moment of deep contemplation.