Asahi closed the notebook and tucked it into his clothes, simultaneously helping Grisha up.
On the other side, Frieda was also being supported by the Reiss family members. They all cast looks of extreme apprehension at him. Even Rod Reiss, who seemed to be the eldest here, was about to call the security forces, but Frieda stopped him.
As the true Royal Family, the Reiss household naturally had their own private forces for protection. It was just that their identity was highly secret, so they didn't think anyone would know, let alone conspire to steal the power of the Founder.
"Frieda, why did you stop me? If we don't get these people out of here, we'll be in danger!"
"Father, we have always been in danger. Don't try to make things worse."
Frieda said no more after that. The Reiss children trembled, clinging to the adults, and the Reiss parents were not much better. Frieda did not dare to act rashly. She felt that even tens of meters away, all the actions of her family were still under Asahi's control.
At the same time, she didn't need to worry too much about her life. Asahi had stopped the conflict and was not attacking further, indicating that he was not a bloodthirsty person, or at least he didn't crave the Founder's power.
Of course, most importantly, even if they called the security forces, could those people deal with a "monster" like this?
Asahi, at this moment, was only minimally vigilant towards the Reiss family. He helped Grisha sit down, and the latter tremblingly took out a handkerchief to wipe the blood from his nose and mouth.
Having read the notebook and understood Grisha's past and what he had been through, Asahi knew what was happening to him.
"How much time do you have left?"
"Half a year... maximum."
Grisha coughed up blood. A few months ago, his body had begun to deteriorate visibly, signaling that his lifespan was nearing its end. Because of those signs, coupled with the moment the wall was breached, Grisha felt he could no longer postpone the plan to seize the Founding Titan and frantically sought this place out.
However, he realized that things might not have reached such a desperate state. The hole in the Wall had been filled, and he hadn't yet carried out the massacre of the Reiss family.
Asahi couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. Fortunately, he acted in time and managed to salvage the situation.
Besides, Grisha still had half a year to live. The opportunity was still there.
...
"Alright, now everyone here is my hostage."
Asahi sat in the center. To his left was the Reiss family huddled together, and to his right was Grisha Yeager wiping his glasses. Hearing the word "hostage," Grisha didn't show much fear, as the secrets were essentially all revealed in the three notebooks. This was completely different from the Reiss family. It could be said that at this moment, he felt a rare sense of relief.
"Find... the man in white."
Grisha remembered the mysterious voice from earlier. He couldn't help but link the "man in white" with Asahi. But Asahi fundamentally had no element that matched the color white.
Asahi wasn't concerned with his rambling thoughts. He slowly moved closer to Frieda, placing his hands on her temples.
Under her apprehensive gaze and the noisy Reiss family behind her, he couldn't help but feel tired, uttering only one sentence.
"Tsk, I'm not going to crush your head, so don't worry."
What he wanted was to eliminate, or at least push back, the thing "parasitizing" Frieda's mind—most likely the 145th King Fritz recorded in Grisha's notebook. Otherwise, if he started talking honestly, and that coward kept spouting philosophy, it would be troublesome.
Frieda panicked. Her vision twisted and shifted. She appeared inside a seemingly limitless void.
Asahi called this place the Void of Consciousness, the outer layer of the mind. It was where thoughts were constantly generated and disappeared, either randomly or intentionally. A place where one could create everything from a first-person perspective and perceive it from a third-person perspective.
And the self here was a representation of the inner layer, the subconscious. It stored habits, memories, and things belonging to the ego, whether intentional or not. Therefore, the subconscious self was almost no different from the outer self, unless the outer self was a fake.
Frieda knew none of the above. While she was disoriented and confused in this place, she suddenly saw a spectacle too magnificent to imagine.
A colossal, mountain-sized skeletal figure wearing a golden crown appeared, filling her field of vision. The skeleton wore a king's robe, but its entire body was wrapped in countless chains. Four words suddenly popped into Frieda's head: "Vow to Renounce War."
She didn't realize that her own body was also entwined by those chains. Her eyes turned toward a different direction.
It was a figure emitting a dazzling white light, looking somewhat like a knight's armor. This person raised a finger to their forehead, grasped a bow, and drew a golden arrow.
Phok!
The arrow stirred the void of consciousness. It shot straight toward the skeleton. The skeleton raised its bony arm to counter the attack. The two collided, creating a severe shockwave. It blew away Frieda, who was observing nearby. Her head spun, and her vision twisted endlessly.
When she stabilized, only less than a second had passed in the outside world. The scenes she saw just now seemed like an illusion.
Asahi took his hands off the girl's head. Although this was the first time performing this ability, it yielded results.
The scenes Frieda witnessed were an illusion, but also not an illusion. They were the struggle between his will and the 145th King inside Frieda's mental space.
Through the struggle, he realized he had been partly wrong before. This wasn't entirely the will of the 145th King; it was just a kind of rather mindless imposition onto someone else's psyche, constantly eroding Frieda's spirit.
To put it simply, it was like a form of psychological suggestion, but at a deeper level.
Fortunately, this thing wasn't rooted in the subconscious. It was connecting from somewhere else and had only been temporarily repelled by him. Asahi speculated that the "somewhere else" was the Founding Titan itself, or perhaps the "Coordinate" connecting the Subjects of Ymir.
"How did you do that?"
Frieda seemed to forget her fear and stepped forward, shaking Asahi with both hands. She clearly felt that although the Vow to Renounce War was still there, the will of the 145th King was no longer suppressing her.
"Just a little trick. How do you feel? More comfortable?"
"Yes! Since inheriting the power of the Founding Titan, all my decisions have been arranged according to the will of my ancestor. Now, I think I can make my own choices."
"Make your own choices? Tsk..."
Asahi couldn't help but scoff. The Founding Titan, the thing everyone craved. Grisha wanted to seize the Founding Titan to gain freedom, yet Frieda, the current holder of the Founding Titan, had no freedom at all. She didn't even have the fundamental human ability to make her own decisions.