First, Helen gathered all the high ranking officials under her lead as well as all those who had picked up fragments that had to do with the observation of the metaphysical to share her findings and collate their observations. And after five minutes of back and forth argument trying to avoid a frightening conclusion, they inevitably reached that same conclusion nonetheless.
What they had been fighting all these while did not exist. No, rather it should have not existed.
When they collectively pooled the processing power of their brains, they quickly deciphered the True nature of the opponent that hung frozen above their heads.
It was one born out of and sustained by and which gradually gained power from their fears.
The minds of everyone in the meeting became numb, finally gaining a grasp on how insignificant they were on the food chain that was this new world and how their survival was at best tenuous.
Given the fact that Elts, if anything, were supremely adaptable, they had immediately adapted to the 'flow' and direction this world had taken. So far, every opponent the Tyros Empire and her armies had faced was one that still adhered to the very same, cold-hard fundamentals of warfare. Even if the ammunition used by these enemies had taken the form of fragment-derived abilities, all the abilities they had faced up to this point were at worst overwhelming but still very straightforward.
However, the opponent, which was currently frozen above their heads like an execution blade, had come to claim the uncontested top spot as the most complicated and esoteric opponent they would have ever faced so far.
What bothered them and sobered them up to their fragile position on the food chain, however, was the disturbing fact that they could be more things like this, which they might have to face as an enemy in the future.
If the Face of Space had not subtly guided them to the answer, they would have been locked on in a losing battle with nothing but their fears, a battle they would have definitely lost in the end.
They had the Face of Space today, who would guarantee that in that future they would have the aid of such a being.
The smart ones amongst them were already thinking of hatching a contract with the Face of Space; they had to first defeat the paradoxical being hanging above their heads.
And before that, though, they had to find a way to relay their findings to the soldiers currently on the field who were going to once again clash with the appalling horror hanging above them.
Given that fear was an inverse form of belief, they had to relay it in a way that the soldiers would not doubt their words, as if they failed to do so, they would just be throwing their troops into a meat grinder.
Thus, Helen took it upon herself to deliver the message.
Her plan was to do it in a way that would totally undermine any inverted belief they might have used to empower the creature hanging above them in frozen time, not just with words only but with action.
Thus, she sent all the high-ranking leaders under her to first deliver food and drinks to everyone in each unit of her troops.
After they had eaten and drunk to their satisfaction, she went over to meet them in person, one by one, giving them a jiggly, curated version of what they had discovered.
After all, she had to strike a balance between revealing their find so their troops could act and not dampening morale.
"You see, we just found out that we have been trapped in something akin to a terrible dream and an illusion combined. The way to break out of one is to attack the other end of the link. While trying to awake from the dream is difficult, we can overcome this challenge by breaking out of the illusion."
"I don't get it, Your Imperial Majesty. What is the dream and what is the illusion?" One of her footmen asked as she shared the information with his unit.
"The dream is called a walk of annihilation. It targets people groups and traps them in a dream where it forces them to extinction. Anyone it kills in the dream is as good as dead in the real world. In fact, the difference between what happens in the dream and what happens in the real world is often very negligible. It does this by creating an illusion that the people battle with all their might, thinking that it is real....."
"If the dream targets people groups only, would it not be wise for us to break up and flee as individuals?" Another asked.
"Once a people group has been affected, the best the people in the group can do is to break out of the illusion themselves. Running away would only hasten their demise through the dream."
"How do we break out of the dream then? We have already suffered terrible losses as it is." One of the unit leaders asked.
"If we have to break out of the dream, we have to stop playing by the rules of the dream and treat its constructs for what they are: illusions!"
"...Does this mean that those who we have lost in the dream are not truly dead?" A female warrior in the throes of suppressed emotions asked.
Helen held her gaze before drawing her into an embrace.
"Those lost in the dream are lost to us forever. That is why we must honor their sacrifices and succeed. We have to triumph over the dream itself to show them that their sacrifices were not in vain from wherever they might be watching us from."
Group by group, unit by unit, Helen went about revealing her findings to her troops in ways that would not cause panic, a drop in morale, or, worse, cause doubt in their findings. She did her best to answer the questions thrown to her for many good reasons.
...even if there were many questions that she could not offer clear answers to. Like one where one of her soldiers asked if the Face of Space was also a mere construct of the dream, which would vanish along with it once they broke free from the clutches...
Little by little her efforts began to stack. Even without the battle resuming, everyone felt the faith thick in the air. Far from the hopeless 'fight to the death' mindset that they had when they first came into the territory of the Face of Space, everyone believed that winning was as easy as treating the illusion of the fearsome army for what it was: an illusion.