Zhang Chen had barely stepped out of the dance studio when something shattered upstairs. In his panic, he moved his left foot twice in succession and nearly fell to the floor. Only by focusing his attention was he barely able to jog.
At that moment, a figure leaped straight down from the spiral staircase, nearly falling to the ground. Drops of blood ran down his body.
It was Jia Xin. His shoulders, thighs, calves, chest, and back were covered in wounds cut by a small knife. They were not mere scratches across the skin, but deep stabs into the flesh.
Enduring the pain, Jia Xin pulled a green pill from his waist. It was identical to the pill he had given Zhang Chen in the woods that day.
The moment he swallowed it, the wounds on his body immediately stopped bleeding.
"Move! Go to where the array was just now! I underestimated that female ghost. Hurry!" Jia Xin ran toward Zhang Chen anxiously.
Suddenly, the sense of danger surged. A deathly pale leg stretched out from the glass on the spiral staircase. Before long, a headless female ghost in a white ballet outfit emerged from the glass, holding a tiny fruit knife.
A female ghost like this might have seemed terrifying to ordinary people, but to Zhang Chen, she did not appear particularly dangerous.
"Jia Xin couldn't possibly be this weak. What's going on? This female ghost doesn't seem that powerful." Zhang Chen stared at the ghost, already poised to kill it in one blow.
"Run!" Jia Xin's expression changed drastically when he saw the ballet ghost behind him.
Yet Zhang Chen suddenly sensed an extremely dangerous aura rushing straight at Jia Xin. Strangely, though, the ballet ghost remained right in front of Zhang Chen's eyes without moving at all.
"What's going on? An illusion?" Zhang Chen thought it was his imagination, but Jia Xin suddenly rolled to the right. Even so, a cut appeared on his neck. Fortunately, due to the medicine's effects, no blood flowed out.
Zhang Chen hurried over and helped Jia Xin up from the floor.
"Go back to where we came in. Let's get out first. Cough—" Jia Xin spat out a mouthful of blood as he spoke.
Zhang Chen nodded. As he helped Jia Xin up, another dangerous aura came at him from behind.
"Watch out!" Jia Xin somehow sensed it too.
Zhang Chen activated his mind and immediately sensed an invisible object like a small knife shooting directly toward his back.
"Break!" Zhang Chen compressed the air and struck the invisible knife, shattering it at once.
The female ghost behind Zhang Chen seemed somewhat surprised and directly slipped back into the glass.
"How did you do that?" Jia Xin had no idea what Zhang Chen had done. He had actually neutralized the bizarre attack that had left him at a loss.
"Let's go first. Your injuries are serious." Zhang Chen was not foolish enough to explain now. He directly supported Jia Xin and headed toward the dance studio.
The moment Zhang Chen pushed open the dance studio door, he froze.
"This... what do we do?"
Inside every mirror in the dance studio, a headless ballet woman with no toes was dancing gracefully. The white bones of their exposed feet rested on the floor, supporting their entire bodies, creating the feeling of a dark ballet.
"There's no choice. You have to help me hold them off. We have to leave through the place where the passage opened. Otherwise, we'll be trapped in the entire Mirror World for the rest of our lives. Use that move from before to block her attacks. I only need to finish setting up the array."
Jia Xin spoke firmly, and his words frightened Zhang Chen as well. If they were trapped here, Wang Yizhi and the others in the outside world would be in danger.
Zhang Chen directly hoisted Jia Xin onto his back and ran toward the center. At that moment, the ballet ghosts in the surrounding mirrors began slowly crawling out of the glass.
Jia Xin had already begun taking crystal sand from his waist and scattering it into a circle.
"How long will it take?" Zhang Chen swallowed as he watched the twisted female ghosts closing in one after another.
"Three minutes!"
The moment he finished speaking, invisible knives flew toward Zhang Chen one after another. If he dodged them, Jia Xin, who was setting up the array behind him, would undoubtedly die.
"Damn it, are all Ghosts this despicable?" Zhang Chen extended his nails and used Telekinesis to block the knives behind him. As for those in front, he could only rely on himself.
He spread his Telekinesis through the space within three meters in front of him. The instant anything entered that range, Zhang Chen slashed at it with both claws.
Bang! The sharp collision numbed Zhang Chen's hand slightly. He had not felt it when using Telekinesis, but only after testing it with his own body did he realize how powerful those knives were.
"Clink, clink, clink—" After blocking ten attacks in a row, two nails on Zhang Chen's right hand had been cut off, while the others were badly chipped.
"Can't we attack their real bodies directly?" Zhang Chen shouted.
"No. They're all fake bodies. I tried it. It's completely useless." Jia Xin had already begun planting the array flags.
Zhang Chen had no way to approach the real bodies of those headless creatures either. The moment he left, Jia Xin would become their primary target.
"So this is teamwork?" Zhang Chen continued desperately blocking every attack flying toward him, while the burden on his body grew heavier and heavier.
Just then, Zhang Chen noticed that among the ballet ghosts that had been staring at him without moving, half of them had begun moving their hands. At the same time their hands moved, Zhang Chen found that his body could no longer move.
"This..." After devouring that large black monster, Zhang Chen's strength had become roughly four times that of an ordinary person. Yet now he could not move at all. It was as though little snakes had wrapped around his body, locking every joint tightly in place.
The number of knives Zhang Chen could sense had decreased by half, but in his current state, even a single knife would be enough to take his life.
"Jia Xin!!!" Zhang Chen shouted.
"Done! The array is activated!" Jia Xin pressed one palm against the floor, and the crystal sand around them slowly rose into the air.
Clang! The incoming knife was knocked away by the silver needles in Jia Xin's hand. Zhang Chen, whose Telekinesis was nearly exhausted, was finally able to relax a little.
"Wait. If we leave now, won't we have to come back in next time to deal with it? Not only would that take a huge amount of effort, but we might still need to suffer serious injuries to solve it. And before we do, who knows what might happen."
Zhang Chen began to grow anxious as well. This was the first time he had been completely helpless against a ghostly creature.
"Mirrors, mirrors... Jia Xin said this is a world inside mirrors. The mirrors inside can't reflect us, but they can reflect its real body. Then if it isn't its real body, shouldn't it be unable to appear in the mirrors either?"
With that guess in mind, Zhang Chen shifted his attention from the ballet ghosts around him and began observing the surrounding mirrors.
"Ha ha, just as I thought!" Zhang Chen looked at the scene reflected in the mirror. There were no female ghosts, nor was there himself. Yet not far behind him, the mirror indeed reflected the real body of the female ghost.
Zhang Chen withdrew all the Telekinesis he had spread out. Then, during the final second before the teleportation began, he concentrated it all together and directly dragged the female ghost's real body into the array.
At the same time, a stream of blood flowed from Zhang Chen's nose.
"Zhang Chen, you..." Jia Xin was shocked, but before he could finish speaking, the teleportation was complete.
The same sensation of being torn apart appeared. Before them were no longer groups of headless ballet ghosts, but there was one beside them—and it had a physical body.
"Jia Xin, keep it under control. I'll eat it." The two retreated to opposite sides at the same time.
Though Zhang Chen's mind was somewhat dizzy, he forcibly held on through sheer willpower.
The female ghost was clearly much weaker after arriving in the real world. At first, it even seemed unable to react, and the knives it sent flying toward Zhang Chen had become visible to the naked eye.
With Jia Xin no longer behind him, Zhang Chen simply turned and dodged the attack.
Just as the female ghost wanted to attack Zhang Chen again, dozens of silver needles pierced directly into its vital points, causing it to collapse to the ground at once.
Zhang Chen smiled and rushed before the female ghost like a ravenous beast. With a lick of his tongue and an opening of his mouth, the sinister atmosphere in the dance studio instantly vanished.
A voice rang out: Devoured one Intermediate Resentful Ghost (Mutated). Saturation gained: 25%. Skill acquired: Mirror (Incomplete). Existing skill: Telekinesis has mutated. Form Change acquired (Small Knife).
Skill discovered: Mirror (Incomplete) has reached a compatibility of 34% with Water (Extremely Incomplete). Fuse them?
"No." Zhang Chen decisively refused. Though one-third was not a small chance, it was still below fifty percent. Zhang Chen would not gamble on it.
Zhang Chen Main Soul Slot Status: Activated Main Soul: Gluttonous Ghost Saturation: 100% (Saturated) Compatibility with Current Body: 41% Secondary Soul Slot Status: Not Activated Number of Skill Slots: 3 Skill Slots Used: 2 Skills Possessed: Telekinesis (Can Evolve, Used), Nail Growth (Arm Portion, Used), Water (Extremely Incomplete, Cannot Be Used), Flesh and Blood (Incomplete, Cannot Be Used), Mirror (Incomplete, Cannot Be Used) Telekinesis: Can use thought to control invisible force. Current proficiency: 87%. Can transform Telekinesis into small knives. Nail Growth: Strength of both arms increased by 350%. Nail hardness increased by 1000%. Length can be controlled at will. Physical Condition: Medium Perception Ability: High Overall Evaluation: Medium Jailer rank: Pawn
"What a huge haul! This is truly a huge haul!" Zhang Chen became somewhat excited after hearing the notification.
At that moment, Jia Xin rushed over, grabbed Zhang Chen by the collar, and roared,
"You were gambling with your life, do you understand? Even if we couldn't kill that female ghost, we could have gone back in once we had a plan. This Five Elements Reversal Array was originally designed based on living people. Adding a ghostly creature into it—who knows what might have happened? If we hadn't been lucky, we might have drifted into another dimension and been crushed to pieces!"
Zhang Chen did not get angry. Jia Xin's words made sense. Zhang Chen shook his head and said,
"I'll listen to you next time. I handled this badly."
As the saying went, taking a step back opened up a world of possibilities. Zhang Chen's concession calmed Jia Xin down as well. His outburst had caused the wounds on his body to split open again, and blood began flowing out.
"I'll take you upstairs first." Zhang Chen carried Jia Xin toward the living quarters on the second floor.
The moment the two left the room and prepared to go upstairs, a hissing sound came from the oil painting studio on the left side of the hall, like the sound of an ink brush painting on paper. At the same time, the swimming pool across from it echoed with the sound of someone swimming.
"What exactly is going on in this place?" Zhang Chen's mind was spinning.
"Go back to the dorm first. We'll talk tomorrow," Jia Xin reminded him from Zhang Chen's back.
Indeed, Jia Xin no longer had the strength to launch even a single attack, while Zhang Chen had overused his Telekinesis. The only thing they could hope for was to get through the night safely.
But would things really be that simple?
Before you continue