Mirror World

"Are you sure we won't get lost?"

"This place doesn't even have the concept of direction; I don't even know how to perform divination for a route."

"Besides, I have a feeling this place is dangerous..."

Listening to the anxious rambling beside him, Cyril shook his head slightly: "You won't get lost with me here. Have you ever seen a Seer get lost?"

"I've never seen a Seer other than myself." Owen curled his lip, stood his wooden staff upright on the ground, and let go.

The staff stood eerily in place, neither falling nor showing any change.

Owen scratched the back of his head in confusion: "Uh... did the Divination Staff Technique fail?"

"It could also be that the next passage is above our heads."

Cyril looked upward, and a dim, illusory, and surreal path appeared before his eyes as he focused.

There were many such dim paths around them, including the very spot where they were standing; they intertwined in a complex, mysterious "web" that stretched beyond sight, together forming a profound and bizarre world distinct from reality.

The Mirror World!

After some not-so-mature deliberation, Cyril decided to go and seek the revelation of fate that Owen had seen.

Although he felt this was likely a scripted arrangement, the prospect of treasure was real; it was probably just a matter of diligently completing the script arranged by the entity behind the scenes to receive his "paycheck."

As these thoughts drifted through his mind, he heard Owen's hesitant voice: "The next passage is above our heads—how are we supposed to get up there?"

"Just walk."

As he spoke, Cyril reached out and pressed his palm against the air in front of him.

Where his palm touched, a dim blue, intangible, and blurry door suddenly appeared.

Unlike the "doors" he usually opened on walls, this blurry blue door seemed to have merged with the surrounding Mirror World.

It strangely intersected the illusory path in front of Cyril, yet it was connected to the passage above their heads.

The Apprentice's ability had undergone some mutations in the Mirror World, taking on the prototype of a portal.

Owen stood to the side, dumbfounded by the sight, his unblinking blue eyes seeming to ask: You can do that?

Cyril nodded slightly and explained: "You can in the Mirror World."

"Although it looks real here, it isn't a true world. It's more like a collection of doors, composed of countless illusory passages that connect different mirrors and different mysterious realms."

"Because it is essentially a collection of countless 'doors,' an Apprentice can influence the surroundings to a certain extent, linking 'doors' that weren't originally connected, or closing 'doors' that have been opened. The latter cannot be done directly; it requires some external items to assist, which is very troublesome."

"However, I don't think all Apprentices can do this. Under normal circumstances, an ordinary Apprentice shouldn't even be able to enter the Mirror World."

"Oh, right." Owen reacted belatedly: "My father didn't leave me any information about the Mirror World, which means an Apprentice below Sequence 7 shouldn't be able to enter the Mirror World at all. How did you manage it?"

Cyril gave a simple explanation: "Due to some factors I cannot disclose, my Door Opening ability has undergone some positive mutations."

Owen nodded gently, not pressing further, and the two walked one after the other into the dim blue door.

The next second, their figures appeared in the illusory passage that had been above them, though to their senses, they were still walking steadily forward.

Owen looked around in awe: "How amazing. Can you directly open a 'door' that connects to our destination?"

"No." Cyril shook his head directly: "The distance is too great. My manipulation of 'doors' cannot exceed the range of my sight."

"Besides, this kind of operation isn't as safe as you think. Getting lost is only one of the potential hazards. The two sides of some 'doors' are not fixed scenes; if you randomly connect 'doors' that aren't linked, you might end up appearing directly in the abyss, or even in the starry sky."

Owen glanced at the dim blue door behind them that had yet to vanish, suddenly feeling a lingering fear.

"Uh... let's just keep walking. I feel like we aren't far from the destination now."

Cyril nodded slightly, but before he could speak, a sudden change occurred. On the originally dim and illusory path, colors of green, bright red, and pitch black appeared out of thin air and spread rapidly, as if the entire scene were a canvas being splashed with oil paint.

The next second, he saw a darkness different from the dimness of the Mirror World and felt the damp, slightly warm air around him.

They had left the Mirror World, but it seemed they hadn't fully entered reality either!

"How could this..."

"Watch out!"

Cyril cut off Owen's confusion, reached out, and pulled him into a forward dive.

Where they had been standing, a faint wind blade sliced silently through the air, leaving a thin, long gully on the ground.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

The sound of air being torn apart came in a dense barrage. Even more numerous and powerful wind blades struck from the darkness.

"Damn it!"

A flash of dim blue light flickered, and Cyril dragged Owen as they vanished from the spot.

The wind blades swept through that position immediately after, and several mirror fragments fell to the ground with a clatter.

Cyril carried mirrors with him, and he had ducked into the Mirror World before the wind blades could hit them.

At the same time, transparent shadows of indescribable shapes and pitch-black liquid emerged from thin air all around, and pale palms reached out from the liquid, grasping at something in the air.

In the Mirror World, Cyril observed the outside through the broken mirror fragments. Looking at the dense mass of transparent shadows and pale palms, he subconsciously rubbed his elbows; the scene was triggering his trypophobia.

The next second, in the center of the area surrounded by countless transparent shadows and pale palms, a pure, scorching, and bright radiance suddenly descended from the sky.

Whether it was the transparent shadows or the pale palms, everything gradually turned translucent under this holy radiance that carried the distinct essence of the "Sun," eventually dissolving into ash and vanishing completely.

As that patch of undead creatures was cleared away, Cyril finally saw clearly the person who had just attacked them.

It was a tall adult male with a distinctive broad jaw, his brown hair tied into an ancient warrior's topknot at the back of his head. He floated in mid-air, buoyed by the wind, which swirled around him like a group of loyal soldiers standing guard.

Seeming to notice Cyril's gaze, he looked over, his dark green eyes filled with undisguised killing intent and coldness.

The next second, on the open ground just cleared by the holy light of the "Sun" domain, one giant humanoid skeleton after another emerged out of thin air.

Each of them stood four or five meters tall, with pitch-black flames burning in their eye sockets. Their white bones appeared illusory and hazy, as if they were a magnified legion of the undead scourge.

In the pitch-black darkness below that resembled the surface of water, pale, illusory palms grew out once more. They looked as if they were molded from rubber, stretching longer and longer, waving upward incessantly in an attempt to grab the tall figure surrounded by the wind.

Before the giant skeletons and pale arms could close in, Cyril saw the man surrounded in the center spread his arms wide, as if to embrace the sun.

But the light he expected did not descend; instead, he froze in place, as if possessed by an evil spirit, unable to control his own body.

Cyril, hiding in the Mirror World and peeking outside, noticed belatedly that a figure had suddenly appeared in his field of vision.

Due to the light and distance, he could not see clearly, only discerning that the figure who had suddenly appeared was not particularly tall, wearing a silk top hat and a black formal suit.

The skeletons and pale palms, which were much taller and more terrifying than him, inexplicably appeared small and weak in the shadow of his figure.

Cyril suddenly lowered his head. He saw the reality of the other person, saw a world that belonged to the dead, and saw a giant Feathered Serpent coiled in the sky above that land of death.

Although he did not see the other person's face clearly, he already knew the other's identity and understood what was happening.

He had encountered Azik Eggers intercepting Qilangos, and he was unlucky enough to be caught in the crossfire.

...This is truly absurd. Although I guessed that the revelation provided by that crystal ball would involve danger, I didn't expect the danger to lie not in the treasure itself, but on the road leading to it.

As these thoughts flickered through his mind, he saw Qilangos's body in mid-air rotting rapidly, decaying until yellow-green pus flowed out, and rotting until chunks of flesh fell off one after another.