"'He' only said that much?" Ben Hong's indifferent gaze shifted away from the magic card. She did not ask Chen Rui to hand it over, merely falling silent.
Chen Rui did not hide anything from Ben Hong, recounting his experiences in Phantom Forest. Naturally, he glossed over the Mirror World, saying only that, without knowing the truth, he had been guided by the Legendary Prophet into a life-or-death wager with Lucifer. In the end, he had won by sheer luck, while the defeated Lucifer and the Supreme Key had merged into Eluxier's "Dark Monarch" magic card.
Though Ben Hong appeared calm, Chen Rui could still sense her desolation. After escaping the Mirror World, Chen Rui had gained a deeper understanding of that strange world's mysteries. The Mirror World had actually been a blended realm of his, Lucifer's, and Eluxier's inner consciousnesses. It was both a reflection of one's own mind and a refraction of the minds of a second and third person.
The main characters formed by Chen Rui's mental reflection in the Mirror World had been Athena, Jia, Lola, and the others, while Lucifer's had been Satan, Ben Hong, Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and the rest. If the characters were compared to the world's "flesh and blood," then the entire world's "skeleton"—including the intersections and conflicting relationships between the characters—had been constructed by Eluxier.
Among them, Chen Rui and Lucifer had merged into one person, becoming the bond linking the characters from both worlds, as well as the protagonist of that entire world.
In that world, Gabriel and Ben Hong's feelings for "Chen Rui"—or rather, for Lucifer—must have been, to a considerable extent, genuine reflections.
Judging by Gabriel's words and actions in Phantom Forest, Lucifer, Satan, Michael, Ben Hong, and the others had initially belonged to the same faction, much