Two-Sided Mirror Image

When Lin Xiu slammed heavily onto the laboratory's metal floor, he nearly shattered his back teeth from clenching them.

The icy metal floor dug painfully into his knees, while the air reeked of motor oil and the scorched aftermath of electrical arcs.

He braced himself on one knee and panted hard. Beads of blood seeped from his temple, ran down his jaw, and dripped into his collar. The searing pain only made his mind clearer—this was pain from the real world, not an illusion within the consciousness space.

The smell of blood filled his nostrils, making him even more certain that he had escaped that void.

"Oracle, armor status." He loosened his collar and pressed his knuckles against the floor as he pushed himself into a half-kneeling position.

The moment his fingertips touched the ground, a chill shot from his palm straight to his elbow.

The sensation of Nanobots crawling across his skin abruptly stalled. The system's mechanical voice came through his earpiece: "The core module has detected an unknown data stream. Its source dimension is abnormal. Attempting to decode... Decoding failed.

This data possesses autonomous evolution characteristics. Immediate isolation is recommended."

Evolution?

Lin Xiu's pupils contracted slightly.

His temples throbbed as though a thin needle were gently picking at his nerves.

He tore off the armor interface at his wrist. A pale blue band of energy gathered in his palm, forming a holographic display. The data stream twisted like a living creature, restructuring itself every second.

The characters possessed a bizarre, dynamic beauty, as though they were whispering, breathing, watching.

The laboratory's emergency lights flickered overhead. Cold white light cast the characters in an eerie blue-gray, making them resemble vines growing through the darkness.

Static electricity made his skin tingle faintly, as if the entire space were wrapped in invisible pressure.

"You brought back something that should not exist."

A sinister male voice came from above, carrying an echo like metal scraping against metal.

Lin Xiu abruptly looked up and saw Icarus Vaughn floating in midair amid the shattered walls and ruins of a church.

The wind whipped his robes, carrying the scent of damp earth and decaying magic.

Dark purple energy churned along the edges of his black robes. The star map swirling in his pupils was murkier than when they had last met, as though some force had forcibly torn open cracks within it.

His voice rasped like grinding ice, every word oppressive. "What do you think you're playing with?"

Lin Xiu wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and used the momentum to stand.

Nano Armor automatically covered his right leg, the sound of metal grinding especially clear in the silence.

He could hear the faint clicks of the armor joints locking together, like a steel beast awakening.

"If you know what it is, you might as well say so." He deliberately emphasized the word "know"—this mage, who was always probing him in the consciousness space, was clearly hiding more secrets.

Icarus's fingertips brushed over the silver patterns on the front of his robe. The markings suddenly sprang to life and raced toward the ground, drawing a translucent energy barrier between them.

Strange magical runes flowed across the barrier's surface, like an ancient language whispering.

Lin Xiu could feel the magical particles flowing within the barrier trying to infiltrate his armor. The Oracle System immediately issued an alert: "Reality anchor interference detected. Activation of the Anti-Mental Force Field is recommended."

"It's residual consciousness." Lin Xiu suddenly cut him off as the holographic display in his palm erupted in dazzling white light.

The spots of light fell across his face, flickering like a mask.

He stared at the fragmented images that had suddenly appeared in the data stream—a laboratory, a Quantum Collider, another version of himself speaking into empty air. "Oracle, record all data."

The images were colder in tone than his memories, as if they had been soaked in liquid nitrogen.

The background sounds coming from the images were blurred and distant, like whispers crossing time and space.

Icarus's pupils suddenly constricted.

His floating body dropped half a meter at once, and the energy bands at the hem of his robes went dark, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. "You..." He reached out, only to pull his hand back the instant it touched the barrier. "You shouldn't have deciphered it so quickly."

"I didn't bring this back. It found me on its own." Lin Xiu looked down at the holographic display. The fragments began assembling into a complete timeline: another version of himself touched the Crystal Pyramid in the consciousness space, remained for 0.3 seconds longer before the crack closed, and planted this "seed" within the Nanocore.

He suddenly laughed, carrying the excitement of an experimenter who had discovered a new variable.

There was a hint of dangerous pleasure in his smile, like a hunter finding a flaw in his prey.

Icarus's figure suddenly became illusory.

He looked up toward the laboratory dome, where New York's daylight could faintly be seen—the sun of the main timeline was rising.

"I'm warning you, when two consciousnesses begin to resonate..."

Before he could finish, his figure had completely vanished.

A faint scent of ozone and a wisp of lingering magical fluctuation remained in the air.

Lin Xiu looked at the empty ruins, his fingertips brushing the patterns on his armored bracer.

The Oracle System prompted in his ear: "Target energy fluctuations have disappeared. Current security level has risen to Level Two."

He bent down and picked up the tactical goggles from the ground. Bloodstains from his fall still marked the lenses—the once-warm liquid had long dried, leaving dark brown streaks.

He stared at them for a moment, then said quietly, "It's time to return to the laboratory. There are more important things waiting to be verified."

The underground laboratory lights automatically came on when Lin Xiu pushed open the door, soft blue light spilling through the entire space.

A faint smell of coolant lingered in the air.

He gently imported the encrypted data into an independent computing node, as though handling a fragile glass object.

The blue light from the computing node reflected off his taut jawline. When the conclusion "residual consciousness" appeared on the screen, his fingertips pressed shallow dents into the console.

"A self-projection from a parallel timeline." He repeated the system analysis to the empty air, his voice so low it sounded like he was talking to himself. "That version of me knew what would happen in the main timeline, so he left behind this data..."

"Beep—"

The armor core suddenly emitted a sharp buzz.

Lin Xiu looked down and saw the energy matrix on his chest armor restructuring itself. The original blue light patterns were overlaid with gold and crimson, like lava flowing beneath ice.

The Oracle System's prompt carried an unusual tremor: "Dimensional Eye energy residue detected. Tactical Form Phase Seven has been triggered.

This form can maintain full combat capability for ten minutes in extreme environments. Current remaining uses: 3."

"Extreme environments..." Lin Xiu raised an eyebrow.

The instant he pressed the test button, gravity in the laboratory abruptly vanished.

A floating wrench struck the ceiling. The Vibranium solution in a petri dish condensed into a blue sphere of water. Even the dust in the air slowly spun.

The weightlessness made his stomach churn. He staggered and grabbed the console as Nano Armor automatically deployed stabilizer fins.

Instrument readings in his vision jumped wildly until he gritted his teeth and severed the connection between the armor and the core—the sensation of weightlessness vanished instantly, and every object crashed back onto the floor with a boom.

The sound of metal striking metal echoed through the sealed space, making his eardrums tingle.

Lin Xiu wiped the cold sweat from his temple. Just as he was about to inspect the damaged equipment, the laboratory's holographic display suddenly lit up.

The Ancient One's image appeared in the air. Her robes did not have a single wrinkle, yet her gaze was deeper than ever. "You opened the Mirror Gate, child."

"The Mirror Gate?" Lin Xiu took half a step back, his back pressing against the cold metal wall.

He could feel the chill from the wall seeping through his clothes and into his skin.

"The version of you over there may not wish to return." The Ancient One's image began to distort like a lake disturbed by a tossed stone.

There seemed to be a faint current crackling in the air.

Following her gaze, Lin Xiu turned and faced the full-length mirror in the corner of the laboratory—inside it, another version of himself stood where he had just been.

That Lin Xiu wore the same tactical uniform, but there was no trace of blood on him. His eyes were cold as frost, and there was no excitement of an experimenter at the corners of his mouth—only a sinister certainty of victory.

More strangely, when Lin Xiu raised his right hand, the "self" in the mirror raised his right hand at the same time; when he held his breath, the chest of the "person" in the mirror also stopped rising and falling.

The laboratory alarm suddenly blared, its piercing buzz cutting through the silence.

Lin Xiu stared at the face in the mirror, identical to his own, and heard the Oracle System urgently warn in his ear: "Quantum entanglement anomaly detected. Parallel consciousness is infiltrating the main timeline..."

The "Lin Xiu" in the mirror suddenly smiled.

His fingertip lightly tapped the mirror, and a spiderweb of cracks spread from the point of contact.

Lin Xiu instinctively reached for the Vibranium dagger at his waist, but the instant his fingers touched the hilt, he saw the "self" in the mirror press his hand against the same spot.

The cracks grew denser and denser.

Lin Xiu could hear the brittle sound of glass about to shatter, mixed with the violent pounding of his own heart.

His heartbeat hammered at his temples like a war drum.

He suddenly realized that when he had touched the Crystal Pyramid in the consciousness space, the images that flashed by seemed to include this mirror as well—except the reflection then had been the ruins after the Battle of New York, and himself standing amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood in Apocalypse Form armor.

"Oracle, lock onto the source of the mirror energy." His voice tightened slightly.

"Locking on... Source... Full-length mirror in the main timeline laboratory... Parallel consciousness infiltration progress: 17%..."

The "Lin Xiu" in the mirror raised his hand. Just as his fingertip was about to pass through the cracks, Lin Xiu saw a line of pale golden words on the inside of his wrist—a mark carved by Nanobots, but instead of "enter," it read "replace."

All the laboratory lights suddenly went out.

In the darkness, Lin Xiu heard the crisp sound of shattering glass, mixed with the whisper of another self, clear as if it were right beside his ear: "My turn now."