Xia Lun's plan was clear. The Incantation Bell needed time to weaken the seal, so he could use Blood-red Graffiti to send it back to the previous layer of the dream.
After all, White Line's Cycle Layer was ten years in the past relative to the Nightmare Layer he was in. Sending the bell back would give it the long time it needed to weaken the seal.
Buzz.
The moment the bell vanished, Xia Lun's vision suddenly dimmed.
"The seal's gone!" Ping Tou exclaimed behind him. "How did that work?"
Xia Lun did not answer. He glanced to the side and saw that the once-impregnable Light Wall had dissolved. Glittering motes drifted down like falling petals, lending the solemn, towering doors a strange, dreamlike beauty.
With the seal gone, the enormous stone doors abruptly shifted from closed to open, as though several frames had been skipped.
Beyond them, a long stone bridge spanned an abyss. At its far end lay a circular platform, with an ivory-white shrine at its center. And on the shrine's crimson velvet rested the Numien Mirror!
After all his efforts and every obstacle he had overcome, he had finally found the Numien Mirror!
The prize was right there!
A tremendous sense of achievement surged through Xia Lun. He waved to his two dumbstruck teammates, then strode onto the bridge. As he approached the platform, he finally got a clear look at the Numien Mirror.
Despite its name, the Numien Mirror had no reflective surface. It was translucent as jade, its colors changing with the angle of view. Its shape was stranger still. At first glance, it looked like several L-shaped pieces fitted together, but it was actually made of multiple Penrose Triangles nested within one another!
A Penrose Triangle was an "impossible triangle" created through an