Bai Mo suddenly raised a hand, his brow furrowing. "Wait... something's approaching."
At his words, Lin Yun and Jiu Jia Yi turned almost simultaneously.
In the distant void, a fissure had opened without anyone noticing. A gigantic figure slowly emerged, eyeless and without a mouth or nose, as though pieced together from countless fragments. Every patch of its "skin" reflected a different face. Some were laughing, some crying, some roaring, and others were staring at the three of them.
"Replicas..." Bai Mo's face went pale. "They sensed the disturbance in the Eye of the Center. They're closing in."
Lin Yun quickly stepped forward and raised both hands. Blue light burst from her palms, spreading like ripples across water and forming a transparent barrier between the three of them and the monster.
"They're residual images created by the Eye of the Center," she explained, her voice urgent but clear. "They have no thoughts, only the instinct to capture, replace, and reassemble."
Jiu Jia Yi's gaze was as sharp as a blade. "Then how do we get out?"
"Get out?" Lin Yun smiled. "Once the door has been fully opened, it can't be closed. The only way out is for me to awaken the Eye's core consciousness, and then—"
"Then?" He stepped closer, his voice low and firm.
"Then we see whether it's willing to let us go." Her words struck his heart like a muffled thunderclap.
"Then at least tell me your real name," Jiu Jia Yi said quietly. "Otherwise, I won't even feel at ease calling out to you."
Lin Yun looked at him for a long time before slowly uttering two syllables.
"Yan Zhi."
The corner of Jiu Jia Yi's mouth twitched, but he said nothing more. He merely nodded, took a deep breath, and held the Short Blade in a reverse grip as he moved to her side.
"Then we do this together," he said.
Lin Yun—no, Yan Zhi—glanced at him, then turned away.
She slowly walked toward the eye floating in the void, her steps resolute. Each one seemed to confront her past, to bid farewell to the forgotten versions of herself.
The pupil of the Eye of the Center slowly closed, then slowly opened again, as though responding to her approach.
Deep within that eye, a blurred figure was awakening. It had no human form, but was instead a mass of flowing consciousness, a nightmarish presence—the true "Master of the Mirror."
It opened its eyes and looked at Yan Zhi.
The entire Mirror Realm trembled once more.
Yan Zhi's footsteps felt especially heavy in the empty expanse of the Mirror Realm, each one seeming to tread upon invisible memories. Those memory fragments, like cicada wings floating on water, shimmered with a faint blue glow, shattering, spinning, and fading beneath her feet.
She did not walk quickly, but her pace was unwavering. With every step, she could feel the intensely oppressive gaze of the Eye of the Center. It was contact at the level of the soul, an intrusion without words that conveyed more than thousands upon thousands of them.
"It knows I'm here." Yan Zhi's voice was so low it was barely audible, yet in the silent Mirror Realm, it seemed to thunder, sending a jolt through Jiu Jia Yi and Bai Mo.
Jiu Jia Yi stared fixedly at her retreating figure as an inexplicable agitation rose within him. He had never been one to grow anxious easily. From fighting his way out of the Red Cloud Suite to the hellish theater and the dream room with its bewildering distortions, he had always remained calm and rational. But now, he felt like a bystander who could not keep pace with events, able only to watch helplessly as Yan Zhi walked alone toward some abyss from which there was no return.
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