He tightened his grip on the Short Blade, oblivious to the bloody marks its hilt had already gouged into his palm.
"Hey," he called out despite himself.
Yan Zhi stopped and tilted her head slightly, but did not turn around.
"Do you have a way to get all of us out together?"
After a long silence, her voice drifted back, weightless. "No."
"Then why didn't you push me away?" He gritted his teeth. "You knew this gamble might be a one-way trip."
Yan Zhi's shoulders trembled slightly, as though his question had struck a fragile nerve. Only after a long while did she give a soft laugh, tinged with self-mockery and perhaps a trace of barely perceptible apology.
"Because you reminded me that I... was still human."
Before her words had faded, the pupil of the Eye of the Center shuddered violently. An immense surge erupted from its depths like a raging sea. The edges of the Mirror Realm began to collapse, heaven and earth twisting and overturning. The "replicas" emerging from the cracks surged toward them like a black tide, countless faces screaming silently in unison.
Bai Mo's gaze sharpened. He abruptly pulled a ring inlaid with a seven-pointed star formation from his waist and hurled it into the air. The ring hovered between him and Jiu Jia Yi, rapidly expanding a pale golden shield that briefly held the replicas at bay.
"It'll only buy us three minutes!" Bai Mo gritted his teeth. "After that, they'll break through the shield!"
Jiu Jia Yi hesitated no longer. He lunged toward Yan Zhi, his voice hoarse. "Don't shoulder this alone! We can—"
Before he could finish, Yan Zhi spun around and thrust out both palms. An azure curtain of light forced him to a halt.
"Stay there." Her voice had lost all warmth, as though she had become someone else. "This isn't a place you can withstand. Even if you took another ten steps, it would see right through you."
Jiu Jia Yi slammed into the curtain of light and felt a force like deep-sea pressure drive him back. Watching the light slowly sink from Yan Zhi's eyes, he roared, "What gives you the right to decide my fate?!"
The corner of Yan Zhi's eye twitched faintly. Her lips moved, but in the end, she never spoke the words she truly wanted to say.
Not "Go," not "Thank you," and certainly not "Goodbye."
But—I'm scared.
She was afraid he would see her other side—the her who was no longer "Lin Yun," the her who had shattered into a thousand pieces within a dream. Afraid he would see that her true self was an empty shell, a phantom shaped by the projections of countless memories deep within the Mirror Realm.
Afraid he would no longer be willing to follow her.
She could not take that risk.
"Yan Zhi!" Jiu Jia Yi roared again, his cry powerful enough to rend a soul, as though he meant to shatter the entire Mirror Realm.
And at that moment, the Eye of the Center opened fully.
A strand of ink-black radiance burst from the depths of its pupil and fell straight onto Yan Zhi's head, like guidance from a god.
She looked up at the light, then suddenly closed her eyes.
"I'm here," she murmured.
The instant the light descended, her body seemed to dissolve, merging with that radiance.
Her hair floated into the air and her robes billowed. Rings of intricate, inscrutable runes appeared on her once jade-like skin. They were not markings, but something like living patterns, flowing with her heartbeat, winding through her limbs and body before finally reaching the space between her brows.
And on her forehead, a barely visible vertical eye slowly opened.
Bai Mo's eyes widened abruptly. "She... has already entered a state of fusion."
"Fusion with what?!" Jiu Jia Yi bellowed, hammering both fists against the curtain of light with dull booms. "Didn't she say she was going to awaken the Eye of the Center? Why is she herself..."
Before you continue