The mirrored doors of the lockers reflected not the five of them, but four students in school uniforms!
They were trapped inside the mirrors, pounding on the glass, their mouths opening and closing without making a sound.
"This is the Mirror Demon Space!" Chen Feng made an immediate decision. "Let's go in and rescue them!"
He reached out to touch the mirror, and his hand passed straight through.
The five exchanged a glance, then stepped into the mirror together.
After a dizzying whirl, they appeared in a bizarre space.
Mirrors surrounded them, countless reflections of themselves watching them from every direction.
The maze formed by those mirrors had no end in sight.
The four students were huddled together nearby. Seeing someone enter, they waved excitedly.
"Save them first!" Chen Feng shouted.
Liu Yang and Sun Hao rushed over to protect the students, while Chen Feng, Li Tong, and Zhou Yan kept watch.
Just then, the surrounding mirrors lit up simultaneously, and a shrill laugh rang out from every direction.
"More toys..."
"How wonderful..."
"Come play with me..."
A distorted figure emerged from a mirror. It had no fixed shape, resembling a mass of flowing mercury, its surface constantly shifting through facial expressions-the faces of the victims it had devoured.
A C-rank entity, the Mirror Demon.
"Get the students out first!" Chen Feng roared, charging at the Mirror Demon.
The battle erupted in an instant.
The Mirror Demon's ability was extremely troublesome. It could appear anywhere there was refraction.
Mirrors, glass, even reflections on metal surfaces were all passages for it.
Chen Feng threw a punch, but it instantly withdrew into a mirror, extending a tentacle from another mirror to coil around Li Tong's ankle.
Li Tong severed the tentacle with her blade, but it broke into fragments and merged back into the surrounding mirrors.
"Fighting like this won't work!" Li Tong shouted. "Physical attacks don't affect it at all!"
Liu Yang retreated with the students under his protection, but whichever direction he took, the endless mirror maze surrounded them.
"Zhou Yan!" Chen Feng shouted. "Use your fire!"
Zhou Yan reacted, forming hand seals with both hands.
Snake-Ram-Monkey-Boar-Horse-Tiger.
These were the seals for the Great Fireball Technique that Lin Jin had taught him.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
A fireball half a meter in diameter shot from his mouth, blasting toward the mirror ahead.
The mirror shattered instantly, but before the fragments hit the ground, they reassembled into a new mirror.
The Mirror Demon's laughter grew shriller. "Burn me with fire? Useless! This is my world!"
Zhou Yan gritted his teeth.
He remembered what Lin Jin had said while teaching him. "When you think your flames aren't powerful enough to deal with an enemy, it doesn't mean they're useless. It means your fire isn't strong enough yet!"
With that in mind, he decided to use a Fire Release technique he had yet to master, but a single attack would completely drain his superpower.
"Captain, cover me!" Zhou Yan shouted to those behind him, his hands rapidly forming complicated seals.
"Fire Style: Majestic Destroyer Flame!"
Zhou Yan opened his mouth and spewed a vast wave of fire. The scorching flames instantly swept through the entire mirror space.
The mirrors began to melt.
The Mirror Demon screamed in terror. "No! You can't...!"
The flames burned ever fiercer, and the entire mirror space began to collapse. Then the mirrors shattered and melted, finally dissolving into nothingness.
"Retreat!" Shielding the students, Chen Feng sprinted back the way they had come.
An exit appeared ahead-the storage room in the real world.
The five of them brought the four students out, leaping through the mirror one after another.
Behind them, the mirror space collapsed with a thunderous crash.
The mirrors on the storage room's locker doors shattered simultaneously, scattering glass across the floor.
Zhou Yan gasped for breath and plopped down on the floor.
"We... we did it!"
Chen Feng patted his shoulder. "Well done!"
Liu Yang examined the four students. "They're all alive. Just a little weak, nothing serious."
The other four sat down too, exchanging smiles with Zhou Yan.
Zhou Yan's first real combat mission had been a complete success.
Meanwhile, inside an unfinished building on the outskirts of Jiangcheng, a man in black robes bearing a Black Moon design opened his eyes.
"Dead..." he said quietly. "The Mirror Demon I raised is dead."
His tone was calm, but a trace of malice flashed in his eyes.
He had spent a month cultivating the Mirror Demon, intending to use it to gather enough fear energy for the next step of his plan.
He had never expected a few Awakening Stage small fry from the Paranormal Bureau to destroy it.
"Interesting," he murmured. "That fire-using brat has some skill."
He turned to look at a figure writhing in a corner downstairs.
"Go."
The figure emerged from the corner. It was a deathly pale humanoid creature, its skin wrinkled and white as though freshly soaked in water, its features twisted, the corners of its mouth stretching to its ears.
The Skin-Shedding Ghost.
A B-rank entity.
Its favorite thing to do was strip the skin from living people and drape it over itself.
"Those meddlesome fools are in the city," the black-robed man said. "Find them and kill them all."
The Skin-Shedding Ghost grinned, revealing a mouthful of pointed teeth.
Then it vanished.
Night fell.
After settling the rescued students, Zhou Yan and the others had only just left the school, with no time to celebrate, when they felt an icy aura wash over them.
They stopped.
A dozen or so meters ahead, a deathly pale figure stood beneath a streetlight, watching them with its head tilted.
That face...
No, that wasn't a face.
It was something pieced together from countless faces, each twisted in pain.
"Humans." The Skin-Shedding Ghost's hoarse voice sounded like laughter. "So many humans... skin... I want your skin."
Chen Feng's expression changed abruptly.
That icy aura was far stronger than the Mirror Demon's.
But just then, the Detector in Liu Yang's hand suddenly began shrieking wildly.
The needle swung sharply into the red zone.
Liu Yang's expression changed drastically. "Such powerful energy fluctuations! It's B-rank!"
"B-rank!" Chen Feng roared. "Everyone, prepare for battle!"
The next second, Sun Hao screamed and was sent flying backward, three deep claw marks across his chest streaming blood.
"Sun Hao!" Li Tong rushed toward him, but the Skin-Shedding Ghost had already appeared behind her.
Chen Feng gritted his teeth and punched at the Skin-Shedding Ghost, but it dodged easily and raked a claw across his arm with a backhand swipe.
The gap was too great.
A B-rank entity corresponded to the Divine Sense Stage.
All five of them were only at the Awakening Stage.
"Zhou Yan!" Chen Feng roared. "Call the bureau for backup, now!"
Zhou Yan pulled out his phone, but its screen suddenly went black. The Skin-Shedding Ghost had appeared beside him without him noticing, and a light tap from its deathly pale finger destroyed the phone outright.
"Too late..." the Skin-Shedding Ghost sneered, reaching for Zhou Yan's face. "That skin of yours... I'll take it!"
Zhou Yan's pupils contracted sharply.
The next second, he remembered what Lin Jin had said.
Without hesitation, he frantically drove the superpower within his body toward the special mark on his shoulder.
At that very instant.
A black-clad figure appeared out of thin air in front of Zhou Yan.
It was Lin Jin.
He raised his hand.
"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"
A fierce gale surged from Lin Jin's hand, striking the Skin-Shedding Ghost squarely in the chest.
Before the Skin-Shedding Ghost could react, its entire body flew dozens of meters backward as though struck by a cannonball, smashing through one wall, then a second and a third, before finally embedding itself in a fourth.
Zhou Yan froze.
Everyone froze.
Without looking back, Lin Jin simply said flatly, "Everyone, step back."
Then his eyes turned scarlet.
Three tomoe slowly rotated, spinning faster and faster until they merged into a distinctive straight-bar tomoe pinwheel shape.
The Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.
He looked at the Skin-Shedding Ghost embedded in the distant wall.
The Skin-Shedding Ghost had just struggled up from the rubble. Wind Release had caved in part of its chest, but the vitality of a B-rank entity had kept it alive.
It raised its head and met those scarlet eyes.
Then it saw black flames.
"Amaterasu."
Black flames appeared out of thin air on the Skin-Shedding Ghost's body.
Before the Skin-Shedding Ghost could even scream, it turned to ash within the black flames.
A gentle breeze blew, scattering the ashes into nothing.
[System: Detected that the host has killed a B-rank entity. Gained 50 points of world power.] [Current world power: 160 points.]
Lin Jin withdrew his gaze, his eyes returning to normal.
Chen Feng, Liu Yang, Li Tong, Sun Hao, and the four students all stared at the scene with wide eyes.
A B-rank entity.
Gone, just like that?
A B-rank entity they couldn't scratch even with all their strength had been burned to ash by a single look from this man?
Zhou Yan, however, was already used to it. He got up from the ground and ran over to Lin Jin.
"Little Lin, that was so cool! What were those black flames? Teach me!"
Lin Jin glanced at him. "You can't learn this."
Zhou Yan: "..."
Chen Feng took a deep breath, walked up to Lin Jin, and bowed solemnly.
"Thank you for saving our lives. This is the second time."
Lin Jin glanced at him without speaking.
He merely gave a slight nod in acknowledgment.
"I'll leave now. I won't interrupt your mission."
The next second, he vanished.
Chen Feng stood there without moving for a long time.
After a long while, he turned to Zhou Yan. "Just how strong is that friend of yours?"
Zhou Yan scratched his head. "I don't know either. But I do know one thing."
"What?"
"With him around, our lives are as good as safe."
Before you continue