The little sprite floating in the center of the crystal valley lowered its head gently, and a silver-white ripple slowly spread across the small crystal mirror in its arms. The entire valley suddenly fell silent at that moment. The wind stopped, and the crystal dust floating in the air also froze in mid-air. The movements of the six cultivators who were trapped in the illusion froze at the same time, as if something was gently pressing down on them from the depths of their Fate Soul.
The little elf slowly raised its almost transparent hand, its fingertip gently touching the center of the mirror. Accompanied by a very soft chime, all the surrounding crystals lit up at the same time, and layers of crystalline light spread out along the mountain like a tide. Countless mirrors began to vibrate at this moment, and countless blurry figures gradually emerged from the depths of the crystal walls that originally reflected the valley scene.
The cultivator who first discovered the "Fate-Reversing Epiphyllum" stood there, his face deathly pale. The hundreds of illusions around him, identical to himself, slowly raised their heads at the same time, and hundreds of eyes stared at him in the darkness, each face bearing the exact same smile.
The next instant, the illusions simultaneously took a step forward, and the entire space suddenly emitted a deep rumble. The surrounding mirrors began to churn wildly, and a chilling pressure of Fate Soul directly poured into his sea of consciousness.
"You're the fake one." "The one who should really disappear is you."
Countless voices rang in his ears at the same time. The cultivator suddenly screamed and desperately retreated, but the ground beneath his feet had turned into a mirror, and another version of himself in the mirror was slowly extending his palm.
The instant that hand pierced the lens, he felt a sudden chill in his chest. Then, fine cracks began to appear all over his body. These cracks were not wounds, but rather resembled a piece of glass shattering.
Crack—The first crack spread from between his eyebrows, followed by a second and a third. In just a few breaths, the cracks had covered his entire body. He looked down at his hands and found that there was no more flesh and blood under his skin, only a layer of translucent crystalline structure that was constantly spreading.
He completely broke down. "No--!!!"
A piercing scream echoed through the valley, but in the next instant, his entire body suddenly exploded, countless chips flying into the sky. Each fragment reflected his terrified and distorted face, and before the fragments even hit the ground, they turned into grayish-white powder and dissipated into the air, as if they had never existed.
At the same time, the leader who was constantly harming himself suddenly stopped. All the countless monsters rushing towards him disappeared, replaced by a huge crystal mirror that was hundreds of feet tall.
Another version of himself stood in the mirror, covered in blood, yet with an extremely calm smile on his face. The person in the mirror slowly raised his hand, the movement perfectly synchronized with his own, but the next instant, that hand suddenly pierced through the lens.
He grabbed the man's neck directly. The leader in the real world suddenly bulged his eyes out, and his entire body was lifted into the air by an invisible force. He struggled desperately, his Fate Soul vibrating wildly, and he even unleashed his Xuan Mystic Void Realm · Supreme Cultivation in an attempt to break free, but all the surrounding space was like a quagmire, sealing him off tightly. The reflection in the mirror watched him silently, the smile on his lips growing deeper and deeper.
"Mirror image, it's time to return to the mirror." Click—
His neck twisted and snapped instantly, his head snapping backward, but his body didn't fall. Instead, it gradually became transparent, as if being absorbed back into the mirror. In just a few breaths, he completely merged into the mirror, leaving only a face of despair forever frozen deep within the crystal.
The remaining few were also plunged into a true nightmare. Some were torn apart Fate Soul by countless mirror images, their bodies disintegrating into layers of crystals amidst screams; others watched helplessly as another version of themselves emerged from the mirror, slowly replacing their physical bodies, while their own consciousness was forever trapped inside; and one person frantically tried to escape, but the entire valley had already vanished.
No matter where he rushes, he will eventually encounter another version of himself. The number of these reflections increases, and the entire Crystal Valley is filled with countless "him," all of them reaching forward and gently pressing on his body.
The next instant, the cultivator's entire body began to be slowly "flattened," his flesh and blood turning into a mirror surface, his bones into transparent crystal layers, and his Fate Soul becoming strands of gray-white light and shadow reflected in the mirror. Finally, he completely merged into a huge crystal, and on the surface of that crystal, a distorted and terrified human face was forever left.
The entire Crystal Valley returned to its deathly silence.
There were no corpses, no bloodstains, no traces of Fate Soul, as if the six Mystic Void Realm · Supreme cultivators had never set foot here. Only the palm-sized little sprite still floated in mid-air, its head bowed as it gazed at the small crystal mirror in its arms.
In the mirror, six figures stood quietly, none other than the six who had just died. They were calm, with identical smiles on their faces, as they slowly looked up at the outside of the mirror.
The little elf chuckled softly, Kong Ling and melodious laugh that subtly deepened the chill that permeated the depths of the Crystal Mountain Range.
The little sprite floating in the center of the crystal valley suddenly turned its head slightly, its long silver-white hair swaying gently in mid-air. Its two pupils, one True One illusory, slowly gazed into the depths of the mountains to the left, as if sensing something extremely interesting. At the same time, all the crystal mirrors around it rippled with fine waves, and the faces reflected in them began to distort eerily.
The little elf blinked, a slow smile spreading across its face. "Hehe... something fun is coming up again."
As soon as the voice fell, she slowly faded away like a wisp of silver starlight scattered by the wind, leaving only a small crystal mirror floating quietly in place. But the next moment, the mirror shattered into countless points of light with a "crack" and completely disappeared into the air.
Meanwhile, in the northwestern region of the Crystal Mountain Range, a vast crystal forest stands quietly among the mountains.
Those ancient crystal trees were thousands of feet tall, with slowly rotating crimson-gold light flowing inside their trunks, and countless translucent crystal leaves hanging between their branches, each leaf reflecting the sky of different seasons, different days and nights, and different worlds.
A True Annihilation Realm · Supreme elder from the Ju Lineage was slowly walking through the crystal forest.
He wore a greyish-white robe, with a faint golden mark between his brows. His Fate Soul essence was extremely profound, indicating that he had been cultivating in the True Annihilation Realm for many years. At this moment, he was constantly scanning his surroundings with his divine sense. With each step he took, a circle of subtle Fate Soul ripples would spread out from his feet, in order to detect any possible traces of the Fate-Reversing Epiphyllum.
"Strange..." He frowned slightly.
"The aura of True Annihilation in this area is clearly very dense, yet why is there not even the slightest fluctuation of the Fate-Reversing Epiphyllum?"
The surroundings were eerily quiet, without even the sound of wind; only the images of different worlds flickered within the crystalline leaves.
Suddenly, the elder stopped abruptly, for he realized that his shadow had vanished before he could even react.
Boom! The entire world suddenly flipped upside down.
The surrounding space seemed to be violently torn apart by some force. The original crystal forest instantly collapsed into countless fragments, but those fragments did not fall. Instead, they slowly rotated in mid-air, forming a huge and bizarre world.
Spacetime began to distort, and the elder's pupils contracted slightly as he discovered that to his left was daytime, while to his right was eternal night.
Spring is ahead, but winter is already behind. What's even more terrifying is that the sun and the moon hang in the sky at the same time, yin and yang coexisting.
As life and death intertwined, the earth began to slowly crack open.
The crack was not filled with magma, but with a huge, grayish-white river of destiny. Countless corpses of cultivators floated in the river, some rotting, some still with their eyes open, and some even slowly rising from the water.
The power of the five elements also went completely out of control. The mountains on the left suddenly burst into a raging black fire, but the flames carried a bone-chilling cold. On the right, endless floods surged into the sky, but dense metal spikes kept growing from the floods. Thunder and ancient trees intertwined in the sky, and gray-white death energy kept gushing out from beneath the earth.
The True Annihilation Realm elder's expression finally changed completely. "This is... Spacetime Layered Illusion Realm?!"
But the ground beneath his feet suddenly began to melt, and he was instantly engulfed in it. Just as he sank, the ground beneath his feet began to melt.
Suddenly, countless "him" appeared around him: some were him in his youth, some were him on his deathbed, and some were him after he entered the Wuji Realm.
Even... him who has already died, those "selves" in different times and with different fates, all slowly raise their heads at the same time.
They all wore eerie smiles. "Which one do you think is the real you...?"
The next instant, the entire illusion began to collapse, time reversed, life and death were reversed, yin and yang rotated, and the five elements went berserk.
The gray-white river of fate slowly spread towards his feet, and countless pale hands reached out towards him from within its waters.