Lin Zhiyue was violently yanked by that force, losing her balance. Her surroundings twisted and churned as if crumpled to pieces. She only had time to catch a glimpse of the female cultivator's back as she fled without looking back, before the emerald mountains, waterfall, and blue sky before her eyes all dissolved into a blinding white light.
She fell into a silvery-white void.
The sensation of falling lasted for three or four breaths before finally stopping.
The moment she hit the ground, her knees bent slightly to steady her posture. Opening her eyes and looking around, she saw silvery-white mirrors everywhere—from beneath her feet to above her head, and in every direction. They were so smooth they clearly reflected her own image.
Countless Lin Zhiyues stared back at her from the various mirrors with different expressions—some looked terrified, some calm, and some had their lips curled into a faint smile.
She looked down at her wrist. A faint greenish-gray mark remained where the copper mirror's green light had wrapped around her, looking as though she had been marked by something.
“Damn it,” Lin Zhiyue cursed under her breath.
She stood up and reached out to touch the nearest mirror wall.
The mirror was cold and smooth. When her fingertip made contact, a circle of fine ripples spread out like waves on the surface of water.
As the ripples expanded, she heard a voice drifting from deep within the mirror—a low, seductive whisper. It sounded like many people speaking at once, overlapping and cutting off, not forming complete sentences but making one feel an irresistible urge to lean closer and listen.
She immediately withdrew her hand and took two steps back, shaking off the cold sensation on her fingertip. The system's light screen popped up at that moment, its edges glowing with a silvery-white halo:
【Environment Detection: The host has been dragged into the Mirror Demon's mirror world. Mirror Demons feed on the minds and spirits of cultivators, excelling at manifesting inner demons and obsessions. Current Danger Level: Extremely High. Recommended Response: Guard your mind; do not listen, look at, or touch any content within the mirrors. Find the core node of the mirror world and shatter it to escape.】
After reading the prompt, Lin Zhiyue took a deep breath and began to observe this silvery-white mirror space.
The mirror walls in all directions were filled with her own reflections, each doing exactly what she was doing at that very moment—when she raised her right hand, all the reflections raised their right hands; when she frowned, all the reflections frowned.
Yet the moment she turned her head, she noticed from the corner of her eye that the reflection of “Lin Zhiyue” in the third mirror on the left had a slightly more pronounced curve at the corner of her mouth than her actual face. It looked like a smile, or perhaps a sneer that she hadn't had time to pull back.
A shiver ran down her spine. She averted her gaze, gripped the Azure Scale Sword at her waist, and began to explore the mirror space in one direction.
With every step she took, countless reflections of herself in the surrounding mirrors stepped along with her in perfect unison.
As she walked, she suddenly heard a very faint, tearful sob coming from one of the mirrors behind her.
The voice was as weak as a kitten's, carrying a familiar cadence—it was the voice of the little Purple Xuan Grass. At this moment, it drifted out from deep within the mirror, calling out to her intermittently, “Sister... Sister, where are you...”
Lin Zhiyue's footsteps ground to a halt.
Her back stiffened for a brief moment. Then, tightening her grip on the sword hilt, she kept walking forward without looking back.
She did not know what else this mirror world would dig up from the depths of her heart, but she already had a faint premonition.
Qi Yan stood at the entrance of the secret realm for the time it took half an incense stick to burn.
After the twenty-odd disciples of Tiance Palace entered the secret realm, the spiritual rune token in his hand would continuously display each disciple's approximate location and the state of their spiritual energy fluctuations.
Lin Zhiyue's name, which had originally shone as a steady light blue dot, suddenly dimmed and then completely vanished from the token's display range.
Qi Yan looked down at the vanished light dot on the token. His posture remained unchanged, but his fingers gripping the token tightened slightly. An administrative elder of Tiance Palace beside him leaned over to take a look, frowning. “Yanchen, this... why has Lin Zhiyue's spiritual rune disconnected?”
Qi Yan did not answer.
He turned and took two steps toward the entrance of the secret realm, staring at the radiant, flowing light gate, before closing his eyes for a brief moment.
He had been to the Northern Realm Secret Realm more than once, and he knew its geographical layout and the territories of the demon beasts like the back of his hand.
In the entire secret realm, there were not many things that could block the tracking of spiritual runes—one of them was the Soul Transformation Stage Mirror Demon that had occupied Mirror Lake in the deep regions for hundreds of years.
The Mirror Demon had always minded her own business, never interfering with the Six Sects. She never actively provoked sect disciples, nor did she ever step foot outside Mirror Lake. People from the Six Sects were always warned not to approach that area before entering.
How could his little disciple have provoked her?
Qi Yan tucked the token into his sleeve and was about to step into the light gate when the administrative elder beside him quickly stopped him. “Yanchen, you are leading the group here. You must not arbitrarily—”
“She is my disciple,” Qi Yan said, his voice not loud, but the administrative elder's hand froze in midair, going no further.
His steps as he bypassed the elder did not falter. His dark red figure flashed at the light gate and instantly vanished into the multicolored, brilliant glow.
Inside the secret realm, Qi Yan's perception range expanded in an instant.
He swiftly swept through several areas near the entrance, but none of the spiritual rune signals he captured belonged to Lin Zhiyue.
He came to a halt when he reached an area in the middle section of the secret realm where the spiritual energy fluctuations were abnormal. A trace of the Mirror Demon's unique icy breath lingered in the air, and half of a shattered copper mirror lay scattered on the ground. Nearby, there were also spiritual energy fluctuations left by another person—the footprints were frantic and chaotic, looking like those left during a panicked escape.
Qi Yan squatted down and picked up a shard of the copper mirror. The moment his fingertips touched it, a residual stream of visual information flooded into his divine sense.
A young female cultivator wearing a greenish-blue sect robe was running blindly in panic, clutching a copper mirror flashing with green light in her hand. She collided head-on with the passing Lin Zhiyue. As they brushed past each other, the copper mirror flared with green light, and Lin Zhiyue's body was wrapped by a green beam, dragging her entirely into the interior of the copper mirror.
The female cultivator fled into the distance without once looking back.
Qi Yan crushed the copper mirror shard in his palm, the fragments rustling down between his fingers.
He stood up and swept toward the direction of Mirror Lake, his speed nearly twice as fast as before. The wind whistled past his ears, and his figure darting through the dense forest and rocky terrain stretched into a dark red line among the afterimages.
Mirror Lake lay in the deep regions of the secret realm. Its surface was as calm as a mirror, reflecting the ancient trees and cliffs around it.
When Qi Yan landed on the edge of the lake, the reflection in the center of the water rippled slightly. Soon after, a woman's voice drifted up from deep within the lake, carrying a lazy smile: “Venerable Yanchen, it has been so many years since I last saw you step into Mirror Lake. What brings you to my place today?”
Standing on the shore, Qi Yan stared at another figure gradually emerging beside his own reflection on the lake's surface—a silver-white phantom of a woman with ankle-length hair rose from the center of the lake. Her face seemed both real and illusory, and a trace of an intrigued smile hung on her lips.
The Mirror Demon's true form was an ancient mirror. After taking human shape, she lived at the bottom of this lake year-round, peaceful and never overstepping her bounds with the Six Sects for hundreds of years.
“You took a disciple of my sect,” Qi Yan said. His voice was a few degrees deeper than usual, devoid of anger but carrying a coldness that had already been pressed to its absolute limit.
The Mirror Demon's smile faded slightly. She tilted her head, her silver-white long hair swaying gently over the lake. “A disciple of your sect? I thought it was another person from the Qingling Sect. Just now, that little girl from the Qingling Sect took a fancy to my true form and tried to sneak to the bottom of the lake to carry me away while I was asleep.
“I chased her all the way after I woke up. When she ran, she was still clutching a shattered shard of my mirror. That shard did indeed drag someone into the mirror world, but it was not of my doing. Had I known they were from Tiance Palace, I wouldn't have just stood by and let it happen.”
Qi Yan's gaze fell upon the lake's surface as he fell silent for several breaths.
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