Kieran gave a faint smile. Watching the blood-red tint rise in Li Yue’s eyes, he turned and jogged toward the theater’s backstage.
Her chest throbbed with pain... Why was that feeling of resentment returning? That agony, that rage.
She seemed to have forgotten any assessment of combat power. She had undergone no formal testing and possessed no magic of her own; she should have been at the apprentice level. However, a hysterical wave of pain and fury momentarily stripped away her reason.
Shock colored Caesar’s face. The surrounding guards and attendants rushed forward, pulling him back to safety.
Li Yue pulled the two short swords from the blood demon’s corpse and began to jog. She reflexively caught a blood crystal in her mouth—a small, hexagonal shard, like a piece of hard candy, held firmly between her teeth.
She followed Kieran into the theater’s backstage, irritably slamming open the door he had just closed. But once she stepped inside, she was momentarily stunned by the scene before her.
She saw countless versions of herself in the room. To be precise, they were all reflections in mirrors. She saw Kieran walking within the mirrors, or rather, moving from one mirror to another.
“Is this your magic?” Li Yue raised a shapely eyebrow, a hint of disdain surfacing for this bizarre technique.
She swung her sword, intending to shatter the mirror in front of her.
The heavy strike met no resistance. Instead, it felt as though she were cutting through thin air. She reached out to touch the surface, only to find herself making contact with the reflection of herself within the mirror.
Kieran appeared in a mirror directly in front of her. His small knife gently sliced across the face of her reflection. The sensation was instantly mirrored on her own body; she watched as every version of herself across the countless mirrors was wounded simultaneously.
“My magic cannot be broken by anyone below the Magician stage. You don’t even have your own magic. You’re so weak, you’re practically delivering yourself to death,” Kieran mocked.
A Magician’s magic could construct a personal formation in the surrounding area. Such a formation could negate the magical effects of another’s domain, much like the Blues that always swirled around Roland when he cast magic.
Li Yue froze. Under the weight of her fury and resentment, she had actually forgotten her fear and her own weakness. Yet, a strange sensation stirred within her, as if something were sneering at the clown’s assessment.
She looked at her own reflection. The reflection watched her as Kieran held a knife to its throat, then looked back at Li Yue and smiled, seemingly praising her for her foolish decision.
“She” grabbed Kieran’s hand and violently slashed her own throat. Blood did not spray as expected; instead, the flowing blood slowly coalesced into a longsword.
“Weakness... what a strange word.” The thought flashed through Li Yue’s consciousness. She suddenly realized that something was interfering with her thoughts, and by extension, her decisions.
Kieran’s body was instantly sent flying. The countless mirror worlds began to shatter. He looked around; the girl with the blood-red vertical pupils was now in every mirror, smiling at him.
The newly appearing mirror surfaces turned pitch black. Kieran stood up within the mirror world, his back and abdomen nearly caved in from a heavy blow.
He looked at the equally bewildered girl before him in disbelief. He had believed himself nearly invincible at his rank, unless he faced a powerful opponent who could counterattack through the reflections.
Or perhaps an exceptionally powerful mage whose spells could instantly cover every mirror, leaving him nowhere to run.
He had never imagined his own magic would be forcibly seized and used as a vessel for a manifestation.
Now, it seemed the roles had reversed, and he was the one who had to run. He looked around in confusion, suddenly feeling like a true clown, being watched by a higher existence during a tedious yet real performance.
He suddenly thought of a way to break the deadlock: kill the normal-looking girl in the opposite mirror. That had to be the original body.
He quickly stepped through a mirror, but he did not arrive in front of the girl as intended. He had momentarily forgotten that the control over the mirror world was no longer in his hands.
His magic was Mirror Traversal, a niche technique, but a certain magical item had multiplied his strength.
The magical item “Mirror World,” once used to imprison captives, created a small world of mirrors based on the user’s magical proficiency.
He fled toward the edge of the mirror world in a panic. Having traveled through this realm for a long time, he was highly sensitive to its boundaries.
He scrambled through a kaleidoscopic world. The smile of the girl with blood-red eyes filled him with the same horror, trembling, and despair he had once inflicted on his victims.
A black gown, a red longsword, a martyr bound to a black cross—these images flashed repeatedly before his eyes.
Beside a dilapidated church, a blood-eyed crow perched on a pitch-black branch and let out a raspy cry. A giant python emerged from black seawater. A black-haired girl laughed innocently. A world swayed in a sea of crimson maple leaves after autumn...
Everything passed before his eyes like a fleeting shadow. These scenes merged together, and a blood emperor wearing a black gown and a blood-red crown stood not far from him.
The white-haired girl raised the blood-red greatsword in her hand and swung it down like a divine judgment.
Kieran could not control himself; he ran toward the blade as if the judgment had traveled from the past to the present. There was no escape; the moment the blade fell, his death sentence was already signed.
“Is this the legendary Lord of the Royal Court? Can we traitors never escape judgment in the end?” Kieran’s eyes widened. The paint on his face gradually faded, revealing a handsome, gaunt countenance.
“I’m a bit... unwilling...”
In the next instant, he felt his soul split in two. Everything began to dissipate. He had never truly escaped that land of eternal clouds; the clouds there had always hung over him. No matter where he fled, his world had never known the touch of real sunlight.
He lay on a street dampened by rain. A young man and woman walked by, chatting and laughing, wearing pure black robes as they headed toward a dark street corner.
They bid each other farewell and walked toward opposite ends of the street.
He watched the rain fall into his eyes. He understood with absolute clarity that this was death.
The surrounding scenery slowly shifted, and the mirror world grew illusory. A hexagonal transparent container floated into her chest. Li Yue snapped back to her senses and blinked. Looking at the fading blade in her hand and Kieran’s body on the floor, she fell into a brief silence.
A crystalline blood crystal slowly coalesced on Kieran’s chest. Li Yue didn’t reach for it. She suddenly realized something: this person didn’t seem to be a blood demon; he was still within the realm of humanity.
Her snake pupils gradually receded, and the phantom of the blood-red crown atop her head vanished. She panted heavily, her eyes filled with fear, daze, and shock—even a faint trace of excitement.
The blood crystal drifted gently into her hand. It was smooth and rounded, but it didn’t look clear; it was filled with a great deal of cloudiness.
Her clothes were perfectly intact, without even a single drop of blood on them. She didn't remember exactly how Kieran had died; she only remembered him rushing toward her in terror, and her instinctive reaction to strike him down with a single blow.
I killed someone? He was a human, wasn't he? Since when did my sword skills become this good? Just now, and before... why? Is something influencing me?
I am still myself. I haven't changed from beginning to end... right?
Li Yue felt conflicted. She didn't even feel a hint of nausea or guilt—only a sense of pleasure she forcibly suppressed in her heart, along with a touch of disdain and a growing hunger.
She cautiously approached the corpse, searching the inner and outer layers of his clothes for any occult items.
Her hand brushed against something smooth, hard, and angular inside. She gently pulled it out: a circular bronze badge embossed with a smiling clown.
Though a bit confused, she carefully tucked it away. After letting out a long sigh, she felt the restlessness inside her subside slightly.
“Bang!” The sound of a door being burst open echoed. Li Yue whipped her head around. Several soldiers rushed in, freezing when they saw Kieran’s lifeless body on the floor.
They slowly looked at Li Yue, who stood in her black gown adorned with blood-red patterns, and warily took a half-step back.
“Where is the assassin?” Caesar, wearing a black military uniform, stepped into the theater’s backstage.
His expression was solemn. His gaze moved from Kieran on the floor to the expressionless Li Yue. His eyes held a complex mix of emotions: shock, admiration, and a touch of pleasant surprise.
Rate on N.U.
