Daylight smiled.
“It's just that she's confident enough.”
“And there are usually two kinds of confident people.”
“The foolish ones, and those who actually have the backing to support it.”
Rainmaker was silent for a moment.
“And she is definitely not the former.”
“Of course.”
Daylight raised his hand and closed the footage of the Cat Cafe.
“The only evaluation Ash brought back was a single sentence.”
“What is it?”
“No transactions for now.”
Rainmaker raised her eyebrows slightly.
Silent Pivot never easily gave up on a target that could be appraised.
And “no transactions for now” meant that the value of this Witch had not yet found a scale by which it could be measured.
...
Ashen Feather Court.
Inside the training ground, flames exploded in mid-air.
The scorching tongues of fire swept across the metal floor, but automatically parted when they drew near a tall girl.
She wore a red-gold short jacket, her black hair tied into a high ponytail, holding a flaming spear in her hand.
Codename “Starburn.”
She was the sharpest blade among the younger generation of the Ashen Feather Court.
Rank 93 on the Peak Leaderboard.
Unlike Luan's ostentatious, blazing, and almost unreasonable flames, Starburn's fire was more like an explosion compressed to its absolute limit.
She rarely wasted words when she fought; wherever her spear pointed, even the dungeon monsters usually had no time to react.
At the edge of the training ground, another young man sat on a high platform.
He wore a clean white combat suit, his slightly long black hair hanging before his brow.
His features were refined to the point of gentleness, yet he held a short blade as thin as a cicada's wing.
Codename “Eternal Day.”
Rank 90 on the Peak Leaderboard.
He was a famous tactical player in the Ashen Feather Court, specializing in finding the shortest path to break through combat dungeons.
His live stream style was always calm and restrained, yet he somehow managed to turn the tables at the most unbelievable moments every single time, earning him a massive following.
The flames died down.
Starburn withdrew her spear and tilted her head toward the platform.
“Are you done watching?”
Eternal Day looked up slightly. “Yes.”
“How does she seem?”
“Very troublesome.”
Starburn sneered. “It's rare to hear that kind of evaluation from you.”
Eternal Day sheathed his short blade, his gaze falling on the scorched ground in the center of the training area.
“Her abilities are too versatile.”
“Space, recovery, curses, arrays, purification, and a predictive ability of undetermined origin.”
“Someone like this is either just lucky and happened to get things that don't belong to a rookie...”
“Or...”
Starburn finished his sentence.
“Or she's just incredibly strong herself.”
“Just being strong isn't enough.”
Eternal Day said calmly, “There is no shortage of strong people in dungeons.”
“Those who survive the longest aren't necessarily the strongest. Often, it's the cautious, inconspicuous nobodies who live longer.”
Starburn didn't feel like arguing with him any further and slung her spear over her shoulder.
“After Sister Luan came back, she spent ages cursing out Eclipse.”
“She said that guy's head is filled with nothing but underhanded tricks from the gutters, and he utterly disgusted her.”
Eternal Day smiled. “It's not surprising that Eclipse would try to snatch her.”
“And it's not surprising that Luan stepped in personally either.”
“But for all four major guilds to show up at the same time is indeed a rare sight.”
A trace of interest flared in Starburn's eyes.
“So?”
“Do you want to test her too?”
Eternal Day didn't answer immediately.
He opened the forum, his screen resting on the frame where Cen Yao, cloaked in her witch's robe, disappeared alongside Zhu Lingxi and Pei Tinglan.
“Who wouldn't want to see if this newly emerged Lady Witch is truly as powerful as they say?”
“But not right now.”
“She's just entered the game; her cards haven't been fully revealed yet.”
“Besides, since Judge told the Hanging Mirror Directorate to stay put and Ash didn't continue tracking her after returning, it means the higher-ups don't want to push things too far for the time being.”
Starburn raised her eyebrows.
“So we just wait?”
“Wait for her next dungeon.”
Eternal Day lightly tapped the screen with his fingertip.
“If she's truly as strong as she seemed in the live stream, we will eventually cross paths.”
Starburn smiled.
“I actually hope we meet sooner rather than later.”
...
The corridor was so long that the end was out of sight, and the walls were covered with crooked mirrors.
What was reflected in the mirror surfaces was not reality, but distorted faces and an upside-down moon.
A young man with silver-gray short hair sat on the windowsill.
He was barefoot, a thin silver chain tied around his ankle, wearing only a loose black shirt.
The youth was exceptionally handsome, but his features carried a near-sickly paleness and detachment.
Codename “Backlight.”
Rank 91 on the Peak Leaderboard.
His Talent was called “Mirror Cage,” which could fold an area into a mirrored space where reality and illusion intertwined.
Anyone who stepped into it would lose themselves among countless copies of themselves, unable to distinguish truth from falsehood.
In the live streams, those who liked him called him the “most beautiful hunter under the moon.”
His enemies, however, preferred to call him a madman.
Because Backlight had once, in order to clear a dungeon quickly, disregarded his own condition and forcibly locked a dungeon boss far exceeding his strength inside his Mirror Cage.
Not long after, his Talent went out of control, and he himself was dragged into the Mirror Cage by the boss.
At the time, everyone thought he had died within his own Talent, but a couple of days later, he walked right back out of the mirror, successfully clearing the dungeon and even securing an S-rank evaluation.
Beside him sat a young girl with twin ponytails.
She wore a puffy black-and-white dress and held an eyeless stuffed rabbit in her arms.
Her skin was snow-white, and when she smiled, she revealed two sharp little canine teeth, looking like an exquisite porcelain doll.
Codename “Midnight.”
Rank 94 on the Peak Leaderboard.
Her Talent was “Countdown,” which allowed her to place a death countdown on targets within a certain range.
If they could not find the solution she set before the countdown ended, they would suffer a backlash corresponding to the rules.
She was highly popular in the Eclipse Corridor.
For no other reason than this:
She was cute enough, and she was swift and merciless enough when she killed.
“The Witch ran away,” Midnight said, hugging her stuffed rabbit, her tone carrying a hint of regret.
“I wanted to invite her to play.”
Backlight lowered his eyes, his fingertips lightly tapping the window frame, his cold blue eyes seemingly spacing out.
“Brother Eclipse is too stupid,” Midnight sighed in complaint.
“He should have locked her up first, then talked slowly.”
Backlight tilted his head to look at her. “If you dare do that, Shadowweaver will sew you to the wall first.”
Midnight puffed out her cheeks.
“Sister Shadowweaver wouldn't.”
“She loves beautiful people the most.”
“By the way, is Miss Witch very beautiful too?”
Backlight shook his head. “I couldn't tell.”
“Her robe has an obscuring effect.”
“That makes it even more interesting.”
Midnight rested her chin on the stuffed rabbit's head, blinking and smiling.
“Someone whose face can't be seen, who can use magic, and who can make Sister Luan and Brother Eclipse fight.”
“Next time I see her, I want to give her a gift.”
Backlight's emotionless gaze fell upon her.
“...”
As if reading the meaning in his eyes, she blinked her large, round eyes.
“A pocket watch that counts by itself.”
“Every night at midnight, it will tell her how many days she has left to live.”
Backlight fell silent for a moment.
“Whatever you want. As long as you're happy.”
Midnight swung her legs with satisfaction.
“Of course I'm happy, and she'll like it too.”
“Not necessarily.”
Backlight looked out the window at the crescent moon that eternally hung in the sky above the Eclipse Corridor, missing a corner.
“She doesn't look like someone who likes to be managed.”
“That's even better.”
Midnight's eyes curved into crescents.
“I love disobedient toys the most.”
Deep within the Eclipse Corridor, a mirror suddenly rippled.
In the mirror, Shadowweaver, dressed in a black gown, was unhurriedly combing her long hair.
She glanced at the two of them through the glass.
“Midnight.”
“Don't touch her.”
Midnight blinked, a bit unhappy.
“Why?”
Shadowweaver's red lips curled slightly.
“Just because Eclipse couldn't bring her back doesn't mean you can.”
“More importantly—”
She raised her hand and lightly drew a thin scratch across the mirror surface.
“The two beside the Witch aren't easy targets either.”
Midnight hugged her stuffed rabbit tighter.
“The Nuo God and the Siren?”
Shadowweaver said nonchalantly, “One is a rookie carrying the scent of divinity.”
“The other is a low-profile lone wolf of unknown strength.”
“Both are extremely proud individuals. For them to walk alongside the Witch shows that this Miss Witch is far more complex than those people on the forum guess.”
Backlight lowered his eyes, his smile faint.
“Then we'll just wait slowly.”
“Wait for her to walk into a larger dungeon herself.”
“By then, everyone will know exactly what she is.”
...
Elsewhere in the player space.
Inside an inconspicuous off-white apartment, a slender and elegant figure sat leaning by the window.
She wore a simple black hoodie, her long black hair cascading down to her waist, with headphones hanging around her neck.
Outside the window was the fake nightscape of the player space that never truly ended, the neon lights casting a faint glow over her pale, cold profile.
The room was excessively quiet.
Yet dozens of transparent light screens floated above the desk.
Scrolling across them were forum posts, replays of the Cat Cafe, vague intelligence leaked from various guilds, and the data stream that Chi Shuangxu had dismantled into countless fragments.
Chi Shuangxu could not hear those noisy discussions.
But the text, images, and data were more than enough to tell her what had happened.
Her slender fingers swept through the air, quickly passing over comment after comment.
From the moment Cen Yao first took out her wand, to the subsequent purification, recovery, spatial transfer, and the abnormal fluctuations when the dungeon rules were cracked.
On the screen, Cen Yao stood in the dim coffee plantation, draped in her witch's robe.
The light shining from the tip of her wand reflected on her face, making her look mysterious and uncontrollable.
Her gaze paused on the image.
After a long moment, she raised her hand.
A deep blue data stream flowed from her fingertips, forming lines of flickering characters in mid-air:
【Spatial Transmission Logic: Unresolved.】
【Magic Circle Composition: Non-system standard symbols.】
【Energy Source: Unknown.】
【Dungeon Rule Interference Rate: Abnormal.】
Chi Shuangxu stared at the last line, as if seeing something interesting.
“Interesting.”
Following that, she clicked open the footage of Cen Yao surrounded by the four major guilds at the exit plaza.
The footage was incomplete.
But it was enough to see the extremely brief distortion at the edge of space when Cen Yao finally left with Zhu Lingxi and Pei Tinglan.
Chi Shuangxu's fingers paused. She zoomed in on that single frame, and zoomed in again.
Until the entire screen was filled with nothing but that spatial rift torn open by white light.
“It's not an item,” she murmured her assessment.
“At least, not a normal item.”
A prompt popped up on the screen.
【Establish target file?】
Chi Shuangxu expressionlessly clicked confirm.
【Target Codename: Witch.】
【Danger Level: Provisionally S-rank.】
She thought about it.
She raised her hand to cross out the “S.”
And re-entered:
【Danger Level: Pending.】
Then, she leaned back against her chair, her gaze passing through the window to look into the distance.
“Cen Yao.”
“Don't die too early.”
...
On the other side.
It was a detached small building near the training area.
The courtyard gate was closed year-round, with no guild emblem or any extra decorations at the entrance.
There was only a small black sign with two extremely scribbled words:
“Do Not Disturb.”
Right now, Gu Yanchi was sitting on the roof.
He wore a loose gray tracksuit, his figure tall and sturdy, his features quiet to the point of having almost no presence.
The night fell upon him like an inconspicuous shadow draped over his body.
If not for the electronic writing tablet glowing in his hand, few would have noticed someone was sitting on the roof.
The live stream replay of the Cat Cafe was playing on the screen.
Gu Yanchi had originally just been passing through the forum.
He never liked participating in those arguments.
But the repeated appearance of words like “Witch,” “contested by the four major guilds,” “Siren,” and “Nuo God” in the hot thread titles made it really hard to ignore.
So he had casually clicked in and watched the entire replay.
Gu Yanchi sat quietly for a long time.
It wasn't until the footage showed Cen Yao, dragging her magic-depleted body, still raising her wand to block the incoming pollution for Zhu Lingxi, that he slightly raised his eyes.
Then, he saw Cen Yao grab the two of them at the exit plaza.
Without any hesitation, a flash of space, and they were gone.
The corner of Gu Yanchi's mouth twitched ever so slightly, a very faint trace of interest flitting through his eyes.
The night wind blew past as he leapt down silently from the roof, making no sound upon landing.
Behind him, the discussions on the forum were still refreshing frantically.
Everyone knew.
As the name of the “Witch” spread, more and more people who had originally drifted outside the various factions were beginning to notice her.
Some wanted to win her over, some wanted to test her, and some were simply curious.
But everyone was waiting for that moment.
Waiting for her to enter a dungeon next time.
Waiting to see just what kind of storm this young Witch, who had suddenly broken into everyone's vision, would stir up in the Horror Game.
Rate on N.U.
