When they reached the end of the mist-filled corridor, the surrounding mirrors were already covered in cracks.
The reflections in the mirrors were no longer shifting portraits, but a kind of spreading, terrifying darkness.
The mirrors at the exit had completely shattered, leaving only empty frames hanging in the air or fallen on the ground, blending with the mirror dust.
Then she smelled a foul stench, fermented and rotted by time.
In the thick, greasy air, a filthy scent drifted. Every breath felt like swallowing rotting flesh, and a nauseating sourness filled her nasal cavity.
The moment the mist dispersed, a magnificent yet ruined courtyard was revealed ahead.
The dome above was a starry sky formed by magic. Now, like a torn curtain, it had dozens of irregular holes, with scorch marks lingering on their edges.
The smooth marble floor was also covered in various cracks. A few spots had even caved in entirely, blasted into deep pits by some inexplicable force, with the surrounding stone taking on an eerie crystallization that flickered with an ominous dark red glow.
Scattered across this ruin were over a dozen corpses.
Lying at the entrance was a figure in heavy armor, limbs nearly crushed to pieces, and a single strike had pierced straight through their chest.
The ornate armor was silver-white all over and looked somewhat familiar. On closer inspection, it appeared to be the standard cavalry uniform of the Capital City Defense Force.
"...A dragon knight," Su Cheng raised an eyebrow. "I saw some drake knights on patrol before. Their clothes looked very much like this, but the crest was a bit different."
That was right after she had arrived at the imperial capital and left the Church's temple. The dragon knights she saw then were all horned-dragon knights.
Now, this one had a feather-shaped crest on the chest.
"An avian dragon knight?"
Su Cheng turned her head as she spoke.
"Hmm?"
The black-haired man beside her was leaning against a broken pillar. His sharp golden eyes were a bit unfocused, staring ahead as if pondering something unknown.
It wasn't until he heard his companion speak that he turned his head, trying to grasp what she meant.
Kai tilted his head. "I guess?"
Su Cheng: "..."
She suddenly found him quite cute.
Su Cheng's gaze silently swept over the mess on the ground, moving from the gruesome corpse of the knight to two bodies stacked together a little further away.
Those two had been sliced open like a multi-layered cake. The person on top was cleaved diagonally in two from the shoulder down, while the person on the bottom was bisected at the waist due to the angle.
But it was clear they had been finished off by the same move; the cross-sections of their bodies perfectly overlapped.
One of the two wore luxurious formal attire, looking as if they had just come from a banquet, while the other was in rags, looking exactly like a beggar begging on the streets.
Both of their clothes were soaked in blood.
Further away were a few more people. One was dressed as a wealthy merchant, another looked like a common artisan, and yet another resembled a tavern waiter.
Looking around, everyone seemed to have a distinct identity, whether ordinary or special, common or rare—
Their builds and skin conditions matched their identities. The one dressed as a noble had delicate skin, while the artisan and beggar had hands full of thick calluses. Yet, dying together like this seemed somewhat out of place.
After all, these people looked like they shouldn't have been in the same courtyard at the same time.
In the center of the courtyard was a fountain pool, and rising from the pool was a blood-bathed white statue.
The statue was a headless human body—the cross-section at the neck had been polished, making it obvious that the sculpture never had a head to begin with.
The headless figure sat cross-legged, sprouting six arms from its body. Every hand was exquisitely carved, with long, unearthly fingers striking different poses.
But no matter how the palms flipped or turned, there was always one finger pointing downwards.
Su Cheng narrowed her eyes and looked at it for two seconds. "...Don't you think there's something wrong with this statue?"
Everyone in this courtyard had been slaughtered. Bloodstains and signs of destruction were everywhere, yet this statue was perfectly clean.
"Yes," Kai walked over at some point. "This is the god they worship."
"Are you saying some sort of divine power is protecting the statue? But this power didn't protect the living people, right? Otherwise, they wouldn't have been killed by you?"
"It didn't," he shook his head slightly. "But even if it did, it wouldn't have changed the outcome—"
Kai said as he looked down.
"Wait!"
Su Cheng hurriedly reached out to block his eyes.
He hadn't leaned over, only lowered his head slightly. Given their height difference, she naturally raised her arm subconsciously.
Kai held her hand. "What's wrong?"
Su Cheng stumbled forward and was caught by him. "Don't look yet! The statue's hands are trying to make you look down—"
Kai blinked. "Huh?"
Su Cheng looked at him in exasperation. "This is the God of Illusions! What if you look down and get trapped in some kind of illusion?"
He lowered his eyes to look at her, his thick dark eyelashes fluttering, and a touch of amusement entered his eyes. "...Then I'll just wait for you to wake me up?"
Su Cheng glared at him expressionlessly.
"Sorry," Kai seemed like he wanted to laugh. "It's actually fine. I already looked. Did you forget I was already here?"
Su Cheng's expression softened slightly. "You were too busy killing people back then."
"No, clearing this place out didn't take much time."
Kai squeezed her fingers, seemingly signaling her to relax, and then let go of her hand.
"After sensing the existence of that mark on you... I couldn't clear it away, but I could barely track its source, and then I found this gathering point of the Mirror Society."
The pool water below also showed a dark red hue. Severed limbs and shattered bones floated on the surface, along with two masks covered in score marks.
"...They worship the God of Illusions, but this connection isn't just one-way, is it? Like those believers of the God of Envy, I only found out after meeting him in person that he didn't want to pay them any mind at all."
Su Cheng thought for a moment and said, "Though he said some believers can bypass a god's will by replicating the god's actions or manifesting the concept of their godhood..."
"If you're afraid of offending the God of Illusions," Kai said softly, "it doesn't matter. I did all of this."
Su Cheng glared at him again.
"...So if he wants revenge, his target will only be me, and I can handle it. You don't need to worry, neither for yourself nor for me. Besides, I don't think he would do that."
Kai paused for a moment. "Killing is fast, but dealing with the residual magic takes some time. I don't think these people had the ability to lay down that level of ancient magic, so there might be something else behind this—"
He stopped talking mid-sentence.
Those golden eyes that usually looked cold and awe-inspiring were now filled with a helpless smile. "...Stop looking at me like that."
The man slightly raised his hand and covered her eyes from a distance.
Su Cheng looked at him, her head full of question marks.
The large shadow cast by his palm completely covered her face, causing her to be unable to see the expression on his face either.
"What?"
She pulled down that large hand in confusion, and through the supple leather, she squeezed the man's pinky finger. "You're not feeling guilty, are you?"
Kai's gaze shifted slightly, looking at the slender fingers resting on the edge of his palm. Perhaps because his gloves were somewhat thick, she applied a bit of force when pressing down.
With the enhancement of her battle aura, she now had some strength in her grip. An ordinary person might have found the pain unbearable by now.
But to him, it merely felt like some kind of gentle touch—
The large hand wrapped in a leather glove turned over, completely enclosing the young girl's pale hand.
"No."
He sighed and said in a somewhat hesitant tone, "I just think you are very..."
Su Cheng: "?"
He seemed like he was going to say a certain word, but at the last moment, it was as if he switched to another.
"...cautious."
The black-haired man smiled faintly and said, "The interesting thing is that this usually concerns other people. But when it comes to your own affairs, you actually seem to act impulsively."
Su Cheng hesitated to speak, realizing she seemingly couldn't refute it. "It's not entirely about other people—uh, I mean, you only came looking for the people of the Mirror Hidden Society because of me."
"Oh?" He deliberately put on a thoughtful expression. "I remember you entered the Marigold Palace because of me, which provoked the people of the Mirror Hidden Society."
Su Cheng crossed her arms. "...I could keep playing this game with you forever, Commander. I could also say you taught me battle aura, and I can even guess what you would say next, but I don't want to do this anymore because it really stinks in here. Even though I'm getting used to it, it still stinks. Can we go explore somewhere else? Or are there even more corpses elsewhere?"
"No, there are the most right here."
The instigator quickly gave his answer.
Su Cheng puffed out her cheeks and turned around, walking towards the end of the courtyard. There was a staircase leading downwards, and the door at the entrance had been savagely smashed to pieces, scattering fragments all over the floor.
Inside was a long corridor with walls of completely different styles on either side. One side was cold, neat obsidian engraved with glowing silver-white runes, while the other side was a rough black rock wall with things hastily painted in white oil paint.
She looked closely and realized they were words, just written too messily.
Su Cheng: "Is this... ancient human language?"
The man behind her slowly approached. "Yes."
Su Cheng nodded in understanding. "I saw this in the prayer room of the God of Purity... Do you recognize it? What does it say?"
Kai glanced at the wall. "Do not seek the truth upon the solid rock; go explore the wisdom within the shifting sands and fleeting clouds."
He took a step forward as he spoke, looking at another sentence. "Do not trust your memories."
Kai fell silent for a moment. "This sentence... the meaning should be, scatter the fine dust of confusion in the minds of mortals. But its inversion and verb conjugation seem to be wrong."
Su Cheng blinked. "I thought they copied this from ancient texts?"
"No, this looks more like someone learned it themselves, but didn't learn it very well. Whenever they have to construct complex sentences, or compose poetry... let's just assume that's poetry, it becomes bizarre."
They then continued forward. Su Cheng saw many smashed doors, one of which was a destroyed storage room. Many shelves had collapsed inside, and various potion bottles were smashed on the ground. Colorful liquids blended together and dried on the obsidian floor tiles; some had turned into a gel-like substance, emitting a strange odor.
Another room was empty, containing only a giant translucent crystal. It looked like a screen playing a movie; each irregularly shaped facet projected a different scene. Some were burning cities and fleeing crowds, some were dragons flapping their wings in the clouds, and others were blurry, constantly shifting faces.
The wall at the end of the corridor was intact. The rooms on both sides looked like prison cells, but inside were only a few skeletons. The skeletons didn't look complete anymore, as some of the ribs had been taken away.
Su Cheng touched the wall and finally found an extremely tiny groove on a certain stone brick.
She tried pressing it.
Rows of glowing text emerged on the wall.
Su Cheng turned her head. "...Why did you leave this door unsmashed?"
"The things inside would shatter along with it," Kai said, leaning against the wall. "You decide. I think we should be able to find some scrolls on illusions inside. I guessed you would be interested. If you want them, you can try to solve the riddle."
Su Cheng was just about to say she didn't recognize the words on the wall when she found those symbol-like things rapidly twisting and changing.
Then they turned into the common tongue.
"I am the final destination of the cradle, and the initial seedbed of the grave. I swallow billions of burning sparks, yet my belly remains endlessly cold. I embrace all endlessly growing dreams, yet my arms have never hugged anything of substance. What am I?"
Su Cheng: "..."
She hated riddlers!
Su Cheng: "Time."
The wall had no reaction.
Su Cheng: "Death."
The wall still didn't change at all.
Su Cheng silently took a few steps back and lowered her voice, "How many chances do we have for this thing?"
Kai shook his head slightly. "I don't know, but relax. Even if you really want illusion scrolls, there are many ways to get them, so don't be afraid of messing up."
Su Cheng thought in distress for a while, returned to the wall, and tentatively asked, "Nothingness?"
With a rumbling vibration, the wall slowly opened to both sides.
Inside was a square stone chamber. There was a desk in the middle, and on the desk sat a brass oil lamp. The flame on the wick appeared an eerie white.
But when she looked closely, she found that the white seemed to be enveloped by a rainbow-colored halo.
A pure silver inkwell sat on the desk, the liquid inside possessing a viscous quality like a writhing living creature. A few quill pens lay beside it.
In the cabinet, densely packed scrolls were piled up, some thick and some thin, along with many letters.
Su Cheng rolled up her sleeves and began to search through them.
It would take too much time to look through them one by one. She figured these should have some general classification, so she randomly pulled a few out first.
The documents in the first area seemed to be various identity files.
Su Cheng looked at a few and suddenly realized that this might be a list, and the people on the list had all been replaced.
Or perhaps they were targets to be replaced?
Or allies? Supporters? Enemies?
She searched through a few other classified areas and finally found records related to illusions, which also contained many rituals for summoning deities.
The former was quite interesting, while the latter only made one dizzy.
She also found an exquisitely wrapped scroll in the cabinet. It even had a protective film added to it, a technique usually used to preserve ancient texts.
Su Cheng opened it curiously to take a look.
On the scroll was a blurry sketch of a human face.
Su Cheng: "...He looks so familiar. I think I've slept with him somewhere."
Kai: "?"
Su Cheng took a sharp breath. "That dancer! In Greymountain Town, that night I—"
"I remember," Kai interrupted her. "Are you sure it's this person?"
"This is just a portrait, I'm not sure. I just think they look very similar. That person actually looked even prettier—"
The room suddenly fell into a dead silence.
Su Cheng coughed lightly. "I mean—"
The man beside her reached out and took the portrait, examining it seriously for a moment. "Do you appreciate this type?"
Su Cheng rubbed her temples, the illusion she had just seen still replaying in her mind. "I think he's handsome, but his looks aren't exactly my favorite type..."
"Then what is your favorite type?"
"Someone like you."
Su Cheng blurted out without a second thought.
Then, she froze.
