Eldritch Horror Theatre

The white frost receded, leaving the mirrors bright and clear.

By the time Fu Qian began toying with the Bell Staff in his hand, all sound had already faded from his surroundings.

At the same time, the mirrors stretching as far as the eye could see seemed to revert to their original nature, reflecting true images once more.

Given their intersecting angles, a single glance revealed countless figures layered thickly upon one another.

This was especially true after Fu Qian finally tucked the Bell Staff away and stepped forward. The reflections shifted and floated like a kaleidoscope.

Naturally, these simple visual illusions could not affect Fu Qian.

His curiosity was focused instead on the structure of the passage itself.

The transition from the invisible path earlier to this House of Mirrors represented what could almost be called a dimensional shift.

This formless palace seemed to be growing more and more tangible.

It was even becoming more lively.

Setting aside the Mathematical Titan from just a moment ago, Fu Qian thought back to the scene when he first stepped into this place.

Those numerous figures of the Saints draped in white robes.

People often fell victim to mental inertia. Given the shifting reflections as he walked, it was easy to assume those earlier figures were merely reflections cast by Brother Titan.

But what if they weren't?

According to his earlier deductions, Brother Titan shared a highly unusual connection with that tree. What if those numerous robed figures were exactly like him?

What if they were all Saints, and he had been surrounded by onlookers from the very beginning?

This was no alarmist theory; it stemmed from his excellent habits of thought and his absolute Insight.

Because, despite catching only a fleeting glimpse, Fu Qian remembered quite clearly that not all of those figures shared Brother Titan's build.

...

So, what exactly had Old Man Huang and the rest of the team encountered when they descended to this Depth?

The environment was chaotic and hallucinatory; it was certainly far from a simple corridor.

Proceeding in the only available direction, Fu Qian soon found a long staircase composed entirely of mirrors and stepped onto it without hesitation.

It was practically certain that Old Man Huang and his group harbored ulterior motives for this expedition. And judging by previous inferences, even if they hadn't been too late in realizing there was no turning back, their only option would have still been to brace themselves and continue downward.

Since he had always considered himself an approachable person, Fu Qian didn't assume a bizarre place like the House of Mirrors was generated exclusively for him. Thus, it was only natural for him to wonder what kind of scenes the others might have encountered while traversing this space.

Would the Saints have appeared before them, too?

Just one, or many?

Whose faces would they have worn?

As the saying went: wherever there was a vigorous thirst for knowledge, there would always be knowledge waiting to be sought.

Carrying these easily conjured questions with him, Fu Qian encountered no further obstacles along the way and finally reached the bottom of the long staircase.

He had also reached the end of this segment of the House of Mirrors.

The bottom edge of those magnificent, spotless stairs rested abruptly against a patch of rugged rock.

This was the floor of a cavern. The House of Mirrors connected to the jagged, chaotic rocks in an incredibly jarring manner.

It gave the distinct impression that some colossal entity had embedded itself into this mountain pass in a fragmented, messy fashion, growing increasingly tangible the further one descended.

The transition felt seamless, yet it raised another question: it was difficult to imagine the relationship between this colossal structure and that tree.

After all, no matter how one looked at it, this place did not seem suitable to house a tree.

How exactly it had sprouted here was a mystery that seemed to hold endless secrets.

Amid his musings, Fu Qian stepped onto the dark, cyan-black rock.

"This doesn't look good."

The next moment, as he took in the scene ahead, he let out a heartfelt sigh of admiration.

...

This was by no means an exaggeration.

In both shape and size, this cavern's style was entirely consistent with the holes he had seen in the rock faces earlier.

To a certain extent, this proved he hadn't wandered off into some alternate dimension while traversing the House of Mirrors.

But that was precisely where the problem lay.

It was the same location, but this cavern sloped upward.

Though the incline was shallow enough to be considered gentle, it was undeniably sloping upward.

Armed with the survival rules they had deduced earlier, the rescue team must have been utterly speechless upon arriving here and seeing this sight.

Shhk...

Amidst a particularly subtle tearing sound, Fu Qian brushed a hand over his chest, his fingers instantly dyed red.

His musings hadn't slowed his movements; he had already taken several steps forward.

And the resulting consequence successfully proved that his location hadn't actually changed.

A wound erupted from the inside out, piercing his lungs and splitting his chest wide open.

The rule dictating that walking upward would result in one's body being skewered by blades was clearly still in effect. Moreover, one could even draw a further conclusion from it.

That was: the Chastisement triggered by violating the rules seemed to scale with the violator's Rank.

At least in Fu Qian's eyes, if a strike of this magnitude had pierced Xiao Ying, the resulting damage would have been far worse than her just coughing up a bit of blood.

This meant that an ordinary High-Tier Transcendent trying to brute-force their way through with sheer physical resilience wouldn't last much longer than anyone else.

Of course, that only applied to ordinary people. For a professional like himself, the only real annoyance was how hard blood was to wash out of his clothes.

Glancing down at the crimson stain spreading across his chest, Fu Qian wore a look of regret, yet his footsteps never faltered.

As another bloom of blood burst from his body, Fu Qian rounded a corner, and the view before him suddenly opened wide.

The space beyond the corner was vastly grander and much more orderly.

This time, however, there were no mirrors. The path transitioned directly into a long staircase built from stacked white stone.

The stone was translucent and polished smooth, while its sides were carved with exquisitely beautiful patterns of blooming flora and intertwined branches.

There was only one problem: the stairs also led upward.

Furthermore, the incline exceeded sixty degrees, and a single glance revealed well over a hundred steps.

And blood cascaded down them like a waterfall.

Indeed, aside from the balustrades on either side, the remainder of the stairs was completely covered by an unnaturally vivid torrent of blood, leaving not a single gap of exposed stone.

It was almost as though a thickening agent had been added to it; the silently flowing blood waterfall didn't bear a single ripple on its surface. Instead, it was stretched so tautly that it formed a reflective surface only slightly less perfect than the mirrors from moments ago.

This eerie phenomenon cascaded all the way down from the top, eventually pooling into a basin at the bottom that was equally as bright and reflective.

It was truly a scene to evoke despair. After all, under normal circumstances, traversing such an elevation difference would be enough to kill a person ten times over, even if they started in peak condition.

Fu Qian took another two steps forward, shaking his head as yet another bloody wound bloomed across his body.

From this perspective, the neighboring team's decision to destroy the natural environment was entirely understandable.

Yes, just a short distance to one side of where he stood, more than one person was peering out at him in shock and suspicion—staring through a small tunnel that had clearly not been formed by nature.

When there was no path forward, you simply dug one out. Fu Qian wasn't the least bit surprised by the sight.

He never underestimated humanity's will to survive.

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