Chapter 197: Splitting Up
Rex kept his eyes fixed on Lillian’s back, afraid of losing her.
He moved with great care, checking every foothold before stepping down, afraid of leaving marks on the mirrored floor and even more afraid of blundering straight into one of the walls. But there were simply too many mirrors. They were everywhere. Sometimes, after turning a corner, his shoulder would scrape against one. Thankfully, he was not injured. It just hurt a little.
His breathing was heavy, though he was trying hard to keep it down. He knew this place was far too quiet. Even the slightest sound would carry for a long distance. Suppressing it like that made his face flush a little.
Every now and then, his gaze would drift toward the mirrors on either side, where he could see countless versions of himself staring at countless Lillians walking ahead. The expressions on those faces were exactly the same as his—honest, a little nervous, and more than a little confused.
Sometimes he wondered whether the self in the mirror was the real one, or whether it was only a patch of reflected light.
He could not make sense of it, so he stopped trying. As long as he kept following the young miss, that was enough.
Vera walked at the very back.
She moved slowly and lightly, as though she were in no hurry at all. Her gaze drifted from the backs of the three ahead of her to the mirrors on either side. In those mirrors, countless Veras also walked at the rear, just as slowly, just as lightly.
Those reflections of her watched the three figures ahead, the corners of their mouths always curved in that faint, barely-there smile.
Light went on reflecting back and forth inside the maze.
No one knew where it came from, and no one knew where it was going. It simply leaped, refracted, split, and merged again between the endless mirrors, flooding this corridor—so narrow that only one person could pass through at a time—with glaring brightness. It fell on their bodies, on their faces, into their eyes.
It was dizzying, so dizzying that it became impossible to tell which way was forward, which way was back, which one was yourself, and which one was only the reflection in the mirror.
Ryan kept walking.
At first, he had assumed this corridor was only a dozen or so meters long. A few steps, and they would reach the end.
But he walked for a very long time.
A very, very long time.
Long enough for his legs to begin aching, long enough for him to change the direction of the short knife in his hand twice, long enough for him to begin wondering whether they had just been walking in circles the entire time.
The scenery around them never changed.
The same mirrors.
The same light.
The same narrow corridor.
Turn one corner, and there were still mirrors.
Turn another, and there were still mirrors.
Go straight, and there were still mirrors.
The reflections of them in those mirrors had also been walking for just as long.
Those Ryans still wore the same unreadable expression, though the fatigue in their eyes matched his own. Those Lillians still had their faces set tight, though the corners of their mouths had begun to droop a little. Those Rexes were still scratching their heads, but the frequency of it was increasing. Those Veras still wore that faint smile, though somehow it seemed to have deepened a little.
As though they were waiting for something.
Ryan suddenly remembered something.
Parker’s group, Vincent’s group, and all those who had gone in ahead of them were all supposed to have been badly injured.
But there was nothing here.
No monsters.
No traps.
No mechanisms.
Nothing except mirrors, mirrors, mirrors.
Just as he was thinking that, the path ahead changed.
It did not widen, and it did not narrow.
It split.
Three paths.
Three identical corridors stretched away in three different directions. Every mirror reflected those branching routes, making it impossible to tell which one was real and which one was false.
Ryan stopped.
The three behind him stopped as well.
“What...” Rex’s voice came from behind him. “Why are there three paths?”
Ryan did not answer.
He stared at the three routes for a long moment, then chose the one farthest to the left.
“Move.”
He turned sideways and squeezed into it.
After a while, three more paths appeared.
Again, he chose the leftmost one.
After another stretch, three more paths.
Again, the leftmost.
After several such turns, Lillian could not help asking, “How do you know always going left is the right choice?”
“I don’t,” Ryan said. “We’ll walk first and figure it out later.”
After several more sections, Ryan suddenly stopped.
He reached into his clothes, pulled out the black marking rod, injected a little Mana into it, and drew a small circle on the mirror in front of him.
Then he kept going.
Leftmost.
Leftmost.
Leftmost.
At every fork, he chose the farthest path on the left.
No one knew how long they walked, or how many turns they made.
Then suddenly he stopped.
There was a small circle on the mirror in front of him.
The same one he had drawn.
Ryan stared at that circle, and at his own face reflected inside it. There was little expression on that face, but something flickered in his eyes.
Then he let out a quiet breath of relief.
The exhale was very light, but Lillian heard it.
She stepped closer, saw the circle, then saw the look on his face, and frowned in confusion.
“What is it? Did you figure something out?”
Ryan nodded.
Pointing at the circle, he said, “This is the mark I made the second time we hit a fork.”
Lillian froze.
“We’ve been walking for so long, but I never saw it again,” Ryan said. “I was starting to think we had been taking different paths the whole time, and that this place had to be ridiculously huge.”
“Now it looks like that isn’t the case.”
He pulled a sheet of paper and a pen from his pack.
Crouching down, he spread the paper over his knee and began drawing.
He had no ruler, but the lines he drew were perfectly straight. They extended from his pen in clean, precise strokes, so level and exact that they looked as though they had been produced by some finely calibrated instrument. It was obvious that he had excellent control over his muscles.
Lillian leaned in to look.
Rex leaned in too, nearly knocking her over. Lillian glared at him, but he did not notice. He was staring at the paper with wide eyes, as if watching some kind of magic.
Vera came over as well and stood beside them, looking down at the page.
Ryan first sketched a three-way intersection.
Then he extended one line forward, and every time it reached a fork, he made it turn left.
He drew a very long path.
And in the end, that path’s endpoint connected back to its starting point.
Ryan set the pen down and pointed at the diagram.
“This is the route we just took.”
Lillian’s eyes widened.
Rex’s mouth fell open too.
It was a regular dodecagon.
Twelve sides, with each side representing a stretch of corridor and each corner representing a fork. By always choosing the farthest-left path, they had taken twelve turns and looped all the way back to the second intersection.
“The leftmost path,” Ryan said, “forms a closed loop.”
He paused.
“If the rightmost path also forms a closed loop, then the structure of this maze should be two regular dodecagons.”
He picked up the pen again and drew two tangent regular dodecagons side by side.
“The place where the two shapes meet,” he said, pointing at the narrow connecting section between them, “should have a route leading out.”
Lillian stared at the drawing, her mouth hanging open.
So did Rex.
Neither of them had expected that this seemingly boundless mirror maze could be broken down like this.
Vera stood beside them, looking down at the paper.
Then she lifted her eyes to Ryan, and that faint smile at the corner of her mouth deepened a little.
“How interesting,” she said.
Ryan did not notice her expression. He folded the paper and tucked it away.
Then he used the marking rod to draw a large arrow on the mirror in front of them. The arrow was thick and long, pointing directly at the three-way fork, so obvious that it would be visible from any direction.
After that, he took out two more marking rods and handed them to Vera and Lillian.
“With a little Mana, these can leave marks on the mirrors,” he said. “Only we can see them. Other people can’t.”
Vera took hers and weighed it lightly in her hand.
Lillian accepted hers too, staring at the small black rod with visible tension.
“Now,” Ryan said, “we split into two groups.”
Lillian froze.
“I’ll take Rex and go down the middle path.” Ryan looked at Lillian. “You and Vera take the one on the right. Can you do that?”
Lillian’s heart gave a hard thump.
Split up?
Separate from Rex?
Her eyes darted instinctively to him.
Rex was scratching his head, looking baffled. He looked at Ryan, then at Lillian, then at Vera, and then he spoke.
“So I don’t have to protect the young miss anymore?”
He sounded utterly serious, as though asking about something truly important.
Lillian’s heart gave another jolt.
Ryan said, “You’re coming with me. We need to split up the fighting strength evenly.”
Then he looked at Vera.
“Don’t worry. Miss Vera is strong enough to protect Lillian.”
Vera nodded and looked at Rex, a faint smile curling her lips.
“Don’t worry, big fool,” she said. “I’ll keep your young miss safe.”
Rex stared at her for two seconds.
Then he walked up to Vera and looked at her with complete solemnity.
“I’m leaving her to you.”
The tone in his voice was so earnest that it sounded as though he were entrusting her with some priceless treasure.
Lillian stood beside them, her face warming.
She wanted to say something. She wanted to say Who are you calling your young miss? She wanted to say I don’t need anyone protecting me. She wanted to say any of the usual sharp words that would have sprung to her lips in an instant.
But she said nothing.
She only lowered her head and tightened her grip around the marking rod.
Very tightly.
Ryan looked at the three of them once, then turned and headed down the middle path.
Rex followed.
After taking two steps, he looked back and waved at Lillian.
The gesture was clumsy and foolish, almost like a farewell.
Then his back vanished among the mirrors.
Lillian stood there and looked in that direction for two seconds.
Two seconds felt very long.
Long enough to be a lifetime.
“Come on,” Vera’s voice sounded beside her.
Lillian turned her head.
Vera was already heading down the right-hand corridor. Her back was light and steady, as though nothing in the world truly mattered to her.
Lillian drew a deep breath and followed.
The footsteps of the two girls echoed back and forth through the mirrors.
In those mirrors, countless versions of them were walking as well.
In those mirrors, Ryan and Rex were walking too.
In those mirrors, countless versions of all of them moved step by step through that boundless maze of glass.
The light still rebounded endlessly within it.
It fell on their bodies, on their faces, in their eyes.
And it fell on those mirrors as well.
Inside those mirrors, something was slowly taking shape.
Very slowly.
Very lightly.
As though it were waiting for something.
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