"Igola has really treated me too well."
The instant his eardrums were shattered by the Mind Shriek, this thought suddenly surfaced in Yaxiu's mind. When he tried to charge forward, he discovered that the sustained Mind Shriek actually possessed a knockback effect. Deprived of both sorcery power and sorcery spirits, even closing the distance proved exceedingly difficult!
Standing before the two of them was a man in black who bore an uncanny resemblance to Igola. To distinguish him from the genuine article, call him the Phantom Rust Crow.
After seizing the initiative with his Mind Shriek, the Phantom Rust Crow remarkably drew a handgun in each hand from within his robes. When the twin muzzles leveled at him, an overwhelming dread clawed at Yaxiu's heart like a wild beast, locking his entire body rigid, drenching him in sweat, and turning his legs to water!
Yet as a sorcerer tempered by countless battles in the Void Realm, Yaxiu would never lose his composure simply from having a barrel pointed at him. This was the Phantom Rust Crow's mind miracle: amplifying the fear in Yaxiu's heart through the trigger of "being aimed at by a muzzle," causing hormonal surges that undermined Yaxiu's bodily control!
Bang! Bang!
Yaxiu slashed in the nick of time, deflecting the bullets. Watcher did not bother to parry at all; with a slight tilt of his head, he slipped past the gunfire, sprinting and leaping along the walls at breakneck speed as he attempted to breach the Phantom Rust Crow's perimeter!
Far from retreating, the Phantom Rust Crow charged straight toward Watcher, firing as he advanced.
Seeing this, the lingering fear in Yaxiu's heart flared and boiled over once again—it was the Fearless sorcery spirit! Igola had once mentioned to Yaxiu that when paired with his fear miracles, the Fearless sorcery spirit could detonate the dread lurking within others whenever he displayed total fearlessness!
On top of that, the Phantom Rust Crow opened his mouth again, letting loose a second Mind Shriek!
Yet Yaxiu and Watcher's eardrums had already been ruptured by the first Mind Shriek. Would such a miracle still work?
Of course it would.
Mind miracles were hardly so fragile or inconvenient.
In fact, it was far more terrifying—as long as the memory of the Mind Shriek lingered in their minds, the moment the Phantom Rust Crow made the motion, it would directly trigger that second shriek!
Indeed, the Phantom Rust Crow had not cast the miracle at all. He had merely shaped his lips, and memory seeped into their consciousness like virulent poison, rattling their very souls!
It was simply that Yaxiu had never truly stood against Igola as an enemy before, leaving him no prior opportunity to savor such a Shriek Duet!
What the Phantom Rust Crow was genuinely unleashing at this moment was the courage-boosting miracle: Boiling Blood!
Target: Watcher.
Effect: refusal to evade any attack, proactively charging into every hardship!
Mind miracles never differentiated between buffs and debuffs; everything depended on how a mind sorcerer chose to wield them.
Stunned by the phantom Mind Shriek and spurred by Boiling Blood, Watcher seemed doomed to become an open target, utterly at the mercy of the Phantom Rust Crow's fusillade!
Yet Watcher snapped out of the shriek almost instantly. His twin swords traced arcs like a curtain of rain, not only batting away every bullet, but even executing a perfect parry on one, sending it flying right back to pierce the Phantom Rust Crow's left wrist!
The Phantom Rust Crow dropped the weapon from his left hand and retreated swiftly, his right aiming toward Yaxiu, who was seizing the opening to close in. As the gunshot rang out, Yaxiu did not parry; instead, he ducked low to evade and thrust his blade toward the Phantom Rust Crow!
A third Mind Shriek erupted. Though Yaxiu was already immune to its mental toll, the shriek itself still physically repelled objects beyond a certain radius; only those within the eye of the shriek remained unaffected by the knockback!
Yaxiu was naturally blasted backward, but in that fleeting window while the Phantom Rust Crow's focus was drawn toward him, Watcher had already breached the perimeter, and then—
Slash!
A flash of sword light swept across, unleashing a five-foot geyser of blood. The headless corpse slumped limply to the floor, while the blond head bounced and rolled to a stop beside Yaxiu.
Two plumes of flame rose from the fallen body and drifted into Yaxiu and Watcher, instantly mending all their wounds, restoring their stamina, and even leaving them with a comforting sense of fullness in their stomachs.
Yaxiu sat on the ground taking shallow, rapid breaths, then rose and exhaled a breath of stale air. Without sparing a single glance at the remains on the floor, he asked, "What's going on here?"
"You've already reached your own conclusion. Why ask me for an answer?" Watcher used the fabric near his elbow to wipe the blood from his blade before sheathing it.
"Because I was hoping you could give a different answer," Yaxiu replied. "To let me know that I'm just an idiot jumping to the wrong conclusions."
"Our upcoming trial opponents will likely all be duplicates plucked from your memories." Watcher had no intention of coddling Yaxiu's delicate sensibilities. "Igola Bogin, Archibald Harvey, Gerard Westminster, Annan Dolan, Banjie Dolan, Freya Hoyle, and... Sword Princess, Witch, Weisser."
"...That's going way too far."
"Duplicates, not the originals." Watcher nudged the headless corpse with his boot. "They merely possess the miracle abilities you've witnessed."
"Don't do that," Yaxiu said earnestly. "And it's not just me—it's us."
Watcher remained expressionless, pulling down his mask to spit out a mouthful of blood. Yaxiu glanced at him. "Did you bite your tongue just now?"
"Severe pain can dispel the vast majority of mind miracles," he said. "That is an instinct one can master at the Silver rank of the mind faction."
"Except right now we aren't even Silver Sorcerers." Yaxiu sighed. "Is there a forfeit option for this trial? We're cut off from sorcery power, yet we're expected to fight full-fledged sorcerers?"
"The damage output of the trial opponents should be suppressed to within the One-Wing tier," Watcher said. "If that were a Two-Wing Mind Shriek, the kinetic knockback alone would have shattered our ribs."
"Even if it's only a One-Wing Sorcerer, that's still—"
Watcher paid no heed to his blathering, adjusting his gear and continuing forward. Yaxiu hurried after him, complaining, "The others are one thing, but Sword Princess, Witch, Annan, and the rest—"
"No matter how formidable a trial left behind by the Grey Fox God Era might be, it cannot surpass the Gospel god in its prime," Watcher said calmly. "If even the Gospel cannot peer into your circumstances within the Void Realm, this trial should likewise be unable to replicate your operators."
"But there's still the Veela and the Young Miss..." Yaxiu said. "Could you really bring yourself to raise a hand against them?"
Watcher did not answer, merely shooting him a look.
Yaxiu could only fret over how to handle that when the time came, but he soon brightened up again, pumping a fist. "Two mortals like us, completely cut off from sorcery power, took down a mind sorcerer using nothing but cold steel! We're amazing!"
"Though this trial really is twisted. Wouldn't it be better to throw some revolting monster at us instead? Hacking through something like that would leave us feeling refreshed. Why did it have to replicate people from our memories?"
"Come to think of it, were those appearance-altering items back in the customization area prepared specifically for this?" Yaxiu suddenly realized. "As long as I dress up like someone else, does it alleviate the psychological burden of killing familiar faces?"
Watcher said calmly, "Changes in appearance induce changes in disposition. Uniforms, combat outfits, and similar attire all carry this effect. That, too, is an instinct one can master at the Silver rank of the mind faction."
"Yet so long as one can see through illusion, there is no need for such external crutches."
"It's not as if I'm like the Silver Lantern, treating everything as an illusion," Yaxiu said. "Speaking of which, the Silver Lantern must have zero psychological baggage doing this trial, right?"
...
"Doesn't it feel like they've crawled out of Hell to seek revenge on you?"
Weisser wiped the blood from her face and retrieved a fox mask from the ground. Though she lacked the Illusion sorcery spirit to veil herself, she was now dressed in vibrant attire with her hair dyed purple; even Slay All Crows would struggle to see through her disguise.
"I'm beginning to wonder whether you're my opposite or my mirror image," she said. "Does mocking me bring you any joy, Youlan?"
"Can't I be your complement?" Youlan smiled. Her garments and appearance mirrored Weisser's, differing only slightly in color. "There is still hesitation in your heart, whereas I harbor no doubt."
Youlan was Weisser's Fate Twin. Yet Weisser could never quite tell whether she was a complement, an opposite, or a duplicate. At times she shared Weisser's exact line of thought, while at other times she loved to taunt Weisser, and she had even presumptuously claimed the moniker 'Youlan' as her own.
If pressed, Weisser felt she bore a passing resemblance to that avatar of the Illusion Mirror Dragon from not long ago.
"Neither do I." Weisser kicked the corpse on the floor away with force. "If I could kill them once, I can naturally kill them twice."
"Yet this isn't the reunion you were hoping for, is it?" Youlan said. "What you longed for was that in the Void Realm, those who died by your hand would sincerely thank you for your benevolence, and those who misunderstood you would be genuinely grateful from the depths of their hearts for your greatness... Deep down, you yearn for strangers to applaud you."
"Especially him." Youlan glanced at the corpse on the ground. "He adored you so, revered you so, willing to share the Labyrinth with you, to share the Vortex secret poison. Yet what you repaid him with was cold death, simply because—"
"Simply because his hoarding of spoils would draw retribution from the Calamitous Fire Temple, dragging me down with him; simply because the fewer people infected by the Vortex secret poison, the better; simply because I needed an opportunity to enter the Temple's sights," Weisser said calmly. "Could it be that just because so much time has passed, you actually believe I care about that?"
"Of course not. I brought it up only because back then, you genuinely considered whether to seek a companion," Youlan said. "Persevering all alone is far too difficult."
"No one will ever understand me. Everyone has gone mad, preferring to wallow in illusions rather than look up at the night sky. My sole mercy is granting them release," Weisser said. "Though perhaps that state of affairs is about to change."
The two women moved forward along the corridor. Weisser glanced down at her wristwatch: aside from the twenty-one-minute countdown, her trial count had risen to three. With a trial occurring every thirty minutes, that meant they had already spent over ninety minutes in the passage.
Suddenly, the countdown halted. Weisser raised her head and saw that they had arrived at the end of the passage, where a dazzling door of light awaited.
Stepping through the portal of light, they found themselves in another subterranean hall.
Yet they were not the first visitors to arrive.
In the fleeting breath it took for their eyes to adjust to the shifting light, two figures in the center of the hall charged rapidly toward them!
Weisser backed away at once, only for her spine to meet cold, unyielding stone. Never had she imagined that despite being the first to embark on the Path of Trials, and despite her Silver Dragon Blood physique granting her formidable combat prowess even without sorcery power, her overall pace had somehow fallen behind those who followed!
Watching Yaxiu rush toward her, her heart remained devoid of sorrow or joy.
Youlan looked at Watcher charging toward her, playfully giving him a wink.
Chapter 569