Clack, clack, clack...
Just then, the sound of grinding gears and mechanisms echoed throughout the underground hall.
Turning to look, they discovered that eight new passageways had suddenly appeared in the enclosed hall.
Even without any prompt, both Yaxiu and Weise understood that the moment they stepped into one of the passages, it would seal behind them, becoming their exclusive trial path.
In truth, Yaxiu and Watcher had not intentionally lain in ambush for the Silver Lantern twins here; it was simply that they, too, had been unable to leave...
For upon arriving at this hall, their wristwatches had popped up a notification: "Only when all trial participants reach the Dormant Cicada Hall will the path to the Cicada Hall open."
Evidently, even if Weise and Youlan had reached the hall first, they still would have had to wait for Yaxiu and his companion to arrive before they could proceed. Yaxiu had originally wondered why such a rule existed, but the sight of these eight passageways made everything clear.
Back in the very first hall, there had been sixteen passages, meaning this trial was meant to accommodate sixteen pairs concurrently.
Eight passages meant that only half of them could advance to the next trial. Rather than judging the contestants' superiority by how fast they cleared the trials, the organizers seemed to favor testing comprehensive survival: wait until everyone gathered in the hall, weed out half through slaughter, and allow the survivors to advance.
Yaxiu could easily imagine how cutthroat past trials must have been: sixteen pairs of twins gathering in the hall, the strong scheming, intimidating, and asserting dominance, the weak forming temporary alliances and feigning compliance, until finally only eight pairs survived to step into the next circle of hell.
Hadn't the Grey Fox Divine Era been praised as a wonderful, glorious age? Why did such a bloody ritual exist? Or had Yaxiu misjudged, and the contestants had actually resolved matters with rock-paper-scissors?
Whatever the case, their fight could no longer continue.
"Silver Lantern, count yourselves lucky," Yaxiu couldn't help but talk tough.
"In that case, see you in the next hall." Weise watched them as she backed into a passage.
"Wait!"
"If you want to ask what this trial is really about, save your breath," Weise said in a low voice. "You and I aren't familiar enough to share intelligence."
"His name is Watcher."
Yaxiu draped an arm over Watcher's shoulder, introducing him to the two across the hall, then looked at Youlan. "What's your name?"
"I'm Silver Lantern too," Youlan giggled.
"Silver Lantern is specifically her codename. You ought to have a name of your own."
"Since he's called Watcher," Youlan pointed at Watcher, "then I'll be called Mirror Master."
Yaxiu looked slightly puzzled. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"You are the onlooker," Youlan said as she stepped back into the passage alongside Weise.
"And I am the one in the mirror."
Watching the Silver Lantern twins disappear into their passage, Yaxiu heard footsteps behind him. He turned to find that Watcher had already walked into a passage behind them without a word. Yaxiu scrambled after him. "Hey, wait up! What if I got stranded in the hall?!"
The Silver Lantern twins walked through the illuminated corridor. Weise glanced at her wristwatch and saw that the countdown remained frozen, not ticking down at all.
She spoke up abruptly. "That codename..."
"You have no interest in walking that path anyway," Youlan said breezily. "So why not lend it to me?"
"You even have that memory?"
"Of course. Haven't you been hallucinating that name all these days? Silver Lantern Mirror Master... that is the expectation the Four Pillar Gods hold for you," Youlan said. "If you become a complete feeler, your feeler ability will probably take that name. Since you're already using Silver Lantern, I had no choice but to settle for Mirror Master."
"I thought that no matter how advanced this trial was, it wouldn't be capable of monitoring traces of the Four Pillar Gods."
"Or perhaps the Four Pillar Gods don't mind people detecting their traces at all," Youlan chuckled. "They're like a bunch of advertisers blasting spam through bullhorns, eager for every living soul to hear their call."
Soon, a door came into view along the corridor. As they stepped up to it, the door slid open automatically, revealing a dining table, chairs, food, and two soft beds.
"Welcome, Trial Participant Twin No. 1. You may remain in the lounge for 360 minutes. Once the time expires, the trial will resume. Leaving the lounge will be deemed an early end to your rest period, and the trial will also resume."
Even though slaying trial replicas restored physical stamina and healed injuries, high-intensity combat naturally took a heavy toll on the mind. While they could press on with the trial to reach the next hall ahead of schedule, they would still have to wait for Yaxiu and his partner to arrive before the passages to the third stage would open.
No matter how one looked at it, resting thoroughly was the optimal choice—not to mention that if Yaxiu decided to rest, Weise had a reason she could not avoid resting as well.
Once the door sealed shut, Youlan didn't even bother going to the bathroom. Stripping off all her clothes as she walked, she threw herself onto a bed and rolled around.
Seeing this made Weise feel profoundly awkward. Watching someone with her exact face and body behave with such wild abandon made her feel second-hand embarrassment.
Even if she put on this very persona out in the world, that didn't mean she was truly like that on the inside.
Still, she said nothing. Removing her mask and coat, she took out hemostatic bandages from a drawer and stood before a mirror to dress the wound on her neck—the puncture marks left by Yaxiu's teeth were vividly imprinted there, having missed her trachea by a mere hair's breadth.
"Need a hand?" Youlan asked with a languid smile, reclining across the bed.
"No."
"Yaxiu's twin doesn't seem to be the true self you were hoping for. What's the plan now?"
"I never counted on his twin happening to be the hidden truth he keeps concealed," Weise replied calmly. "At the end of the day, my plans never accounted for him following me in here in the first place. The Divine Fire Trial should have been mine alone; his presence merely adds unnecessary variables. Nor did I expect the Transcendent Cult to actually grant him an indulgence for long-distance god-hosting..."
"Not that it matters," she continued. "When all the troubles pile up together to be solved at once, things become much simpler. In fact, the current situation is far more interesting."
"Oh?"
"Rather than picking up a ready-made ally off the shelf, I prefer grooming a companion tailored to my taste," Weise said. "Here, he has lost his companions and his sorcery power. He is utterly ignorant and at a loss, surrounded by enemies with nowhere to turn... He is only one step away from having his true self stripped bare.
"These bite marks mark the inception of his awakening. Next, all it takes is pushing the dominoes in the Void Realm, and we can watch him crumble."
"'Rather than picking up something ready-made, grooming is far more interesting...'" Youlan strolled behind Weise, leaning down slightly to rest both hands on her shoulders. Gazing at the two reflections in the mirror, her lips softly turned over those words, savoring them until they fermented into a sweet bitterness.
"You do make a good point."
***
"Ouch! Gently, gentler!"
Watcher tossed the bandage aside. "It's your left shoulder that's hurt this time. Wrap it yourself next time."
"Come on, there are two of us! Shouldn't we help each other out? Next time you get hurt, I'll treat you too." Yaxiu examined himself in the mirror, his throat and left shoulder swathed in bandages. "Looks like I won't be taking a shower tonight..."
"I can wrap my own wounds, and so can you."
"Aren't we basically the same person? You wrapping it for me is practically me wrapping it for myself." Yaxiu attempted to bluff his way through with absurd logic. "Still, thank goodness we have six hours to rest, and there's even food and a restroom. Before this, I was wondering if trial contestants were expected to relieve themselves anywhere on the floor..."
"By the way, I'm heading into the Void Realm soon. Can you go too?"
Watcher sat on the bed, resting with eyes closed. "No. Aurora's Sorcerer Handbook belongs exclusively to you. I am merely a duplicate possessing your memories and techniques."
"You're not just a replica, you're the Watcher who almost beat the snot out of Silver Lantern," Yaxiu said cheerfully. "What about the Void Realm itself? Once we leave this place, can you enter the Void Realm?"
Watcher opened his eyes and stared at him for a long moment before asking, "Do you have even a single sorcery spirit that you summoned yourself?"
Yaxiu froze. "Don't I? Substitute, Heart Sword... huh?"
Because he had always entered the Void Realm through his operators' Gates of Truth, Yaxiu suddenly realized how utterly preposterous he was—he was already a Sanctuary Sorcerer, yet he hadn't summoned a single sorcery spirit on his own!
He hadn't even laid eyes on the Gate of Truth once!
Without Aurora's Sorcerer Handbook, he couldn't even enter the Void Realm!
Attending college without ever seeing one's course professor wasn't nearly this absurd; a fairer comparison would be living for over a decade after birth without knowing one's own name.
"I... I'll work hard," Yaxiu said with utmost sincerity. "But even if you can't enter the Void Realm, it doesn't matter. You're protecting me right now, and once I become a Legendary Sorcerer, I can turn around and look out for you!"
Watcher was entirely unmoved. "I will not look after you. You are on your own."
"Strange," Yaxiu sat down on Watcher's bed, scrutinizing him thoughtfully. "Could you be a tsundere? Is my complementary personality really that bizarre?"
Watcher gave no reaction, waiting a moment only to find Yaxiu still lingering there. Yaxiu's expression grew awkward and hesitant, opening his mouth only to stop himself, before finally screwing up the courage to ask, "Um, there's something I want to ask you..."
"I did not inherit all your emotions," Watcher said. "Nor do I hold any interest in tedious concepts like friendship, romance, or familial affection."
"What about our parents?!"
Watcher lowered his eyelids. "The same."
Though slightly disgruntled, Yaxiu secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
Crossing his legs on the bed, he rocked side to side and said, "When I enter the Void Realm later, I hope I draw the 'Hand of Countless Radiance' from the Dream Treasury. Equipping Sword Princess with that collectible last time made her practically invincible—infinite Blood Moon Shattered Lake and Meteor Tribulation! Unless the affix bubbles had invincible traits, she could tear right through them..."
Watcher: "Why are you chatting with me?"
Yaxiu looked baffled. "If I don't talk to you, who am I supposed to talk to? The pillow?"
Watcher shook his head. "If I am not mistaken, you were still wary of me at first, yet now you trust me completely."
Yaxiu blinked, then nodded cheerfully. "Yeah. Because even when Silver Lantern tried to tempt you like that, you didn't betray me. That set my mind at ease. To be honest, at the start I really worried about whether you'd try to replace me or something..."
"What if I have other plans, or simply deemed Silver Lantern the greater threat?" Watcher countered. "If a more opportune moment arose—"
"Hypotheticals are meaningless, and human nature should never be tested. Everyone has a price for betrayal; if someone paid enough, I could betray everything too," Yaxiu said lightly. "What truly makes me happy isn't that you didn't betray me, but that I can trust you.
"Even though I have people I can confide in, people who accept me, people with whom I can share joy and sorrow, and even a home waiting for me and companions to whom I can entrust my back..." Yaxiu looked down at his hands. "...you are the only one who truly understands me."
After a beat of silence, Yaxiu scratched his head sheepishly and nimbly rolled back onto his own bed. "Man, that sounded like some edgy chuunibyou speech, kind of embarrassing... Anyway, it's about time. I'm heading into the Void Realm. Good night!"
As Yaxiu's consciousness linked to the Void Realm and entered the dream phantasm, the lounge returned to silence.
Only after a long while did a cold remark break the quiet:
"Far too weak."
Chapter 571