Bengtie: My death fueled their madness.

Wind magic enveloped the two as they rushed towards their destination, the fourth floor, the third floor...

We're almost at the second floor.

Just as he rounded the corner, Qi Zhimu slammed on the brakes, but a withered, sharp claw pierced through the wall and into his side.

Fresh blood quickly soaked through his clothes.

Qi Zhimu groaned softly, his brows furrowing only slightly, as if it wasn't his stomach that had been pierced.

Does he really think he's an assassin?

He abandoned the idea of ​​slowing down and used the pain to unleash unprecedented speed.

"Hold on tight, kid!"

The wind pressure created a vacuum zone around them, and a bluish afterimage, almost invisible to the naked eye, rushed toward the overlooked floor.

Blood was spilled all along the way.

When the two finally stood on the first half of the stairs leading to the starting floor, the air twisted without warning—

Two ghosts that should have been behind Qi Zhimu suddenly appeared on either side of him.

Four withered, emaciated hands, like two closed scissors, were about to cut him in half.

In a flash, Qi Zhimu saw the scene that would appear in the next instant: the Mirror Ghost, completely unrestrained, would pierce through him and the Black Tower together.

"Go in!"

A ruthless glint flashed in Qi Zhimu's eyes. The outer wind became extremely gentle, enveloping the girl in his arms, and shot straight toward the tightly closed door like a bullet from a gun.

boom!

The door was smashed open, and Black Tower landed with the help of a gentle breeze. He immediately looked outside the door, but first heard a chilling sound of bones cracking.

Four withered claws gripped Qi Zhimu's arms and twisted his forearms off at the elbows!

Blood stained most of the wall and turned the area near the stairwell into a slaughterhouse.

An ordinary person would have fainted from the pain by now.

But Qi Zhimu smiled unusually, a smile that was arrogant and unrestrained.

The moment his arms broke, the magic lost its direction and, under the control of a mad will, formed a terrifying whirlwind.

Within the swirling wind, hundreds of wind blades spun rapidly, indiscriminately cutting through friend and foe alike!

The air was ripped apart by a shrill scream that drowned out everything.

The two ghosts, who were so close together, couldn't even last half a second before being reduced to a shower of minced meat in the violent net of wind blades.

But this doesn't kill them at all.

In less than a second, the gray mist formed from the minced flesh churned rapidly, and in the blink of an eye, it was about to condense into four terrifying figures.

From one to two, and now from two to four.

The faster the Mirror Ghost's avatar dies, the faster the real person dies.

Qi Zhimu's eyes narrowed. Before the Mirror Ghost could finish splitting and regenerating, he grabbed the two severed arms from the ground, and with a huge thrust generated by the explosion under his feet, he rushed into the starting floor.

In that instant, it was as if the boundary between life and death had been crossed.

Ignoring the bloodstains covering his body, he immediately turned around to look.

Four hideous demons stood outside the door frame, less than two meters away.

The withered, blood-dripping claws were still waving wildly, but they seemed to be blocked by an invisible barrier, and no matter how much they roared and howled, they could not advance an inch.

"Ha...haha! Just as you predicted, not bad, kid!"

Qi Zhimu plopped down, his face turning slightly pale.

Blood flowed down the severed arm, but the expression on his face was similar to that of a player who had just completed a game on Hell difficulty.

happy.

Seeing Hei Ta staring blankly at him, Qi Zhimu moved his half-arm and took out all the art mirrors.

"Time to get to work."

The words urged, yet carried a tone of feigned ease.

Black Tower's usually expressionless face was now filled with an indescribable tremor.

Qi Zhimu's empty sleeves and the two severed arms on the ground kept bringing back the image of him bringing her in first.

Without saying a word, she began piecing together the art mirror.

The speed and steadiness of their movements suggested that they were racing against time to save someone.

Soon, the five mirrors were put together in the correct positions.

Click.

The final, crisp sound rang out less than twenty seconds later.

The space began to tremble, and the assembled mirrors formed the shape of a door, which quickly stood up and opened into a dark entrance, leading to an unknown and mysterious depth.

"Walk!"

Qi Zhimu rushed into the door with Hei Ta.

The world behind the door was small and oppressive, with only a highly decomposed corpse hanging from the ceiling by iron chains.

The corpse's neck was intact, and even though its body was rotting and infested with maggots, its murky eyes were fixed on the intruder, and its body exuded a nauseating stench and chill.

Qi Zhimu never expected that the Mirror Ghost's true form would be so... ordinary.

But it was this very thing that created the illusion, which chased them like rats for over ten hours across the sixty-story building.

The pent-up frustration accumulated while being hunted erupted, and Qi Zhimu's anger flared up.

"die!"

The raging flames condensed into a longsword that pierced through the corpse, and then—

boom!

Flames rose, and under the intense heat of the flames, the Mirror Demon's true form turned to ashes in just a few breaths.

The office building scene is like a shattered mirror, peeling away and disintegrating inch by inch.

[Congratulations on clearing Deadly Mirror Image.]

A familiar notification sound appeared in Black Tower's mind, followed by an intense white light that blinded him.

When my vision cleared again, a dry, desolate wind, carrying sand and gravel, hit my face.

The surface underfoot no longer feels like marble or tile, but rather a rough asphalt surface riddled with cracks.

The long-abandoned highway stretches into the distance, with weeds stubbornly pushing their way out from the cracks in the road surface.

"Phew...it's finally over."

Qi Zhimu sat down on the rusty guardrail by the roadside and let out a long sigh.

Just as I was about to make a joke, I noticed that Black Tower was staring intently at his severed arm, his complex gaze making me feel uneasy.

—A mixture of guilt, gratitude, and a barely perceptible lingering fear.

"Hey, don't look at me like that."

Qi Zhimu whistled casually, and with a slight thought, the wind lifted the two severed arms and suspended them in mid-air.

"I am a ethereal being, you should know that this little injury is nothing to me. I can just stitch it up, and in the end, it won't even leave a scar."

The Black Tower certainly knew some of the characteristics of ethereal life forms, but...

Witnessing someone have their arms torn off while trying to protect themselves is a shock that cannot be smoothed over by a few words of description.

The vast majority of people in the Azure Star United Government are far inferior to even ethereal beings.

Black Tower's dry lips twitched slightly; the word "thank you" was already at his lips.

Qi Zhimu seemed to have anticipated what she would say, and glared at her with a hint of warning in his eyes.

"Stop."

He turned his head away, his tone full of disdain.

"Don't give me that sentimental talk. I saved you just because I didn't want to break my contract. I prefer actions to cheap words of thanks."