The whole nation: You're put to survive on a desolate planet, you'll be running an alien b

The enormous, deathly white eyeball slowly rotated on the bronze mirror. It had no pupil, only a suffocatingly pale white, like the gaze of death itself. It had no physical form, yet it struck everyone's retinas like a heavy hammer, bringing a wave of intense dizziness and nausea.

"Lin Mo! Don't move!"

Li Haotian roared, a chill rising from the depths of his soul making the hairs on his body stand on end. He instinctively wanted to raise his gun, but he realized that the mirror was not within the range of a physical attack—or rather, bullets hitting the mirror would be like stones sinking into the sea, and might even provoke unpredictable ricochets.

However, Lin Mo seemed not to hear his shouts at all.

Her eyes had lost focus; her once-black pupils were expanding at a visible speed, gradually turning a strange silvery-white, as if she were being assimilated by the giant eye in the mirror. Her movements were stiff and mechanical, like a puppet being pulled by invisible threads, step by step, with a strange rhythm, toward the ancient bronze mirror.

"No... we can't go there..." Qin Yue's face turned pale. She tried to rush forward, but was pushed away by an invisible force and fell heavily to the ground, a trickle of blood spilling from the corner of her mouth.

Li Haotian gritted his teeth, forcibly resisting the mountain-like mental pressure, and stumbled towards Lin Mo. But just as his fingertips were about to touch the hem of Lin Mo's clothes, Lin Mo had already reached the edge of the altar.

She slowly raised her right hand, and without the slightest hesitation, her slender, pale palm pressed directly against the cold, rough bronze mirror.

"Buzz—!"

A low, ancient-sounding roar suddenly erupted, causing the entire underground cavern to tremble violently.

The once dull and lifeless bronze mirror, the moment Lin Mo touched it, rippled like a stone thrown into a still pond. The ripples didn't spread outwards, but rather collapsed inwards, the mirror's solidity vanishing instantly, transforming into a portal to the unknown.

There is no reflection.

Li Haotian's pupils contracted sharply. There was no Lin Mo's face in the mirror, no altar, not even the shattered dome above them.

Inside, there was a distorted, broken starry sky.

The crimson nebula churned in the mirror like a festering wound, while enormous, tentacle-like shadows writhed in the darkness. There, gravity and the laws of physics seemed to be absent, replaced by pure chaos and madness. A foul, damp wind, carrying the scent of ancient decay, surged wildly from the "ripples," instantly whipping everyone's hair into a frenzy.

"Aaaaaahh ...

Lin Mo suddenly let out a piercing scream, but the sound didn't seem like her; it was more like some creature in the mirror using her vocal cords. Immediately afterward, a terrifying suction force erupted from the mirror—not the suction of a fan, but a spatial-level devouring force!

Lin Mo's body instantly and uncontrollably leaned backward, half of her shoulder being swallowed by the mercury-like, viscous mirror surface. She seemed to be disintegrating; under the eerie starlight, her outline began to blur, as if she were about to melt into that chaos.

"Grab her!"

Li Haotian roared and lunged forward at the last second, grabbing Lin Mo's waist tightly with both hands.

"Come back here!"

Li Haotian's arms bulged with veins as he pulled backward with all his might. But the suction was incredibly strong, as if it would suck the entire underground cavity in. Lin Mo's body remained motionless, as if welded to a mirror. The reaction force caused Li Haotian's feet to carve two deep furrows in the ground, the soles of his combat boots scraping against the concrete with a teeth-grinding screech.

"team leader!"

Liu Hu reacted extremely quickly. He roared and lunged forward, grabbing Li Haotian's waist and falling backward, using his weight as an anchor. Qin Yue, also fighting off dizziness, rushed forward and grabbed Liu Hu's tactical vest.

The four people, like a string of candied hawthorns hanging on the edge of a cliff, engaged in a thrilling tug-of-war with the ancient bronze mirror that led to another world.

"Damn it! What the hell is this thing?!" Liu Hu's face turned bright red, and the veins in his neck seemed about to burst. He felt like his arms were about to dislocate; the force was simply beyond what a human could withstand.

The starry sky in the mirror grew increasingly violent, with purplish-black mist overflowing from the mirror surface and coiling around Lin Mo's legs like a sentient snake, trying to pull her completely inside.

Lin Mo's hand was still reflected in the mirror, her body creaking under the strain of the two forces. A look of bewildered pain flashed in her eyes, but beneath the silvery-white background, her consciousness was rapidly fading away.

"Li Haotian...kill me..." Lin Mo's voice came intermittently, filled with sobs and despair, "I can't take it anymore...I can't control myself..."

"Shut up! I've never given up on you, and I won't now!" Cold sweat poured down Li Haotian's forehead, mixing with blood and dripping onto Lin Mo's face. He could feel Lin Mo's life force rapidly draining away; if this continued, even if she wasn't absorbed, she would be torn to shreds by this force.

Brute force won't work. This isn't a contest of strength; it's a suppression based on rules.

Li Haotian's brain was racing amidst extreme oxygen deprivation and tension. The mirror's suction force indicated that this energy needed a transmission channel, a connection point.

His gaze frantically searched the mirror's surface. At the center of the ripples where Lin Mo's hand had just touched, some subtle lines seemed to be lighting up. Those were energy nodes!

When he obtained the fragments in the antique street, he discovered a peculiar energy circuit on these bronze artifacts. This enormous mirror was no exception; it was a massive magic array, and now, the array was operating at full power.

The node must be cut!

"Liu Hu, hold on!" Li Haotian suddenly shouted.

"Captain, what are you doing?!" Liu Hu shouted in terror. He felt his waist loosen as Li Haotian released one of his hands from the ground.

Li Haotian did not answer. Enduring the excruciating pain of his arms about to break, he gripped Lin Mo's belt tightly with one hand, putting all his weight on that hand. His free right hand flashed towards the scabbard on his outside thigh.

"Snap!"

With a crisp sound, the black tactical dagger was drawn. The blade was coated with a special anti-corrosion coating, gleaming with a cold, menacing light in the dim light.

"Since you won't let them go, I'll smash your door down!"

A frenzied killing intent erupted in Li Haotian's eyes. He aimed at the edge of the mirror, at the energy node emitting a dark red light right next to Lin Mo's palm, and with all his might, he stabbed it down!

"break!"

Pfft!

The dagger pierced neither glass nor metal, but a strange sensation resembling both rotting flesh and gelatin. A stream of black, viscous liquid instantly spurted out, splashing onto Li Haotian's hand and making a sizzling, corrosive sound.

But the specially modified dagger worked.

"roar--!!!"

The world in the mirror seemed enraged; its enormous eyeball suddenly contracted, and an invisible mental shockwave swept across the entire area. However, with the stirring of the dagger, the dark red node shattered instantly.

The once smooth, water-like mirror surface, like torn cloth, shattered instantly at the point of breakage.

Sizzle sizzle sizzle—!

A piercing crackling sound of electricity rang out, and purple arcs of electricity danced wildly across the mirror's surface. The terrifying suction force abruptly ceased, like a vacuum cleaner that had been switched off.

"what!"

The four people, having lost their balance, tumbled backward like gourds, crashing heavily onto the gravel-strewn ground.

Boom!

The ancient bronze mirror emitted a muffled groan, its surface light rapidly dimming and then becoming covered with fine cracks. The distorted image of the starry sky flickered a few times and vanished completely, replaced by a cold, lifeless, and utterly broken piece of scrap metal.

"Cough cough..."

Li Haotian scrambled to his feet, ignoring the dust and wounds covering his body, and immediately looked at Lin Mo in his arms.

Lin Mo lay on the ground, panting heavily. The silvery-white light in her eyes was slowly fading, and her black pupils were focusing again. She stared blankly at the dilapidated dome above, seemingly unaware of what had just happened.

"Lin Mo? Lin Mo!" Li Haotian patted her cheek, his voice trembling slightly.

Lin Mo slowly turned his head, his gaze focusing on Li Haotian's blood-stained face. After a long while, he weakly forced a bitter smile: "Did I... cause you trouble again?"

"As long as you're still here, a little trouble is nothing." Li Haotian pulled her into his arms and gave her a tight hug, then quickly released her and turned to look at Liu Hu and Qin Yue, "Are you both alright?"

"My bones are about to fall apart..." Liu Hu rubbed his aching back, grimacing as he got up, but his eyes revealed a hint of relief at surviving a disaster. "But this damn mirror has finally calmed down. Captain, your strike was truly divine; it completely crippled it."

Li Haotian stood up, gripping the dagger still dripping black slime, and slowly walked towards the shattered bronze mirror. Although the previous strike had severed the energy supply, the mirror was clearly not completely dead yet.

On the mirror, the giant eyeball disappeared, but deep within those cracks, countless tiny eyes seemed to be opening and closing in an instant, as if avoiding the intense light.

"This is only temporary," Li Haotian said in a low voice, his tone cold. "We severed the connection, but we also thoroughly enraged it."

The wind died down, and the mournful wailing of ghosts vanished, plunging the entire underground cavern into a deathly silence. But even in this silence, everyone felt that the sense of being watched hadn't disappeared; instead, it had become more subtle and malevolent.

The thing in the mirror, the so-called "god in the mirror," though it has faded away, it remembers them.

Remember these few ants who tried to rebel against the abyss.

"Quickly check our equipment, we need to get out of here immediately." Li Haotian sheathed his dagger and looked around warily. "Since this place is a 'mouth,' if we stab it now, who knows what else it might spit out."

Qin Yue helped Lin Mo stand up. Lin Mo touched his right shoulder, where the icy, bone-chilling sensation still lingered, as if the coldness of the mirror had seeped into his bones.

"Li Haotian," Lin Mo suddenly spoke, his voice trembling slightly, "in that mirror... I saw many things."

"What did you see?" Li Haotian stopped and turned to look at her.

Lin Mo took a deep breath, a deep fear flashing in his eyes: "I saw... all the landmark buildings in Donghai City were hanging upside down in the mirror. And... in the windows of those buildings, there were countless eyes."

Li Haotian's heart sank.

If what Lin Mo saw was true, then this mirror was not just a door, but also a surveillance screen. Their world might already be reflected in the mirror.

"Let's go." Li Haotian didn't explain much, but just gripped the gun in his hand and pointed it at the dark tunnel leading to the ground ahead. "No matter what's in the mirror, as long as we're still alive, we have to keep fighting our way out."

The group, supporting each other, embarked on their journey home. Behind them, the shattered bronze mirror stood silently in the darkness, a thin crack slowly extending like a healing scar, quietly emitting a malicious chuckle.