Chapter 1 Finally Found You, Gu Shen

"Finally found you, Gu Shen."

A soft sigh echoed on the mountain path of the snowy mountain.

From this sigh, one could tell that Zhen Yue's group had not had a peaceful journey.

Gu Shen narrowed his eyes, examining Meng Xiao's team. The Zhen Yue black robes fluttered, stained with frost and crimson blood, indicating they had experienced battle. Had they also encountered mirror-dream duplicates?

Although he didn't know what these people had specifically experienced, Gu Shen knew that climbing the mountain was no easy task.

Perhaps it was because he carried the Underworld Fire that his ascent had not encountered too many twists and turns. However, observing the other side, Zhong Yuan, whose extraordinary strength was far greater than his own, had not yet reached the summit.

This showed just how high the configuration of Meng Xiao's team was.

"Mr. Meng."

Gu Shen spoke slowly, with a smile, "It really is a small world, isn't it? We meet again."

How could he not know that Meng Xiao had been watching him?

Meeting was only a matter of time.

Since the end of the banquet... his conflict with Zhen Yue had completely escalated!

Gu Shen still couldn't understand why this esteemed Zhen Yue Grand Duke insisted on fighting with him in this land.

Apart from the grudges between the Gu and Meng families, what other reasons could there be?

However, while Meng Xiao was chasing him, he was also waiting for this heir of the City of Light to come to his door.

Who was the hunter and who was the prey was still unknown until the very last moment!

"Indeed, it's quite a coincidence... your climbing speed is faster than I imagined."

Meng Xiao's expression was calm as he looked around and lightly corrected, "Oh... not you, but you alone. That blond dwarf seems to be still trapped in a nightmare. Do you want to wait for him to save you?"

Gu Shen smiled noncommittally.

Just now, his "spiritual link" had reacted again... This was an extremely important piece of information, meaning that Zhong Yuan's team was likely approaching the summit. The closer the two sides were, the clearer the severed Blazing Fire Link would become.

"Mr. Meng, before we start... allow me to ask a question."

Gu Shen asked with a smile, "What grievances do I have with you that you need to go to such lengths?"

"Good question."

Meng Xiao raised his palm. The seven followers behind him silently spread out, ready to launch an attack at any time. Approaching the summit of the snowy mountain, they had also seen the scattered corpses and mottled blood.

Although the young man before him was not very powerful in terms of extraordinary strength, estimated to be only at the seventh level, he was, after all, an S-class, and likely possessed the transgressive strength to "fight beyond his realm"!

"I... have no grievances with you."

The Zhen Yue Grand Duke gently stroked the bracelet, suddenly raised his head, and asked seriously, "If there are no grievances, does that mean I can't kill you?"

At this moment—

Gu Shen's heart trembled.

"Clang clang clang!"

The pendant of the Goddess of Fate vibrated violently, prompting Gu Shen to dodge!

A "boom" exploded on the summit of the snowy mountain.

Before his subordinates could act, Meng Xiao took action first. This was a no-man's land, and also a disconnection zone. Everything he did would not be seen or recorded... After the banquet, he had been waiting for such an opportunity!

Now, it had finally arrived!

The Zhen Yue Grand Duke tore open the collar of his robe. A blazing aura of light gathered at his chest, like a cannonball, roaring and shooting out, shattering black snow and mountain mist along the way, and stirring up a straight pillar of light!

In an instant, it directly leveled the ground where Gu Shen had originally stood!

...

...

"What terrifying killing power!"

Before Meng Xiao could finish speaking, Gu Shen took action.

Without the cross pendant reminding him, he also knew what kind of personality this Zhen Yue Grand Duke had.

A hunter who had stalked him for hundreds of miles, deliberately trying to crush him.

How could he choose a fair duel?

Conversing with Meng Xiao was just a way to buy time. Gu Shen had never really thought that he could get any so-called truth or answers... So, of course, he wouldn't believe Meng Xiao's previous remarks.

There was no such thing as "killing intent" without a cause in this world.

Just like there was no such thing as "love" without a cause.

This Zhen Yue Grand Duke wanted to kill him so much, his killing intent was so strong that even the pendant was shaken by it... There must be a reason he was unwilling to reveal!

The moment the pillar of light surged, Gu Shen moved sideways, barely dodging the scorching light cannon. A strand of his hair, in the process of drifting, touched a wisp of the City of Light's divine radiance and was instantly burned away!

This was a pure power completely different from Blazing Fire.

Although it was high temperature.

It contained an "aura of light" that was unbearable to look at directly!

This, on the contrary, was somewhat similar to Gu Changzhi's "Golden Divine Realm."

After all, Mr. Gu Changzhi had studied and cultivated under the seat of the God of Light, so the "Dao" between the two was naturally somewhat similar... At the moment of the exchange, Gu Shen felt that the power that Meng Xiao was stirring up at this moment came from the God of Light!

This team enjoyed special privileges, probably for this reason.

"Kill."

Zhen Yue missed the first strike, without the slightest hesitation.

The seven extraordinary individuals behind him instantly stood up, and several thunderous sounds reverberated across the snowy mountain peak at the same time…

"It's too late."

Gu Shen sighed softly in his heart. Judging by Meng Xiao's decision, he was determined to kill him here. Under this kind of onslaught, unless he used the Ruler of Truth, he could no longer delay the time. It was probably impossible to wait for Zhong Yuan to join him.

In a flash of lightning, Gu Shen made his choice.

Since meeting, his fingers had been on the black silver box, ready to open it at any time... but even now, he gave up the idea.

Perhaps it was because the "deal" that the devil threw out the night before his departure had made him wary.

Or perhaps, it was the pendant's subtle guidance.

He gave up the idea of using the ruler.

Escape!

Since Meng Xiao wanted to hunt him down, then he would escape!

In this battle, if he fought head-on, his chances of winning were slim...

Even if he were to use the "ruler," he would have to choose an excellent opportunity to deliver a fatal blow... At this moment, he knew very little about Meng Xiao's trump cards. If he rashly used the Ruler of Truth and was countered by the means of the City of Light, it would be really bad.

Taking a deep breath.

Gu Shen no longer hesitated.

He directly swept down the mountain!

"Hiss!!"

The crisp sound of metal splashing exploded in the air. Before leaving, Gu Shen did not forget to scatter the iron shield. Thus, the countless sharp iron pieces, driven by the Iron Throne, danced in the air like a burst of iron fireworks!

Thus, the several figures rushing towards Gu Shen quickly retreated under the iron fire explosion!

Gu Shen was a psychic extraordinary, and what he was best at was using his mental power to drive sealed objects for remote attacks. His shaking the iron pieces was not a casual move... Several iron pieces attached with Blazing Fire, guided by the Iron Throne, shot towards the most isolated person in the team.

Meng Xiao, who tore open his robe and shot out a pillar of light from the City of Light.

At this moment, Ba Kui directly unfolded his beast form. This beast-form ability user's physical fitness was ridiculously strong. He stepped on a cliff and instantly flashed back to the front of the Zhen Yue Grand Duke!

"Ding-dang!"

The half-beast Ba Kui had turned into a bear-man. His hands and arms were covered with thick hair, but this hair was not ordinary biological hair, but as hard as iron wire, comparable to a defensive weapon of a "sealed object"!

The iron pieces attached with the Iron Throne and Blazing Fire, full of sharp aura, pierced Ba Kui's arms covering his cheeks, only bursting out with harsh crisp sounds.

"Roar—"

Ba Kui roared angrily, stepped on the ground, and reversed the air, shaking off all the iron pieces that had penetrated into the hair on his arms!

This was Gu Shen's "heart-wrenching move."

These iron filings contained Blazing Fire. As long as they pierced into the blood, he could launch a mental attack... Unfortunately, Ba Kui perfectly blocked this attack. The iron filings danced wildly in the sky, like a steel dragon, rolling down the mountain with Gu Shen in the long night and black snow, disappearing.

The members of Meng Xiao's team stabilized their bodies, their expressions ugly.

Several City of Light powerhouses had their faces and arms cut by the sudden attack... They examined their flesh and blood, did not detect anything unusual, and breathed a slight sigh of relief.

Gu Shen's available Blazing Fire was limited.

He only attached a small wisp of flame to the iron edge that shot towards Meng Xiao.

"Sir, are you all right?"

Ba Kui maintained his half-beast form, blocking in front of the Zhen Yue Grand Duke. Due to the bear-man transformation, his voice at this moment was like thunder, buzzing and echoing.

"Fool."

Meng Xiao's expression was gloomy. He slapped the back of the honest fellow's head, "Do I need you to block for me?"

He looked at the team members and said coldly, "A seventh-level extraordinary, able to scare you like this... Can an explosion of just that level kill you?"

Several team members had complex expressions.

"From now on, even if you die, you are not allowed to take half a step back." Meng Xiao said expressionlessly, "Light is above, as people who have offered their lives, your relatives have been taken care of by the City of Light... What else can't you let go of at this moment?"

As his voice spread.

At the position of his chest, a pure aura of light swirled and echoed in the black snow.

After smelling the aura of light, these followers shook their spirits, knelt on one knee, and their faces became extremely devout.

"Yes, sir!"

"We will obey!"

Meng Xiao looked down at these followers, his tone becoming a little softer. He said lightly, "Go, go down the mountain and block Gu Shen... Don't let him escape. I will be there soon. Remember, as long as you follow the light, you can find him."

The top of the snowy mountain became quiet again.

Meng Xiao did not move directly.

He supported a large stone, took a deep breath, and the original cold, indifferent, and calm expression was slightly distorted when no one was around... The young Zhen Yue Grand Duke raised his head, and the black snow fell on his slightly ferocious painful face, instantly evaporated by the blazing light, turning into bursts of hot mist.

Zhen Yue looked at the blood on the side.

The dim bracelet was now absorbing a majestic amount of light debris again.

Several images flashed back in his mind—

Snowy mountain, campfire, alone, summit...

Encountering a mirror-dream duplicate...

Annihilation battle...

Meng Xiao's spiritual sea shrank. He forcibly snatched a section of Gu Shen's "fate" from the rules and watched it... However, the images harvested by the bracelet did not seem to be complete.

Meng Xiao saw Gu Shen force his own duplicate to the corner of the summit.

Then... he didn't know what he did.

That duplicate suddenly exploded!

The images from the bracelet ended here.

The blood splashed at his feet belonged to Gu Shen's duplicate... The reason why Meng Xiao used the power of the bracelet was because he had also encountered a mirror-dream duplicate battle before, and the entire team had spent a lot of energy to end the battle.

These duplicates became more and more powerful as they fought.

The more means they sacrificed, the more means the duplicates countered!

And in the end, he relied on the power of the City of Light's mind to sweep away all enemies... But why was Gu Shen's battle so simple? He annihilated the Zhong Yuan team of duplicates alone, seemingly without any consumption?!

Meng Xiao had not yet guessed the rules that the Snowy Mountain Mirror Dream used to replicate based on the extraordinary's cognition.

Their group acted together, knowing each other's roots and feet, and the duplicates they encountered were naturally strong.

Except for a very few forbidden sealed objects and special abilities, this Mirror Dream could replicate everything almost perfectly!

Extraordinary individuals with weaker strength might even die on the snowy mountain!

"How did this guy... do it?"

Meng Xiao was a little puzzled.

He rewatched the images engraved in his spiritual sea.

He could understand Gu Shen's entire battle.

Only at the end, the explosion of the duplicate, he really did not understand.

In the end, Gu Shen just burned a wisp of fire at his fingertips.

His duplicate trembled violently and detonated on its own?!

"Zoom in... I want to see more carefully..."

Meng Xiao held his breath and ordered the bracelet. The time flow of the last image slowed down, and his eyes were fixed on the wisp of flame swept out from Gu Shen's fingertips.

The image froze.

He tried to dismantle... to see what that wisp of flame was burning.

The next moment!

"Boom."

The blessing of the City of Light at the position of Meng Xiao's chest suddenly burned. The power of blessing, which symbolized peace, was released on its own for the first time, but his expression still turned pale in an instant.

After realizing that something was wrong, Meng Xiao quickly closed his eyes, but it was too late.

"Ah..."

Along with a low scream.

He covered his face with his hands, and a burst of burning pain flowed out of his eyes, leaving two lines of golden blood.

This was the punishment of "peering"!

He saw something he shouldn't have seen!

Even forcibly snatching "fate" to watch did not trigger the forbidden rules... But directly staring at that wisp of fire, wanting to dismantle that wisp of fire, triggered the iron law!

"Gu Shen's fire cannot be desecrated?"

Such an ironic thought popped up in Meng Xiao's mind.

And soon, he realized... this ironic thought was likely true.

Some dazedness arose on the Zhen Yue Grand Duke's handsome face.

What kind of fire in this world cannot be looked at closely or desecrated?

Zhong Yuan's Phoenix Fire was far from capable, not qualified!

The next moment.

An idea that was dozens, hundreds of times more ironic than before arose in Meng Xiao's mind.

What could burn even his "City of Light blessing"... was only a flame at the level of a god seat.

...

...

On the snowy mountain path, a team was moving aimlessly.

"Captain, where exactly did Mr. Gu go?"

Yuan Yuan gritted his teeth, unable to figure it out.

When they were warming themselves by the campfire, a gust of wind suddenly rose, and black snow came overwhelming. After that... the captain summoned the Phoenix Fire, surrounded everyone, tore through the dark snow tide, but Mr. Gu disappeared from the campfire!

This Black Snow Mountain was indeed evil.

But to disappear out of thin air just a few meters away... was also too strange!

Zhong Yuan raised his arm and did not answer this question.

At this moment, he kept releasing Phoenix Fire. After the spiritual link with the Blazing Fire was cut off, the entire team inevitably fell into darkness. Fortunately, he still had the Phoenix Ring, which could create a piece of light.

In fact.

Zhong Yuan knew the answer to this question.

"Mr. Gu... entered a dream."

After walking for a long time, the blond man stopped because the pile of campfire reappeared in front of him... The flames in the stone pile were crackling and burning, precisely the Phoenix Flame he had released earlier.

He was back.

He was back again.

This familiar feeling was so bad... It was not the first time he had experienced it. He had fallen into the cycle of the Mirror Dream before on the Black Snow Mountain. He didn't know how long he had walked on this mountain and completely lost his way.

"Entered a dream?"

Yuan Yuan frowned and said, "In this world, what kind of way is there to enter a dream?"

Entering a dream was spiritual immersion.

But just now... Gu Shen disappeared out of thin air.

Zhong Yuan turned around, looked at his vice-captain, and asked softly, "How do you know that you and I are not in a dream?"

Yuan Yuan was stunned.

Yes, this was a huge misunderstanding. Since the campfire wind, the entire team had been looking for Mr. Gu's trace on the mountain, but turning around, it was their own group that lost their way.

Who said that only Mr. Gu had entered a dream?

The snow tide wrapped not only him, but also himself!

"During the last crusade mission, I saw two worlds in a dream..." Zhong Yuan said slowly, "On this Black Snow Mountain, there seems to be a mirror link, one is the real world that exists, the other is the false mirror world. After leaving the Black Snow Mountain, I often suspect that I may have left from the false side of the mirror."

Every member of the team had heard about the nightmare of the Black Snow Mountain.

"Now it seems that the meaning of this nightmare... is not so simple."

Zhong Yuan slowly turned around, looked at his team members, and said softly, "Do you believe that there are two such worlds in this world?"

Everyone was stunned.

Yuan Yuan took the lead, and the other six followed closely... slowly shaking their heads.

A real world and a mirror world, how was that possible?

Even a god seat, opening up a "divine realm," could not achieve this level, right?

"This Black Snow Mountain, I don't know who left it behind... but I can be sure that the information in that dream is not fictional, but some kind of guide." Zhong Yuan's voice became calm and determined: "There are two spaces here, one mirror, one reality."

"This... how is this possible?"

Yuan Yuan looked around with difficulty, "Wanting to create a world that even you can't distinguish between true and false... This is no longer something that a so-called extraordinary can do. This is at least a god..."

Yuan Yuan said here, his expression was stunned.

His voice stopped abruptly.

"Yes, this is the handwriting of a god seat." Zhong Yuan took over and said calmly, "This Black Mountain, it snows heavily all year round, there are no landmarks, and the visibility is extremely low... If you want to shape such a world into a 'mirror,' you don't need much."

A team member's voice became difficult: "Captain, if this is true, then are we now in the mirror world or the real world?"

"Obviously."

Zhong Yuan uttered two words and said, "Mirror."

Since just now, they had been circling around.

Circling around was the circle of the "mirror world". Seeing the campfire twice, the distance they walked in between was the distance of the mirror world...

"So... in that snowstorm just now, the people who really entered the dream were not Mr. Gu, but us?" Yuan Yuan was silent after finishing speaking. He really could not accept this truth.

Because he had been vigilant throughout the process, but he did not see anything unusual in that snow tide.

This feeling of being controlled silently was really terrifying.

How exactly was this done?

"Remember, when we came here... what were we looking for?" Zhong Yuan raised his head.

Although the team members were tired, after hearing this, they instantly shook their spirits.

"Door?"

"Yes, I suspect that there is a door on the Black Snow Mountain." Zhong Yuan lowered his eyebrows and smiled, "But don't be happy, this door is most likely not the one that Her Majesty the Queen wants to find... I guess that the [Door] on the Black Snow Mountain only leads to the current mirror world. As lucky people, we just crossed the door. So now, we are trapped here."

Yuan Yuan widened his eyes.

The [Door] was in that black snow tide?

The things he could not understand were all answered at this moment... The [Door] was a law point without form and substance. It was even different from most black spots. It was very likely a "free-floating source substance" that could not be distinguished by the naked eye. Since it happened to trigger a certain spatial law in the extraordinary world, once touched, it would trigger a "shuttle" phenomenon!

The flame in the blond man's palm gradually weakened.

The team's light was about to go out.

"This ghost place seems to be able to erode mental power. My Phoenix Fire is getting weaker and weaker..." Zhong Yuan stopped and said slowly, "If we can't find the exit, can't find the [Door] to go back, we should be trapped here for a long, long time."

For a long, long time, the longest possibility was... everyone would turn into skeletons together.

The entire team was silent.

"Don't worry."

Zhong Yuan smiled somewhat ironically and said, "There's even worse news."

He stretched out his finger and pointed to the iron dome above: "Didn't you feel that there are things peeping at us on this?"

Except for Yuan Yuan, the others looked surprised.

Yuan Yuan nodded silently.

Yes... he also felt some discomfort.

"If we can enter the 'mirror'..."

"Then is it possible that there are other things that can go to 'reality'?"

Zhong Yuan looked at his team members and said calmly, "This is in line with the equivalent exchange in the extraordinary iron law. When we enter the [Door], they can leave. Just like in a dream, as a substitute, just... live on."

(End of this chapter)