Chapter 25 The Apology

The words of the Mirror Demon still echoed, but the monstrous demonic energy had already solidified into tangible demons and monsters.

There were at least three hundred of them, all kinds of mythical creatures from Eastern legends, and all with considerable combat power.

"Gui Xiao, how strong are these monsters?" Wu Si Can Xuan immediately looked at Gui Xiao and asked a crucial question.

The answer to this question would determine their next strategic direction...

"Can't win..." Gui Xiao was silent for two seconds before answering with six words, "...can't escape."

Although the response was short, the amount of information it conveyed was enough.

"I see..." Wu Si Can Xuan heard this, hesitated for a moment, and then his expression changed, "Heh..." He actually smiled. "Okay, I give up."

"Huh?" Zui Wo Chang Ran didn't understand what he meant and turned his head in doubt. "What do you mean?"

"You don't want to just lie down and wait for death, do you?" Sheng Yu Pian's face also showed a confused look.

"Hehe..." Only Meng Jing Chan instantly understood Wu Si Can Xuan's true meaning, and chuckled lightly from the side, "He's not giving up on resistance, but..."

"I'm giving up on the match." The next second, Wu Si Can Xuan took over Chan-ge's words and said in an almost self-abandoning tone, "What captain's responsibility, S2 championship, year-end bonus...screw them all!" As he spoke, he even cursed.

"Hey... what's going on?" A Xiu Luo wasn't familiar with Wu Si Can Xuan. In their limited contact, he felt that the other party was a relatively steady and reliable person, but unexpectedly... Wu Si Can Xuan suddenly made a sharp turn in personality.

"Having to 'think thrice before acting' no matter what I do, having to 'think of the big picture' no matter what decision I make, it's just too tiring..." Wu Si Can Xuan continued, "The burden of being the 'captain' on my shoulders has made me not even feel like myself anymore."

"If the 'yourself' you're talking about is that old chuunibyou, I'd say it's a good thing." Sheng Yu Pian, having understood his teammate's intentions, took the opportunity to complain.

Wu Si Can Xuan ignored him and just continued in that dissatisfied tone, "Let's not talk about how this match is going right now, anyway, there are only two paths in front of us—either we get wiped out here, or we fight the Mirror Demon to the death. The former... loses immediately, the latter... just loses later." As he spoke, he began to shake the spray paint can in his hand. "Since we're going to die either way, instead of dying with a hesitant mindset and a half-assed fighting style, I'd rather choose a more enjoyable method."

"Hmph..." Zui Wo Chang Ran smiled knowingly when he heard this. "I can't do anything with you. You should have said so earlier... I could have been the captain."

"Stop talking after the fact." Sheng Yu Pian was a walking complaint machine. "Talking after the fact is my patent."

"Hic~" Meng Jing Chan also chimed in, "Since things have come to this, hehe... let's all have a good fight."

At this point, their morale was boosted.

At this moment, not only did Wu Si Can Xuan personally remove the burden of "captain," but the entire Order team also removed the burden of "the match."

"Oh?" Seeing this, the Mirror Demon's tone changed slightly. "The aura... has changed..." In these dozens of seconds, its mirror demonic energy was dissipating, and it was still constantly releasing demons. "Whether you call it burning your boats or just giving up, to be able to maintain this fighting spirit under such dire circumstances... you truly have some heroic spirit." It paused, then gave a strange laugh. "Hmph~ Then this one shall grant your wish!"

With that, the Mirror Demon moved its mind, and the demons and monsters in the sky moved with it.

Taotie, Qiongqi, Taowu, Hundun, Bi'an, Feiyi, Gudiao, Gou She, Corpse Soldiers, Chi Jiao, Akame, Noppera-bo, Abura-akago, Hiderigami...

Looking at it, the demons and monsters were overwhelming and swarming in.

Among them... the strong could be ranked among the Four Fiends; the weak were also filled with baleful aura.

Gui Xiao's words, "can't win, can't escape," were indeed correct.

"Come on, who's afraid of who! The little monsters can't reflect damage, right!" Zui Wo Chang Ran also let go at this point. He jumped up and launched a barrage of Lightning Speed Fists at the front line.

In an instant, golden streams of light formed a dense net of fists in the air, creating a bloody storm.

"I won't hold back either..." Sheng Yu Pian had also been holding back for a long time. He picked up his special weapon [Throat Destroyer] (a megaphone) and launched a move called [The Roar That Gets Excited When Enemies Have Less Than Fourteen Health] at the dense crowd of monsters.

The substantial sound waves roared out, creating a sonic blast in a huge cone-shaped area in front of him. The violent power seemed to shatter even the air.

However...

After these two waves of attacks, they had only killed a mere dozen or so monsters. Although the rest were also injured, they still continued to advance.

"I see... they're indeed very strong..." Meng Jing Chan observed for a few seconds, then threw away the wine in his hand, spat out the cigarette in his mouth, and rarely... switched to a two-handed sword stance. "I wonder if I can hold them off..."

No sooner said than done! Before Chan-ge could finish speaking, he had already jumped up and wielded his sword into a technique. His swordsmanship was light and graceful, magnificent and powerful, with sword energy reaching over a hundred zhang and the power to cut through metal.

As he moved his sword, Meng Jing Chan also chanted something...

"I want to drink alone among the withered tombs,
Drunk on half a pot of immortal wine before the grave.
Silver frost hangs three feet in the tomb,
Don't you see the souls of the dead under my sword... Hic~"

Meng Jing Chan recited crooked poems while wielding his superb swordsmanship. By the time he finished reciting his self-composed crooked poem "My Drunken Silver Sword," he had already made dozens of sword strikes, and each sword had the power and range to cut a Gundam in half.

After this round of attacks, the results were quite significant. About fifty or so demons were cut down by the sword energy and fell into the abyss. Of course... this wasn't all Chan-ge's credit. Zui Wo Chang Ran and Sheng Yu Pian's previous two AoE attacks had obviously knocked off a lot of the monsters' health, and Chan-ge's attack was equivalent to finishing them off.

"Careful! The second wave is coming!"

Chan-ge had just finished his move and hadn't even had time to catch his breath when Zui Wo Chang Ran shouted, reminding him to be prepared again.

Because... the next wave of demons was already charging over.

Right now, Zui Wo Chang Ran himself was almost constantly releasing [Lightning Speed Fists]... Facing so many strong enemies, his single-target killing moves were useless. The output from area-of-effect skills was actually higher.

"It's okay! I'm here too!" At this time, Wu Si Can Xuan, who had been shaking the spray paint can for a long time, was finally ready.

He roared loudly, stepped forward, and kicked out two seemingly ordinary roundhouse kicks.

The wind created by the kicks carried the floating colors in the air and accelerated and magnified in mid-air, dyeing all the demons affected by it in color. Two seconds later, those monsters exploded like fireworks, scattering and falling apart, and each broken fragment became a geometric shape in Tetris.

"Is this the true strength of Zui Sheng Meng Si..." A Xiu Luo watched the performance of the four and had many thoughts running through his mind. "The reference value of recordings is indeed very limited... These guys are clearly all monster-level..." Thinking of this, he couldn't help but shift his gaze to Gui Xiao. "Speaking of which... this 'monster among monsters' hasn't made a move yet. What's the situation?"

Indeed, given Gui Xiao's personality, he shouldn't be so low-key.

His temporary silence was for a simple reason... he needed time to sort out his thoughts and make a decision.

"Sigh..." After standing silently for about a minute, Gui Xiao suddenly closed his eyes, shook his head, and sighed. "What talk about letting go of burdens... what talk about having a good fight..." He muttered in a low voice, "Heh... so, adults can't be relied on..."

At this moment, this sixteen-year-old boy had a clearer mind than anyone else.

"Since the match is already hopeless... why fight?" Gui Xiao whispered to himself, "To vent pent-up pressure? To indulge in the pleasure of battle? To go all out in that meaningless struggle and shed the last drop of blood... is that so enjoyable?"

For him, this was indeed a very unfamiliar feeling...

Since entering Thriller Paradise, he had never had the experience of "fighting an opponent to the death." When he encountered Lutter in the S1 finals, he had the opportunity, but... the other party had specifically targeted and restricted him, so he couldn't发挥 out his full strength at all.

Later, he became stronger and stronger... Whether in the team or outside the team, he couldn't find an opponent who could compete with him; even Shiva, the "closest person to him," seemed to be getting further and further away from him in Gui Xiao's eyes...

Today, even Dian He Wang, a demi-god-level existence, couldn't compete with Gui Xiao, given the premise of being "caught in a trap."

If Wang Tanzhi is a man who can use all kinds of extremely restrained abilities to assassinate gods, then Devourer Gui Xiao is a man...no... a boy who can fight gods head-on and win.

How could he experience the feeling of defeating an opponent after pushing himself to the limit?

However, today, his opportunity has come.

As Feng Bujue said... Six Directions Mirror Demon is a "new god." To put it bluntly, it is a world-class Boss that matches the strength of the next version, and its setting... is not something that players of this version can handle.

And Gui Xiao is also a character who exceeds the level and version restrictions.

One of Feng Bujue's purposes in promoting the Mirror World War was to see... who would win between these two.

"If that's the case..." Gui Xiao took a deep breath, "Then I'll also discard 'restraints'... and go all out."

In the moment he made his decision, fighting spirit erupted!

A vast energy like a black hole suddenly arose, and its presence expanded rapidly in an instant, even surpassing the space itself.

"What... is that..." A Xiu Luo looked in horror at the red-haired teenager who was about the same age as him, like a mortal looking up at a god.

This glance gave him an inexplicable sense of despair; he suddenly felt... that his so-called "secret weapon" was really overestimating himself. All his confidence turned out to be from ignorance—he didn't know what he was facing at all.

"Six Directions Mirror Demon." After a few seconds, Gui Xiao looked down at the Mirror Demon and called out its name.

"You..." In the Mirror Demon's voice, there was even a hint of fear. "...what do you want to do?"

"I want to apologize to you," Gui Xiao replied.

The Mirror Demon didn't respond; it just silently drove all the already-solidified demons... and changed the target of their attacks to Gui Xiao.

"First, I want to apologize for not going all out just now." Facing the encirclement and suppression of the demon army, Gui Xiao remained calm. "Until two minutes ago, I was still considering the matter of 'preserving some strength to compete after killing you.'" He shook his head. "That kind of thinking was too naive... you are not an existence that can be eliminated with that level of determination."

Before he finished speaking, the demon army had arrived.

In the same second, four strange figures suddenly appeared out of thin air and guarded Gui Xiao.

It was his Stand [Treading Night] and three Thought Beasts - [Mask], [Undertaker], and [Water Demon].

These four beasts cooperated seamlessly, each using their own unique abilities... desperately resisting the onslaught of the demons.

However, the demons released by the Mirror Demon were by no means ordinary. Some of them were so strong that they were no less inferior than the things summoned by Gui Xiao. The four beasts could hold on for a while, but they definitely couldn't last too long.

"Secondly, I want to apologize for what I'm about to do." But Gui Xiao's words continued, and he spoke unhurriedly and without being arrogant or humble. "After all... you only have one life, and I can start over."

"Absurd!" The Mirror Demon heard this and was filled with shock and anger. "Do you think that having the determination to 'perish together with this one' is the same as having that ability?"

Before it could finish speaking, the Mirror Demon couldn't wait to release a beam of demonic energy from the mirror, passing through the layers of demons and directly attacking Gui Xiao's heart.

Unexpectedly, Gui Xiao's figure suddenly blurred at that moment, turning into an afterimage.

"Launching a sneak attack shows that you already have fear in your heart." The next time Gui Xiao spoke, he had already appeared behind the Mirror Demon.

"This one is afraid of you?" The Mirror Demon's voice suddenly became shrill, as if it were cracking.

"My speed is faster than yours, so it's impossible to sneak attack me. Moreover... your attack is not very strong. Even if I get hit, I won't be killed by you with one blow." Gui Xiao didn't answer the other party's words and just said to himself, "So, I advise you to give up on trying to strike first and prepare to receive the move."

"But...but...but...but..." In an overly excited state, the Mirror Demon shouted out a strange cry like an asthma attack. "Damn it!"

"Oh, right..." At the last moment, Gui Xiao seemed to have suddenly remembered something. He turned to look at his four teammates and smiled slightly, "Noodle Head, Pot Lid Head, Hot Soup Sipper, Graffiti Man, I also have to say sorry to you, as for the reason... you will know soon."

"Hey! There are outsiders here!"

"Has my nickname been exposed..."

"Don't look at me like this now, I used to be called..."

"Little brat! Just say it if you want to be arubaed!"

The four of them spoke almost simultaneously, all responding to Gui Xiao with complaints.

And Gui Xiao also chose to ignore them...

A moment later, his smile turned into a sneer, and his oppressive killing intent erupted to the extreme in that fleeting moment and was completely directed at... the Mirror Demon in front of him.

Crack—

The surface of the Six Directions Mirror actually cracked when it reflected that pure killing intent.

"Could it be that you..." The Mirror Demon's voice was trembling. "You want to take this one out in one move..."

"See clearly!" Gui Xiao rudely interrupted the other party. His arrogance had returned.

"With your one and only life..." That domineering and confident attitude of being the only one in the world had also returned.

"Wa...wait..." The Mirror Demon seemed to have sensed something. It was the survival instinct of a high-level creature, but... no matter what it said or did now, it was too late.

"Witness..." Gui Xiao didn't intend to listen to the other party. "...what is the strongest!"

The strongest declaration, the strongest strike.

The aura of swallowing the heavens, the power of shaking the earth.

When Gui Xiao poured out all his strength and used [Judgment Left Hand], the entire [Mirror World] shattered like a fragile mirror...