The moment Lin Qing crossed into the chasm, the air changed.
It thickened—like wading through water made of pressure and intent.
Even the ground dissolved into suspended fragments of silver stone, each one drifting lazily but reflecting the group from impossible angles.
Li Chun woke with a groan hanging upside-down under Tian Ke's arm.
He took one look around and passed out again.
Reasonable.
Even Lin Qing had to admit the place felt wrong.
Alive.
Focused entirely on him.
Yin Luo's fingertips brushed the hilt of her dagger. "This place… shouldn't exist inside a Violet-tier Secret Realm."
Tian Ke nodded. "This is something else. Something ancient."
Lin Qing didn't respond.
Because the Mirror Domain inside him pulsed—hard.
Silver lines spidered across his vision.
He saw the shards around them for what they really were:
Fragments of a shattered formation.
Pieces of a domain far older than the Marsh.
Pieces linked directly to the Mirror Emperor.
And the worst part?
They were moving.
Not drifting.
Converging.
He drew a slow breath.
"This isn't the center of the second layer."
Yin Luo turned sharply. "Then what is it?"
Before Lin Qing could answer, the chasm trembled.
A grinding sound echoed around them—stone scraping on stone, metal twisting inside metal. The suspended shards froze in midair.
And then, one by one, they snapped toward the middle of the chasm, colliding into each other like magnets dragged by a single will.
Tian Ke swore under his breath.
"This can't be real."
Li Chun whimpered from somewhere under his arm.
"I think we leave now. Please. Let's leave forever."
The shards fused.
Merged.
Reformed.
Until the creature standing before them blotted out the light.
Its body was made entirely of broken mirror plates, shifting constantly like ripples across glass. It had no eyes, but its "face" reflected Lin Qing's expression—twisted wrong, smiling when he wasn't.
A jagged mirror spine extended along its back, and each step it took cracked the air beneath it.
Yin Luo's voice was barely a whisper.
"A Mirror Beast… a real one."
Lin Qing frowned. "Explain?"
Tian Ke swallowed. "Those are not supposed to exist. They appear only where a Mirror Emperor's Dao has been buried. They're formed from leftover will and leftover hate."
Lin Qing felt the creature's presence pressing against his mind.
Not hostile.
Not yet.
Judging.
He took a careful step forward, drawing the attention of the entire beast with it.
Its mirrored plates rustled like leaves made of knives.
Yin Luo hissed. "Stop. You don't approach something like that."
The beast mirrored her warning—its voice coming out in her tone, distorted:
"Stop… You don't approach… You don't…"
Li Chun cried again.
"I hate this place! Why does everything talk like me but worse?!"
Lin Qing exhaled slowly.
His Mirror Domain pulsed again—one silver heartbeat.
The beast froze.
Another heartbeat.
The beast's plates shifted, reflecting only him now.
No distortions.
No mocking smiles.
Just… alignment.
Yin Luo stared. "You're synchronizing with it."
Tian Ke choked. "That's impossible. Mirror Beasts only react to—"
He didn't finish.
Because the beast lowered its head.
And kneeled.
Li Chun fainted for the fifth time.
Yin Luo and Tian Ke stood speechless as the creature pressed its giant mirrored claws against the ground, folding its towering form until it resembled a guardian bowing before a king.
Lin Qing didn't speak right away.
Because behind the beast—across its reflective plates—he saw flashes of a man standing in the same place thousands of years ago.
The Mirror Emperor.
He extended a hand.
Touched the beast's head.
Light flared.
Then the vision vanished.
The beast lifted its head and rose halfway, its body trembling as cracks rippled across its surface. It opened its jaws—not to roar but to release an object.
A silver fragment.
Paper-thin.
Perfectly reflective.
A Mirror Dao shard.
Yin Luo inhaled sharply. "That's a Dao inheritance piece. One of the rarest treasures in existence. Even True Saints fight to the death for them."
The beast lowered its head again.
Lin Qing reached out.
And the moment his fingers brushed the shard—
His Mirror Domain exploded with light.
A ringing filled his ears.
A voice—his own voice, but older, colder—whispered:
"Walk forward. Break nothing that reflects you."
Lin Qing staggered as images poured into his mind.
A labyrinth of reflections.
A path invisible to anyone not of the Mirror Lineage.
The entrance waiting just ahead—
A whisper of a doorway carved into empty air.
And then—
Silence.
He stood straight again, breathing hard.
Yin Luo stepped closer. "Heir Lin Qing… what happened?"
Lin Qing stared at the shard pulsing in his hand.
"A door opened," he said quietly. "Something the Mirror Emperor left behind."
Tian Ke tightened his grip on his sword. "A door to what?"
Lin Qing looked at the faint outline forming in the air before him—a shimmering vertical tear, like reality was struggling to mirror itself.
"…I think," he said slowly, "a door to the next part of his legacy."
Behind them, the Mirror Beast finally crumbled, its body collapsing into a soft shower of silver dust.
The doorway pulsed.
Waiting.
Yin Luo exhaled. "Are we going in?"
Lin Qing closed his hand around the shard.
"Yeah."
He stepped forward.
The tear in reality opened wider.
Bright, silver light swallowed them whole.