48: Chapter 48 If you try to kill me in the mirror, I'll shatter it!

A bone-chilling cold seemed to transform into countless tiny ice needles, piercing every inch of Chen Fan's skin from all directions, straight to his soul.

The Mirror Abyss Layer he was in was a circular cage constructed from countless gigantic mirrors. Up, down, left, and right, all were mirror surfaces as smooth as water, trapping him in the center with nowhere to escape.

Every mirror reflected a completely different Chen Fan.

In the mirror to his left, he was in tattered clothes, covered in blood, kneeling and kowtowing to a blurry shadow, his face filled with humiliation and despair.

In the mirror to his right, he had a cold expression, personally pushing a bewildered Su Shuang towards an altar burning with eerie blue flames. The flames instantly devoured her, yet the him in the mirror didn't even blink.

The mirror above his head was the most shocking. There, he wore a grotesque crown forged from bones and gems, draped in a dark golden dragon-patterned black robe, with mountains of corpses piled at his feet, his eyes indifferently overlooking a collapsing world.

Past, present, future... countless possibilities, countless timelines, intertwined at this moment into a net from which there was no escape, intending to utterly crush his will.

A cold system notification sounded in his mind, devoid of any emotion.

[Warning: Soul Assimilation threat detected.]

[Quest: Kill all Mirror Images.]

[Failure Penalty: Soul assimilated by Mirror Image, consciousness permanently lost.]

Kill the Mirror Images? Chen Fan's eyes suddenly narrowed. These were all himself!

He took a deep breath, no longer hesitating. His right leg suddenly exerted force, his waist twisted, and a condensed surge of power instantly flowed through to his right fist!

He didn't choose the Mirror Images that looked the most evil or the weakest. Instead, he chose the one directly in front of him, the Mirror Image whose actions and expression were completely identical to his own at this moment!

"Break!"

His fist whistled, carrying a sharp sound that tore through the air, smashing fiercely towards the mirror surface.

However, just as his fist was about to touch the mirror, the Chen Fan in the mirror made the exact same movement, meeting his punch.

Two fists, separated by a thin mirror surface, collided with incredible precision.

An unimaginable, terrifying recoil surged back, as if his punch had solidly struck an unshakeable divine mountain.

Chen Fan felt his entire right arm go numb instantly, his blood and qi churning, and a sweetness in his throat. He almost spat out blood.

He stumbled back three steps before barely regaining his balance.

[System Notification: 'Defense Critical Hit ×2' triggered!]

[Effect Judgment: Reflects own attack power.]

Indeed!

This Mirror Image could not only perfectly synchronize his movements but also share his unique system Critical Hits!

How was he supposed to fight this?

Attacking it was equivalent to attacking himself, and with double the return!

This was simply an unsolvable deadlock!

Just as Chen Fan's mind was reeling, Su Shuang, who had been resting against the edge of the cage, suddenly opened her eyes.

Her charming fox eyes were now filled with determination.

She glanced at Chen Fan, saying nothing, but simply brought her slender fingers together and unhesitatingly slashed them across her fair palm!

Blood instantly gushed out, carrying a faint golden glow.

Su Shuang's face instantly paled a few shades, but her movements did not falter.

Using her finger as a brush and blood as ink, she swiftly outlined a complex and profound rune in the air before her.

"By my Fox Blood, illuminate the illusion!"

"Fox Fire: Illusion Illumination!"

The moment the rune formed, a golden-red Fox Fire ignited out of thin air. It had no temperature but emitted an eerie light that could penetrate people's hearts.

The crimson light rippled outwards like water, instantly sweeping across the entire Mirror Abyss Layer.

Buzz—

In an instant, except for the one directly in front, all the other Chen Fans in the mirrors, whether kneeling in supplication or wearing a crown, suddenly froze, as if they had become slow-motion images, their expressions becoming dull and hollow.

Only the 'Chen Fan' in the central mirror remained unaffected. Instead, a colder sneer curled at his lips, and his eyes held a dead, lifeless darkness.

"Chen Fan! That's not you!" Su Shuang, seeing this scene, shouted with all her might, "Those are all passively reflected phantoms! Only the one in the middle has a 'Puppet Will' core injected by the system! It is the true enemy!"

Before her voice faded, a sudden change occurred!

The 'Chen Fan' in the central mirror's sneer reached its peak.

He suddenly reached forward, and that hand, without any obstruction, passed through the cold mirror surface, extending into the real world like a ghost. His five fingers formed a claw, aiming directly for Chen Fan's throat!

This claw came too fast, too strangely, completely beyond the scope of physical rules!

Chen Fan's pupils contracted sharply. In a life-or-death moment, he forcibly twisted his body, dodging to the side.

Rip!

Sharp fingernails sliced across his left arm, leaving five deep, bone-visible gashes.

A burning pain surged, but the next second, Chen Fan was stunned.

Because the system notification was completely beyond his expectation.

[System Notification: Attacked by 'Puppet Will', damage counted towards Mirror Image, main body unharmed.]

Main body unharmed?

Chen Fan abruptly lowered his head, looking at his left arm.

Those five hideous wounds were actually healing at a visible rate—no, more accurately, they were disappearing as if they had never appeared!

And at the same time, in the mirror opposite him, five identical bloody gashes inexplicably appeared on the left arm of the puppet Chen Fan!

So that's how it is!

So that's how it is!

Chen Fan instantly understood everything! He had completely seen through the rules of this space!

If he attacked the Mirror Image, the damage would bounce back to himself.

But if the Mirror Image attacked him, the damage would transfer to the Mirror Image itself!

This was a seemingly fair rule, but in reality, it was full of traps!

The system was using his own Mirror Image to mislead him, making him believe that both sides 'shared damage', thus making him hesitant and ultimately draining him to death or assimilating him.

"Heh..." Chen Fan let out a low, cold laugh, a flash of wild fervor in his eyes. "Playing with rules with me? Let's see who plays better!"

He simply abandoned all defensive stances, allowing the ghostly claw that penetrated the mirror to attack again.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The puppet Chen Fan's fists rained down on Chen Fan's chest, shoulders, and cheeks, making dull thudding sounds.

Each heavy blow made Su Shuang's heart clench a little more, but Chen Fan remained motionless, without even a hint of pain on his face.

His body was being attacked, but all the damage, under the system's rule judgment, was perfectly transferred to the puppet in the mirror.

The 'Chen Fan' in the mirror began to constantly show bruises and wounds, and his movements became increasingly sluggish.

"My turn!"

Chen Fan's eyes gleamed brightly. Ignoring the puppet arm still attacking him, he twisted all his strength into one, aimed at the indestructible mirror surface before him, and unleashed a punch!

This time, he held nothing back!

[Charged Critical Hit ×3, triggered!]

[Rule Critical Hit, triggered!]

This punch was no longer a simple burst of power; it was a fatal blow to the rules of this space!

Boom!

The system's judgment seemed to fall into unprecedented chaos.

[System Notification: Detected Host initiating 'self-harming attack'... Judgment logic error... Re-judging...]

[Judgment Correction: Attack target is 'rule carrier', confirmed as 'environmental destruction' behavior.]

[Reward: Experience Points +1000!]

Chen Fan's fist solidly struck the mirror surface.

This time, there was no recoil, only devastating destruction!

Crack—

The hard mirror surface cracked in response, and spiderweb-like fissures spread wildly outwards from his fist.

The puppet Chen Fan in the mirror let out a shrill, silent scream, and his entire body began to twist and blur.

"It's not over yet!"

Chen Fan seized the opportunity, leaping into the air, joining his fists together like a heavy hammer, and with all his might, he fiercely smashed into the cracked mirror core!

"Shatter for me!"

With a thunderous roar, it was as if the entire world had frozen at this moment.

The giant mirror exploded, shattering into billions of shimmering, cold fragments, like a deadly storm of blades, scattering in all directions.

Amidst these flying fragments, the largest piece happened to flash past Chen Fan's eyes.

Reflected in that fragment was no longer Chen Fan's figure, but a sight that made his scalp tingle—

At the top of a towering giant pagoda, a massive device resembling a steel smelting furnace slowly rotated.

Countless glowing, translucent souls were drawn into the furnace like moths to a flame. After being refined by the intense flames, they were purified into tiny golden light particles, which flowed through dense pipelines inside the pagoda and were injected deep into the pagoda's foundation.

An old and intermittent voice, as if from a distant time and space, echoed in Chen Fan's mind:

...Souls... are the best fuel...

...All clearers... are sacrifices...

As the last mirror fragment dissolved into specks of light, the entire space returned to calm, leaving only him and the weakened Su Shuang.

[Congratulations, Host, you have successfully cleared the 'Mirror Abyss Layer'.]

[First Layer Clearance Reward: bronze fragment ×1]

A bronze fragment, shimmering with an ancient luster, quietly floated before Chen Fan.

He reached out and took it, discovering that the shard's missing part and patterns perfectly matched the mysterious copper coin he had obtained earlier!

"Cough, cough..." Su Shuang leaned against the now-vanished wall, weakly slumping to the ground, a trace of blood at the corner of her mouth. "They... they set up this trap to make you kill yourself in self-doubt... but you... you just shattered the mirror..."

Her voice, though weak, carried a hint of shock. "What you shattered wasn't just an illusion, but the 'destiny' they had set for you!"

Chen Fan said nothing, merely silently embedding the bronze fragment into the copper coin's missing part.

The moment the two merged, the copper coin emitted a faint glow, and a cool sensation flowed through his body, rapidly restoring his depleted mental energy.

He looked up, his gaze seemingly penetrating layers of obstruction, towards the dark staircase leading higher. Beyond it was the second layer of the pagoda, and an even deeper hell.

"Next layer," his voice was cold and firm, carrying an unprecedented killing intent, "I'm not just going to kill monsters, I'm going to... shatter this pagoda!"

And at this very moment.

Above the underground altar at the very bottom of the pagoda, the Shadow Crow, who had been sitting still like a statue, suddenly opened his crimson eyes and stood up abruptly.

He felt a violent tremor from the very root of destiny, as if a tenacious chain, woven for millions of years by countless generations, had been brutally torn apart!

"The Chain of Destiny... has trembled..." The Shadow Crow's voice was hoarse and horrified. "That target... he is destroying the structure of destiny!"

Chen Fan withdrew his gaze and turned to help the tottering Su Shuang.

She leaned almost her entire weight on him, her face as pale as paper, her breathing growing faint.

Just then, the entire space began to tremble violently.

The ceiling was no longer dark, but began to seep out specks of cold white frost.

The solid ground beneath his feet was melting away, turning into nothingness, with only the staircase leading to the upper level remaining stable.

An extremely cold storm from the depths of the Nine Netherworld swept in from all directions without warning, stirring up a sky full of snowflakes.

What had just been bone-chilling cold instantly turned into a blizzard capable of freezing souls.

The temperature plummeted at an incredible speed.

"This is bad... the ecological environment of this pagoda is collapsing as the 'layers' shatter!" Chen Fan's heart tightened. He immediately carried the almost unconscious Su Shuang onto his back. Her soft body was light as a feather, yet cold as iron.

He had to find a place to hide from this sudden blizzard immediately, otherwise, even he wouldn't be able to withstand this rule-level environmental obliteration.

The fierce wind howled, and snowflakes cut like knives. Chen Fan's vision was covered by a vast whiteness.

Carrying Su Shuang on his back, he trudged step by step onto the unknown staircase.

In the cold wind, Su Shuang unconsciously murmured. Her head, resting on his back, moved slightly, and a pair of fluffy fox ears, against the backdrop of the wind and snow, began to appear and disappear, taking on a translucent, ethereal quality.