Era of Magic and Martial Arts

As everyone knows.

Injury doesn’t disappear, it just transfers.

There is no free lunch in this world. If there is, then someone else has paid the price for you.

Luo Ji squeezed his eyes shut, his eyelids felt like hinges nailed shut with a stapler, not daring to leave even a sliver of a gap.

But the bizarre thing was, even if he wasn’t looking at the mirror, some connection beyond the physical level still eroded his body and spirit like a bone-attached tumor.

The first to hit was the sensation of drowning, as if being pressed into the deep sea, with every breath threatening to burst his lungs.

Then came the terrifying itch from the depths of his marrow, like countless bugs gnawing at his bone cavity.

His shoulder blades and spine spasmed uncontrollably, as if they might pierce through his skin the next second and drill their way out.

Afterward, his consciousness plunged into a thick darkness, with all five senses being completely stripped away.

In that darkness, there was nothing, only eternal dead silence.

Then, he felt his soul being extracted from his body, sucked into a swirling vortex.

It was as if he had fallen into a bizarre cycle of reincarnation.

Sometimes he was a mutated monster curling up in a radioactive wasteland, with rotting claws tearing at his own viscera;

Other times, he was an innocent child sitting in a wheat field, looking up at unidentified flying objects streaking across the sky;

Countless conflicting memories tore through his brain like blades, nearly splitting his spirit, and he couldn’t remember who he was or where he came from.

Finally, after escaping the cycle, he felt the fluid in his veins suddenly boiling, as if being deep-fried on a blazing fire.

Then, he found himself served on a gigantic dining table, with an unseen mouth looming toward him to bite.

The horrific sound of biting exploded in his ears, and he clearly felt his bones being snapped with a "crack".

"Am I... going to be eaten?!"

Luo Ji struggled on the brink of collapse, yet couldn’t make even a single scream.

He didn’t dare to open his eyes, not even daring to think—without looking at the mirror he was close to death, if he actually caught a glimpse of the scene inside the mirror, wouldn’t he turn into a pool of bloody mud on the spot?

Instinctively, Luo Ji concluded that all the injuries he was enduring now were sourced from the mirror.

It was the mirror that witnessed unspeakable horrors, and he, as the host of the mirror, was merely passively sharing a portion of the "observational" injuries.

This, whether on the scientific level of quantum entanglement effects or in the esoteric realm of object contracts, was quite logical.

His judgment was essentially correct.

In fact, since he followed his heart and shut his eyes, he only suffered 10% of the indirect damage, while the mirror bore 90% of the main damage.

But the problem was, he had closed his eyes, yet couldn’t withstand the fact that there was someone watching intensely beside him.

So, the damage from Zhang Liyou’s peeking was included too.

As for why this damage had to be accounted for by the mirror and Luo Ji, the underlying cause and effect ran deep.

But, to put it simply, using a down-to-earth analogy with reality:

Suppose you used a camera to shoot a rather primitive "study" video and spread it, then someone saw it.

Legally, you are manufacturing and distributing inappropriate content.

You are the criminal who needs to be arrested, and the camera is the tool of the crime that must be confiscated.

And, what culpability do those who accidentally viewed the video have?

Even if there is any, their culpability will be attributed to you; the judge will increase your sentence based on the quantity of circulation you have propagated.

Of course, those who watched your video are not entirely unharmed; their pure hearts have suffered irreparable, permanent pollution caused by the video.

Snap—Snap—

The sound of something being gnawed continued to echo in Luo Ji’s ears, as if he was being consumed.

Time distorted in the terror.

Perhaps a century passed, perhaps only a second.

Luo Ji suddenly felt the pain as intense as eroding bones receding like a tidal wave.

His consciousness cleared from confusion, only to realize in shock—that "snap" sound was not a hallucination, but...

His eyelids trembled as he forced his rust-stiffened neck to inch by inch lower his head.

He saw the bronze ancient mirror’s surface crawling with cobweb-like cracks, and large fragments falling silently into the muddy water below, splashing dark drops.

The remaining half-piece of the mirror wobbled precariously within the frame, covered in fine cracks, seemingly ready to leap into the river after it with even the slightest movement.

The most heartbreaking thing about it was the mirror surface itself—once reflective and gleaming, now shrouded in a layer of ghostly white fog, like the cloudy eyeball of a blind person, unable to reflect any scene anymore.

"Luo Ji, why are you carrying a broken mirror? And it suddenly shattered?"

Zhang Liyou half crouched beside him, deliberately avoiding Luo Ji’s grief-stricken face, focusing intently on picking up one irregular shard after another in the filthy water.

From an angle Luo Ji couldn’t see, two smaller pieces of the mirror slid quietly into her sleeve.

The edges of the fragments left fine cuts on her arm beneath her sleeve, yet she seemed oblivious, simply handing the pieces she picked up to Luo Ji.

"The mirror’s all shattered like this, do you still want it? How about just throwing it away?"

Before Zhang Liyou finished her sentence, she suddenly fell silent.

Her pupils constricted sharply, staring fixedly at Luo Ji’s face, lowering her voice in shock: "Wait—your eyes...?"

Luo Ji instinctively took the mirror shard she handed to him, hoarsely squeezing out a "Thanks" word.

But as soon as the word left his mouth, his heart clenched with a chill: "Eyes, what’s wrong with my eyes...?"

Boom—!!!

A deafening explosion suddenly burst, cutting off the words he was about to say.

The entire underground pipeline shook violently, the corroded metal pipe walls emitted an ear-twitching groan.

The murky sewage splashed in the tremor, and the mirror in Luo Ji’s hand let out a "crackling" sound on the verge of collapse, those spiderweb-like cracks seemed ready to completely disintegrate, not wanting to "live" for another second.

Luo Ji didn’t even have time to shove the mirror back into his pocket, disregarding everything else as his hand shook.

His palm suddenly split open vertically, like a toothless mouth, revealing the crimson flesh inside.

Zhang Liyou widened her eyes, staring rigidly at this scene, yet feeling strangely calm inside.

After witnessing those horrors in the mirror gallery that surpassed comprehension, such "abnormalities" couldn’t stir any waves in her heart.

However, Cuicui was so shocked her jaw nearly dislocated, her eyes almost bulged out, and a thought exploded like thunder in her mind:

"Isn’t our so-called [Avengers]... Luo Ji himself a monster?!"

In the unwavering stares of both, that half-piece of broken mirror was slowly devoured by the "mouth" in Luo Ji’s palm.

The flesh wriggled around the mirror piece, producing a chilling, sticky noise until it completely closed up, leaving only a faint scar in the palm.

No time to question or explain, the wind churned up by the explosion slammed into the three of them like a heavy door, sending them flying...