As the mist peeled back, a faint humming vibrated through the atmosphere like a drumbeat echoing from the marrow of the earth. Lin Wuxie stepped through the ever-morphing illusion with calm precision, hands tucked behind his back, eyes scanning the fabric of the realm. The mirror-sky above him shimmered with thousands of half-formed images—faces, sigils, fragmented Dao inscriptions.
He paused.
In the dream-hall ahead, an anomaly pulsed.
A sigil repeated out of rhythm. Not his doing.
"Hmph. Curious," he murmured, stepping inside.
The chamber was draped in shadowed silk, jade pillars twisted unnaturally upward. At the far end knelt Mei Yao. Her breaths were ragged, fingers curled tightly into the illusory floor. Before her loomed a faceless elder seated on a floating throne—his voice repeating like a curse.
"Kneel. Obey. Forget."
But something was wrong.
A faint crack shimmered along the elder's brow. The illusion wavered.
Lin Wuxie narrowed his eyes. His fingers moved subtly, shaping a silent sigil to trace the flaw.
There.
A token lay embedded in the jade floor—a sect crest. Cracked. Flickering.
Half of it bore the mark of the Mo clan. The other half was scorched blank.
He raised a brow. "Hidden lineage?"
Not even the mirror could stabilize it.
He did not help her—but he nudged the illusion again. This time with sharper precision. A silver moth fluttered through the air and landed gently on the token.
The masked elder's voice shattered.
Mei Yao gasped.
Her vision blurred as the throne dissolved. She staggered upright, trembling, her eyes fixating on the token. She didn't understand what she was seeing, not entirely. But something buried within her blood reacted.
A name.
Mo Yao.
It pulsed once across the broken crest before vanishing.
Behind her, Lin Wuxie turned and walked away.
Outside, Elder Sun's frown deepened.
"That anomaly again."
One of the Array Masters whispered, "Two heart realms are bleeding together. Mei Yao and Lin Wuxie."
"Impossible," Sun Zhen said, but his tone lacked conviction. He traced a rune in the air.
The Mirror of Heaven shimmered, revealing the fracture: a junction where Mei Yao's heart realm had overlapped with Lin Wuxie's manipulations. The mirror should reflect truth. But it had begun to accept alterations.
Sun Zhen muttered, "As though it believes him."
Elsewhere in the illusion, Lin Wuxie stood atop a mirrored staircase suspended in a void of falling stars. He now understood:
The Mirror of Heaven had been fractured in a past calamity. It no longer merely reflected the heart. It could be persuaded.
Truth... was malleable.
"How delightful," he whispered.
He traced his finger through the air. The illusion shuddered, rippling with falsity.
A copy of his sect robes appeared in a mirror shard—but bearing a golden sigil of a fictional peak, "Mist Veil Summit."
The illusion accepted it.
He smiled.
In his mind, a path began to form—Mirror Deception Dao. Not founded on raw power or sword intent, but on convincing the world of a beautiful lie.
He turned, eyes glinting.
"If truth is a reflection, then I will become the mirror that decides what is seen."
In another quadrant, Mei Yao stumbled out of her shattered courtyard. Her body trembled, but her heart was steadier.
What she saw had shaken her—but it also answered something that had long haunted her. The whispers, the cold glances, the way some elders seemed almost ashamed to look at her.
Her father hadn't died. He was here. Still revered.
But she had been erased.
She clenched her fists. Her path was no longer just survival. It was reclamation.
Outside the illusion, Sun Zhen watched with narrowed eyes.
"Let the final phase begin," he said grimly.
The Mirror of Heaven pulsed once more.