Law Commands materialized as barriers of holy light, sealing the dust-choked zone airtight. anwhile, the hunter Li Wufang—sprinting outside the affected area across rooftops—drew his bow again and again, unleashing an endless barrage of Discipline Arrows into the heart of the smoke.
The Investigator had given up on interrogation and arrest. Against a suspect like this, he'd chosen on-the-spot execution.
Cheng Shi's trio arrived at the scene just then. The sight made their expressions darken further.
The annihilated zone was enormous. The commotion had drawn attention from nearly the entire town—heads peeking from alleys and streets. So were panicked, so rubbernecking. A few reckless fortune-seekers even tried to push into the dust cloud, hoping sothing valuable had fallen from the sky.
The holy-light walls of the Law Commands kept every last one of them out.
The battle within had clearly gone white-hot. From Li Wufang's stance, he plainly intended to fight to the death.
The three didn't know the full story and couldn't judge prematurely. But Wu Cun had obliterated an entire block—the kind of sabotage that forced every trial-minded player to pick a side.
"The biggest variable is the obstacle itself. This ti I'll stand with Order. Perhaps Fate's prophecy is right before our eyes."
With that, Wang Mou produced several palm-sized chanical mice from his inventory. Nothing but alloy skeletons—not a scrap of flesh—their empty eye sockets blazed with alarming red light the instant they hit the ground. Squeaking frantically, they charged into the smoke.
Explosions followed swiftly. The blasts rivaled the earlier devastation in sheer volu.
'chanical Engineering?!'
'He's a chanical Engineering Departnt scholar?'
Cheng Shi blinked. Then he recalled the Scholar's lie. If the man truly was a scholar... what had he lied about?
His na?
Lying about a na?
But "Wang Mou" was already a pseudonym. Even if it was a lie, why give a codena?
Sothing deeper was at play. Cheng Shi couldn't work it out—and there was no ti. He turned toward the battlefield's center and sensed Oblivion power accumulating at insane speed. The Extinguisher apparently hadn't been wounded. Worse—she was preparing sothing even bigger for the "teammates" outside.
Cheng Shi's face soured. Her timing couldn't have been worse. He'd just removed his mask—losing Today's Hero's bonuses and reverting to Fate Weaver—right when combat erupted.
Still, he could play support. He stepped back half a pace, looking to Qin Xin—the main fighting force—only to find the Mirror Person showed no intention of engaging.
Qin Xin shifted one step sideways to shield Cheng Shi, sensed his gaze, and shook his head with a smile:
"Clues don't matter. The trial doesn't matter. Scores don't matter...
Our friends matter most.
The Investigator and the Scholar can handle this. What I can do is make sure our priest friend isn't touched by Oblivion before the Blind One returns."
The instant he finished speaking, a tidal wave of berserk Oblivion power erupted from the smoke—radiating outward in every direction indiscriminately. From the look of it, Wu Cun intended to drag everyone into annihilation.
Including herself!
"!!!"
"This is bad—fall back!"
Sensing the catastrophic Oblivion force bearing down, Wang Mou's expression hardened. He vanished from sight—so fast that even Qin Xin, a warrior, was montarily startled. One eyebrow rose:
"The Scholar isn't a scholar after all."
Indeed—Cheng Shi had noticed too. In a crisis, identities are the hardest to conceal. This "scholar" hadn't expected to walk into a world-ending cataclysm when he'd rushed over.
So his first instinct was to Flash away from the battlefield. And his thod of escape...
Shadow Shuttle!
This was no Erudite Scholar. This was an Assassination Doctor!
The Truth follower who'd pulled out chanical Engineering tools was a pure-blooded assassin!
But personal revelations aside—shouldn't the two of them also be avoiding this?
Cheng Shi wasn't too worried. He'd scattered countless dice along the way and could teleport anywhere. He'd only stayed because Qin Xin hadn't moved. If he bolted first, he'd look like a clown in everyone's eyes. So he held his ground, planning to warp out at the absolute last second.
Normally, cautious Cheng Shi would never pull this kind of brinkmanship. But with Qin Xin tanking up front, he didn't want his image among the Torchbearers to collapse because of a single Oblivion blast.
The Oblivion storm howled, nearly reaching them—and at last the calm mory player moved. With a soft chuckle, he drew a slender longsword and traced a circle in the air before him. Instantly, a mirror surface—shimring like deep-sea sapphire—materialized. The rampaging Oblivion storm seed to find an outlet: waves surging in every direction reversed course and crashed maniacally into the sapphire mirror.
Whatever lay behind that mirror connected to so unknown space. The onlookers watched as the god-powered storm was devoured whole—and then the Oblivion tsunami simply... disappeared.
Safe.
'That's it?'
Cheng Shi was stunned. He stared at Qin Xin's back, his gaze tracing past the man's shoulder to the mirror swirling with icy-blue crystalline light. His heart pounded with awe.
'What level of strength is this?'
This Torchbearer founder was still holding Ad Ric in his other hand. With one hand—drawing a single circle—he'd neutralized the Oblivion catastrophe that had sent Wang Mou running?
As the berserk power vanished, every eye in the area turned toward Qin Xin.
The dust had long been annihilated. Even the rubble at the center had been utterly erased. Reality bore no debris but was torn everywhere—Void rifts dotted the ground, howling winds of nothingness bleeding through, dropping the entire zone's temperature by several degrees.
Li Wufang stood on a distant rooftop, expression grim. His hawk-sharp eyes swept the devastated area again and again—but the Extinguisher had vanished.
The terrifying Oblivion storm hadn't annihilated a single person. It had seemingly only annihilated its own caster.
But Li Wufang knew the truth wasn't as simple as it appeared. As for where Wu Cun had gone—he'd have to ask the Mirror Person who'd just resolved everything: Qin Xin!
He turned toward Qin Xin. At the sa ti, Wang Mou—who'd fled the battlefield a step earlier—reappeared via Shadow Shuttle. Staring at the sapphire mirror before Qin Xin, he whispered in shock:
"The Dreamless Mirror?
You're Like A Dream?"
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