Chapter 248 The Mirror World

Chapter 248: The Mirror World

In the crimson-hued mirror world, the reception room, though identical in layout to its counterpart outside, was utterly dilapidated and dust-choked. The old sofa remained unrepaired; the three-seater against the wall had even collapsed, and the central coffee table was reduced to splintered wood and shattered glass. The water dispenser on the other side lay toppled, with suspicious debris floating in the residual water of its bottle. The entire room appeared to have been abandoned for an age.

After just a few seconds in this mirror world, Su Bai already understood why the specters would sacrifice everything to escape this dreadful place.

Moreover, both he and Fengling were unable to wield their powers here.

Indeed, not only Fengling—even Su Bai could no longer summon blue flames. The peace cord, formed by the cat spirit on his left hand, felt like an ordinary accessory, and even when he called upon the Evil Ghost Puzzle, he received no response.

"Su Bai." Fengling’s voice was strained; she was clearly encountering the inability to use her powers for the first time.

Although in Happy Community, Fengling had once forgotten to use her flames to protect herself due to amnesia, the feeling of forgetting was entirely different from being rendered powerless.

"Rest assured, your abilities haven’t vanished," Su Bai reassured her. "It’s just that the power saturating this realm is too overwhelming, temporarily suppressing the energy within us."

Su Bai was certain of this because he could still sense the flow of power within his body through meditation. Though he couldn't actively use his abilities now, just as the administrator had said, entering the mirror world did have benefits for his physical condition.

In the outside world, the clash between the blood aura and the chaotic power within Su Bai had worsened his condition. But after entering this blood-red world, the overwhelming blood aura in the air was even stronger than the side effects of his own power, temporarily suppressing the turmoil within him!

Su Bai felt the forced calmness of his energy under the external pressure. The bone-deep pain and the burning headache he had experienced vanished after entering the mirror world.

His condition had reached a delicate balance.

So, even though he couldn’t actively use his powers, Su Bai’s physical state was unexpectedly optimal. He even felt a sense of relief and joy, as if he had been freed after two years locked in a basement. Not even the stench of blood and decay in the air could dampen his mood.

After all, Su Bai was a human who had struggled in the nightmare world for over a decade. He had experienced all sorts of terrible environments and foul energies; this mere stench of blood was hardly the worst.

Compared to Su Bai, Fengling wasn’t faring as well.

Though Fengling was a veteran among players, she was far from the Miss Fengling Su Bai had known a decade later in his previous life. Her power wasn’t strong enough to resist the violent energy saturating the mirror world, nor could she achieve balance like Su Bai.

As a result, not only were Fengling’s powers temporarily suppressed, but her overall condition was as weakened as other players who had been oppressed by the blood aura. Though she wasn’t as debilitated as Su Bai had been earlier, reduced to leaning on walls for support, she was close to it.

Su Bai had considered letting Fengling leave while the passage was still open, since he was the only one tasked with the administrator’s assignment. But the passage lasted too briefly—by the time they realized something was wrong with their powers, the blood-red vortex on the wall had already vanished.

Only a mirror the size of a wall painting remained on the reception room wall. Through it, Su Bai could still see Zhang Yibu and the others left in the outside world, as well as Sang Sang controlling summoned ghosts to attack "Qin Yuxuan."

The battle outside the mirror continued, but the mirror world had its own troubles aside from the blood aura and malice.

Su Bai turned to survey the room. Besides Yue Zhengqing and the bloodthread ghost he had dragged back, there were other ghostly entities in the reception room—shadow-like yet with a gelatinous substance. These ghosts had intended to escape the mirror world when the passage opened but were forced to stay due to Su Bai and Fengling’s flame attacks.

Even though these shadowy figures lacked facial features or limbs, Su Bai could sense their overwhelming resentment directed at them.

Though the ghosts of the nightmare world came in all shapes, these gelatinous shadows likely weren’t their original forms. Instead, they seemed to be ghosts trapped in the mirror world, gradually losing their "selves" and "dying" under the pressure of the out-of-control energy.

Even the blood threads entwining the ghost Su Bai had dragged back quickly faded in the mirror world, soon revealing Xiao Xiaodie’s body again. Only the eerie eyes, filled with whites and bloodshot veins, confirmed the ghost’s identity.

"It seems these ghosts are like us—unable to use their powers in the mirror world either."

Su Bai, feeling revitalized, paid little mind to the surrounding "predators stripped of their weapons." After all, he still had the administrator’s courier mission to complete. Su Bai remembered the administrator saying that "that item" would appear when he crossed the rift, so it should already be on him.

There weren’t many places on Su Bai’s person to hide things, so he quickly felt a circular, cool metallic object in his pajama pocket—what seemed to be a small circular mirror.

"It’s strange. Our conditions seem reversed. I’m so weak my legs feel shaky, but you look remarkably revitalized," Fengling said, staying alert to the shadows around them. "No one around me has heard of the name 'Su Bai,' but you don’t seem the type to hide your identity. I really wonder where a formidable individual like you came from."

"Though the White Faction is at a disadvantage, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some peculiar individuals among them." At the end of each game, the administrator would hint that the "White Faction is at a disadvantage," an unavoidable reality, but that didn’t mean there were no strong players on the White side.

In his previous life, Su Bai hadn’t stood out much among the top-tier players either, being an unaffiliated solo player.

"So, you also believe the White Faction refers to humans, right?" Fengling was trying to calm herself through conversation, chatting about anything that came to mind. "Many people around me think the power disparity between humans and Eerie Entities is too great to even compare."

"I’m just guessing randomly," Su Bai replied. He remembered that during this period, most people had no comprehension of the grave implications of "White Faction at a disadvantage," let alone what penalties it would entail.