Gray Mist Space.
The battle here was no longer a match of equals.
It had evolved into a one-sided suppression and torment.
With her great destruction activated, the corrupted Xia Ji was now the absolute master and source of annihilation in this Gray Mist Space.
She hovered in midair, the surging black death qi around her so dense it nearly turned liquid.
Countless thick, ferocious black veins like living tentacles extended from it.
They were no longer simple energy constructs, but more like the direct extension of her anger and killing intent.
Each one contained violent, unmatched power and a deathly stillness that corroded all vitality.
Her attacks were without form, yet carried a nearly instinctive, lethal precision.
She no longer sought skill or calculation, only the most primitive, most violent outpouring of power.
Black veins rained down like a storm, bombarding Mirror Lake from all sides without pause.
Each strike caused the Gray Mist Space to tremble violently, cracks appearing.
Locked firmly in this storm of destruction, Mirror Lake had long lost his initial composure and sense of control.
Gray mist still surged under his command, attempting to form barriers, create illusions, warp space to evade.
But in the face of Xia Ji’s pure, unreasonably brutal violence, all his delicate manipulations proved utterly powerless.
Rrrip!
A black vein lashed like a poisonous dragon’s tail, shattering three layers of stacked gray mist barriers.
The remaining force, unabated, scraped harshly across Mirror Lake’s left arm.
“Urgh!”
Mirror Lake grunted.
The sleeve of his left arm, along with the flesh beneath, instantly turned to ash, revealing the white bone of his arm.
Even the bone had fine cracks.
The moment gray-black blood flowed out, it was corroded and evaporated by the deathly stillness attached to the black vein.
He stumbled backward, trying to create distance to regroup.
But Xia Ji gave him no chance to catch his breath.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Three more black veins, even more solid and sharp as drills, sealed off all his escape routes in a triangular formation, stabbing straight at him.
The angles were tricky, the speed incredible.
Mirror Lake’s pupils contracted.
He concentrated all remaining gray mist in front of him while flickering sharply to the right.
Thud!
Thud!
Two black veins were barely deflected, but the third, like a maggot on a bone, pierced through his hastily gathered defense by a hair’s breadth and drove deep into his left shoulder blade.
“Aaaah–!”
Mirror Lake let out a pained roar, his body flung backward by the immense impact.
That black vein not only dealt physical damage but also poured a freezing, soul-numbing deathly stillness energy into his body, frantically destroying his vitality and Yao power circulation.
He crashed heavily onto the gray mist ground, sliding over a dozen meters, leaving a shocking trail of gray-black blood.
A dull thud sounded.
Mirror Lake’s left arm, severed by the black vein, fell to the ground.
All of this was witnessed by Gu Qiancheng, who was sitting up not far behind, struggling to regulate his breathing and recover.
Watching Mirror Lake’s wretched, beaten, and perilous state, Gu Qiancheng’s pale, pain-furrowed brow gradually relaxed.
The corners of his mouth even began to uncontrollably curl upward.
At first, it was just a slight curve.
As Mirror Lake’s injuries worsened and his evasions became more difficult, the curve grew more pronounced.
Finally, it turned into an unabashed smile of schadenfreude and mockery.
He even adjusted his sitting position, finding a more comfortable angle, like a VIP spectator watching a thrilling drama.
“Tsk tsk,” when Mirror Lake barely avoided a combined attack from Xia Ji but still got grazed by the aftermath and rolled on the ground in a sorry state, Gu Qiancheng finally couldn’t help speaking.
His voice was weak from injuries, but the mockery in it was thick.
“I say, senior, aren’t you… a bit unworthy of the title of leader?”
Mirror Lake had just struggled to his feet.
At the words, his body stiffened slightly.
His pure white mask turned toward Gu Qiancheng, as if one could feel the icy gaze behind it.
Gu Qiancheng didn’t care.
He continued leisurely, “Weren’t you quite imposing when dealing with me just now?
Why, with a different opponent, you’ve become a punching bag?”
He coughed twice, spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, and his smile grew even brighter.
“You’re not that good either, senior!”
Each word was like a knife, stabbing right where it hurt.
Mirror Lake’s expression under the mask must have been extremely unpleasant.
But at this moment, most of his energy had to be used to deal with Xia Ji’s relentless, maggot-like violent attacks.
He had no time and no strength to retort.
He could only turn this humiliation and anger into a darker killing intent.
However, the gap in power could not be closed by anger.
Xia Ji seemed further enraged by Mirror Lake’s tenacity.
The bloody light in her pupils blazed brightly.
She let out a sharp screech.
The black death qi around her suddenly contracted and condensed, vaguely forming a huge, blurry phantom behind her, as if from ancient death.
Then, all the black veins retracted abruptly, intertwining and twisting in front of her.
In an instant, they coalesced into a giant black blade, pure death and resentment.
Where the blade pointed, space groaned.
“Die–!”
Xia Ji, holding the giant blade as if with both hands, slashed it down at Mirror Lake, who had just stabilized himself and was trying to use his Yao power to regenerate his left arm.
This blow contained all the power she could muster at that moment.
It was a pure, extreme manifestation of the will to destroy.
Mirror Lake felt the fatal threat.
He roared, holding nothing back.
All the remaining Yao power within him, mixed with the origin power of the Gray Mist Space, erupted violently, constructing layer upon layer of thick gray barriers shimmering with spatial ripples in front of him.
At the same time, his figure frantically retreated.
But it was too late.
Ssssh–!!
Like a hot knife through butter.
The pitch-black giant blade, with the might to annihilate everything, easily and silently cut through the first, second, third gray barriers.
It smashed through them like bamboo.
Mirror Lake, horrified beyond measure, pushed his speed to the limit and dodged to the side.
However, the blade was too large.
And too fast.
The edge of the blade still grazed his right arm, which was still exposed after his desperate dodge.
No sound.
Only a cut surface as smooth as a mirror.
Mirror Lake’s right arm, from below the elbow, was severed cleanly.
Before the severed arm could even fall, it was eroded by the deathly stillness attached to the giant blade and turned to ash in an instant.
“Pfft–!”
Mirror Lake, as if struck by a heavy blow, spat out a large mouthful of gray-black blood mixed with internal organ fragments.
His body flew backward like a kite with a broken string.
At the same time, having endured Xia Ji’s full-force strike, the Gray Mist Space, which had already lost control due to Mirror Lake’s injury and was then violently impacted, finally reached its limit.
Crack–!
The sound of glass breaking came from every corner of the space.
Centered on the point of Xia Ji’s slash, countless web-like black cracks spread wildly, instantly covering the entire field of vision.
Gray mist began to surge and dissipate uncontrollably.
The stable structure of the space completely collapsed.
Buzz–!!!
An intense sense of spatial disorder struck, as if being inside a wildly spinning washing machine.
The next second.
The feeling of sky and earth spinning disappeared.
Underfoot came the real, slightly damp, soft touch of soil.
In the ears, the whimpering wind unique to the Death Realm sounded.
Before the eyes, no longer the monotonous gray mist, but the familiar scene of the Death Realm, barren yet with a strange vitality.
The Gray Mist Space had completely dissipated.
The three people returned to the main space of the Death Realm.
Mirror Lake knelt on one knee not far away on the ground, his body trembling violently from intense pain and severe injury.
Having lost both arms, gray-black blood continuously oozed from the wounds, barely sealed by his Yao power.
He slightly raised his eyes to look ahead.
Xia Ji was slowly descending from midair.
The surging black death qi and veins around her were gradually receding.
Her blood-red pupils were still locked on him, but the wild killing intent seemed to have calmed down a bit due to the spatial shift and the full-force blow just now.
Seeing Xia Ji like this, the corners of Mirror Lake’s blood-stained mouth lightly, almost imperceptibly, lifted.
It was not the bitter smile of a loser, nor mockery.
It was more like a complex relief.
Xia Ji tilted her head, a hint of confusion flashing in her blood-red pupils.
She keenly sensed that deep in Mirror Lake’s eyes, something that had been tense and heavy was rapidly dissipating and peeling away.
Was it battle intent?
Was it killing intent?
Or… something else?
“Junior, thank you…”
Just as Xia Ji was focusing her thoughts, Mirror Lake suddenly craned his neck, his gaze passing over her to look at Gu Qiancheng behind her.
He managed to pull out a smile that could be called brilliant, looking especially eerie.
“Huh?”
Gu Qiancheng frowned, struggling to stand up.
Divine power inside him circulated with difficulty, repairing his injuries.
He stared at Mirror Lake, his tone unfriendly.
“Thank me?”
“Are you out of your mind?”
Hearing this, Mirror Lake was not annoyed.
He staggered, using the newly formed flesh buds covered in a thin film of gray Yao power on his severed arm stumps to support himself on the ground, and stood up with difficulty.
Then an even more astonishing scene occurred.
At the severed stumps of his left and right arms, flesh buds began to grow, squirm, and reorganize at a visible speed.
Bones, muscles, nerves, skin… layer by layer, they quickly formed.
In just a dozen or so seconds, two completely intact new arms, slightly pale in color but flexible, had regrown.
This was one of his innate abilities as a member of the Demon Clan—the limb regeneration of a gecko.
As long as the origin was not fatally damaged, missing limbs could quickly recover.
Mirror Lake flexed his new hands, opening and closing his fingers a few times.
Then he used one of the new hands to wipe the remaining blood from the corner of his mouth.
His aura was still weak, his face pale, but his entire mental state seemed completely different from when he was at death’s door just moments ago.
“Senior me… is actually quite unlucky.”
Mirror Lake looked at Gu Qiancheng, his voice still hoarse but with a strange calm.
“While fleeing for my life, I still run into a madman who talks to himself and wants to drag me into a forced labor, regardless of whether I agree.”
He smiled self-deprecatingly, raising a new arm to point at himself, then at the sky.
“The shackles of fate… heh…”
His smile became meaningful.
“Thanks to you guys… you helped me break them.”
Gu Qiancheng’s eyes narrowed slightly, as if understanding something.
Mirror Lake’s appearance in the Death Realm was probably due to coercion from someone.
And the fact that he and Xia Ji had defeated him and severely wounded him might have accidentally helped him break free from some control or contract.
“Senior still has many things to attend to.”
Mirror Lake said no more, his tone returning to flat, even with a hint of detachment.
“I won’t be in your way here anymore.”
At the moment his words fell.
The remaining Yao power within Mirror Lake suddenly exploded.
Unlike the coldness of manipulating gray mist, this Yao power was purer, wilder, carrying the primitive aura of a mountain forest beast.
He suddenly lifted his foot and stomped hard on the ground.
Bang–!!!
The ground shook violently.
Dust mixed with the gray, decaying air of the Death Realm was kicked up, forming a thick cloud of smoke that instantly obscured vision.
Under the push of the Yao power explosion, Mirror Lake’s figure, like an arrow from a bowstring, used the cover of the smoke to rapidly retreat deeper into the gray mist.
His speed was extremely fast, clearly prepared long ago, and he had used some secret technique.
“I look forward to our next meeting, junior.”
His final voice, with a faint hint of a smile, came from the direction of the dust and smoke, quickly fading into the distance.
“Stop!”
Xia Ji’s blood-red pupils hardened.
The black death qi around her, which had just subsided, surged again as she prepared to give chase.
“Xia Ji!”
Gu Qiancheng’s voice rang out in time, with an undeniable command to stop.
Xia Ji paused, turned her head, and looked at Gu Qiancheng with a hint of unresolved killing intent and confusion in her blood-red pupils.
Gu Qiancheng shook his head, signaling her to calm down.
He looked in the direction where Mirror Lake had disappeared, his gaze deep, his voice slightly heavier than before.
“Don’t bother with him.”
“A mangy dog whose spine has been broken and who barely managed to slip its chains…”
Gu Qiancheng withdrew his gaze and looked at Xia Ji, his tone certain.
“He won’t be able to make much trouble for a while.”
“If we chase after him, and he still has a backup plan, or deliberately leads us into a trap, the loss will outweigh the gain.”
He paused, his tone turning serious.
“Our primary goal now is to quickly support the others.”
“Then…”
Gu Qiancheng’s gaze turned toward the depths of the Death Realm, where more chaotic and powerful energy fluctuations seemed to be coming from.
“Find Junior Sister, and… Lin Mo.”
“The enemies they face are probably the real tough nuts.”
For example—
The guy who forced Mirror Lake to enter the Death Realm.
After listening to Gu Qiancheng’s clear and logical analysis, the blood red in Xia Ji’s eyes rapidly faded at a visible speed.
The surging black death qi and those fierce veins around her also receded like a tide back into her body.
In a few breaths, the corrupted Xia Ji, who exuded overwhelming murderous aura like a goddess of revenge, disappeared.
Replacing her was the shy girl who had transformed back into a petite figure, wearing slightly oversized combat gear, with a hint of confusion and timidity on her face.
She blinked, still not quite adapted to the light, looked at Gu Qiancheng, and asked softly with concern: “Gu… Officer Gu, are you okay?”
Her voice was feeble, a world apart from the “kill you” that sounded like a demon’s whisper just moments ago.
Seeing her complete transformation, Gu Qiancheng’s serious expression also softened, even showing a gentle smile.
He slowly walked over to Xia Ji, naturally raised his hand, and placed it on top of her head.
The palm felt her hair, soft and slightly cool.
Then, he gently, soothingly, stroked her head.
“What could happen to me?”
Gu Qiancheng laughed, his tone relaxed.
“I’m thick-skinned and tough, my life is very resilient.
Besides…”
He paused, looking at Xia Ji’s slightly lowered head, his voice softening further.
“…I promised you.”
“I’ll definitely be fine.”
Hearing this, Xia Ji’s body trembled almost imperceptibly.
She lowered her head even more, almost burying it in her chest.
Her two small hands fidgeted helplessly with the hem of her combat uniform.
The small, delicate earlobes showing from between her hair quickly flushed a tempting red, like ripe cherries.
Watching this scene, the curve of Gu Qiancheng’s mouth became even more delighted.
A trace of tenderness, which even he himself hadn’t noticed, flickered in his eyes.
He reluctantly withdrew his hand from the top of Xia Ji’s head, gave a light cough, and pulled his thoughts back to reality.
“Alright.”
He straightened his back.
Though his injuries remained, his eyes had become sharp as a knife again, looking toward the directions where fluctuations and roars came from all over the Death Realm.
“Let’s go.”
Gu Qiancheng took a deep breath.
Divine power in his body began to circulate with difficulty but firmly, repairing injuries and gathering strength.
“Other places…”
His voice was not loud, but carried a decisive, forward-moving resolve.
“…Are still waiting for us to help out.”