Why is my journey to the world of anime a strange tale of rules?

Chapter 119: The Untouchable Abyss and the Resolute Will

Seeing that Zi was certain that he had not made a mistake.

Even though she couldn't stay conscious in that blood city, only retaining a vague, almost dreamlike impression, she had repeatedly experienced the feeling of being in the blood city with Gao Hai's repeated rewinds. That unique, eerie, and empty atmosphere was so familiar to her that she couldn't possibly mistake it.

Why did I see the existence of that blood city?

That place should only be accessible through the senior's black watch, right? Why am I seeing it in this instance?

No, that's not right.

This shattered mirror, this thing is the [Lost Item of the Abyss], according to the information we have gathered. In order to clear the Baydos area of ​​[School Ghost Stories], we must obtain this shattered mirror and [return it to the Abyss].

Why is it such a broken mirror? In the scene just now, I saw that the source of this mirror was just an ordinary person.

That's right.

In a very ordinary city, with nothing particularly special about it.

They were an ordinary-looking mother and daughter; the daughter appeared to be just a high school student. She seemed… well, yes, she was carrying a guitar, and her small bag contained a vanity mirror. She was a very individualistic and ambitious girl. She came from a family that wasn't wealthy, but wasn't poor either—enough to support her dreams. So she loved dressing up, loved music, and lived the life she wanted in this ordinary world.

Then, the blood-red moon appeared.

No…can that thing really be considered the moon? It’s so ominous, something that sends chills down your spine just by looking at it, something that makes you feel like your body and soul are about to be crushed.

It seems to bear a resemblance to the Blood Moon that always appears in Red Moon-level dungeons; judging solely from appearance, they are practically identical. However, the Blood Moon in Red Moon-level dungeons is utterly ineffective, merely a useless backdrop, sometimes even obscured by weather-changing effects. In Yotsuya Miko's vision, this thing, however, is like a virus, spreading from a single planet to small galaxies, to large galaxies, to the entire universe, destroying countless stars, nebulae, and even black holes.

Wherever the blood-red moon shines, it vanishes without a trace, leaving only dark red, glowing dust.

However, from the perspective of that later time, in that city, Jianzi saw a flash of red light, and then everyone in the city disappeared. The city itself did not change; it remained in the same place, only covered by the blood-red light.

And it was after that that the shattered mirror became an "object of the abyss".

and many more……

Seeing Zi frown, she thought of a certain possibility.

Those planets, those countless stars that appear to be destroyed, may just be an illusion in the eyes of onlookers.

That blood-red moon, in reality, did not destroy the entire universe, but rather plundered it.

After the red light fades, onlookers will see the entire planet and its cities destroyed, but for the cities themselves, they are actually transformed into something else, becoming something belonging to the abyss, becoming some kind of possession.

That universe, which was left with only a dark red light, was the one that had been completely plundered by the Abyss.

But in reality, whether it's planets or stars, or the various traces left by the civilizations that existed within them, they weren't completely destroyed, but rather taken away by that blood moon to another place.

From the moment those items were taken away, from the moment they became part of the Abyss, their nature was permanently altered. The traces of the Abyss fundamentally changed these things, so even an ordinary shard of mirror could potentially support a Red Moon-level dungeon. This is why this item is so crucial and important.

I understand completely now.

The true foundation upon which the Bydos Institute was built was understood, and its origins were grasped.

Although it's not yet clear what the connection is between the crimson city to which this thing belongs and the blood city that the predecessor inevitably traveled to during his time travel, since the two are so similar, they must have some degree of similarity in their origins.

However, Miko does not believe that the black watch's stance is the same as the blood-red moon's stance.

She vaguely sensed that the responsibility borne by her senior, who was given this mysterious black watch and possessed the ability to constantly rewind challenges and make wishes, was completely opposed to that blood moon. She even couldn't help but speculate that perhaps the blood-red city within the black watch was something the owner behind the watch had stolen from the blood moon? And perhaps her own mission to return the artifact of the abyss was simply to return this shard of mirror to the black watch in her senior's hand.

After all, the so-called "Abyss" is of extremely high status, something that this Red Moon-level dungeon is not qualified to summon. Therefore, if we really want to nitpick the wording of the "Return the Abyss Items" quest and connect it to the real "Abyss," Jianzi thinks that even multiplying all the players' data by a hundred times wouldn't be useful.

In any case, now that we know so much, we must take this fragment.

Reach out.

Seeing that Zi had caught the small broken mirror, she tried to take it down.

fail.

It looked like nothing more than a small shard of mirror, yet the girl couldn't move it at all. The mirror itself, the chair on which it stood, and even the empty space itself seemed completely fixed to the space, impossible to alter in any way.

Why can't I take it?

Seeing Zi's brows furrow.

This fragment itself shouldn't be anything particularly heavy or impossible to lift, right?

Thinking this, Miko reached out again, only to find that she couldn't touch the thing; her fingers passed right through the mirror.

Hey?

As I wondered what was happening, the color of the ground began to gradually change.

In the once empty space, dark red bloodstains began to spread gradually.

Seeing that Zi looked at the shards of the mirror again, he discovered that blood was flowing from the shards and dripping onto the ground.

No, it wasn't blood flowing out of the mirror.

The girl saw the old man, and she saw Urian's reflection sitting in front of the mirror.

The man took out a small bottle and poured the blood out of it.

Then the other Urian reflected in the mirror also poured out the blood from the bottle. The blood flowed from the mirror onto the ground and began to spread and expand continuously.

The divine blood in Urian's hands, belonging to the real world, had long since dried up.

But with the establishment of some kind of mirror ritual, a transformative force between reality and nothingness began to form, so the blood in the mirror could never run out. Although the growth was very slow, it could never stop, and so it began to fill this enormous container, this blood pool within the base, little by little.

“Uh… Uh…”

The headache is spreading.

Even though Miko herself didn't want to see such scenes, and even though she didn't want to understand these things, she was still forced to accept more information and see more things.

Oh no... I can't watch anymore...

There is no way to shut down one's senses.

Yotsuya Miko finally remembered that at the end of the second playthrough, she actually died earlier than Takami.

Before Gao Hai was devoured alive by those two flesh-and-blood monsters, the girl named Yotsuya Miko had already died. After receiving information that she could not bear, she was corrupted by the polluting power within the information and died on the spot, her soul completely scattered.

The information was far too dangerous, so after her resurrection, she forgot it, and Gao Hai himself couldn't recall it either. Even so, after entering Baidos, the remnants of her memory still came into play, causing her to be approached by something indescribable.

And now, now she has remembered it all.

Through her proactive pursuit and attempt to recover her forgotten memories, she did indeed obtain valuable, relatively uncontaminated intelligence leads. However, as she delved deeper into this information, things she shouldn't have remembered—things that could cost her her life—also returned.

"Ugh... Ah..."

There is no way to stop the current situation from continuing to develop.

The girl's power was far too weak; she simply couldn't forcefully stop the spread of her senses or sever her mental connection with this place.

Blood was spreading.

More and more blood flooded the bottom of the empty pool, and Miko's knees, which were kneeling on the ground, were already submerged.

Something is emerging from the mirror.

A naked girl with vacant, unfocused eyes is emerging from the broken mirror.

It was just a tiny shard of mirror, no bigger than the palm of your hand, yet the girl slowly emerged from it. Covered in blood and condensed in dark red liquid, the deformed mass of flesh gradually took shape, slowly restoring a complete human form, transforming into a somewhat familiar-looking girl who appeared to be no older than a high school student.

She is Eriko Asamoto.

Or perhaps this is the process by which Eriko Asamoto was born?

No, this can't go on any longer...

The blood continued to cover the surface.

The constantly bleeding mirror reflected a completely unfamiliar place, entirely different from the Baydos underground research facility. There were wounded students wandering around with guns, and skeletons in researcher's uniforms lying on the ground. It looked like... like the place the seniors had planned to explore.

【■■■Abyss】

Something is gradually being imprinted in my memory.

As Miko saw more and more, and as she learned more and more, something began to take shape in her memory.

That's the source.

She could understand that it was the source.

As she touched these things, as she gazed upon the blood of the gods and the shards of the mirror, as she sensed the information within them, the information originating from these things began to take shape. Whether she liked it or not, she was forced to know about it, forced to recognize its existence.

【■■之■】

I heard it again, I felt it again, the presence of that thing.

"Ugh... Ughhhhhh!"

My brain was throbbing with excruciating pain, as if it were about to explode.

Unable to suppress the intense pain, the girl let out sharp screams, trying her best to distract herself, to wake up, and to escape her current predicament, but she could not do so.

It's still getting closer.

I can feel myself getting closer.

Get close to that thing you absolutely cannot get close to now, get close to that thing that will kill you the moment you actually touch it.

[Appearance]

Therefore, there is no other choice.

Seeing that she had heard that voice again, she could feel that she was only one step away from seeing that thing.

The blood was about to completely submerge her body.

The massive mechanisms moved crisscrossing above, with crudely constructed mechanical arms extending out to grab the expressionless Eriko Asamoto floating in the pool of blood, then dragging her upwards.

The girl reached out and grabbed her own head.

She knew this was some kind of spiritual realm, but now that she was here, her senses were almost entirely real, so if she died here, she would truly die. Fortunately, after clearing the Fujika Middle School area dungeon, Miko's physical abilities were enhanced. Although she hadn't yet broken through human limits, she had reached a level that was almost impossible for ordinary people to achieve.

I... will never... die again without knowing anything...

【■■——】

The information belonging to that existence will flood into my mind again.

Click!

But before that, Miko had already snapped her neck, cleanly and decisively. She even used so much force that almost all of her cervical bones were shattered, and her head immediately drooped down.