Magical Girl's Knight Brother

Chapter 731 The Source of the Nightmare

Looking at the humanoid figure before him, formed from pure darkness, yet whose outline clearly reflected his own ultimate form of greed.

Tang Zijun's will, honed through countless brushes with death, was as solid as a rock, instantly suppressing the surging waves. The scarlet light beneath his visor was as sharp as a knife. Without the slightest hesitation, he abruptly raised the gauntlets covered in crystal and dark gold patterns. A pure, greedy power, imbued with his own will, shot into the dark outline like lightning.

Buzz—

Having absorbed Tang Zijun's power, the dark outline, which was originally on the verge of collapse and like a candle flickering in the wind, suddenly trembled, as if injected with a stimulant, and its form became slightly more solid.

Although the general outline still clearly reflected Tang Zijun's current figure—the crystal and dark gold armor, the jagged cracks—this time, when Tang Zijun's gaze pierced through that self-image that seemed like a reflection on water, staring intently at the core of the outline—

He saw it.

Beneath that constantly flowing darkness that mimicked his form, a distinctly different, slender and elongated female silhouette was vaguely outlined.

She had waist-length hair, as flowing as the night, and although she was merely a mimicry of energy at this moment, her figure possessed an ancient rhythm as she stood silently in the void.

Although the face remains blurry, the unique aura belonging to the Mirror God, a blend of endless vicissitudes and the pure essence of reflection, is undeniable.

"Who exactly are you...?" Tang Zijun's voice was filled with suppressed confusion and inquiry, as if she were questioning an entity that had entangled her fate.

The blurry female silhouette twitched slightly, as if enduring immense pain, or perhaps adapting to this new support.

She slowly and with great difficulty raised her head, her eyes, composed of pure darkness yet burning with Tang Zijun's scarlet light, landing precisely on Tang Zijun.

The moment her self-illumination met Tang Zijun's gaze, Tang Zijun felt a strange sense of detachment, as if a part of herself had been pulled away, and as if she had seen an ancient reflection originating from the source of life.

A thought, filled with endless weariness and like an ancient sigh, resounded directly in the depths of Tang Zijun's soul.

"My body is already shattered, my star core scattered, my authority scattered. In this state formed by my remains, the 'me' you see is merely a projection of your own power, a 'reflection' constructed together with this nightmare..."

Reflection.

Tang Zijun understood.

The scene before him was not an image created by the Mirror God, but rather an image that was automatically simulated by the Mirror God after sensing the intrusion of this alien being carrying the power of greed, and was the form that best matched his own perception.

Like a distorted, broken mirror, it can only reflect the closest object standing in front of it—that is, Tang Zijun herself.

The Mirror God's thoughts, carrying a weariness of having seen through the cycle of reincarnation, continued to emanate.

"You finally came here after all..."

"Successor..."

The word "successor" carries a sense of fatalistic heaviness, as well as a hint of relief, as if the dust has settled.

"You knew I would come?" Tang Zijun looked directly at her.

The ancient silhouette of the Mirror God, hidden beneath its reflection, nodded slightly, as if it had long understood the flow of time.

"Of course." Her thoughts were calm and resolute, carrying a sense of having seen through the cycle of reincarnation. "Any being who truly inherits the power to reverse the world will eventually embark on this path."

Her words were like cold chains, binding Tang Zijun's mind.

"I walked this path, I opened this path of annihilation." The Mirror God's thoughts carried a hint of weariness. "Although I couldn't return, this 'path' still exists."

"It is imprinted in the core laws of the Reversed World. Once you truly grasp the authority of the Reversed World and wield its power, the message 'belonging to the Dream Realm' will, like an irresistible whisper, quietly invade your consciousness..."

"At first, it's just a shallow, barely perceptible dream state. Then, you'll be drawn deeper into the dreamscape, and later..."

'

The Mirror God's thoughts paused for a moment, and the gaze formed by the reflection seemed to pierce through Tang Zijun's crystal mask, staring directly into the past deep within his soul.

"...I think you've experienced it firsthand..."

Tang Zijun's expression under the shattered mask shifted between shock, understanding, speechlessness, and finally, an indescribable feeling.

Yes.

He understands everything now.

The initial dream entry, the monster that inexplicably attacked his and Qin Nan's dream world, the dream stone that guided him to find Chang Lei, and the seemingly accidental experience.

No.

All of this was a desperate last resort left behind by the Mirror God after his defeat.

Saying it's a backup plan isn't accurate either, since the Mirror God is too special, or rather, the Reverse World is too special. Countless divine realms can be born in the real world, but there is only one Reverse World.

When the Mirror Goddess used her power to reverse the world to find the source of the nightmare, just as she said, the path was still there, and this special connection still existed.

Any being that inherits the power of the Reversed World, whether actively or passively, whether aware of it or not, will step into the Dream Realm step by step under the guidance of the Reversed World's laws, getting closer and closer to the truth, and ultimately, inevitably embarking on this path of annihilation.

The sole purpose is to fulfill the promise that the Mirror God failed to keep.

Using the life and power of the inheritor, she attempted to end this endless cycle of nightmares and save the world she ultimately failed to protect.

"Heh..." Tang Zijun let out a laugh that was hard to tell whether it was bitter or something else.

He understood why he had been unable to trigger this mechanism for so long.

It wasn't because he was lucky, but because the previous God of Mirror Food, who inherited the power of the Reverse World, was a poor guy who had been sealed in the Reverse World for thousands of years.

He was sealed away, his authority almost frozen, so naturally he couldn't trigger this fatal program.

After retiring, Tang Zijun had essentially given up his deep control over the core authority of the Reversal World. It was his sister Tang Cao becoming a magical girl and a series of subsequent coincidences that forced him to pick up the belt again and regain control of the Reversal World, ultimately starting this one-way street leading to the predetermined end.

"So...it's a promise..." Tang Zijun took a deep breath and shrugged. "No matter what, I still came. Just like you did back then, I'm happy to be able to communicate with you here. After all, I don't know what to do here."

"6

"Tell me, Mirror God, what do you ultimately want me to do? What exactly is this nightmare? How can I end all of this?"

The ancient silhouette of the Mirror God swayed slightly, her thoughts flickering like a candle in the wind.

"What is a nightmare...?"

"Look around."

"9

"This is its origin, the place where it was born..."

The crimson light beneath Tang Zijun's shattered mask suddenly sharpened, and he once again surveyed this desolate, eerie world composed of black, scaly soil and an endless, dark red sky, as instructed.

This time, he abandoned the limitations of vision, pushed his perception to the extreme, and tried to touch the essence behind the polluting information flow that was constantly flowing and trying to erode his consciousness.

In the beginning, there was chaos and disorder.

It's a nauseating sense of blasphemy.

But soon.

He sensed something was different.

That invisible thing that permeates the air is not still.

They are constantly releasing something in an incomprehensible, extremely high-speed pulse pattern.

That's not energy, it's not matter, it's...

"...Information...Information..." Tang Zijun muttered to herself, her brows furrowing deeply.

He saw it.

Countless tiny, indescribable fragments of information—a broken geometric shape, a string of meaningless noise fragments, an unconnected grammatical piece, a trace of pure emotion… like cosmic background radiation, they pulse out from every corner of this field, every inch of soil, and every flowing stream of information in a completely random and irregular manner, like a printer frantically spewing ink.

Once these tiny, chaotic, and meaningless fragments of information are created, they are immediately swept up by an invisible force into the information flow, which is composed of much larger, polluting information, that is rapidly moving through the void, as if being swept into a turbulent vortex.

Then, something terrible happened.

In the rapid collisions, frictions, and random combinations of information flows.

Some fragments of information, by sheer chance, form a brief and fragile logical loop, or a definition of existence.

"Sound fragments and spatial distortions form noise of a certain frequency; hatred and geometric fragments define a vague form and intention; broken grammar and emptiness give birth to the most primitive fragments that define the self."

When these randomly combined pieces of information coincidentally meet a minimum logical threshold defined as an independent entity.

An indescribable sense of birth appeared out of nowhere.

Just like when the universe was first born, matter fluctuated from nothingness.

An individual, randomly pieced together from chaotic information, distorted and with an initial definition of existence, was born out of thin air.

It could be a twisted shadow, a tentacle covered in eyeballs, or a piercing scream.

Its form, capabilities, and purpose depend entirely on the randomly combined fragments of information.

After its birth, it was instantly captured, charged, and given physical form and the ability to act by the omnipresent polluting energy.

next moment.

This newly born monster, as if driven by some kind of instinct, with its initial information of wanting to tear apart and hate everything, ignored the barriers of space and appeared out of thin air along the black channel formed by the flow of polluted information that connects this area to the outside world, without any procedure or reason, rushing towards Feng Bo.

"Um?!"

The enormous divine body of Feng Bo, which had transformed into a deer, trembled violently. His astonishing intuition, originating from an ancient deity, allowed him to swiftly turn to the side at the critical moment.

The claws of liquid black smoke grazed past his divine body.

The energy, containing intense formatting pollution, instantly corroded his tough fur and part of his divine body, creating sizzling wounds. The intense pain caused Feng Bo to let out a muffled hiss.

Feng Bo was shocked and furious, and he swung out a gust of wind.

boom!

A terrifying storm, powerful enough to tear stars apart, instantly formed and slammed into the newly formed, constantly twisting and changing shape of the liquid black smoke.

boom!

Before the monster could even let out a complete roar, it was completely shattered by the storm containing ancient authority, turning back into a chaotic and dissipated fragment of information.

However...

Feng Bo's face showed no sign of relaxation; his ancient eyes, capable of discerning destiny, were fixed on the depths of the dark nebula where the monster had just been born.

There, countless tiny pulses of information are flashing wildly.

More and more, varied and unpredictable distorted outlines are being born out of thin air in that visibly thick darkness, from chaotic information. They writhe and hiss, carrying an instinctive hatred and destructive desire for all order, like erupting volcanic lava, gushing out in an endless stream.

Whether the monster was scattered or not, no one can be sure. Without understanding its origin, how can we talk about truly eliminating it?

: