A bizarre and terrifying experience; I messed up the dungeon world.

"There should be mirrors in other buildings in the town as well." Han Yingying took out the detection scope and scanned the area. "There should be an exit near the clock tower from which the mirrors come out."

"What criteria did you use to make that judgment?"

"The basic logic of dungeon design. S-rank dungeons are difficult, but they won't be unsolvable."

"What if the designer of this dungeon is a psychopath?" Zhao Qiang asked tentatively.

No one answered his question.

Stepping into the mirror felt like being pushed into ice water.

It's not ice in terms of temperature—the perceived temperature is about the same as the actual surface—but a chill that seeps from the very bones, a non-physical chill that acts directly on the nerves.

Zhou Lang opened his eyes.

The Mirror Town in the Mirror World is almost identical to the real world, but everything is reversed. The words on the signs are mirrored, the left and right sides of the streets are switched, the ground to the left of the dividing line is slightly reddish, and the ground to the right is normal gray.

"It's upside down." Han Yingying confirmed the orientation. "In the mirror, the right side is 'solid,' and the left side is a 'mirror within a mirror.' Don't step on the left side."

"Where are the reflections?" Cheng Qian looked around. "The rules say reflections become enemies. Where are they?"

As soon as he finished speaking, the hotel door slowly opened.

Four people walked out of the hotel.

No, not four people. It's four "them".

In the mirror, Zhou Lang wore the same black hoodie, hands in his pockets, tilting his head to look at them. In the mirror, Han Yingying held a detection scope, a slight smile playing on her lips, but the expression wasn't hers—Han Yingying never smiled like that; it was a smile devoid of warmth. In the mirror, Lin Mo pushed up his non-existent glasses, the movement precise as a replica, but his eyes were empty. In the mirror, Cheng Qian drew her Sky-Splitting Blade, twirling it between her fingers.

Four against four.

"Run," Zhou Lang said, uttering a single word.

The four people turned and ran.

Footsteps sounded behind them—the reflections were catching up, moving at the same speed as them, neither too fast nor too slow, maintaining a distance that was just right to keep up but not too slow either.

Han Yingying ran while scanning ahead with a detection scope. The distribution of danger sources in the mirror was completely opposite to that in the real surface; the originally sparse areas became dense, while the originally dense areas were empty.

"Run southwest!" she shouted.

The four men made a sharp turn and rushed into a narrow alley. Broken mirrors were embedded in the walls on both sides of the alley, reflecting their disheveled figures as they ran—and the four unhurried pursuers behind them.

Zhou Lang ran at the very back and secretly glanced back. His reflection was looking at him, and his lips moved.

He read the lip movements.

"You can't escape."

Zhou Lang turned around and sped up.

Passing through the narrow alley, you come to a square. In the center of the square is a fountain, but it's dry, only showing dried-up black marks. To the north of the square—

Bell tower.

A four-story, pointed-roof building, constructed of gray bricks, topped with a bronze bell. The bell's surface was engraved with dense runes, which gleamed with a dark green luster under the gray skylight.

"Found it!" Han Yingying's voice rarely showed any emotion.

But the reflections also sped up.

Zhou Lang took the oil lamp out of his pocket—yes, he brought the oil lamp into the mirror. The moment the wick was lit, a burst of green light erupted, and the reflections paused for a moment.

He paused for only a moment.

"This isn't a haunted manor, and these aren't ordinary ghosts." Zhou Lang put away the oil lamp. "The oil lamp can only slow them down, not stop them."

"What other options are there?" Cheng Qian had already drawn her Sky-Splitting Blade.

"Can your knife cut through reflections?"

"Let's try." Cheng Qian turned to face her reflection and slashed down—the Sky-Splitting Blade passed right through the reflection's body, like cutting into water, without resistance or damage. The reflection stood there motionless, tilting its head to look at Cheng Qian, and then drew an identical Sky-Splitting Blade.

"Physical attacks are ineffective." Cheng Qian quickly retreated.

"They possess all our abilities, but have no weaknesses," Han Yingying repeated the third rule. "That is to say, they have everything we have, and they are immune to the means by which we can harm them."

"What are their weaknesses?"

"The rules say 'you have no weaknesses.' They don't say that they themselves have no weaknesses," Zhou Lang suddenly said.

Everyone looked at him.

"What do you mean?"

"They copied our abilities, but not our weaknesses. This means they themselves have weaknesses—it's just that these weaknesses aren't in us."

Han Yingying's mind raced. If the weakness wasn't with "us," then where was it?

She glanced at the dividing line at her feet.

"A mirror within a mirror," she blurted out.

"What?"

"To the left of the dividing line! In the mirror world, the left side is a 'mirror within a mirror'—a mirror within a mirror is a projection of reality! Reflections are products of mirrors, and they cannot enter the area of ​​a 'mirror within a mirror,' otherwise they will disappear—because mirrors reflect mirrors, infinitely reflecting, and no solid entity can contain them!"

Zhou Lang smiled.

It wasn't mockery, but the kind of genuine joy one feels when encountering a smart person.

"Run to the left," he said.

The four people crossed the dividing line and stepped onto the reddish ground.

The reflections chased each other to the dividing line and stopped. They stood on the other side of the line, staring expressionlessly at the four people on this side. Zhou Lang tilted his head, and then, like shattered glass, cracks began to appear from the soles of his feet, spreading to his entire body, and finally shattered into countless transparent fragments, scattered all over the ground.

The other three reflections also shattered in turn.

The square fell silent.

If Zhao Qiang were here, he would probably say, "Damn, that scared me to death." But he wasn't here, so there were only four people silently breathing in the square.

"The clock tower is just ahead." Han Yingying glanced at her phone—twenty-three minutes had passed since entering the mirror, leaving thirty-seven minutes for her stay. "Quick, trigger the phantom clock tower."

The four walked quickly toward the clock tower.

The clock tower's main doors were open. Inside was a spacious circular hall with a spiral staircase in the center leading to the large clock on the top floor.

Just as Han Yingying was about to step inside, Zhou Lang stopped her.

"Look at the door frame."

A line of small characters is engraved on the inside of the door frame: "Those who enter the clock tower will have their countdown on the mirror halved."

Thirty-seven minutes, halved, becomes eighteen and a half minutes.

"We only have less than twenty minutes left after we go in," Lin Mo quickly calculated. "Climb to the top floor, trigger the mechanism, and then find the mirror at the exit to return to reality—there's not enough time."

"You don't all need to go in," Zhou Lang said. "I'll go in alone. You all wait outside."

"Just in case there's—"

"An S-level dungeon can't leave the bell tower empty," Zhou Lang interrupted Han Yingying. "But the rules state that only the real person can ring the bell. I just need to go in, take a look at the structure and the location of the mechanisms, write down the information, and tell Zhao Qiang."