383: Chapter 383 Reflection Trap, Tearing Apart the Bronze Nine Palaces Gate!

Giant blood-red eyes flickered in the darkness.

Su Yang stepped across the hundred-zhang-high Ghost Gate. The darkness was dispelled by the golden light emanating from his body.

Directly above his head, a giant stone-carved bat hung upside down from the doorframe. Two gems emitting red light were embedded in its eye sockets. The blood-red eyes seen from outside the gate were merely the light emitted by this lifeless object.

Su Yang ignored the stone carving and walked straight ahead.

The world behind the gate was surprisingly quiet.

There were no overwhelming swarms of evil ghosts, nor any churning blood-red water. Before him was a narrow, straight canyon. The rock walls on both sides were smooth and flat, appearing a deep, dark black.

The most eerie part was the ground beneath his feet.

The ground was not soil or rock, but a single massive piece of black crystal. The surface was smooth as a mirror, clearly reflecting the scene above.

Bai Li, Chu Ling, Mary, and Qin Xueji followed him into the canyon.

High heels stepped on the black crystal, making crisp click-clack sounds. The noise echoed within the canyon, carrying far away.

“This place is too clean. I can't even sense a trace of Yin Qi.” Bai Li folded her round fan, her gaze scanning the surrounding rock walls. When things are abnormal, there must be something sinister afoot.

Mary looked down at her feet. In the black crystal, her reflection was extremely clear.

“It's like a big mirror.” Mary took two steps forward.

The group continued forward along the canyon. There were no reference points around, only endless black rock walls and the mirror surface beneath their feet.

They walked for about ten minutes.

Qin Xueji, walking in the middle, suddenly stopped. She looked down at the mirror surface beneath her feet, her brow furrowing tightly.

“Boss... my shadow seems a bit off.” Qin Xueji's voice carried a hint of hesitation.

Su Yang stopped and turned to look.

Qin Xueji was clearly standing still, yet her reflection in the black crystal actually slowly raised its right hand!

The next second.

The reflection's right hand pierced directly through the mirror surface, as if it were a physical entity, and grabbed Qin Xueji's ankle.

An icy, bone-chilling power surged up her body from her ankle. Qin Xueji let out a cry of surprise, her body lost balance, and she fell directly to the ground.

The sudden transformation occurred.

Not just Qin Xueji, but the reflections beneath the feet of Chu Ling, Mary, and Bai Li all came to life as well.

Mary's reflection reached out both hands, death-gripping her ankles. Mary tried to flap her bat wings to fly into the sky, but found that the reflection's strength was startlingly immense, forcibly pinning her in place, making it impossible to take off.

“What the hell is this! Get off me!”

Mary was furious. Sharp blood-colored blades instantly extended from her ten fingers as she bent down and clawed fiercely at the shadow on the ground.

Clang!

A crisp clashing sound rang out.

The reflection in the mirror made the exact same movement. Ten black sharp claws extended from the mirror surface, accurately blocking Mary's attack. The two forces were identical, and Mary's attack was easily neutralized.

Chu Ling quickly drew her ice-blue longsword. With a backhand stroke, she stabbed at the black reflection grabbing her legs.

The reflection likewise drew a black longsword and met the attack.

The ice sword and the black sword collided. Pale blue cold Qi and black Death Qi erupted simultaneously. Chu Ling discovered that her Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Cold Qi was actually unable to freeze the opponent. This reflection had completely replicated her cultivation and power!

Nine fox tails abruptly unfurled behind Bai Li, and a massive surge of purple demon power slammed toward the ground.

Beneath the mirror surface, nine black fox tails also extended. The black and purple demon powers collided violently in mid-air, canceling each other out; neither could overcome the other.

“They have copied our power.” Bai Li immediately saw through the nature of the trap. “Do not use Spells. The stronger the counterattack, the greater the shadow's power becomes.”

The four women were deathly entangled by their respective shadows, unable to break free for a time.

Su Yang looked down.

In the black crystal mirror surface, his reflection stood quietly. On the reflection's face, a bizarre and malicious smile appeared.

The reflection slowly raised its hands and clenched them into fists, seemingly preparing to replicate Su Yang's Pure Yang True Fire.

Su Yang's eyes were calm. He did not mobilize any True Qi in his body, nor did he throw a punch.

At the center of his brow, a speck of silver light suddenly flared up.

The internal world power of the world king bead was instantly mobilized by him.

“Using the Mirror Law to trap people? Before this young master's Law of Space, it's all just waste paper.”

Su Yang raised his right foot and stomped heavily toward the black mirror surface beneath him.

Boom!

This was not a collision of physical force, but pure interference of the Law of Space.

Centering on Su Yang's right foot, the surrounding space instantly displaced. The indestructible black crystal mirror surface, under the tearing of the Law of Space, emitted a series of tooth-aching cracking sounds.

Crack! Crack!

Countless giant fissures spread crazily across the mirror surface.

The physical structure of the mirror surface was destroyed, and the Mirror Law attached to it collapsed along with it.

The black reflections grabbing the four women's ankles let out silent screams. Their bodies, like shattered glass, turned into countless black fragments and finally transformed into a wisp of blue smoke, completely dissipating into the air.

The restraint vanished, and the four women immediately stood up.

The black crystal on the ground shattered completely, turning into a floor of ordinary black rubble.

The rock walls on both sides of the originally narrow canyon also collapsed with a roar because the Formation was broken.

The sky-filling dust settled.

The road ahead was revealed.

It was no longer a straight canyon, but a wide stone staircase extending downward.

Su Yang brushed off his clothes and stepped down the stone stairs.

“Let's go.”

The group followed the stone stairs down. This time, there were no traps or obstacles on the way.

They walked for about half an hour. The stone stairs reached an end.

A giant bronze circular gate blocked the way.

This gate was thirty meters high, completely embedded into the surrounding rock walls. There was no handle on the gate, nor any keyhole.

The entire gate surface was divided into several hundred square metal blocks of the same size. Different runes were carved on the surfaces of the metal blocks. This was clearly an extremely complex ancient mechanical puzzle.

Only by moving the hundreds of metal blocks to the correct positions and piecing together the complete pattern would the gate open.

Bai Li stepped forward, carefully observing the metal blocks on the gate.

“A variation of the Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams Formation. The interior of the metal blocks is connected to the underground Spiritual Vein. If a single step is wrong, it will trigger a destruction mechanism, completely blowing up and collapsing the passage.”

Bai Li began to deduce the arrangement order of the Formation in her mind. This kind of ancient mechanism required a large amount of time to calculate.

Su Yang walked directly to the front of the bronze circular gate.

He extended both hands and pressed them directly onto the two metal squares in the center of the gate's surface.

“Puzzles take too much time. this young master is in a hurry.”

The muscles in Su Yang's arms bulged high. The Physical Body strength of his Soul Transformation Stage erupted without reservation.

He pressed against the gate surface and suddenly exerted force toward the left and right sides respectively.

Screech—!

The ear-piercing sound of metal friction exploded within the underground passage.

Su Yang actually intended to rely on pure brute force to forcibly push this seamless mechanical circular gate open to the sides!

The sound of gears spinning crazily came from inside the gate. The Formation suffered violent destruction, and a blinding red light lit up on the gate surface, attempting to resist Su Yang's power.

“Open for me!”

Su Yang gave a violent shout, his waist exerting force once again.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

A series of dull explosive sounds came from inside the gate. The internal metal gears, bearings, and mechanisms all snapped and shattered under the pull of the terrifyingly immense force!

Hundreds of metal squares were squeezed out of shape and flew off the gate surface, smashing into the wall behind.

The bronze circular gate, weighing tens of thousands of catties, was forcibly torn open with a gap in the middle by Su Yang.

Su Yang's hands continued to push outward.

Rumble!

The two halves of the deformed bronze gate were forcibly pushed into the rock walls on both sides. The hard rock was squeezed into large patches of cracks, and rubble fell one after another.

An ancient mechanical gate that required precise calculation to open was completely scrapped by Su Yang using direct brute force.

The road ahead was unobstructed.

Su Yang retracted his hands and shook his wrists.

Behind the gate was a gray space.

There was no light; the sky was a murky gray, like a giant tattered cloth draped overhead.

The group stepped out of the passage and found a dilapidated village appearing before them.

The houses in the village were all built from yellow mud. There were no doors and no windows. They were like overturned mud bowls.

The entire village was silent, without a trace of life.

The streets were paved with yellow soil, and a strong fishy smell of mud permeated the air.

“This place feels so eerie. It's a bit too quiet.” Qin Xueji said in a low voice, looking at the surrounding yellow mud houses.

Su Yang led the way on the dirt road of the village.

Walking to the very center of the village, an open space appeared.

In the middle of the open space was a dried-up well. The mouth of the well was surrounded by several pieces of broken stone.

Just as the group approached the dry well.

A slight crawling sound suddenly came from the bottom of the well.

Rustle, rustle, rustle.

The sound became clearer and clearer, as if something was climbing up along the well wall.

A pale, bloodless little hand suddenly rested on the edge of the dry well.

Immediately following, a naked little boy slowly crawled out from the mouth of the well.

The boy looked only seven or eight years old, his skin as deathly pale as paper.

The most hair-raising part was that there were no eyes on his face. Where eyes should have been, there was only a patch of smooth skin.

The boy sat on the edge of the well, holding a rusty tin rattle-drum in his hand.

He tilted his head, seemingly listening to the movements of the group.

Facing Su Yang's direction, the boy slowly split his mouth open and smiled.

There were no teeth in his mouth, only two rows of densely packed, saw-like bone spikes.

Thump, thump.

The boy shook the rusty rattle-drum in his hand.

The rattle-drum emitted a dull thumping sound.

As the drum sound rang out.

The overturned yellow mud houses around the village suddenly began to vibrate violently. The yellow mud on the surface peeled off one after another, quickly melting into puddles of yellow sludge.

The sludge rolled and squirmed on the ground. In the blink of an eye, dozens of yellow mud houses turned into dozens of giant mud men five meters tall.

The mud men walked with heavy steps, surrounding the five people in the open space.