Rover ran to the end of the hallway and saw the bloody footprints stop at the edge of the wall, then vanish, as if whoever left them had walked straight into the wall.
"Fuck! What the hell is this?" he muttered under his breath.
If he couldn't find the Thousand-Faced Wraith, then how was he supposed to kill it? How was he supposed to find the real Nanoe and Selina?
He frowned, then suddenly thought of something and immediately raised a finger to the wall.
The wall in front of him abruptly turned into a mirror, but its surface was a cloudy, milky white, as if fogged over by steam, impossible to see through.
Rover didn't hesitate. He stepped straight into the mirror. It was like water; the moment he touched it, concentric ripples spread outward.
He passed through the mirror, and the next instant, he realized he'd entered an entirely different space.
It was still the same hallway, but instead of white lights, everything was drowned in red.
Roots of uneven thickness covered the entire corridor, across the floor, the walls, even the ceiling. They looked alive, like gigantic semi-transparent blood vessels, and he could see streams of red, blood-like fluid flowing inside them.
A blood-colored mist also hung in the air, carrying countless tiny dust-like particles drifting aimlessly, like pollen.
The apartment doors stood open, except for his. His door was shut tight, and it was wrapped in countless roots as if it had been abandoned for a very long time.
Rover scanned the surroundings and realized this space was sealed. The stairwell leading down had been blocked by a wall of roots, leaving no gaps at all.
The other end of the hallway was the same, as if someone had woven these roots into walls and erected them at both ends of the corridor.
Rover frowned and walked step by step toward his door.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
His footsteps struck the ground, but it felt like he was stepping on a thin layer of mud.
Rover lowered his head and saw the blood on the floor had pooled so thick it formed a layer about a centimeter deep, viscous as if it were about to congeal, yet never fully solidifying.
As though it had maintained this strange state for a long time, and would continue to maintain it for a long time to come.
He took a deep breath and moved slowly toward his room. The entire process was steady, and nothing happened.
Standing before his door, he didn't force it open. Instead, he lightly tapped it with his finger.
In the next instant, the door turned into a mist-covered mirror, and he stepped through it calmly.
"Nanoe! Selina!" The moment he entered, he saw both of them bound by blood-red roots into a massive cocoon, suspended in midair, only their heads exposed.
They were silent, eyes shut, as if they had fallen into a coma.
"So..." Rover murmured, "the Thousand-Faced Wraith's ability is somewhat similar to mine."
Yes, it felt accurate.
The Thousand-Faced Wraith could drag a living person into a bizarre space, imprison them here, and still act freely in the real world.
Rover shuddered, a chill crawling up his spine.
This was only the first round. Did it really have to be this hard?
He couldn't understand how other Survivors could possibly endure trials like this.
If Rover didn't have a Class rank SSS and a Rank SS ability, he would've died long ago.
As expected, this world was abnormal, and the people in it were even more abnormal.
Rover clenched his fist. A transparent crystal appeared before him. Then he flicked a finger, and a sharp whistle of wind rang out.
WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
That transparent crystal instantly fired off razor-thin shards of glass, as thin as dragonfly wings, slicing through the roots that wrapped around Selina and Nanoe.
Rover caught them precisely as they fell. He frowned and muttered, "Breathing's fine. Heartbeats are fine. They're still alive. They're just... unconscious. Were they dragged into an illusion like I was?"
He didn't know, but he needed to get Nanoe and Selina back to the real world as soon as possible.
Of course, he couldn't open a gateway here, because he needed to find the anchor point first.
Earlier, he'd opened the gate on the wall because the [Intuition] skill let him sense that the wall was an anchor point.
Now, if he wanted to return to reality, he could only go back through that same wall.
He dragged Nanoe and Selina along, hurriedly leaving the room, but then he let out a sigh, gently placed both of them back inside, and with a wave of his hand, the mirror that led into the room vanished.
At the wall, where the anchor point existed, and where the mirror Rover had created still connected the real world to this bizarre realm, a figure was standing there.
The Thousand-Faced Wraith!
Rover looked at it and said softly, "Home early, huh? Not going to stay outside and take a stroll?"
The Thousand-Faced Wraith stared at him. Even though it had no eyes, Rover could feel its gaze, filled with madness, rage, and hatred.
As if his presence here was an intrusion into its territory.
Rover lifted his hand, and a mirror appeared before him. It wasn't a flat mirror, but one formed from many different shards, assembling into a strangely shaped mirror.
At that moment, the Thousand-Faced Wraith's body suddenly changed. The blood-vessel-like roots began retracting inward, its body trembling violently, and then... the blood on it disappeared. The face that had been nothing but smooth skin began forming eyes, a nose, a mouth.
"You're using my face? That'll cost you extra," Rover said with a grin.
Yes. Now, the Thousand-Faced Wraith had turned into his appearance, exactly like him, like a perfect copy of himself.
"Where do you think your power came from?" the Thousand-Faced Wraith said with a smile. Then it flicked its hand, and a mirror identical to the one Rover had just created appeared.
"You..." Rover frowned, his eyes holding a trace of disbelief.
Using Rover's voice and mannerisms, the Thousand-Faced Wraith went on, "Hahahaha... Rover, which do you think is real, your ability or mine?"
Rover's gaze didn't waver. He stared at it seriously and said, "If you're that confident, why do you need to use my face?"
The Thousand-Faced Wraith frowned and shoved its mirror toward Rover.
Rover didn't stand still either. He pushed the mirror in his hand toward it.
KENG!
The two mirrors collided, producing a piercing sound of shattering glass. Yet the broken shards hung in midair, then began fitting back into the remaining pieces, only to split apart again, then reconnect again.
The space around them slowly warped, revealing both the real world and this bizarre realm, as if their point of impact was the intersection of the two worlds.
The Thousand-Faced Wraith's face twisted, hatred written all over it. "You're the fake! Your power is fake too!"
Rover shrugged. "I don't run my mouth like you."
He tightened his fist. The shattered mirror shards suddenly flew backward, then snapped together into a large mirror.
With a wave of his hand, he dragged that mirror down to the floor, turning the ground into a vast reflective surface. The mirror displayed a sea of blazing lava, heat so terrifying that even the roots trembled and began retreating.
Rover thrust his palm forward. The mirror on the floor surged, rushing beneath the Thousand-Faced Wraith's feet.
It laughed in disdain. "Rover, is this all you can do?"
The Thousand-Faced Wraith snapped its fingers...
BANG!
The mirror on the ground shattered into countless fragments, shooting into the air, then snapping together at a frightening speed.
A flawless mirror appeared, showing an image of Rover as a child. Around him, older orphans were bullying him, hitting him, throwing mud at him.
Rover's eyes flickered as he saw the scene, and in that instant, his body suddenly froze.
He lowered his head and realized his body had turned into a mirror, countless shards assembled into his form, transparent yet terrifyingly fragile.
The Rover inside the mirror suddenly turned its head and glared at him, grinding its teeth as it spat at him in the angriest tone, "You see it now, don't you? Nobody needs you, not even your parents."
"Fuck!" Rover roared. "I've never said that!"
"You didn't say it, but you thought it," the Rover in the mirror replied, voice brimming with evil and madness. "Don't deny it, because I am you. I know what you're thinking in the deepest part of your mind."
"You hate this world. You hate everything. You want to throw it all away, destroy it all. But you're too cowardly, too weak to do it."
"That's why I'm bringing you an opportunity."