The deep forest had vanished without a trace. Expansive palace complexes stretched out as far as the eye could see, but they were completely empty.
Walking further in, Ye Yang heard voices.
Laughter and joy, sounds of decadent music, and the constant splashing of water.
The group exchanged glances and immediately headed toward the source of the sound.
Passing through several gates and seeing the scene inside, four words immediately popped into Ye Yang’s mind—a lake of wine and a forest of meat.
The steaming hot spring pool was very wide, with dozens of naked human bodies soaking in it without feeling cramped at all. By the shore and suspended in mid-air over the pool were many delicate plates, bowls, and cups, filled with all kinds of fine food and wine.
As expected, this Cult Leader was no good person. Whoever came up with something like this couldn’t be a good person.
Based on the auras he had sensed during previous visits and the scene before him, Ye Yang quickly pinpointed the Cult Leader.
Anyone could have spotted him easily—he was the only male in the entire pool, and he was being attended to like a star surrounded by admirers.
The Cult Leader wore nothing at all. Hair of medium length, wet from the hot spring water, clung to his face. He wasn’t fat or thin, handsome or ugly—a face that would immediately disappear in a crowd.
Around him were many equally naked women. Ye Yang scanned them quickly—all familiar faces. Two of them left a strong impression on him. All the naked women were beautiful, but these two weren’t conventionally pretty so much as uniquely striking and charismatic, unforgettable once seen.
The Cult Leader was completely unaware of their intrusion. He kept his eyes closed, chewing on fruit with a look of enjoyment, one hand holding a wine cup.
They didn’t watch for long. The moment the Cult Leader’s other hand began to slide toward the thigh of a nearby girl, Xing Tian immediately instructed the other two: “Move.”
Their objective this time was clear: first, to secure the Mirror Beyond the Boundary, and second, to protect the ordinary humans.
As for the so-called Cult Leader—he wasn’t very important.
As they had agreed, Xing Tian used his invisibility to knock the Cult Leader unconscious, hoisted him over his shoulder, carried him out of the pool, and rushed toward the entrance.
The Mirror Beyond the Boundary wasn’t actually that difficult to deal with. In the past, it had been held by powerful beings, making it troublesome. But now, the Cult Leader was just an ordinary person, unable to form a strong enough connection with the artifact.
Severing that connection was simple. All Xing Tian needed to do was take the Cult Leader out through the blue glowing door and immediately teleport far enough away.
They had already chosen the location: YCG headquarters, where members of the Operations Department were waiting to receive him.
As for why they didn’t just seize the Mirror Beyond the Boundary directly—first, no one knew what it actually looked like. Not even Elder Li knew. Second, they were currently inside the mirror’s internal landscape. The only way to make the mirror reveal its true form was to isolate the Cult Leader.
The women in the pool hadn’t seen anything clearly. They only felt a blur before their eyes, and their Cult Leader had vanished into thin air, not even disturbing the water.
The women closest to him looked at each other in bewilderment. Those farther away hadn’t even noticed anything was wrong and continued doing whatever they were doing. The scene was almost comical.
But Ye Yang and Chi Lian had no time to worry about them. Their eyes were locked onto an unremarkable little flower floating on the surface of the hot spring pool.
There were many flower petals scattered in the water, but this small blue flower was different. It appeared only a few seconds after Xing Tian left—roughly around the time he had teleported away with the Cult Leader.
If Ye Yang and Chi Lian hadn’t been watching intently without a moment’s lapse, they might have missed this tiny change.
“So this is the true form of the Mirror Beyond the Boundary.”
Just a small blue flower—simple and ordinary, just like the Cult Leader. If it had bloomed by the roadside, no one would have given it a second glance.
The soft, delicate little blue flower didn’t sink. It floated on the water’s surface, gently bobbing with the ripples.
Ye Yang clicked his tongue in amazement. Such a tiny little thing, and it had drained so much life force, killed so many people.
Spiritual power couldn’t be controlled at will here. Chi Lian sent out a small snake, which silently swam over, retrieved the flower, and brought it back.
Ye Yang took out the specially prepared crystal box, carefully placed the little flower inside, and closed the lid. The moment the crystal box sealed, the scene before them suddenly transformed—
All the naked women in the pool had vanished!
“How can this be?!” Ye Yang exclaimed in shock.
Chi Lian was no better off—he stepped back several paces.
All sounds disappeared. The silence fell abruptly.
This situation…
“No! There are still two people!”
Ye Yang suddenly noticed two women still in the pool. Losing consciousness, they were slipping under the water. If left unattended, they would likely drown.
And it wasn’t over. The empty hot spring pool began to change as well. The surrounding palace buildings, including the ground beneath their feet—everything that had seemed so solid and tangible moments ago—began to fade.
In less than a minute, everything had turned into vapor. The entire space was left blank, white, and damp.
Ye Yang and Chi Lian had nowhere to stand and had to use floating spells to hover in mid-air.
Chi Lian materialized his massive tail, curling it around the two unconscious girls.
Oh no—there was still one thing that hadn’t disappeared: the blue-glowing door they had entered through.
Ye Yang looked left and right, thought for a moment, and decided to store the crystal box inside his own body first.
This thing could not afford any mishap. If it got lost and another Cult Leader emerged, that would be trouble.
Chi Lian carefully controlled the force of his tail and asked Ye Yang, “What now?”
As he spoke, Xing Tian had already returned—and he had brought Meow Meow Teacher with him.
“What happened here?”
“We got the Mirror Beyond the Boundary, and then everything here vanished,” Ye Yang said. “Is the Cult Leader dealt with?”
Xing Tian nodded at Ye Yang. “Already handed over to the others.”
As expected, the Cult Leader’s wish was indeed to become an immortal, undying deity. Their earlier speculation was confirmed: the golden faith power the Cult Leader had absorbed from his followers was actually the life force of those followers’ close relatives, absorbed by the Mirror Beyond the Boundary.
But that golden power wasn’t truly faith power. It only became so the moment it radiated golden light and returned to the Cult Leader’s hands—then, immediately afterward, it reverted to life force and was absorbed back into the mirror. So, in fact, the Cult Leader had gained nothing at all. He was completely being used by the mirror. And the followers received only a small portion of that life force in return, enough to bring them wealth—because the value of life far exceeds any worldly possession.
When good luck suddenly comes but people in the family keep dying—doesn’t anyone see the connection? Those gamblers clearly did, yet they still let it happen, even actively pushed it forward. Is this what human desire looks like?
As for the founder of the mutual aid society—this Cult Leader—it had been confirmed that he was just an ordinary human who had stumbled upon the Mirror Beyond the Boundary by chance. He had no special abilities whatsoever.
Those people monitoring the area around the small church were also acting on their own desires. After receiving help from the mirror, they had become its loyal accomplices.
This really turned out to be a criminal case entirely orchestrated by humans.
Aside from the tainted artifact, everything else was done by humans.
Humans who understood no magic, who had never witnessed any supernatural phenomena before accidentally obtaining the artifact—yet they had managed to go this far. Was this the power of greed?
Meow Meow Teacher said, “The Cult Leader isn’t really human anymore. The mirror turned him into a puppet.”
Ye Yang immediately asked, “Then what’s going to happen to the Cult Leader?”
Meow Meow Teacher shook his head, flicked his ears, and said, “It’s been too long. He can’t be saved now. But he was done in by his own desires, so it’s not entirely unjust. The puppet seed has already fused completely with his brain and matured. Honestly, if you had come even a little later, that seed would have burst out of him, and the Mirror Beyond the Boundary would have become uncontrollable.”
Ye Yang’s back was soaked with cold sweat. He hadn’t expected the consequences to be this severe—they had been this close to a major disaster. And Meow Meow Teacher had just glossed over it so casually!
Chi Lian: “You figured all of this out so quickly? That’s amazing.”
Xing Tian looked at Ye Yang. “Thanks to Xiao Ye for collecting such thorough intel beforehand. They were able to confirm the Cult Leader’s identity right away. He died shortly after being separated from the mirror, and we extracted all the information directly. People are already handling the follow-up. Our task now is to retrieve the Mirror Beyond the Boundary.”
The reason earlier investigations hadn’t been able to extract memories from the followers was that they, too, had been affected by the mirror and were no longer entirely human. The Cult Leader was the same. But that restriction only applied while trying not to harm the humans. Since the Cult Leader was already dead, that limitation was gone—extracting any information was a piece of cake.
Chi Lian moved his tail. “What about these two?”
Meow Meow Teacher, true to his expertise, immediately understood the situation. “The people you saw before were most likely conjured by the mirror according to the Cult Leader’s will. Only these two are real humans.”
“It was all an illusion?!” Ye Yang was even more astonished. “No matter how I looked at those women, they seemed like ordinary humans.”
Xing Tian also nodded in realization. “No wonder. Those women had something strange about them, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. So they weren’t being controlled by some means—they simply weren’t human at all.”
Meow Meow Teacher walked over to the two human women. “These two, however, really are under control. And it’s a bit tricky. They’ve been parasitized by puppet seeds. Though the parasites haven’t been in them long, getting them out…”
Chi Lian, standing nearby, suddenly spoke up. “I have a way.”
…
Ten minutes later, an extremely thin little snake slithered out of the girl’s nostril. From its mouth protruded half of a squirming thing.
On closer inspection, it wasn’t a worm but small, pale fleshy masses—so thick and plump that they were squeezed into rings like those of an earthworm. These fleshy lumps struggled and strained toward the direction of the small blue flower.
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