Chapter 276: Backlash of Evil Thoughts

Inside the stronghold, more and more students were uncontrollably looking up at the Smiling Demon in the sky, while the smiles at the corners of their mouths were gradually turning eerie.

Li Luo was no stranger to this scene; once the smiles on these students' faces tore to their maximum extent, they would lose control and fall under the Smiling Demon's command.

"It's over. This Smiling Demon's ability can actually penetrate the stronghold's defenses directly; we can't stop it at all," Duze Honglian muttered, her face turning pale as she watched this scene.

"Stop being a harbinger of doom here," Li Luo said, rubbing his face with annoyance.

His expression was not overly panicked, as they had, in fact, made some preparations for this situation beforehand.

Li Luo exchanged a glance with Jiang Qing'e; the latter understood his plan and gave a slight nod.

Li Luo stepped forward, stood on the high wall, and shouted loudly: "Everyone with Water-type or Light-type resonance, immediately circulate your resonance power and cast Water Mirror, Light Mirror, or similar resonance arts!"

As his voice fell, he was the first to act; his resonance power surged out from his body, transforming directly above him into a water-light mirror about several zhang wide, one side smooth and transparent, reflecting light.

Hum!

Beside him, brilliant light erupted from Jiang Qing'e's body, and a light mirror ten times wider than Li Luo's water-light mirror condensed into existence.

Seeing this, the students who still maintained their sanity hurriedly channeled their resonance power, and one after another, water mirrors and light mirrors began to emerge throughout the stronghold.

A moment later, these many water and light mirrors gradually connected, as if forming a massive mirror surface.

The mirror surface reflected, shining directly toward the Smiling Demon in the sky.

The Smiling Demon was clearly stunned; it looked down and saw that in the mid-air of the stronghold, within the mirror's reflection, there was likewise a Smiling Demon staring back at it.

In that instant, the Smiling Demon in the sky suddenly let out a shrill cry; the black mist all over its body began to churn crazily, and its two scarlet pupils seemed to shed bloody tears, which dripped down continuously, as if turning into a rain of blood.

It had originally been swaggering above the stronghold, but now it seemed to have been injured; it retreated in a panic, pulling back into the sky-filling black mist.

As the Smiling Demon retreated, the students in the stronghold whose mouths had been gradually tearing also slowly regained their senses, their expressions still somewhat dazed.

However, as they understood what had just happened, they first felt lingering fear, then erupted into cheers, because anyone could see that the Smiling Demon had seemingly been repelled by them for once.

So, the Smiling Demon's ability could be countered in this way!

"This, how is this possible?!"

Duze Honglian was also somewhat shocked as she watched this scene. A Smiling Demon with such powerful strength had actually been repelled? And looking at its earlier state, the Smiling Demon must have sustained some injuries, right?

"When you encounter trouble, don't panic; use your brain for everything."

Li Luo glanced at her indifferently and said: "Anyone who sees the Smiling Demon will involuntarily reveal a smile, then synchronize with its smile, and finally be corrupted."

"This is a form of visual corruption. Earlier, the Smiling Demon was recklessly releasing its evil-thought corruption, and we used the mirror reflection to strike back, causing it to suffer damage similar to an evil-thought backlash."

Duze Honglian was lectured by Li Luo, and her beautiful face couldn't help but alternate between pale and flushed. She wanted to get angry but had nowhere to vent, and in the end, she could only suppress the fire in her heart with frustration.

Because Li Luo's tactic had indeed countered the Smiling Demon's special ability.

On this point, no matter how unconvinced she was, she had to admit it.

"It's a pity; if we could have waited for its evil-thought corruption to grow stronger before countering, it should have caused a greater backlash," Jiang Qing'e said, her golden eyes fixed on the thick black mist. Although the Smiling Demon had been struck by the backlash, the intensity had not reached the point of severely wounding it.

"There's no way around it; if we had really waited until that point, the stronghold would have fallen into chaos first," Li Luo sighed and said.

In the situation just now, if it had dragged on, many people would have been controlled by the Smiling Demon. Once they started killing crazily inside the stronghold, this place might have collapsed from within.

Jiang Qing'e nodded slightly. She certainly knew this, but this mirror-backlash method would only have a miraculous effect the first time; after this, the Smiling Demon probably wouldn't release this ability so openly again.

Still, it was good; at the very least, one of its powerful methods had been neutralized.

Their gazes turned outside the stronghold. At this moment, in the thick, viscous black mist, Otherkind were still rushing out like a tide, eventually colliding with the stronghold's light barrier.

However, although they had blocked the Smiling Demon's first attack, Li Luo and Jiang Qing'e's expressions remained grave and worried, because judging from the previous exchange, this Smiling Demon's strength was at an absolute advantage, and its methods were strange and varied; no one knew how it would attack next.

Moreover, what worried Li Luo and Jiang Qing'e most was that the Smiling Demon's ability could actually penetrate the stronghold's purification barrier and directly affect the people inside.

One had to know that this purification barrier was the final shield they all relied on to resist the Smiling Demon. If the Smiling Demon's methods could ignore the purification barrier, the threat it posed to them would increase significantly.

Amidst their worries, the tide-like offensive of the Otherkind continued.

However, the gazes of Li Luo, Jiang Qing'e, and the others were not fixed there, but rather on the thick black mist, because only that Great Calamity-level Otherkind could truly threaten the stronghold's defenses.

The Smiling Demon had been thwarted by the evil-thought backlash and certainly would not let it go at that.

The current silence was merely to brew a more vicious and eerie offensive.

As Li Luo and Jiang Qing'e kept their eyes fixed on the thick black mist, Duze Honglian, Qiu Bai, and other top-tier Third Star Hall students came up behind them, standing in battle readiness.

At a certain moment, the thick black mist finally began to churn violently again.

Then, Li Luo and Jiang Qing'e's expressions changed slightly as they saw a figure slowly walk out from the black mist.

That figure was tall and sturdy, about several zhang high, like a small giant. Its body was exactly the same as a human's, without any twisted or eerie features.

However, its face was an extremely eerie smiling face.

The corners of its mouth were torn to its ears, its pupils were dark red, and its mouth was full of sharp, needle-like teeth, with a pitch-black void inside, looking terrifying.

Its dark red pupils locked directly onto Jiang Qing'e on the high wall; clearly, in its perception, only the latter in this stronghold could make it feel a hint of a threat.

But it was only a hint.

A Great Calamity-level Otherkind arriving at the outskirts of this Dark Cave was an absolutely peerless existence.

The stronghold's defensive light barrier was a bit troublesome; it contained strong purification power, and even for it, it would be difficult to break through in a short time.

But that was fine; it had its own methods.

The eerie smile on the Smiling Demon's face seemed to become even more intense. It reached its arm into its mouth, as if digging around, and finally made a retching sound.

Viscous black liquid flowed from its mouth. These liquids were like foul-smelling black mud, which it grabbed with its palm and kneaded casually.

After a while, it formed several black mud figures whose shapes were unclear.

The excess black mud was kneaded into miniature mud altars, which were stacked in front of it.

Jiang Qing'e, Li Luo, and the others on the high wall watched the Smiling Demon, which seemed to be playing a mud-pie game amidst the countless Otherkind. Although they didn't know what the opponent was doing, they inexplicably felt a thick sense of unease.

Yet, they dared not go out to stop it.

Thus, they could only watch helplessly as the Smiling Demon finished building the many mud altars, each no more than a foot high, and placed those mud figures on top of them.

It was as if it were setting up an altar to perform a ritual.

Ridiculous and eerie.

After finishing this, it took a step forward and stood in front of those mud altars, and then the expressions of Li Luo and the others became even more dramatic, because they saw the Smiling Demon begin to dance and gesticulate wildly, performing a shamanistic ritual.