Chapter 1044: The Same Goal

The endless darkness all around felt as if it had solidified. The swimming specks of starlight made the illusory tunnel seem like a blood vessel flowing with liquid, helping Lu Mi navigate through it so he wouldn't lose his way.

After just over ten seconds, Lu Mi arrived at an area where the void was dark, heavy, and thick, forming a giant eggshell.

As he arrived, the starlight guiding the way ahead condensed into a dreamlike door upon the eggshell.

Lu Mi had just passed through this door when he saw a familiar figure.

It was himself—the male version of him.

That handsome face was stained with quite a bit of blood, and his blue eyes revealed undisguised resentment and pain.

"Not bad, having an angel's help really makes a difference!" Lu Mi's "mirror self" gave a thumbs-up, his mouth full of sarcasm.

"If an angel promises to help and you don't borrow her power, wouldn't that make you a fool?" Lu Mi habitually let out a "Heh."

Lu Mi's "mirror self" stared fixedly at the female version of himself, and after a few seconds, said:

"What did you come here for?"

Lu Mi replied calmly:

"To reconcile with you.

"If you're unwilling, I'll beat you until you are, or charm you until you are."

Lu Mi's "mirror self" laughed self-deprecatingly, then said:

"Fine."

"That simple?" Lu Mi raised eyebrows that were much softer than those of the "mirror self."

His "mirror self" chuckled:

"I'd rather replace you, but that would require your consent, wouldn't it?"

"If there's no other way, it's not impossible to consider." Lu Mi curled the corners of his lips, his face seemingly reflecting a hint of starlight.

His "mirror self" was stunned for a moment and said:

"In essence, we are still the same, the current me."

"The current me?" Lu Mi was worried that the self in the mirror had other schemes, and on the other hand, she wanted to help Forsyth Woer, who was about to hold a ritual, explore more knowledge about "mirror selves," so she didn't rush to step forward and reconcile.

"After consuming the 'Witch' potion or higher, the stabilization of the 'mirror self's' birth is essentially a split of the self during the advancement process—dividing into the me in the mirror and the me outside the mirror, the me of the original gender and the me of the current gender. And when you became a 'Despair Witch,' you also had the gift of Fate, which caused a small change in the split: the me in the mirror is the me of the original gender, and also the me of the past; the me outside the mirror is the me of the current gender, and also the me of the present." The Lu Mi in the mirror had a face that was vaguely distorted. "This is my personal experience and feeling; it might not be entirely correct."

"If we complete the reconciliation, do we form the me of the future together?" Lu Mi asked thoughtfully.

"Perhaps." The Lu Mi in the mirror laughed mockingly. "Who could have experience with this? Hurry up, don't waste time."

Seeing Lu Mi looking at him without speaking, the Lu Mi in the mirror smacked his lips and said:

"If I were to replace you, the ritual would inevitably fail because the gender of the soul would be different. Afterward, I would be forever stuck at the 'Despair Witch' sequence unless I switched to 'War Bishop.' That is a path, but given the current situation, it wastes too much time.

"Sister, time waits for no one. Becoming an 'Unaging Witch' is a key step in resurrecting Aurora. The sooner we take it, the better!"

Lu Mi was silent for a few seconds and said:

"You want to reconcile because resurrecting Aurora is more important?"

"Otherwise? Because you have charisma?" The Lu Mi in the mirror laughed mockingly.

He paused, composed his expression, and said in a deep voice:

"We are the same person. Apart from hating you, cursing you, and wanting to replace you, I have no other differences from you.

"And none of that matters."

"Yeah, none of that matters." Lu Mi finally revealed a smile and walked toward the self in the mirror.

She extended a fair, slender palm, skin as smooth as congealed fat.

The self in the mirror also smiled:

"Since replacing you isn't the most important thing, then between reconciling, being enslaved, or being obsessed with you, I definitely choose reconciliation."

As he spoke, he also extended his right palm.

A broad, powerful, bronze-colored palm.

Two hands of different sizes clasped together.

Lu Mi immediately felt the mystical connection between the two sides become as if it were substantial, as if forming ropes, forming a spiderweb that wrapped around them both.

Within her eyes, the face of the self in the mirror suddenly distorted.

That "mirror self" cursed out loud:

"Son of a bitch! Do you know that every time you use a 'Mirror Substitute,' I die once, and then I have to split out from you again?

"You piece of shit, let's swap once, let you experience it, then you'll know how painful it is!

"Every day I'm locked in this dark, gloomy place, with no one to talk to, no one to communicate with. I'm fucking going crazy, I'd rather just die, but Aurora hasn't been resurrected yet!

"Haha, every time you're in pain, I'm happy. You have times like this too!

"Fuck, but while I'm happy, I'm also in pain, because the things that cause you pain also cause me pain. When you're in despair, I'm in despair too!

"Sometimes I think, letting me take your place to face all this would be better than dying a few more times!

"Little Cabbage, can't you just be a bit happier, enjoy yourself more, make me jealous, make me strongly want to replace you?

"..."

Lu Mi listened to the self in the mirror cursing, not suppressing the emotional fluctuations in her heart, as if she herself were letting out similar roars and venting.

The two, who were shaking hands, clearly hadn't moved forward, yet they seemed to be getting closer and closer.

At this moment, the Lu Mi in the mirror stopped cursing.

He looked at Lu Mi, his expression serious, and said in a low voice:

"You must resurrect Aurora."

He paused, then gritted his teeth and shouted:

"Otherwise, even as a ghost, I won't let you off!"

"I won't let myself off either." Lu Mi responded in a deep voice.

Just as she finished speaking, she suddenly had the feeling that her own perspective had changed.

She saw the female version of herself, with eyes as clear as a highland lake, a bright and imposing appearance, and a peculiar sharpness, and she also saw the self covered in blood, whose expression was no longer so distorted.

At this moment, Lu Mi had an epiphany.

Using the help of the "Witch" spider silk, she took out with one hand from her "Traveler's Bag" the "Unaging Witch" Beyonder characteristic that looked like a transparent spring, the rotting corpse parts that replaced the mirror god fragments and Gorgon blood, the water droplets from the lungs of the drowned that she had collected over the past two days, and an antique mirror left over from the early Fifth Era.

Under the guidance of the invisible spider silk, first the blood stained with a hint of pale yellow was poured into a glass cup, a full 80 milliliters, and then the spring-like crystal, the glass fragment-like items, the blackish water droplets carrying pus, and the copper mirror with damaged decorations were successively placed into that cup of blood.

In an instant, the glass cup was stained with a grayish-white color, and all the items inside quickly blended together, gradually becoming illusory.

Soon, a cup of grayish-white liquid that clearly reflected the surrounding mirror world appeared in Lu Mi's eyes.

"Unaging" potion!

Lu Mi, who possessed two perspectives simultaneously, raised her left hand and brought the transparent grayish-white cup to her lips, drinking the potion inside.

She first tasted a mixture of dirt and stone, then her senses were paralyzed.

Wherever the potion passed, her tongue, mouth, esophagus, and stomach lost sensation and turned grayish-white.

This grayish-white was still seeping into her soul.

Just then, Lu Mi felt her spirit float into mid-air, arriving at the side of the self in the mirror, watching the witch-state main body petrify inch by inch, as if about to turn into a statue.

The self in the mirror also had corresponding changes, only much more sluggish, much slower.

Lu Mi's spirit quickly fell down, using the self in the mirror to persist in consciousness so as not to be completely petrified.

She suddenly understood why the "Unaging Witch" ritual involved enslaving one's mirror self, making it obsessed with oneself, or reconciling with it. Because if one didn't do so, upon consuming the potion and the main body petrifying, when the spirit wandered toward the mirror self, it would encounter strong resistance from the "mirror self," and at this time, one's own strength could only be exerted to a very limited extent, making the situation very critical.

When the "mirror self" was also severely petrified, Lu Mi's spirit floated up again, returning to the main body.

At this time, her body had adapted to the potion, and driven by the returning consciousness, it gradually shed its petrified state.

Immediately afterward, she saw the self in the mirror changing, shifting toward a female direction, and not far away, one after another, versions of her emerged from the darkness: there was her when she had just become a "Despair Witch," her when she was still a "Pyromaniac," her when she had just arrived in Cordu Village, her when she was still wandering, her in childhood...

Every time she looked in a mirror, it left a certain trace in the mirror world, and now they had all manifested!

"I can choose one of these versions of myself and fix it in that state...

"This is the secret to how an 'Unaging Witch' can restore her youth...

"No matter which state is chosen, it inevitably becomes female in the end...

"The me in the mirror actually turned into a woman too... Is this because I chose reconciliation instead of enslavement or making it obsessed?

"It can even be like this..."

Lu Mi, who was still gradually alleviating her petrified state, saw the self in the mirror becoming more and more beautiful, more and more like herself, but vaguely possessing a bit of Aurora's temperament.

Just as a feeling of joy arose, a scene suddenly appeared before her eyes:

In the endless gloom, a figure that couldn't be seen clearly suddenly turned toward this side.

In the blink of an eye, this figure arrived at the edge of the gloom, quietly looking down at Lu Mi.

This was very similar to the gaze of the "Primordial Witch" when Lu Mi advanced to "Despair Witch," but it was a bit different.

Being gazed at like this, Lu Mi instantly lost most of her sensation, leaving only a bit of consciousness hazy and blurry, struggling not to let herself sink.

After a very short time, she opened her eyes and found herself wrapped in layers of grayish-white spider silk, like prey stored by a spider, or perhaps a newborn in an egg.

The next second, the spider silk disintegrated silently and fell to the ground. The ordinary clothes on Lu Mi's body also became unusually fragile due to the previous petrification and current recovery, quickly drifting away like powder, revealing her lustrous, delicate, white skin.

Lu Mi took clothes from her "Traveler's Bag" to change into while looking around.

She then saw the mirror self in witch state.

She smiled, and that "mirror self" also smiled.

They were no longer separate; Lu Mi was both the me outside the mirror and the me inside the mirror, both the me of the past and the me of the present.

This was the "Unaging Witch."

(End of chapter)