Chapter 979: The Best Support

Huang Zong stepped out of the private room, finished his call, and then Zarathustra leaned forward slightly toward the center of the window, as if trying to see the stage and the corresponding large screen more clearly.

At the same time, Ai Zong and the Intis Group staff responsible for reception, along with Zarathustra’s entourage, all heard their phones vibrate.

They instinctively picked up their phones, unlocked the screens, and saw a pop-up message.

It was neither a text message nor WeChat, nor any notification from an incoming call—it seemed merely a pure, screen-occupying dialogue box.

Inside the box was a short line of text:

“Please be quiet for one minute.”

As Ai Zong and the Intis Group staff and Zarathustra’s entourage noticed this line, the words sprang up one after another, bursting out of their phone screens and transforming into invisible, colorless streams of esoteric energy that flowed into their minds.

Except for Huang Zong, who was still on the phone outside the room, and Zarathustra, who was watching the stage below, everyone present froze—eyes blank, gaze vacant, bodies locked in their previous postures.

They truly fell silent.

Zarathustra sensed something, withdrew his gaze, and looked toward the people inside the private room.

As he did, his peripheral vision caught a faint reflection of himself on the already open window.

His heart stirred; instinctively, he pulled back his body, ensuring the window could no longer reflect him.

Behind the glass mirror at that moment stood Lu Mi, in the form of the “Despair Witch,” his black hair loose, wearing a dark T-shirt, silently watching Zarathustra’s illusory figure appear on the mirror and swiftly drift toward its edge.

The countless invisible “soul threads” on his body, upon touching the hard mirror surface, no longer extended outward as usual—instead, they were pulled upward, drifting into the deep, dark sky.

This was the “Distortion” altering the direction of the “soul threads”—now, Zarathustra could no longer detect through them whether someone lurked behind the mirror.

The effect of “Distortion” originated from the edge of the mirror’s rear zone, near the spiderweb-like illusory tunnels, from a crown inlaid with numerous dark gems.

The crown floated silently in midair, behind which stood a tall, beautiful woman.

She had wavy chestnut hair tied into a bun, straight eyebrows, blue eyes, wore a short-sleeved white T-shirt and light-colored pants—she was clearly Huang Beibei, the young lady.

In her hand, she held a phone, speaking with Huang Tao.

Logically, there should be no signal in the mirror world—but Huang Beibei’s words, after passing through the phone, became invisible streams of information, escaping this place; Huang Tao’s replies, similarly affected by the supernatural, entered as pure information streams, then were converted by the phone into sound.

Lu Mi glanced at the young lady, and memories of her words before the operation flashed through his mind:

“I can assist you, but I cannot directly participate in combat.”

“I’ve already been kicked out of this dream twice—I’m under certain restrictions. If Zarathustra sees me opposing him, I’ll likely be kicked out a third time, and my father’s problem remains unsolved…”

“I’ll create opportunities for you, but to kill Zarathustra or expel him from the dream, you must do it yourselves…”

“I cannot lend you this item—if I do, you’ll die before Zarathustra even does…”

Lu Mi hesitated no longer. He stared at Zarathustra’s still-present mirror projection and raised his left hand.

On his wrist rested a silver bracelet, glowing with silver-and-black light.

“The One Within the Ring!”

Lu Mi seized the moment and activated “The One Within the Ring” upon Zarathustra’s fading mirror projection.

Of course, this was suppressed to Sequence 7 level—it could not replay fate, and could trigger at most twice.

The current mechanism of “The One Within the Ring” was to cause a similar scene to reoccur briefly through disturbance of fate.

Inside the private room, after Zarathustra pulled back and ensured the glass no longer reflected him, he suddenly felt a gust of wind rush in—from the entrance of the hot pot restaurant.

Before he could check the state of those seated with him, he saw the window jerk shut.

This caused his reflection to reappear in the glass.

In Zarathustra’s deep blue, nearly black eyes, a flicker of eerie light appeared—he sensed not mere alertness, but an abnormal presence.

He raised his right hand and used the “Miracle Worker” ability to influence the future.

He reduced the probability that his mirror projection would be exploited.

In the mirror world, Lu Mi held an ice-crystal slender sword wrapped in terrifying black flame, and touched the river of Zarathustra’s mirror projection’s fate, attempting to amplify the branch of fate where his attack succeeded.

The two forces clashed—Zarathustra’s prevailed, causing that fate branch not to expand, but to shrink by one-tenth.

Yet for Lu Mi, this was enough.

His use of “Amplify Fate” was never meant to increase the curse’s success rate—it was to counter the “Miracle Worker’s” interference with fate.

Under such proximity to Zarathustra’s mirror projection, as long as the “Miracle Worker”’s interference was absent or insufficient, his chance of success was very high.

Lu Mi’s ice-crystal sword shot forward, striking Zarathustra’s newly reappeared mirror projection.

The “Fire of Destruction” coiled around the blade instantly flooded the projection, igniting it from within, engulfing it in pure, mad destruction.

This was a curse—a curse against Zarathustra!

Many of the “Witch”’s curses operated on esoteric principles using mirror projections—this too was a “Mirror Person,” a temporary, fleeting “Mirror Person,” with an extremely strong esoteric link to the original.

As Lu Mi’s “Fire of Destruction” ignited Zarathustra’s mirror projection, Zarathustra inside the private room spewed violent black flames from his eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and skin pores.

In an instant, the old man became a black torch, his body rapidly thinning and shrinking, burned to ash.

“Paper Doll Substitute!”

For Zarathustra, an angel, “Paper Doll Substitute” had long been usable to transfer curses—but to evade a curse crafted by the “Witch” through a mirror projection, the original body must promptly retreat into the Mist of History.

After using the “Miracle Worker” ability to interfere with fate’s progression, Zarathustra did not assume the first wave of attack had ended—he immediately activated “Paper Doll Substitute,” then cautiously entered the Mist of History, hiding within a fissure.

The scene of his body burning into paper went unnoticed by those seated with him.

They remained frozen in silence.

In the mirror world.

Near the illusory dark tunnel, Bernadette held the phone in one hand and caused multiple dark gems on the crown before her to glow with strange light.

“Distortion!”

She activated “Distortion” again, swapping the spatial positions of Zarathustra’s original body and “Paper Doll Substitute” with the mirror projection.

Thus, Zarathustra, who had hidden in the Mist of History, and the burned-out “Paper Doll Substitute” arrived in the mirror world.

This place also connected to the Spirit World; it too had the Mist of History.

Meanwhile, Zarathustra’s mirror projection sat beside the hot pot table, soon vanishing into the wildly growing black flames.

It perished with those “Flames of Destruction” into the void.

Having completed this, Bernadette swiftly retrieved the crown inlaid with dark gems, stepped back two paces, and vanished into the complex, spiderweb-like illusory tunnel.

Throughout this, she maintained her call with Huang Zong.

Lu Mi felt no emotional reaction to Bernadette’s departure—according to their agreement, the princess’s primary duties were threefold:

One, to divert Huang Zong, suspected of being influenced by the Mirror Rosseau;

Two, to use her “Seeker of Secrets” path’s control over the information world to “push” a message to everyone in the private room, forcing them into silence; subsequent cleanup and trace erasure would be handled by the “Information Shredder”—Lu Mi remembered how Huang Beibei’s expression had grown complex upon seeing the “Information Shredder,” as if encountering a natural enemy artificially created;

Three, to conceal their “soul threads” from Zarathustra, preventing him from detecting them in advance; if Lu Mi failed to assassinate him in the initial phase, she would help draw Zarathustra into the mirror world, turning assassination into direct confrontation, with possible further indirect aid later.

Thus, Lu Mi and his allies could temporarily worry no longer that their battle with Zarathustra would attract the dream city’s official forces, interrupting or pursuing them.

Moreover, Zarathustra would be separated from his puppets.

Even if Zarathustra could manipulate “soul threads” across the mirror, those puppets, lacking the power to enter the mirror world, could not join this battle.

Eliminating puppets was the first step against high-ranking “Fortune Teller” path users.

As the “Paper Doll Substitute” was completely burned, Zarathustra, confined to Sequence 7 and unable to remain long in the Mist of History, returned to reality.

He saw himself standing in the void’s deep black rear zone, and before the mirror stood a figure whose charm even darkness could not conceal.

Lu Mi smiled, and the area lit as if bathed in moonlight.

“Enchantment!”

Zarathustra’s consciousness froze; all his “Soul Worms” seemed to sigh at the piercing beauty.

Almost simultaneously, invisible spiderwebs already woven throughout the area wrapped around him.

Lu Mi immediately drew the “Sword of Courage,” and from over ten meters away, slashed toward Zarathustra.

The iron-black straight sword forged a highly compressed flame serpent that arced through the air toward the old man in black formal wear.

At the edge of the rear zone, Jianna broke from her “Invisibility,” used her mirror to reveal Zarathustra’s figure, and smeared her other hand—covered in the “Witch”’s black flame—onto the reflection.

(End of Chapter)