The dim, hushed surroundings felt distinctly oppressive — glazed tiles dulled with grime, wild vines rioting up every wall, creep factor rising by the second.
A faint gnawing sound, like rodents at work, sent March 7th into a full-body shudder. She hugged herself and shook it off, trying to dispel the gloom that had crept up on her out of nowhere.
"No wonder we haven't heard a peep from Little Gui or Sushang this whole time."
Just a moment ago she'd been itching to film a few clips of Lord Tail and slap on a title like Mysterious Ghost-Fire Spotted in Fyxestroll Garden — Innocent Foxian Girl Possessed to rake in the views.
"Ah Qi, you're only figuring that out now?"
Stelle stood there with both hands on her hips, heaving a mournful sigh — the full girl, how are you like this energy.
"Oh yeah? You noticed and didn't say anything?"
March 7th switched on her dead-fish stare and slanted it straight at the Stellaron spirit.
"Ehh~ But I'm not even a year old yet, I'm just a baby~!"
The saccharine, eye-rollingly put-on voice made March 7th's face contort in pure disgust.
"Blegh~!"
March 7th's little pink fists went bang-bang into Stelle's arm. Stelle dropped the act without missing a beat and straightened her expression:
"So — are we doing the horror-movie thing where we split up to find Little Gui and Sushang?"
"Then I want to be on Huo Huo's team!"
Stelle's hand shot up, her voice brimming with righteous conviction.
Her plan was simple: ditch Huo Huo for a minute, disguise herself as a malevolent spirit, and scare the matcha-flavored little cake half to death. Huo Huo was so adorable — she'd definitely cry for ages~!
"Idiot, your whole scheme is written across your face, you know that."
Caelus nudged her with his elbow. "Obviously it should be the more mature, reliable me on Huo Huo's team. That's just safer for everyone, right, Tail?"
"Heh, can't argue with that."
Getting to rack up goodwill with Caelus, score more Heliobus-made snacks, and watch Huo Huo cry her eyes out? Pure profit.
"Great Trailblazer Caelus has spoken — why are you still standing there?! Get in line!!"
Tail's tail swatted Huo Huo on the back to hustle her along.
"Uwaaah, I — I-I think it would be better if we all went to find Miss Guinaifen together."
Huo Huo looked at the assembled lords with trembling reverence and offered her suggestion as carefully as she could.
Tail, who was normally so terrifyingly powerful, was being this cooperative and well-behaved — which meant Caelus was Tail's Tail. Huo Huo was permanently at the very bottom of the food chain.
At least, that's what she firmly believed about herself.
"Anomalous activity detected in the depths of Fyxestroll Garden. Its nature is formless and invisible, carrying a dense miasma of shadow-energy. The power frequency is unlike anything on record — source cannot be located."
She pressed her index and middle fingers together and raised them to her ear, where a faint light pulsed. Whether a mechanical Ingenium beast or a technological doll, having a built-in comm module was undeniably convenient.
Xueyi listened to the report through the squad channel from the Underworld sentinels under her command, her expression flat, her tone weighty.
"Can't find it?"
The dense shadow-energy had to be the dark force. Moonscar had been keeping watch the whole time — she had just now sensed a vague fluctuation and confirmed the new-breed demon beast was somewhere inside Fyxestroll Garden.
So why couldn't they locate it?
Caelus's brow ticked upward.
That shouldn't be the case.
"Let's go check where Little Gui and Sushang were last seen."
Raven broke off to command the Ten-Lords Commission's underworld officers and positioned sentinels around Fyxestroll Garden to maintain the Form-Binding Warding Array. Everyone else fell in behind Li Sushang, heading toward the last known direction of Guinaifen and Sushang before contact was lost.
Moonlight seeped through the cracked glazed tiles of a crumbling octagonal pavilion, staining the moss on the flagstones a ghostly phosphorescent green.
Compass in one hand, green flag in the other — pushed to the front by Caelus on the grounds that the Judge must protect defenseless civilians — Huo Huo hunched her shoulders, legs quaking, eyes brimming with tears. She was a single scare away from full-blown weeping.
"Lord, I cannot stand your cowardly act. You're a Judge of the Ten-Lords Commission — can you not grow a spine?"
Tail's voice carried more than a trace of disappointed exasperation.
"Uwuwu, I'm just not cut out to be a Judge. I used to think working in the Ten-Lords Commission long enough would eventually build up some courage, but now I realize... some things just don't click no matter how hard you try."
Under normal circumstances Huo Huo wouldn't dare talk back to Lord Tail — but with Caelus nearby, Lord Tail held herself in check considerably.
For Huo Huo, steeling her nerves was like doing math problems: some things just don't click, and that's that!
The instant everyone stepped into the courtyard, weeds along the top of the wall rustled in the wind, and a clay urn somewhere deep inside the courtyard gave off a hollow, echoing drone.
The creep factor skyrocketed, especially due to the bronze mirror standing roughly nine feet tall in the depths of the courtyard.
"Waaah~!"
Huo Huo let out a shriek like a startled little fox and threw her arms around the nearest pair of legs behind her.
"Spending one night in a place like this would give me nightmares for sure."
March 7th pressed the shutter on the courtyard before her.
"Then why are you still taking pictures?"
Caelus slid his gaze toward her.
"Because you're here~"
March 7th answered on reflex, attention still half on her camera — then the words caught up with her. Her cheeks blazed scarlet.
"I didn't say anything! I said nothing!"
Stelle shot March 7th a wildly amused look, then turned away on her long, beautiful legs — one still clad in its black stocking — and walked toward the depths of the courtyard.
"I saw this on Interastral Net a while back — a method to check if there are ghosts nearby."
Stelle stood before the faintly dust-coated ancient mirror, chin resting in her hand. "All you have to do is face the mirror at night and play Rock-Paper-Scissors with your reflection a hundred times. If you tie every single round, it means there are no ghosts around."
"Let me try it."
Stelle rolled up the sleeve of her bright-green hoodie, exposing fair, slender fingers, and raised her fist. "Rock, paper, scissors!"
Stelle: Rock. Mirror-Stelle: Scissors.
Stelle: Paper. Mirror-Stelle: Rock.
Stelle: Scissors. Mirror-Stelle: Paper.
The unbroken winning streak filled Stelle with great satisfaction. She kept throwing, not noticing that the rest of the group had gone completely silent behind her. Huo Huo had actually stopped breathing and was half a twitch away from fainting dead away.
"Ha! Caelus-cub, look — what a loser~!"
Stelle pointed at the figure in the mirror and laughed like Tom after a win.
The mockery in Stelle's voice seemed to needle the shadow in the mirror. In the next instant, the reflection decided to step up.
Stelle: Rock. Mirror-Stelle: Paper.
Mirror-Stelle won, and the reflection broke into a smug, contemptuous expression.
Stelle stared blankly at her losing fist. She blinked. She furrowed her brow. She thought long and hard — and reached a conclusion.
"You beat me at Rock-Paper-Scissors... you're trying to harm me!"
"?"
Mirror-Stelle slowly produced a question mark.
Bush, what is going on — you lose one round of Rock-Paper-Scissors and that's your reaction?
"Since you're trying to harm me, I don't see any problem with eating you."
Stelle began humming Scrub the seaweed, yeah~.
What the actual hell kind of backward logic is this?!
Mirror-Stelle was shook.
"You've got some nerve still hanging around here. You clearly don't take me seriously — get ready, I'm coming in there!!"
Galaxy Bat in her left hand, flaming Lance in her right, Stelle charged straight into the mirror.
"My turn!"
Caelus shed his coat: "Da Wei Tian Long, Da Luo Fa Zhou, Shi Zun Di Zang, Bo Re Zhu Fo, Bo Re Ba Ma Hong! Galaxy Silver Dragon!!"
His wrist-bone snapped back forty-five degrees in an instant. The yo-yo burst from his palm in a shower of silver-blue lightning arcs, a dragon's roar splitting the air; thunder wove itself into a dragon-shaped phantom, radiant light spiraling around it.
The magnificent, imposing dragon-head let out a roar and surged into the mirror like a meteor chasing the moon. The ancient mirror rippled outward in ring after ring of waves.
Huo Huo started breathing again. March 7th and Li Sushang exchanged a glance — thoroughly stumped.
"By all indications, this mirror must be a gateway connecting to an illusory labyrinth realm."
Drawing on her experience as a seasoned Ten-Lords Judge, Xueyi rendered her professional verdict.
"Illusory labyrinth realm?"
March 7th wasn't particularly worried about Stelle and Caelus running into danger. If anything, it was probably the reflection that had beaten Stelle at Rock-Paper-Scissors that needed worrying about.
Ever since learning how Caelus's absurd Universal Synthesizer worked, Stelle had been itching to synthesize everything in sight — rocks, wild grass, whatever junk she had stashed in her spatial ring...
March 7th had zero doubt that any stray dog crossing Stelle's path would get its fur yanked out.
Compared to run-of-the-mill materials you could find anywhere, a ghost was undeniably a rare ingredient.
"As for what the illusory labyrinth realm actually is..."
After Xueyi delivered a full explanation in Xianzhou terms the Synesthesia Beacons could only partially translate, March 7th finally understood — pieced together through Li Sushang's murmured, half-thoughtful clarification.
In plain terms: a pocket-dimension array formation laid by a powerful Heliobus.
In Caelus-speak: a Domain Expansion!
"Let's hurry and follow them."
The moment Stelle and Caelus passed through the mirror and entered the illusory realm, Li Sushang and Moonscar had both felt a sharp spike in the dark-power fluctuation. Moonscar had a rough idea now why the new-breed demon beast couldn't be detected.
"Right — Ah Xing, Caelus, wait for us!"
The instant March 7th crossed the mirror's surface, the world spun violently around her.
She stepped through to find Stelle and Caelus already mid-battle against a Heliobus — one that was wreathed in faint bluish-green ghost-fire, like a one-eyed Heliobus.
The Galaxy Bat and the flaming Lance couldn't deal much effective damage to an energy-based being, so Stelle had switched to the jointly-owned marital-asset Jizo Mitama.
Caelus, meanwhile, had gone full summoner — deploying Leylah for combat. Weak as Leylah still was, she was a divine being at the end of the day, and her very mode of existence was on a higher plane than a Heliobus. Plus she was also an energy-form entity.
Fighting a Heliobus as a god was like a big sister pummeling her little sister.
"Well, well — it's you, Fuyan."
Tail sauntered out to enjoy the spectacle of the Heliobus getting beaten senseless. "Trapping people with cheap tricks like this — I'd say that's very on-brand for a piece of trash like you."
"You know it?"
Caelus tilted his head toward Tail.
"That one was also a core fragment of Ignamar back in the day — always had a taste for underhanded methods."
Watching Fuyan get pummeled clearly delighted Tail no end. She was practically glowing.
"Oh, it's you. Hah — and you ended up sealed inside some weepy little girl, playing guard dog. You've got the nerve to talk about me?"
Fuyan carried herself like a bratty little female imp.
"It smells decent enough. Want to eat it?"
Tail suggested this to Caelus helpfully. Fuyan's head filled with question marks.
"Are you insane?"
How could a human possibly eat a Heliobus?
"Fuyan, right? I'll give you one chance."
Caelus flung out the yo-yo and snared the one-eyed Heliobus, while Stelle pressed the Jizo Mitama right up to its face.
The little contraption gave him a flashback to the Herrscher of Corruption from next door's new generation.
"Tell me what's going on over there."
Caelus looked up toward the distance. Dark clouds churned across the sky, stained with the bleed of a crimson red.
Those were bats — a massive swarm of them — and they were hunting Heliobus of every size, chasing down the drifting bluish-green ghost-fires.
A bat swarm was devouring Heliobus?!
"Let's talk outside! One of you let me possess you for a second, then we can talk outside!"
The flames flickering across Fuyan's body gave a panicked shudder. She looked genuinely terrified of the bat swarm.
Caelus smiled pleasantly, reached into the Yue-Hiding Gourd, pulled out a particularly egregious Heliobus, and ran it through the Universal Synthesizer to produce several boxes of ice cream.
He handed out one buff-enhanced box to each person. Stelle and Caelus ate their ice cream with placid, amiable expressions as they regarded Fuyan.
Fuyan's one-eyed face cycled through emotions with remarkable human expressiveness — confusion, then blankness, then bewilderment, then what the actual—, and finally sheer horror:
"I'll talk! Big bro, big sis, I'll talk right now!"
____
________________________________________
If you want more chapters, please consider supporting my page on (P). with 50 advanced chapters available on (P)
👻 Join the crew by searching Leanzin on (P). You know the spot! 😉