Chapter 42: Reflections in Mirror Lake

This sudden turn of events caught everyone off guard.

The stranded survivors screamed in terror, collapsing to the floor and scrambling backward in a frantic attempt to escape. Even the Siyao Officers turned pale; they had never faced a demon at such close range.

Ren Jie felt his heart tighten, his ears ringing with a dull roar.

"Uncle Wei!"

With a burst of scorching flames exploding beneath his feet, he lunged toward Wei Pingsheng at breakneck speed.

Wei Pingsheng had been bitten on the arm, the brute force of the impact pinning him against a load-bearing pillar. Fresh blood splattered across his face. The two-headed mad dog thrashed its heads, gnawing at Wei’s arm as if intent on tearing it off entirely.

Gritting his teeth against the agonizing pain, veins bulging on his forehead, Wei’s mechanical eye glowed with a crimson light. With his free hand, he yanked a fire axe from the holster at his waist.

"You mangy mutt, don't you dare look down on me!"

He roared, swinging the axe with violent force. The muscles in his arm coiled like steel cables. With a flash of cold steel and a spray of blood, he severed one of the dog's heads clean off. Then, planting his feet firmly, he delivered a crushing "Iron Mountain Lean," slamming the two-meter-tall beast backward. He used the handle of the axe to hammer against the jaws still clamped onto his arm, finally prying them loose, leaving his limb dripping with gore.

The Siyao Officers watched in stunned silence.

*Team Leader Wei just cut off a head of a two-headed mad dog? He isn't even a Gene Warrior!*

The recoiling beast didn't give up; losing a head was merely a flesh wound. It lunged at Wei Pingsheng once more.

Wei gritted his teeth and jammed an injection into his wounded arm, his face flushing a sudden, deep red. Just as he reached for his folding riot shield, the monster closed in. At that moment, Ren Jie, wreathed in roaring flames, flashed in front of Wei.

"Incinerate!"

A torrent of fire erupted, instantly carbonizing the dog's skin and blasting it clean out of the building, sending it plummeting into the abyss below.

Yet, at that very moment, flesh and sinew sprouted from the stump of the dog’s severed head, regenerating into a new head. It launched another attack on Wei Pingsheng from point-blank range.

Ren Jie’s eyes widened: "Blazing Blade Draw!"

A long blade of fire sprang from his chest. He grabbed it, channeled every ounce of his fiery energy into it, and slashed down with ferocious power!

"Die, you bastard!"

Flames spiraled as a red streak cut through the air.

*Swish.*

Wei Pingsheng’s hair was scorched to a crisp. The load-bearing pillar behind him was sliced through by Ren Jie’s strike, the concrete melting into magma from the intense heat.

Wei Pingsheng: "???"

*Where the hell are you swinging that thing? The mutt is on the other side!*

*Why are you hacking at me? Are you blind?*

He hurriedly raised his riot shield, slamming it into the two-headed mad dog to drive it back again. Turning his head, he saw that including the Siyao Officers, fifty or sixty people were still trapped. His expression darkened.

"Get out of here! Do you all want to die?"

There was no need for him to repeat himself; everyone was already fleeing in a panic. But just then, an even more desperate sight unfolded.

More and more two-headed mad dogs crawled in from outside the building. The count, initially just one, had swelled to over a dozen and was still rising. Although these dogs had split so many times that they had shrunk to barely over two meters—with strength and size far inferior to the original—they were still at least Tier 2 threats. With so many of them swarming together, and no Demon Suppression Officers present, the survivors were doomed to be torn apart.

Turning and running was undoubtedly the best choice. Instinct and experience screamed at Wei Pingsheng: *Run! Get out of here!* Staying behind meant certain death; he couldn't hold off the pack.

He had expected the pack to go berserk, attacking and biting indiscriminately. To his surprise, however, the two-headed dogs didn't move. They didn't even glance at the fleeing civilians. Instead, their crimson eyes were locked solely on Ren Jie.

Foul, viscous drool dripped onto the floor, their eyes burning with hunger.

Wei Pingsheng frowned. *Are they here for Ren Jie?*

Ren Jie gripped his blazing blade, eyes narrowed. "Uncle Wei, run! Leave this to me. To cut off a man's livelihood is like murdering his parents. I will never let these mutts hurt a single person worth two hundred bucks—not unless they step over my corpse!"

Ren Jie spoke with righteous fervor, his blood boiling. But Wei Pingsheng’s face went black…

(̿▀̿益▀̿ ̿ꐦ)̄ "You idiot, you're looking the wrong way! The pack is behind you! Why are you shouting threats at the support pillar?"

Ren Jie froze, rubbed his eyes, and looked visibly embarrassed…

Wei Pingsheng narrowed his eyes. "Get behind me. I’m not as useless as you think. These thirty years of mine haven't been for nothing!"

"If you're blind, stop acting like a hero!"

Wei Pingsheng was right. Ren Jie was nearly blind; his vision had blurred to an absurd degree, to the point where he couldn't distinguish man from beast. There was a burning sensation in his eyes, a throbbing that felt as though they were about to burst. This had started ever since he injected the Spirit-Awakening Gene Serum, and it was only getting worse.

Unable to contain their hunger for Ren Jie any longer, the pack finally lunged.

They spat out projectiles of highly corrosive venom and "Red Dog Cannons," swarming forward in a chaotic tide. Wei Pingsheng cursed, his mechanical eye calculating a safe escape path as he dragged Ren Jie toward the side, dodging the barrage of venom and energy blasts.

When he couldn't dodge, he blocked with the riot shield, abandoning all attempts to attack—his strikes were useless and only triggered further division of the monsters. The impact from the shield cracked his hand and sent searing pain through his arm.

Just as Wei Pingsheng suspected, the pack was hunting Ren Jie, ignoring the stranded civilians entirely. While the reason remained a mystery, it actually made things easier; he only needed to ensure Ren Jie wasn't eaten.

Although Wei Pingsheng hadn't awakened any special abilities, thirty years of rigorous training had carried him far down the path of a Martial Master. His physical constitution rivaled that of a Tier 2 or Tier 3 Gene Warrior, and combined with his combat techniques and experience, he managed to drag Ren Jie along, defending and retreating simultaneously.

But the number of dogs flooding into the building grew, filling his field of vision. Wei Pingsheng and Ren Jie were gradually pushed into a corner.

The effects of the serum were about to wear off.

"Damn it! What are the Demon Suppression Bureau people doing?"

Driven to the limit of their hunger, the two-headed mad dogs opened their blood-stained maws and lunged at the pair in unison. Their sharp fangs glinted with cold light, as if they intended to tear the two men to shreds and devour them whole.

Wei Pingsheng tried to flee again, but when he tugged on Ren Jie, he found him standing still as a wooden post. He wouldn't budge. Ren Jie’s pupils were dilated, his gaze completely vacant.

Wei Pingsheng: !!!

*This is the end!*

He could only raise the riot shield with all his might, shielding their bodies.

At this moment, the world before Ren Jie went completely black. He could no longer see a thing. In his dazed consciousness, he found himself once again in the Mirror Lake space.

The Demon Tree stood quietly in the center of the lake, the surface filled with thick, swirling mists of emotion. Ren Jie gazed at the tree, his eyes drifting down to the lake.

The image of the tree was reflected on the surface. That wasn't unusual, but for some reason, a profound sense of wrongness gripped him.

*What is it? What’s wrong?*

The next moment, Ren Jie’s eyes snapped open. He realized the problem was the reflection. It was indeed a tree, but it wasn't the Demon Tree—it looked nothing like the gnashing, clawing monstrosity above!

The two colossal trees were mirrored, one upright and one inverted, their roots meeting at the surface of the lake. It was as if the lake were a plane, with the trees growing in opposite directions. Beneath the calm surface, it seemed as though another space, another inverted world, was hidden!

*Is it an illusion?*

Ren Jie couldn't help but look down at his own reflection in the water.

In a flash, the lake surface seemed to surge upward, rushing toward his face. His body lurched forward, plunging straight into the water!