NOVPUBWoo~
A low, hollow whisper moved through the air like a cold breath from a dead man that tickled the entire body of the listeners.
Noah's fingers stilled in Elysia's hair. "Did you hear that?"
She tilted her head. "Unfortunately, yes."
One of Elysia's reflections in the mirror behind Noah and Elysia twitched. It didn't follow their movements. It lagged.
For just a heartbeat, it moved a second too late—its smile lingering longer than it should have.
And then… 'she' slowly turned to look at Noah's back. Her smile turned into a demonic grin, reaching her ears.
With the creepy look on its face, that thing stepped out of the mirror.
Crack!
The surface of the glass swelled as if it was being pushed from the inside before the mirror shattered like thin ice when a pale, ghostlike version of Elysia emerged.
The shards of the mirror flew towards Noah's back when the ghastly figure reached out for Noah, grinning wide with hollow eyes and jagged lips stitched crudely shut, yet somehow still… grinning.
"You want to touch my man looking like me?" Elysia saw its every move from Noah's arm, and her playful expression vanished. Replacing it with a cold, hollow look in her eyes.
"Abominations like you cannot even dream of touching him in their lives."
This hollowness was not similar to the emptiness of things coming at Noah, but it was the boundless, deep obsession and love she had for the man whose arms she was in.
Her figure suddenly glowed a little, and the air tensed. The sky high up crackled, and out of nowhere a bolt of lightning appeared in the clouds.
Rumble!
The bolt shot down and struck the ghastly figure out of oblivion before its breath could even reach Noah.
"That was…" Even without looking back, Noah witnessed everything that happened with his own eyes.
"Weird?" Elysia tilted her head, a glint of hesitation flashing through her eyes. 'Did I do something I should not have?'
Before she could fall into the spiral of self-blame, Noah replied with a smirk, "Nah, I was going to say hot."
Elysia instantly calmed down before she started blushing under his eyes.
Crack! Crack!
Before she could say anything else, another mirror burst, and then another. Since the bolt was only wide enough to kill one demonic thing, besides leaving a mark on the ground, it did not have much effect on other mirrors.
Reflections of Noah and Elysia peeled themselves out from their mirrored prisons—drenched in cold mist.
Each of them had a look of frenzy on their faces as they charged at them from all directions.
There were dozens of them. Each is slightly off. Some are too thin. Some are too bloated. All wrong.
Noah narrowed his eyes. "Yin spirits…"
"Ugh, I knew it," Elysia hissed, her tone annoyed more than frightened. "Those pesky little things want to copy and use bad makeup and poor imitations? Unforgivable!"
One spirit, Elysia, let out a shriek so high-pitched the glass of nearby mirrors cracked even further.
Creeak!
Clank!
Tsssh!
Seeing this, Elysia tried to move away from Noah's arm and make a move on them before they could reach them.
"Wait." But Noah stopped her by tightening his hold around her. Elysia froze from the unexpected movements. The blush on her face deepened as she found herself pressed against his chest.
Noah smiled, holding Elysia with one hand; he calmly raised the other, and a wave of golden runes surged from his palm. His entire body glowed under the golden radiance.
He blinked his eyes, and his irises had elongated into vertical slits. Ripples coursed under his skin as black scales started surfacing his skin.
White marble-like antlers grew on his forehead, and a domineering aura flared through his body.
BOOM!
The golden aura came out of his body like flooding water; his presence shifted all of a sudden, making all the Yin Spirits stop in their tracks.
'Dragon Gaze' His eyes glowed, and a ripple of energy pulsed through the air.
The stopped spirits only saw a bright golden glow filling their eyes before they vanished from the maze.
The glow on Noah's body faded as he undid his transformation. His draconic features faded away, and the darkness filled the area once more.
Noah slowly released Elysia from his hold.
A flicker of loss appeared on her face before she looked around. "Huh? Where are we? Did we leave that place?
They were no longer standing in the maze of mirrors. There were no more spirits, no more demonic faces or things whipping at them.
Instead, they stood in front of three walls, each one a bricked wall made of thick, dark stones placed one over the other. The stones were glued to each other as if they were melted together.
The walls were plain, with nothing special on them.
Elysia turned to look behind Noah, and what did she see?
Another solid stone wall, just like the ones before her.
They were trapped.
"Did we get teleported? But I did not sense the aura of the space laws." Elysia muttered to herself before shaking her head. "Illusion? If it was, we would have sensed it coming long ago." 𝒏𝙤𝙫𝒑𝙪𝙗.𝙘𝒐𝙢
"We have been standing between these walls from the start, but they were just covered with arrays of mirrors to confuse us." Noah tested the rear wall. "No way out."
"As for this fourth wall, it must have appeared when the first yin spirit made its move."
Elysia examined the three walls in front of them. "So… this was what they had hidden behind the silence?"
When his hands touched the walls, they glowed with different colors—blue, red, and silver. Symbols pulsed faintly on their surface.
The blue showed a sword plunged into a heart, the red a burning person, and the silver... a mirror reflecting a pile of bodies.
"Great," Elysia muttered, resting her hands on her hips. "We're either in a hidden test chamber… or a very fancy coffin."
Noah chuckled, his hand placed on the fourth wall that glowed with green symbols. A mass praying to what appeared to be a goddess. "Could be neither. Let's look for a way to leave."
Their eyes met, and there was no panic in them. No fear either.
Just the thrill and anticipation of what lay beyond.
