Chapter 80-81: The Murderous Entity of the Fifth Floor

The agonizing pain made it almost impossible for Gao Tian to breathe.

The sudden impact had broken his arm.

Empowered by the Blood Shroud, flesh sprouted wildly from Gao Tian's severed limb, quickly forming the nascent shape of a new arm.

However, his plan to use the Mirror World to escape back to the Third Floor was entirely ruined.

Watching his rapid recovery, Xia Ta realized he possessed a special Supernatural Item. The injury wasn't going to be a problem.

She clamped the glass container in her mouth and used her only remaining arm to pull a Black Card from her jacket. Pointing it toward the ceiling, she said, "Don't hoard your Black Cards anymore.

"Return to the Third Floor immediately."

As the Black Card's teleportation effect triggered, Xia Ta melted into a swirling black hole and was transported away, vanishing without a trace.

Jiang Yang and Lan Zhu followed suit, drawing their own Black Cards and teleporting away from the fifth floor.

By now, Gao Tian's arm had mostly regenerated. Hearing the heavy pounding of a hammer drawing closer in the distance, he immediately pulled out the Gray Card that Yusheng had given him and prepared to activate it.

He willed it to activate, but the Gray Card in his hand didn't react at all.

?

Gao Tian froze for a second before trying to trigger the card again.

It wasn't as if he lacked experience with these items. Back at the Inner World Pagoda Primary School Station, activating a Black Card had been completely seamless—a single thought was all it took to teleport him away. Why was this Gray Card so unresponsive?

No way—

Why won't this Gray Card activate?

While he was caught between shock and confusion, tiny, blood-red words slowly surfaced on the Gray Card: "No mortal threat to the user detected.

"This card will only activate on its own volition when it determines the user is facing certain death.

"A fatal calamity has been scheduled for three months from now. The card will automatically activate then. To prevent the user from squandering its power, it cannot be used in advance."

Reading those words, Gao Tian felt a lifetime's worth of curses swirling at the tip of his tongue.

What the hell is this garbage?

Three months from now? That's even later than the fatal calamity Yusheng predicted.

By then, my seventh-day funeral rites would be long over. What use would I have for this Gray Card?!

The Black Cards from the fourth floor were triggered manually by the user, but the Gray Card from the fifth floor decided for itself whether the user was about to die.

Gao Tian was entirely baffled. How could his current situation not count as certain death? Why wasn't the Gray Card activating?

He couldn't rely on the Ghost Card, either. Most ghosts would simply camp his corpse; if he died here on the fifth floor, he would just be slaughtered again the moment he resurrected.

Beside him, Zhao Zhenjia had already drawn a Black Card and was ready to run. But catching sight of Gao Tian's predicament out of the corner of his eye, the heavily built man lowered his card and turned to look at him.

No words were needed. Zhao Zhenjia knew immediately that the card in Gao Tian's hand had malfunctioned at the worst possible time.

There was no time for questions.

Without a second thought, he rummaged through his clothes, pulled out a small mirror, and shoved it into Gao Tian's hand.

In the distant darkness, the hammer strikes grew deafening. A massive silhouette was squeezing its way through the corridor, slowly squirming toward them.

The small mirror was barely larger than a palm. In Old Zhao's hometown, superstitious folks believed that mirrors could reveal unclean spirits, which was the only reason he carried it with him.

Normally, it would be a struggle to shove even a single arm through an opening that small. Zhao Zhenjia originally hadn't planned to bring it out at all. Only being backed into a corner had forced him into this desperate measure.

For Gao Tian, it was like a drowning man grasping at a lifeline.

According to the rules of his Mirror Ghost ability, dragging another person or a ghost into the Mirror World required an entrance at least one-third of the target's size. But for the Mirror Ghost's main body to enter, the requirement was significantly lower—as long as the mirror wasn't shattered to pieces, it would work.

Thank you.

There was no time to say it out loud. Gao Tian shot Zhao Zhenjia a deeply grateful look and triggered the Mirror Ghost's power, diving headlong into the palm-sized entrance.

In the blink of an eye, he plunged into boundless darkness, his feet landing on the long white pathway. Gao Tian had entered the Mirror World. He was safe.

The very first thing he did was rush back to the glass surface to check if Zhao Zhenjia had managed to escape safely.

Outside the mirror, the most hair-raising scene unfolded before his eyes.

Taking out the mirror had delayed Zhao Zhenjia by about three seconds.

And in those three seconds, the massive entity at the end of the corridor—the source of the thunderous hammer strikes—finally revealed its true form.

It was a massive, black, mountain-like silhouette of a hand. Its five fingers crawled forward like peaks; with every lift and fall of a digit, a terrifying boom echoed through the corridor, sounding exactly like a large hammer smashing against the floor and walls.

The wrist attached to the back of the massive black hand was as thick and long as a gigantic dark python, snaking down the stairs from the sixth floor. Gao Tian couldn't even begin to imagine what kind of creature could possess such a terrifying appendage.

Yet, that was far from the craziest part.

The massive black hand slowly reared up. Its palm was densely studded with countless blood-red eyes, scattered like fallen stars. Every single eye was swiveling frantically until the tiny black pupils suddenly stopped, all converging entirely on the figure standing right in front of them: Zhao Zhenjia.

Even with his height of one point nine meters, Zhao Zhenjia looked like a tiny toy standing before the upright black hand.

Just what on earth is that thing?!

The moment he felt its gaze upon him, Zhao Zhenjia seemed to fall under a spell. His hand, midway through lifting the Black Card, slowly came to a halt. As if losing control of his own body, he turned around and looked at the demonic palm behind him.

Staring at a monster several times his size, countless galaxies seemed to expand, soar, and shatter within his vision. The sheer volume of information flooding into Zhao Zhenjia's mind was far beyond what a brain of mere flesh and blood could withstand.

"Wake up! Hurry up and go! Use the Black Card!"

The demonic hand moved. Picking up the dead-eyed Zhao Zhenjia as gently as one might pinch an ant, it slammed him ruthlessly against the ground. The devastating impact instantly pulverized the entire lower half of his body into a bloody paste.

Now, only half of Zhao Zhenjia's body remained.

Even so, his eyes remained wide open, staring obsessively at the "graceful" body of the giant palm, as if he had just witnessed the absolute truth of the universe and the fundamental essence of reality.

Old Zhao... is dead?

At that exact moment, as Gao Tian watched this absurd scene from within the mirror, an even more preposterous idea stumbled into his mind.

Initially, he couldn't pull Old Zhao into the mirror because the man's frame was far too large; the entrance wasn't even a third of his size.

But now, thanks to the demonic hand, Old Zhao had essentially "lost half his weight." His size was just about right. Could he be dragged inside the mirror now?

He didn't have time to think. He had to risk it all. Right in front of that murderous entity, he activated the Mirror Ghost's power. A pair of bloody hands shot out from the glass, forcefully seized Zhao Zhenjia's mangled torso, and yanked him into the mirror.

The giant palm was caught completely off guard. It hadn't expected a ghost to be hiding inside such a tiny mirror, let alone one that would snatch away half of Old Zhao right under its nose.

Having failed to outpace the Mirror Ghost, the colossal hand finally reacted and slammed down heavily, smashing the tiny mirror to pieces.

The entire corridor quaked violently.

Forget it, the man only had half a body left anyway. Even if he had been dragged into the mirror, what difference could it make?

The massive hand slowly squirmed onward, the countless eyes across it swiveling frantically as it advanced deeper into the fifth floor.

Along the way, every single door remained tightly shut. It seemed that even the denizens of the fifth floor didn't dare provoke this murderous entity that had descended from the sixth.

Inside the Mirror World.

"Old Zhao, are you feeling any better?!"

Gao Tian instantly regretted the words the moment they left his mouth. The man only had half a fucking body left, and he was asking if he felt any better.

What kind of brain-dead question was that?

Watching blood violently gush from Zhao Zhenjia's severed waist and seeing his pupils already begin to lose focus, cold sweat dripped relentlessly down Gao Tian's forehead.

It was all because of those three seconds. Because Zhao Zhenjia had spent those three seconds finding the mirror to save him, he hadn't been able to trigger his Black Card in time.

Think of a way. Think of a way!

After a person is chopped in half at the waist, they can still survive for about thirty seconds.

The Black Tie hasn't activated, which means no one in my immediate vicinity has died yet. There's still a chance.

Calm down. Let me think. What other Supernatural Items do I still have on me?

The Ghost Card? No, the Ghost Card won't work. It can't be used on other people.

Suddenly, an idea struck Gao Tian.