Chapter 819: The Complete Reincarnation Mirror

Blood gushed. A tremendous boom echoed from deep beneath Jinghai, and the entire city began to shake.

The change was too sudden. Caught completely off guard, Chu Men let go and backed away.

Drenched in blood, the scriptures on the broken bone gleamed, driving ancient characters into the ground one by one.

Standing in the Deep Dream Layer, I looked up at the colossal city overhead and saw it all with crystal clarity.

Hongqiao Port was the exact spot where Jinghai's dragon vein raised its head, and that broken bone had been driven straight into the top of the dragon's skull!

The earth's veins churned, monstrous waves surged across the coastal waters, and countless people jolted awake.

Panic spread as the dragon vein wailed and the will of the people grew turbulent and restless.

'The dragon vein is the foundation of the land, the lifeblood of an entire city—why is Black Robe driving that broken bone into the top of its head?' My question was soon answered. Black Robe reached out with his scarred palm and gripped the broken bone at the center of the altar, letting its sharp edge slice into his skin as his blood seeped in bit by bit.

This half of the broken bone had already drunk its fill of the Butcher's blood. Now, as Black Robe's blood flowed into it, it seemed to awaken something inside, sending interlaced lines of blood-red and bright yellow spreading across the altar.

The two halves of the broken bone had originally been one, bound by a mutual pull. The moment the bone on Black Robe's side in the Dream Realm changed, the exact same thing happened to the bone on Chu Men's side in reality.

The lines plunged deep underground and coiled around the dragon vein, enveloping its entire length like a fine-meshed net.

"Just about time..." Black Robe's weathered gaze pierced through both reality and the Dream Realm as the hand gripping the broken bone lifted it inch by inch!

As the broken bone rose, every talisman and divine rune on the altar contracted inward. At the same time, deep beneath Jinghai in the real world, blood-red threads tinged with faint golden light bit savagely into the dragon vein.

"I will be the one to open the gate to the Third World! I will make everyone see the true sky!" His robes whipping wildly around him, the Black-Robed Anchor finished speaking and wrenched the wailing, agonized dragon vein straight up!

The black-and-yellow dragon head burst out from Hongqiao Port, and the earth trembled even more violently.

"It worked!" A shout rang out from the outskirts of the city. Wild with joy, the Man in the Colorful Robe broke off his tangle with Xiao A and forcibly drove the nightmares to turn into black light, merging them into the chains that stretched all the way into the sky. "Go! Get over there, all of you! I'm going to drag that city right into the Dream Realm!"

The sea of nightmares sweeping across the horizon surged like a tidal wave into the black chains, and the city overhead began to plummet even faster.

When the Man in the Colorful Robe stopped fighting, Xiao A notably did not seize the chance to attack. She stopped as well, steering her thoughts clear of the black chains, while her eyes beneath the Paper Doll Mask stared straight at me, as if she were hesitating.

I noticed Xiao A's unusual behavior. Things could not have looked worse. At first, Xiao A had chosen to help me—or more accurately, she had been carrying out the mission I left behind in my last reincarnation. She had only helped me out of trust.

Yet now, seeing that the Black-Robed Anchor was on the verge of succeeding, and given that everyone's common enemy was Destiny, she no longer had any reason to keep helping me. Stepping back and staying out of it was the wisest choice.

"There's a puppet of Destiny among the Traitors! The closer you get to succeeding, the more likely Destiny's scheme is to succeed!" No one was going to answer me at a moment like this; every pair of eyes was locked onto the breach in the night sky.

The moment that city fell through the breach in the sky, reality and the Deep Dream Layer would overlap, and Jinghai would become the gateway connecting the Dream Realm to the real world.

Everyone held their breath as that boundless metropolis, glowing with the lights of ten thousand homes and carrying the will of all living beings, finally settled onto the night sky of the Deep Dream Layer!

Its descent suddenly slowed, making my heart skip a beat as I watched. 'What's going on?'

Straining my eyes to the limit, I finally saw it clearly: between the Deep Dream Layer and the real Jinghai lay a transparent membrane woven from countless threads, each thread a distinct will.

'What is this?' Even from so far away, I could feel the tenacity of that will. It held countless simple thoughts—protection, responsibility, hope, and prayer.

These were vows made by ordinary people without even realizing it—perhaps at the sight of a newborn daughter, or while clutching the hand of a gravely ill loved one and refusing to let go, or maybe just because of a stranger's kind smile.

Through more than a dozen livestreams, I had seen plenty of filthy, cruel people. This world could be selfish and desperate at times, its dark corners teeming with gloom and sickness. Yet for the first time, looking at it from another angle—standing in the Dream Realm and gazing up at reality—I suddenly realized how much I had overlooked.

Those individual threads were the will of all living beings. Just as the city was about to plunge into the Dream Realm, the people themselves were holding it aloft.

The black chains of the Deep Dream Layer clashed with the will of the living, and the Black-Robed Anchor seemed to have anticipated this all along. With one hand, he kept raising the broken bone, drawing out the dragon vein to ram straight into that collective will; with the other, he pulled out the damaged jade disc. "Butcher, I'll be borrowing your life."

He sliced open the Butcher's skull. The sight was not bloody at all; hidden in the deepest part of the Butcher's primary will was a multicolored vortex on the verge of drying up.

The instant his skull was opened, dazed murmurs and groans heavy with tangled desires rose all around. The Black-Robed Anchor took the jade disc holding the condensed will of the people of Jinghai and placed it into the vortex of the Butcher's primary will.

Before long, the pure will of the people inside was tainted, turning mottled and impure.

"Only the six desires are left?" The Black-Robed Anchor's brow twitched, though he quickly regained his composure. "The seven emotions are gone, but that works too. Pure desire will even more readily twist the will of the people into bestial instinct and awaken the craving for freedom buried deep in their hearts!"

Once the jade disc was thoroughly defiled, Black Robe took it out and set it directly beneath the broken bone on the altar. He kicked aside the dying Butcher, whose sea of consciousness was shattered, and fixed his full attention on the night sky overhead.

Stimulated by the divine runes on the altar, the jade disc slowly cracked apart, and the desire-tainted will of the people inside surged along the surrounding iron chains and into the breach in the sky.

Soon, ripples washed across the membrane woven from the will of all living beings. Like something stricken with disease, it gradually began to develop hole after hole.

Seeing this, the Black-Robed Anchor slowly clenched his hand, completely absorbed as the city in the night sky claimed all his attention.

'Now is my best chance to get away.' I glanced at the Butcher, whom the Black-Robed Anchor had kicked aside; he wasn't far from me.

With a flip of my palm, I took out the crystal the old man had given me and edged closer to the Butcher.

Chen Mo spotted my movement, yet he did nothing to stop me. Right now, this puppet of Destiny looked even more excited than the Black-Robed Anchor, as if Destiny's grand design were on the verge of triumph.

With no one getting in my way, I quietly slipped the crystal into the Butcher's hand. After waiting a long while with no response from him, I decided to take a desperate shot in the dark and shoved the crystal straight into his split-open skull.

Strangely enough, the moment the crystal dropped into the vortex within his sea of consciousness, a trace of vitality returned to the depleted swirl.

Once the crystal was completely absorbed, the Butcher's tightly shut eyes cracked open a slit. Looking at me with an ugly grimace, he raised his arm, and a small Mirror Fragment slipped out from his cuff.