The deeper they moved into the Marsh, the more reality loosened its grip.
The mist thickened until it looked like drifting glass dust. The ground turned smooth and seamless beneath their feet—no cracks, no reflections, no shadows. Just a vast sheet of pale light that made it impossible to judge distance.
Eventually the fog parted enough to reveal a circular basin carved into the terrain. A lake—if a lake could be made entirely of liquid mirrors.
The surface moved in slow waves that reflected things that weren't there. Stars that didn't belong to this sky. Cities that had never existed. Silhouettes of people who didn't breathe.
Li Chun grabbed Tian Ke's sleeve. "I don't like this."
"No one does," Tian Ke replied.
Yin Luo stepped forward first. She knelt and dipped a finger into the mirror-water. Rings of silver ripples spread outward and returned instantly, untouched.
"It's active," she said. "This is a true Reflection Pool. Whatever is inside will tailor itself to the one who enters."
"And if you lose?"
"You don't walk out."
Li Chun looked at Lin Qing with pleading eyes. "Heir Lin Qing… perhaps we should admire it from a respectful distance?"
The Pool didn't wait for discussion.
A ripple formed at its center—soft at first, then stronger, as if something beneath the surface was rising to breathe. Mirror qi surged upward in a spiraling column, forming a faint humanoid outline.
Not hostile. Not welcoming. Simply… present.
Lin Qing felt something tugging at him—an invisible thread pulling at his chest, his dantian, his mind.
The Mirror Blood Scripture responded instantly, pulsing in resonance.
Yin Luo's expression sharpened. "It's reacting to you."
Lin Qing nodded once. "Feels mutual."
The Pool shimmered again—and shown inside it was a shape that froze the air around them.
Yin Luo inhaled sharply. Tian Ke instinctively stepped in front of Li Chun. Li Chun nearly bit his tongue.
Because the pool wasn't showing a reflection of Lin Qing now.
It was showing a silhouette made of blinding light and shifting shadows—a figure sitting on a throne of broken mirrors, crown tilted, cloak sweeping like a bleeding sunset.
A man and a shadow and a storm.
The Mirror Emperor.
Lin Qing exhaled very quietly. "Well. That's new."
The reflection didn't move at first. Then its head turned slightly, as if looking directly at him—not through him, not past him, at him.
Lin Qing felt something brush the back of his mind. A chill. A memory that wasn't his.
For a heartbeat, he saw a battlefield of stars. He heard the crack of a celestial mirror shattering. He watched thousands of immortals kneel in blood.
It vanished as quickly as it came.
He stumbled.
Yin Luo caught his arm immediately. "Heir Lin Qing?"
"I'm fine," he said. He wasn't entirely sure if he was.
The Pool summoned a second reflection. And this time… it was him.
Not him as he stood now—no qi swirling, no Mirror Domain forming, no robes of an Heir.
This reflection wore modern clothes. Simple Earth sneakers. A hoodie.Hair messy from a bad night's sleep. A backpack slung over one shoulder. A cheap cup of instant noodles in hand.
Lin Qing stared.
The reflection stared back.
Li Chun blinked repeatedly. "Heir Lin Qing… why is your past life dressed like a bankrupt outer disciple?"
"Because," Lin Qing said, "I was."
The reflection lifted the noodles and slurped silently.
Tian Ke stepped closer to Lin Qing. "Is this… normal?"
"No," Lin Qing said. "Definitely not."
The Marsh rippled again. The Reflection Pool began to glow brighter, merging the two reflections—the Mirror Emperor's shadow and Lin Qing's past-life image—into a single twisting storm of silver.
The qi pressure doubled.
Then tripled.
Li Chun collapsed to his knees. "It's too much! Heir Lin Qing—this is for you! Only you!"
Yin Luo shouted, "Step forward! The trial won't start until you accept it!"
Lin Qing took one breath.
Then another.
The Heavenly Insight Divine Body activated on its own—no diagrams, no calm analysis, just instinct. It recognized something inside the light. A thread of familiarity.Something that called to him the way a lost memory called to a dreamer.
He stepped forward.
The moment his foot touched the edge of the Pool, everything shattered.
The ground vanished. The sky broke into shards. His allies disappeared, swallowed by light.
He fell—not downward, but inward.
The Reflection Pool pulled him into itself like a mirror swallowing its own image.
For a moment, there was nothing.
Then—
He stood in a world made of pure reflection. Endless plains of mirrored glass. Towering mountains that showed his face instead of stone. A sky without sun or moon—only shifting light.
And standing far ahead…
A figure waited.
Lin Qing squinted.
It was him.
But not him now. Not him from Earth. Not anyone he recognized.
This version of him wore robes made of mirror fragments, long white hair tied with silver thread, eyes glowing like twin moons. His aura was silent, but the Marsh itself bowed around him.
The reflection raised a hand.
Lin Qing's heart tightened.
Because the reflection wasn't just a test.
It wasn't a memory.
It wasn't an illusion.
It was a piece of something old.
A voice echoed across the mirrored plain, soft and distant:
"You came back."
Lin Qing swallowed. "I think you're confusing me with someone else."
The reflection shook its head.
"No. You're simply too early."
The Marsh trembled.
Lin Qing's hands curled slightly at his sides. "Who are you supposed to be?"
The reflection smiled.
"A version of you that never left."
The trial began.