Chapter Thirty-Three: The Mirror Hero

In particular, they had to be wary of the concealed alarm systems all around the corridor. Now that Wu Jue’s cultivation had far surpassed what it used to be, he was able to rely on his superb light-footed skills to evade one obstacle after another.

In the end, it was a narrow escape.

Before long, they reached the back door of the fortress, where a creature that was half-man, half-wolf stood guard, alert and ready. Wu Jue greeted Xiao Yang, instructing him to show himself outside and distract the sentry, while he himself crept up from behind and fired a shot, blowing the creature’s brains out.

The guard struggled for a while, and even as he was dying, he tried to bite Wu Jue. Wu Jue had no choice but to clamp down hard on the wound on the creature’s head and tear it open, letting blood spill across the floor until the werewolf finally ceased to move.

Having dealt with the sentry, Wu Jue opened the back door to let Xiao Yang in. The two began searching for the fortress’s control system. Xiao Yang produced a miniature tablet and started scanning the area.

He had salvaged this core chip from the equipment of the Celestial Execution Clan and integrated it into his own laptop, intending to use it to breach the enemy’s network.

They advanced deeper, drawing ever closer to the heart of the complex, when suddenly, two enormous kangaroo-like beings leapt out ahead of them. Speaking in awkward Mandarin, they demanded, “Who goes there? How dare you barge in here? Prepare to die!”

Wu Jue roared in defiance and charged forward. “You’re the ones who should prepare to die! Xiao Yang, keep going!” he called.

He fired two shots in quick succession. Both bullets struck the kangaroos in the head: one dodged just in time and suffered only a grazed left ear, while the other had an eye blown out, blood gushing everywhere.

Yet, to his astonishment, the two brutes seemed impervious to pain. Swinging their fists, they launched an assault on Wu Jue.

He realized these were no ordinary foes—perhaps practitioners of the legendary Western boxing arts. Not one to back down, he squared off and unleashed the Arhat Fist of the Great Forest Temple, meeting them blow for blow.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Xiao Yang slipped past and entered the room the two monsters had been guarding. Inside, a variety of machines hummed: this was the fortress’s central control room.

Without hesitation, he connected wirelessly to their system and began to infiltrate.

Almost immediately, an alarm blared in the control room: “Intruder detected. Initiating purge protocol in two minutes. If unresolved within ten minutes, self-destruct sequence will commence.”

Xiao Yang sneered at the warning: “Two minutes? You underestimate me. One minute is all I need—as long as Wu Jue can hold them off outside.”

Meanwhile, Wu Jue was starting to feel the pressure under the relentless assault of the two kangaroo creatures. Though their martial prowess was slightly inferior to his own, as the fight dragged on they seemed to adapt, growing more and more formidable, like masters hunched in concentration.

Before long, Wu Jue found himself at a disadvantage, battered from every side. A careless misstep sent him crashing into a nearby room, smashing the glass of the door as he tumbled inside.

He collided with a strange man—a bearded fellow with unusual white pupils, as if blind to the world around him.

Disturbed by Wu Jue’s intrusion, the man suddenly groaned, as if awakening from a stupor. With a swift motion, he tore out the IV lines from his body and leapt to his feet.

Standing before Wu Jue, he glanced at the two humanoid kangaroos entering the room and asked, “You can’t defeat them? They possess the ability to learn the skills of their opponents. Soon, they’ll see through your techniques and find your weaknesses.”

Wu Jue had already deduced as much, but hadn’t expected this stranger to help him. He’d assumed that everyone in this room belonged to the Celestial Execution Clan.

The two kangaroos, unsettled, shouted, “Ter, are you still trying to resist? Have you forgotten how you were captured and tortured? You Mirror Knights never learn, do you?”

The man called Ter, a Mirror Knight, curled his lips in disdain. In a split second, his form blurred into a streak of light, passing through the bodies of the two kangaroos and reappearing out in the corridor.

Wu Jue was dumbfounded by this display. What a bizarre movement technique! Compared to this, the legendary skills of gliding over water or leaping through grass were but sluggish jogging.

Even more astonishingly, the two kangaroos collapsed to the ground, their chests pierced through, dead on the spot.

Wu Jue approached, palms pressed together, and murmured a prayer for the dead, only to be met with Ter’s mocking retort: “A monk? Who would have thought my savior would be a monk!”

“I don’t pity them,” Wu Jue replied coolly. “I’m just amazed by such ruthless methods. You call yourself a knight—is this your way?”

They exchanged a long look before Ter relented and said, “This is the fastest way to deal with these Celestial Execution Clan zombies. Otherwise, it would never end. I’m sure you’ve realized that by now.”

Wu Jue said nothing more and went to check on Xiao Yang in the control room. Xiao Yang had already successfully breached the fortress’s system and now emerged, saying, “It’s done. What about you, Master? All clear? Hey, who’s this?”

He eyed the newly emerged Mirror Knight Ter with suspicion, but Ter simply gave a sardonic smile. “Call me Ter, or Mirror Knight. Like you, I am an enemy of the Celestial Execution Clan.”

“In that case, let’s skip the small talk and get out of here,” Wu Jue said, preparing to withdraw and shielding Xiao Yang as they made their escape.

By now, the alarms had reached a fever pitch. Clearly, more enemies would soon swarm in.

Ter gave a cold laugh. A glow blossomed from his chest, enveloping the two of them in light, and in an instant, they vanished from the fortress.

Inside, chaos reigned as the fortress staff realized that Ter and the two intruders had disappeared without a trace.

The mutated zombies raised a clamor, but were eventually pacified by the fortress’s control system.

In the core control room, a new command appeared. Two evolved werewolves went to a cell and released the prisoner inside.

A familiar figure emerged—Desai, who opened his eyes and sneered, “So, you finally need my services.”

He was escorted to the control room, where a giant display screen greeted him with a message: “System breached. This is the handiwork of your nemesis, Wu Jue. Desai, this is your fault.”

Desai’s lips curled in a cold smile, but he did not argue.

The text on the screen changed, issuing a new order: “You have one week to eliminate this threat. Remember, you are already our slave!”

A flicker of anger crossed Desai’s face, but he quickly subdued it.

He bowed and replied, “As you command, Your Highness.”

After Desai left, all the instruments in the control room began running virus-clearing programs.

Their aim: to eradicate the backdoor Xiao Yang had installed.

Within a quarter of an hour, the process was complete: system purge successful.

The screen went dark, and a hush fell over the room—deathly silent once more.

Half a minute later, on the most inconspicuous of the microdevices, a faint prompt flickered: “Secret backdoor program activated. Collecting data…”

Apocalypse Divine Martial 33 – End of Chapter 33: Mirror Knight