Two days passed.
The wind remained strange—stagnant at noon, restless at midnight. Animals grew uneasy. Even the trees seemed to lean slightly away from the base of the mountain.
Luo Feng sat cross-legged on the rooftop of Dawnmist Hall, spiritual threads extended across every inch of the peak. His senses stretched farther than they ever had before.
He wasn't meditating.
He was listening.
Bai Xueyin stood by the cliff's edge, calmly inscribing lotus-shaped sigils into the frost-covered ground. Each mark shimmered faintly with spiritual intent, then faded.
Behind them, A-Yan practiced her flickering step, but it was different now—more stable, less desperate. Where once she vanished, now she phased. Like she slipped into a fold between heartbeats.
Ding! Disciples have activated synchronized cultivation routines.Training synergy: +20%.Warning: Distorted qi signature detected 3.6 kilometers southwest of Dawnmist Peak.Spiritual feedback loop is mimicking your terrain.Classification: Hostile Mirror Domain.
Luo Feng opened his eyes.
"They're copying us."
Bai turned. "What?"
"They've built a duplicate. A fake version of Dawnmist Peak."
"For what purpose?"
"To trap us," he said. "Or trap you."
A-Yan appeared at his side a second later. "A mirror?"
He nodded. "A replica. They'll try to lure you in. Or trick others into thinking we've defected. If they control the story, they don't need to control us."
Bai's eyes narrowed. "Then let's burn the story."
Deep within a shadowed valley southwest of Dawnmist Peak, Sect shadow cultivators gathered around a half-formed spiritual array.
The terrain shimmered with the illusion of cliffs, trees, and even a stone hut modeled after Luo Feng's. The air smelled faintly of sage. But the trees bled mist, and the sky didn't shift with the sun.
A faceless man—clad in armor that refracted spiritual sight—stood before the gathered squad.
"Target is Bai Xueyin," he said. "We will send a manipulated distress signal suggesting a threat to a local girl. If she comes alone, capture her. If she comes with Luo Feng… detonate the seal."
One acolyte hesitated. "Isn't that… risky?"
"The seal doesn't kill. It inverts. His techniques will collapse into themselves. He will fall under his own weight."
The group nodded grimly.
None of them noticed the small sliver of void energy embedded in one of the cliff illusions.
Nor the girl hiding behind it.
A-Yan crouched silently, barely breathing.
Her Temporal Afterstep technique was still active—giving her a narrow window to observe without being noticed.
She'd followed the distorted qi after Luo Feng taught her how to read spiritual echoes—the faded fingerprints every cultivator left behind if they moved too fast or trained too long.
And this… this was wrong.
They made a copy of our home.
She phased back into reality and vanished.
When she returned to Dawnmist Hall, she was still panting, cheeks flushed with effort.
Luo Feng looked up from his scrolls. "Report."
"They're building a fake Dawnmist. It's not complete, but they've even copied the outer cliffs. They said something about... a trap. One for Bai."
Bai's eyes turned sharp. "A seal trap?"
"They called it an inversion array. Something that turns your own techniques against you."
Luo Feng stood. "Clever. Dangerous. Desperate."
"Do we destroy it?" Bai asked.
Luo Feng shook his head.
"We use it."
That night, the trap was sprung.
But not by the Sect.
By Luo Feng.
He sent a fabricated distress signal using the same spiritual pulse the enemy intended to mimic. A soft, scattered call—A girl is missing. Please help. East Ridge. Snow-covered tree. Bleeding aura.
It was exactly the kind of bait someone trying to frame Bai would use.
The moment it pulsed, the Sect's fake Dawnmist Peak responded.
And when the shadows moved to intercept the girl—
They walked into a field of ice-laced spiritual anchors.
And a girl who was no longer soft.
Bai Xueyin stepped from the shadows like a ghost.
Her frost barely touched the ground—hovering as lotus petals of hard light shimmered around her.
The lead infiltrator froze, momentarily paralyzed by the scent—not ice, but authority.
"You used my face to bait a lie," Bai said.
He drew his weapon.
She didn't let him finish.
Fracture Lotus Field – Activated.
The ground shattered into floating shards of glass-like frost. Each step he took crunched into memory, turning his movements sluggish. His blades cracked in his hands before he could swing.
The others tried to flee.
A ring of silver appeared behind them.
A-Yan.
"Leaving so soon?" she said, cocking her head. "But we haven't even started the lesson."
Temporal Echo Step – Disorientation Mode.
The moment they moved, they saw five versions of her. None were real.
Only the sixth one—behind them—was.
Luo Feng walked into the center of the mirror field, hands clasped behind his back.
The remaining infiltrators dropped to one knee—not in respect, but because the ground beneath them had inverted.
He waved a hand.
Their fake Dawnmist Peak collapsed.
Every rune flickered, every illusion cracked. The trees withered. The cliffs folded inward. The sky stuttered, revealing the gray mist behind it.
The mirrored domain imploded.
All that remained was frost, silence… and shame.
Ding! Host has neutralized hostile mimicry array.Strategic bonus: Disciples A-Yan and Bai Xueyin awarded Adaptive Combat Insight.You have acquired: "Echo Mirror Dust" – rare material capable of storing illusions, counter-inversions, or false memory fields.Reputation with Neutral Sect Observers: +5.Reputation with Inner Elders (Faction: Mo): -10.
Back on Dawnmist Peak, the trio returned under starlight.
No words.
Just shared glances.
Shared understanding.
They were no longer hunted animals.
They were defenders.
In the council chambers of the Celestial Dawn Sect, Elder Mo stared at the smoking feedback orb on his desk.
His jaw tightened.
"They baited us."
Across from him, Elder Ji leaned back in his seat, sipping tea.
"Seems he's not just teaching disciples," Ji said. "He's teaching strategy."
Mo's fingers curled. "How many more mistakes are we allowed before he builds a following the Sect can't touch?"
Ji didn't answer.
Because in his heart, he knew the truth.
They might already be there.