[[Team Leader Little Bunny 123 has changed the team chat mode to Nearby Chat]]

The voices of the Sanctum players gradually faded amid the dragging—cutting off bloodlines was, in its own way, a dead end.

The Wonder Zoo players couldn’t help feeling a chill down their spines whenever they looked at Zhou Sui now. Thank goodness they were on the same team with him this round—otherwise, there might’ve been one more person among those trapped on the other side.

Zhou Sui, however, showed no interest in that. When he expressed curiosity about the anti-stealth item the Wonder Zoo team had used on the assassin, Ragdoll Cat happily gave him one:
“When you level up and get to the higher zones, you’ll run into tool crafters who can forge these items. Some can be purchased then—stuff like this won’t be available in the newbie village.”

Items were separate from skills, and sometimes, they were indeed very useful.

“Mm,” Zhou Sui agreed. They weren’t just hard to buy—he had never gotten one from any loot box either.

Seeing how things were going, Wonder Zoo players tactfully avoided chatting in front of Team 3145.
“Vice-captain, looks like he can be bought off,” someone whispered.

Ragdoll Cat said thoughtfully, “Didn’t expect him to be so interested in items.”

“He likes items that much? Brother Tiger’s been working hard forever and still hasn’t made it into his friend list!”

“I think vice-captain might have a shot at it first.”

Fierce Tiger: “…Fuck.”

‘Did you guys forget I’m in the same damn chat while you’re busy strategizing in your little talent-team group?!’

‘It’s not like I couldn’t get on his friend list! I just haven’t found the right opportunity yet. Once Cycle of Eternity gets to the higher-level zones, his main account is going to have me on his friends list first.’

‘It’s just a few items. His storage is full of good ones!’

‘Buying favor? That’s a five-second job!’

The assassin led three players ahead, while the larger group rumbled along, being dragged by the chain monsters.

With some downtime, the teams chatted among themselves. The battle had ended too abruptly—many of them didn’t even get a chance to show off.

“Wait, was getting dragged away the only way to pass the instance?” Fierce Tiger asked, getting to the heart of the matter.

“There’s definitely more than one solution,” Haba Dog said thoughtfully. “The rules are in place for a reason—there must’ve been some other mechanism we didn’t have time to discover. Maybe there were special buildings in the town.”

He glanced at the bright, polished-looking ground.
“If the Sanctum hadn’t drawn aggro and lured the monsters over, we probably would’ve had more time to investigate the mechanics. Like the ground—it’s very mirror-like.”

There had to be more than one way to solve this. These mist monsters were born of the ground. The instance was called Mirror Maze Town, and so far, nothing mirror-like had really appeared. That shiny, reflective floor—it could very well bea mirror.

Little Bunny said calmly: “The ground can be broken.”

Haba Dog’s theory froze mid-sentence. All the Wonder Zoo players turned toward Little Bunny in shock.

‘Why didn’t you say the mirror could be broken?!’

Little Bunny didn’t respond to the others’ questioning looks. He walked side by side with Zhou Sui, who was still studying the anti-stealth tool gifted by Ragdoll Cat, and said calmly, “His method is less effort.”

Zhou Sui’s eyes shifted from the tool in his inventory to the ground below.

He had already paid attention to the ground during the battle. Breaking the ground required much more powerful skills—at least three high-damage attacks to cause it to crack. Compared to cutting chains and using the mist monsters to escape, this method took much longer.

Destruction wasn’t impossible, though. No matter how strong the mist monsters were, if you destroyed their ability to regenerate and then found a safe empty building to hide in, you could survive the 8-hour period.

But that would severely limit your field of vision. You wouldn’t be able to observe the town as clearly as now.

There were no other players on the street. As they were dragged by the mist monsters, the players gradually noticed how quiet it had become.

The path seemed unusually long. At first, they’d just thought the mist monsters moved slowly. But after more than half an hour, they had clearly left the main player area far behind, and still hadn’t reached the destination.

Zhou Sui had been observing the route. Inside the town, the streets were wide and straight, with few winding paths.

But as soon as they left their original position, the side roads and stairways increased. The winding path seemed to be sloping downward.

As the players were dragged along the winding route, they began to feel soreness in their rear ends.

“My butt’s starting to hurt,” said Black Bear.

Frog gave them a cold glare. ‘Now they know pain? All that heavy fashion gear for nothing!’

“There are no new mist monsters spawning nearby,” Little Bunny suddenly said.

Haba Dog added, “The ground has changed.”

Everyone looked down at the ground and saw that, now far from their previous location, the terrain had become rugged and uneven.

The stone paths were full of deep holes or raised rocks, unable to reflect the moonlight like a mirror.

This confirmed the theory they’d guessed earlier. If they had simply chosen to destroy the mirror-like ground to stop the mist monsters from regenerating, instead of relying on being dragged by them as a workaround, then the eight-hour survival window would have seemed excessive. Breaking the ground wouldn’t have taken eight hours at all.

The mist monsters were merely a mechanism to hinder players from exploring the instance. Players were supposed to eliminate them and use the remaining time to explore the mysterious town. Thanks to Zhou Sui’s method, they bypassed that whole bothersome method and used the dungeon’s own movement mechanics to reach a far more critical location.

Ragdoll Cat thoughtfully glanced at Cycle of Eternity, who had said little this whole time. His method was crude, yet directly struck at the core issue. Now they had ample time to observe the town. He then looked at Haba Dog, who was deep in thought even while being dragged. Their captain was already thinking about the plot.

After winding through the maze-like paths for what felt like forever—and with most players almost numb from the dragging—

The mist monsters suddenly picked up speed. The sudden increase caught the attention of the four people in the assassin’s group stealth field.

Zhou Sui’s gaze shifted into the distance and he realized they’d been unknowingly led to a new area in the town: “We’ve arrived.”

This place wasn’t in the town center—it was on the eastern outskirts.

Amid staggered and chaotic buildings, a wide, straight road suddenly appeared.

Banners fluttered in the wind on both sides of the road, but the text on them had long faded. At the end of the fluttering banners stood a secluded courtyard.

It was an ancestral hall.

“Move,” Ragdoll Cat ordered decisively.

The assassin’s group stealth was lifted, and Zhou Sui and the other three immediately locked onto the mist monsters to rescue their teammates—there was no way they could let the mist monsters drag players into the ancestral hall.

When the 13 mist monsters noticed Zhou Sui’s group, they grew slightly agitated. They tried to rush toward the hall but were blocked by Ragdoll Cat’s shield. Zhou Sui and the assassin Little Panda seized the opportunity to cut the chains and free the bound teammates. The players who had been dragged along all this time were finally liberated and immediately unleashed their skills on the mist monsters.

All the chains were cut, and with their numbers at a disadvantage, the mist monsters were powerless against the players.

Slack Bro was the first to act after being rescued. He picked up the chains and stuffed them into his inventory. “Damn, they really can be collected—and they’re even purple-grade valuables. I’m taking them all. Maybe I can store them in my home later. You guys in the Wonder Zoo want any?”

Fierce Tiger, reminded of how ‘getting neutered’ had just been used to describe the thing, immediately lost interest: “Forget it.”

Following his motto that anything lootable was worth keeping, Slack Bro picked up all the chains and even called on Rich Bro to help. Regenerative mist—what a treasure. Just put a mirror in their yard later, and boom!

With the chains destroyed, the mist monsters could no longer respawn in this area and began flailing weak attacks in all directions.

But those attacks were no threat to the players. After all they’d seen earlier, these now-toothless mobs weren’t much of a concern.

No one intended to move forward just yet. Zhou Sui stood at the back of the group when he suddenly noticed someone walking ahead. His gaze naturally followed the figure—he saw the person probing around as if they’d discovered something unusual about the alleyway outside the ancestral hall.

Zhou Sui’s line of sight swept past, and in his mind, he added a new tag for Little Bunny: sharp observer, especially good with details.

Within the group, Little Bunny observed the ground briefly, then walked a few steps toward the ancestral hall. Just as he was about to get close, every member of their team received an unusual message on their interface—

[Congratulations, Gifted Ones, you have exited the danger zone and entered the mysterious eastern section of the town, escaping the entanglement of the night mist. The (Nighttime Mirror Maze Town) challenge has been ended early.]

[Each cleared player will receive: 1 Mystery Chest, +10 Permanent Attribute Points]

[Challenge rule check complete. Would you like to begin Stage Three (Town Ancestral Hall) now?]

[The long night awaits—stay alert.]

This was the end? The players realized—they had arrived at the final destination early and directly ended the second stage!

“When a dungeon reaches this stage, it usually means we’re about to enter its core,” said Haba Dog, advising against an immediate start. Entering the ancestral hall might skip over exploration and increase risks. “Since it’s not a forced progression, I suggest we first sort out the story sequence. Everyone rest a bit—we’ll start in two hours.”

Ragdoll Cat added, “A map like this town’s shouldn’t be that simple.”

With both Wonder Zoo leaders advising against rushing in, Team 3145 casually followed suit. Seeing the pros say “explore first,” they each found a spot to sit and rest.

The chains they’d picked up weren’t tree food after all. Zhou Sui had only gathered them thinking they could be used as tree food, but now it seemed they had no obvious purpose—they were just taking up inventory space. 

Slack Bro even helped organize Zhou Sui’s inventory, transferring the extra chains into his own inventory. “Bro, don’t worry. From now on, pick up whatever you want. If your storage runs out, me and Rich Bro will be your second and third inventory!”

Zhou Sui wasn’t very interested in the story. Little Bunny had shared the plot document in the team chat, but he had only skimmed the keywords. Now that the Wonder Zoo team had volunteered to take on the exploration, he just found a nearby rooftop and sat down to rest.

The rooftop wasn’t far from the ancestral hall and had a good view of the players exploring nearby buildings.

He leaned on the eaves, half-closing his eyes. He wasn’t sleepy—but he did feel like it was about time to eat.

He had been online for 12 hours straight… He quickly checked his neural load via the medical monitoring system—no warning alerts. Just a bunch of messages from the cat, demanding he log off and feed it.

“Not interested in the plot?”

Zhou Sui snapped out of his thoughts. At some point, Little Bunny had also climbed up to the rooftop.

“Mm,” Zhou Sui responded.

Little Bunny’s gaze drifted to Zhou Sui. The latter noticed his attention.

Zhou Sui said, “I didn’t feed my cat. It’s probably hungry.”

He lazily replied to the cat, telling it to deal with it itself.

“Full-dive games nowadays aren’t like they used to be. The loading system usually has built-in rest modules, but players have to activate them manually,” Little Bunny said as he sat down beside him. “You can rest within the game too—rent an inn, sleep in your home, etc. No need to stay on edge. As long as your brain gives a rest signal, the system stops stimulating your neurons.”

Zhou Sui blinked, slightly surprised.

Little Bunny added, “For example, just closing your eyes can trigger rest.”

“They’re going to take a while exploring the story,” he continued. “Get some rest. Call me if anything happens.”

After that, Little Bunny walked off. Zhou Sui watched him go, then found a good spot, leaned back, and closed his eyes.

He tried relaxing—and surprisingly, his body really did start to relax.

The drowsiness that shouldn’t have existed in a game seemed to creep in when Zhou Sui actually tried to relax.

He thought to himself—Full-dive tech has really come a long way…

Little Bunny descended from the high point and looked up slightly. Zhou Sui was still leaning against the eaves, motionless. His once-tense sleeping posture was visibly beginning to relax. The game wasn’t like the training camp—there, it was common to go a full week without rest, and the ever-changing, challenging environment made it impossible for participants to fully relax in unsafe conditions.  

It seemed Zhou Sui was even more tightly wound than he had imagined—Zhou Sui hadn’t fully escaped the mindset from a few years ago.

But being able to rest at all was already a huge improvement.

Little Bunny’s gaze softened slightly. After so many years without seeing him, Zhou Sui didn’t seem to have changed much.

When Haba Dog came looking for someone, he looked up and saw Zhou Sui sitting on the roof’s edge. He turned to question Little Bunny, switching to a casual tone:
“You’ve never really been into this kind of stuff. What are you doing with 3145?”

“Give me the team leader role,” Little Bunny said suddenly.

Haba Dog was a bit confused, but handed the team leader role over anyway. “Need to mark anything?”

[Team Leader Little Bunny 123 has changed the team chat mode to Nearby Chat]

As soon as the chat mode switched, a flood of question marks appeared in the team’s text channel:

Fierce Tiger 123: [?]
Slack Bro: [?]
Ragdoll Cat: [?]
…
Haba Dog: “?”

Little Bunny: “Returning team leader role to you.”

With the team leader passed back, voices from other players instantly grew faint as the distance increased. Little Bunny walked ahead and noticed Haba Dog still standing in place.

“Aren’t we looking for story clues? Let’s go.”

Haba Dog: “What does voice chat have to do with finding story clues?”

Little Bunny casually replied, “Make it easier to hear environmental sounds at the closer range.”

The Wonder Zoo team had already begun efficiently scanning the area for story elements. Since they’d already exited the second stage, as long as the mist monsters didn’t show up again, the surrounding environment wasn’t that dangerous.

After several sweeps, they had gathered most of the local intel.

This mist-shrouded town was indeed strange. Not only the first house where they’d hidden, but most houses near the ancestral hall were completely empty. On closer inspection, none showed signs of recent human habitation—layers of dust thick enough to make you sneeze, cupboards with signs of insects, kitchens with no firewood, no stored grain in the homes.

When Zhou Sui woke from his short nap, he could faintly hear team members talking. Maybe it was just his imagination, but it had felt especially quiet while he slept.

Wonder Zoo players had already finished checking the surroundings and consolidated all the gathered intel into the text channel. As Zhou Sui scrolled through it, he saw that someone had even marked the important details in bold black text—very easy to spot.

“You’re awake?” Little Bunny looked up at him.

Zhou Sui nodded and jumped down from the rooftop. “Mm.”

“You guys won’t believe this, but I specifically looked for mirrors. This broken town doesn’t even have a single bronze mirror,” Fierce Tiger muttered, having searched all over and nearly been mistaken for having a weird obsession. “Feels like the only mirror-related things we encountered were those mirror-mist monsters.”

Haba Dog chimed in, “I went a bit further out. There’s a local temple and a divine tree shrine nearby, but no one’s been burning incense there for ages.”

That old man and child who first greeted them at the town entrance were beginning to seem even more suspicious.

Originally, the plot Haba Dog had found described the town as wealthy, its residents devout, and the place full of divine blessings. It should’ve been a place where prosperity and piety coexisted. But now, it looked like it hadn’t been inhabited in decades. No one worshipped the gods anymore.

“Then we need to be careful. Based on what we’ve seen, this place could be crawling with celestial or demonic entities,” said Haba Dog, glancing at the ancestral hall behind them. “If I’m not wrong, open that door—and it’s boss time.”

So far, they’d had elimination-style and survival-type monster gameplay… but the final boss hadn’t appeared yet.

Both the dungeon mechanics and the boss usually had clues embedded in the story, and Haba Dog—being a lore nerd—was especially good at extracting that info:
“First, be wary of mirrors, people, rituals, and money.”

Little Bunny pondered for a moment, then added, “The townspeople worshipped gods. Now there are no gods or people left. That could mean summoning-type or illusion-type skills might appear too.”

The two experts dropped information point by point, leaving Slack Bro and Rich Bro wide-eyed on the side. So that’s how the leaderboard players moved through dungeons—guessing mechanics from the lore instead of dying once to learn a boss’s skills.

“In some cases, the countermeasures are directly hinted at in the plot,” said Black Bear matter-of-factly. “Last time, the boss was a giant fish. Turns out the map had a fishing rod. And boom—turned into a fishing minigame. I was the one who cast the line.”

Zhou Sui’s gaze drifted toward Black Bear. Oh.

Slack Bro was listening with fascination: “We’re so bad compared to that.”

Rich Bro: “All you know how to do is pick up junk.”

Slack Bro and Rich Bro were indeed just picking things up. After discovering that mist chains could be added to their inventory, they had gone around looting several finely crafted doors—now all shoved into their backpacks.

Black Bear said, “But this one’s weird. We’ve found story clues, but there’s no clear information on how to counter the boss. That’s never happened in high-star dungeons before. Even the top players can’t figure it out. I’ve got a bad feeling about the third stage.”

Zhou Sui noticed it too. Although Wonder Zoo Team had thoroughly investigated the surroundings, their expressions weren’t confident or relaxed. Plus, there was one thing they hadn’t mentioned: why was this dungeon designed to link high-level and low-level players? That intent didn’t seem to be reflected in any current mechanics…

Zhou Sui didn’t analyze things as carefully as Wonder Zoo Team. He preferred to test—because testing leads to results.

“I don’t get it,” Zhou Sui said. “Wanna try fighting it once and see?”

Ragdoll Cat: “That’s the plan.”

The group geared up and returned to the entrance of the ancestral hall. As they approached, a prompt popped up again:

[Would you like to begin the third-stage challenge?]

Haba Dog pressed Confirm. Everyone heard the long creak of the wooden doors—and the thick scent of burned incense ash came rushing out.

The wooden threshold in front of the hall was tall, nearly reaching up to one’s knees—it took a big step to get over it.

Haba Dog led the way in. The rest of the Wonder Zoo Team followed. Zhou Sui brought up the rear. As he heard the wind begin to stir, he looked up at the top of the doorframe. On either side of the threshold were shallow grooves, seemingly made for inserting incense sticks. The scent of ash was clearly coming from those.

Just then, his foot crossed the threshold.

A cold wind blasted through—and the doors suddenly lit up with a flash.

Zhou Sui’s eyes narrowed. When he turned his head, he saw the wooden door they had just entered through. On its surface, two shadowy figures—a child and an old man—appeared, bowing deeply as if in a welcoming gesture. Immediately after, a wooden bolt slammed into the door’s inner lock slot!

The door was sealed.

[All team members have entered the Town Ancestral Hall. Good luck!]

Everyone’s hearts tensed. This time, there was no countdown sound.

Inside was an open courtyard. Above, bright moonlight poured in, flooding the front hall.

The layout was a classic “four waters returning to the center” style ^[1]The layout typically involves buildings (often rooms of a house or sections of a larger complex) arranged around a central courtyard. This courtyard is open to the sky and is often called a 天井 … Continue reading

It was a spacious area—but everyone’s eyes turned sharply to the surroundings. There were mirrors. Countless mirrors. Embedded into the floor tiles, mounted on supporting pillars—apart from the door behind them and the central shrine ahead, the walls on both sides were covered in bronze mirrors.

Slack Bro was stunned. “Holy crap, are all the town’s mirrors in here?!”

Haba Dog warned, “Stay out of the moonlit area. The moonlight!”

Ragdoll Cat noticed how dim it was inside the shrine and quickly tossed out a light item. As it illuminated the room, everyone finally saw the overall layout clearly.

A chill wind swept through, and the shrine burst into ghostly blue flames. On the upper wall of the inner sanctum, a vividly painted divine tree mural came to life. Beneath it were endless ancestral tablets, arranged in tiers from top to bottom—more than a dozen rows in total.

A shrine shrouded in ghost-fire. A courtyard flooded with moonlight. Walls and floors filled with unevenly placed, fixed mirrors.

Zhou Sui instinctively scanned the room for other details—then suddenly caught a flash of movement in a mirror. In the next instant, something lunged toward him from the reflection. He dodged quickly, and upon closer look, he saw threads—there were things inside the mirrors.

“Dodge!”

Most of the players were focused on the ancestral tablets. At Zhou Sui’s shout, they turned around—only to find mist threads shooting out from mirrors in all directions! The threads moved fast. Nearby warriors tried attacking them to interrupt—but there were just too many mirrors in the hall. Breaking one thread wasn’t enough—another would immediately lash out and coil around a player’s waist.

Frog: “…”

‘Damn it! Not this again!!!’

Once entangled, players were instantly dragged toward the mirrors—and their health bars started plummeting at a terrifying rate! Wonder Zoo players quickly used their cleanse skills to break free, but the new threads kept coming. Their speed far outpaced everyone’s skill cooldowns!

Zhou Sui’s eyes flicked toward the bronze mirrors under the moonlight—something inside them was moving rapidly. He dodged another thread and switched his weapon to flying needles. With a swish, he launched them toward the mirror surface.

[Inside the town’s ancestral hall, you discover the being that resides here.]

[Server-wide Announcement] Mirror Maze Town: Midnight Shrine has been unlocked.
Disappeared people, a town lost in perpetual mist—gifted individuals from afar have uncovered a secret hidden deep within the town.
They have discovered a monster dwelling in the ancestral hall of Liuli Town.
From Tiankong Divine Tree [Wonder Zoo], Server 3145 [Collective Prosperity], and smqw555888—those who peered into the veil of illusion have mistakenly entered the residence of a wicked god and uncovered remnants of chaotic power—the evil god known as [Mist God].

[Expansion Quest: Defeat the Mist God and liberate Liuli Town]

[Reward: A mysterious gift from Liuli Town]

The moment this server-wide announcement appeared, every player currently online saw it instantly.

Since the eradication of the chaotic power in the Tiandi Temple, only four hidden expansion dungeons had ever been discovered in high-level zones—
Mirror Maze Town now became the fifth to be announced server-wide!

However, none of the previous four had ever featured the presence of an evil god.

This dungeon did.