The skull emitted a thunderous rumble. Its bones trembled continuously as mist poured out from the gaps between them, like rolling thunder.
Madam Ma, draped in her tattered cloak, sneered at Reporter Tan and the others. "The great spirit is enraged. None of you will leave here alive. You cannot escape your fate!"
Anyone with sharp eyes could see the skull's human-like expression of fear, but the tense atmosphere made no one notice.
Reporter Tan rubbed his hands together. His breath instantly turned into mist—the temperature had plummeted.
He saw the skull's broken teeth rapidly regrow, restoring themselves as if nothing had happened.
Reporter Tan's face changed drastically. "It can regenerate! Immortal, be careful!"
The skull lunged forward again, attempting to tear its enemy to pieces.
Hua frowned slightly and began chanting a spell, her voice clear and pure, like heavenly music.
Golden light suddenly burst into the air.
A brilliant golden radiance enveloped the skull. It struggled to break free, but could not move at all.
"To deal with you, one move is enough."
As she spoke, Azure Empyrea had already flashed above the skull. She extended her palm slowly, the force behind it as heavy as mountains and rivers.
"Ki—Impact!"
Sensing danger, the skull cried out, "An immortal still exists in this world! We cannot devour humans!"
The glowing palm swept across the top of the skull.
A streak of golden light descended from above.
With a deafening boom, the skull shattered into powder.
The black mist dispersed.
The once menacing spirit vanished without a trace.
Only the immortal's soft sigh remained.
"Flowers bloom and wither, returning to dust. Demonic beast, disperse."
Hua withdrew her palm and stood calmly as she descended, showing not a trace of arrogance.
She cast a meaningful glance at Reporter Tan, only to see Vill-V standing behind the camera, holding up a cue card to remind her.
"Hua, the sign, the sign."
"Ah..." Hua suddenly remembered and pulled out an advertising placard hidden in her sleeve.
Vill-V had secretly stuffed it into the mascot suit earlier.
It had been quite uncomfortable.
"Recruiting part-time order boosters, earn a fortune daily... ahem."
"What is this?" Hua asked with her eyes.
Vill-V flipped the cue card. "Sponsorship, of course. What did you think? Selling Azure Empyrea figurines later costs money. Marketing and promotion need boosted orders too. Don't worry, Hua, this is a legitimate ad—we just won't actually pay."
"Isn't that just fraud?!"
Leaving aside Hua and Vill-V's off-stage discussion about shady advertisements...
Madam Ma was utterly terrified. The spirit she had summoned had been effortlessly destroyed by Azure Empyrea's immortal arts.
How could such a powerful immortal exist in this world?
She turned to flee, only to trip over something.
"Ow!"
It was that same crystal ball again.
On the other side, with Azure Empyrea backing him, Reporter Tan regained hope and shouted at Madam Ma, "Madam Ma, heaven sees all! This immortal has been sent to take you in. Surrender and face the judgment of the law!"
Madam Ma, sprawled on the ground, clutched her stomach and groaned.
It seemed she had run out of options.
Suddenly, she turned around. A makeup mirror appeared in her hand as she muttered an incantation.
"Wandering souls bound by the spirit-binding spell, where do you linger... three souls descend, seven spirits arrive..."
The mirror's surface rippled with distorted waves. Countless twisted faces seemed to wriggle within it.
A chilling, sinister aura seeped out, making one's hair stand on end.
Reporter Tan seemed to recognize the object. Having witnessed the skull and the immortal, fragments of old rumors resurfaced in his mind.
He quickly shouted to Vill-V and Hua, "Don't look! That's a cursed object! Looking at it causes hallucinations—"
Before he could finish, he suddenly broke into a bizarre laugh. "Hahaha—she's dead, she's dead, I'm dead too! Come on!"
He grabbed his hair and tore it out in clumps.
Clearly, he had already fallen into hallucinations.
Hua was no exception. She seemed to have returned to the sinking ship at Homu Family Park.
"Common card, thank you for your patronage... senior card... how is this possible? I don't believe it..."
She began battling her inner demons within the illusion.
But then the hallucination seemed to shift.
"Captain Himeko, I'm ready this time. I won't run away..."
Vill-V also began swaying her head, muttering nonsense.
Something about "When you get old, your appetite fades, you just want something soft," and "Next time isn't guaranteed,"—rambling incoherently.
Madam Ma chuckled and covered the strange mirror with a cloth again.
This mirror had an extraordinary origin. It was obtained from internal personnel of Heliopolis Life Sciences. Even the Ghostfire Syndicate didn't understand its mechanism.
Relying on this treasure, Madam Ma had managed to carve out territory for herself under the watchful eyes of various gangs.
She slowly walked toward the stun gun on the ground, intending to pick it up—but suddenly, Vill-V threw a punch at her face.
"Ha! Straight punch!"
"Ow—who hit me?!" Madam Ma clutched her face and looked at Vill-V warily, only to find she still seemed lost in hallucination.
She immediately relaxed. "Damn brat—even in a hallucination you won't stay still."
Then—crack—a white dove flew past and shattered the mirror in her arms.
"My treasure! Who did that?!"
Madam Ma turned around and saw Vill-V tossing a small stone in her hand. She was furious. "So it was you again! Impossible... how were you not affected?!"
Because of the earlier Time Fragment incident, all of Vill-V's mental input and output now had to pass through a simulated Fenghuang Down.
Otherwise, her memory would revert to its factory-default Id state.
Though inconvenient, the benefit was that all attacks targeting the mind or consciousness would be filtered out.
Madam Ma's mirror was naturally nowhere near capable of competing with a simulated Fenghuang Down.
"Ha, unexpected, right?"
Magician brushed her hand over the stone, and it transformed into a white dove that spread its wings—the very dove that had shattered the mirror.
Even with Madam Ma's years of experience in trickery, she couldn't tell what kind of technique this was.
"Your mirror probably doesn't have a Herrscher Core installed. Why don't you try adding one?"
The white dove in Magician's hand flapped its wings and flew onto Madam Ma's head, pecking at her hair.
Madam Ma swung her arm to chase it away.
"Hey! Go away, get lost!"
But in doing so, she could no longer protect the mirror in her arms.
Crack.
With the mirror shattered, Hua and Reporter Tan regained their senses.
Now Madam Ma had no tricks left—and the situation had turned into three against one.
Reporter Tan regained his confidence. What he had feared most was that bizarre mirror.
Madam Ma herself was just a frail old woman. She was no match for a physically fit investigative reporter. Even if she had a stun gun, as long as he avoided it, he could win.
It was only that mirror that had been too strange and unpredictable.
Now that it was gone, she was no longer a threat.
Reporter Tan picked up his camera and pointed it at her, urging her to surrender. "A wise man submits to circumstances. If you surrender now, you might still live..."
Madam Ma looked disheveled, but she showed no intention of giving up. She didn't even care about her former enemies anymore. Instead, she stared at Vill-V with a solemn gaze.
"You... could it be... that you are one of those so-called psychic MANTIS?"