119 The Handle of the Ancient Mirror

I stepped back cautiously, never expecting the butler to follow me.

What was he planning? I was completely baffled, yet I readied the Spade 2 in my hand. I could feel a familiar power—there was no mistake. The butler possessed a fragment of the Ancient Mirror, or perhaps something else of its kind.

Seeming to sense the shift in my attitude, the butler gave a bitter laugh and tore off his own face. Beneath the skin lay a hideous ghost. I hadn't expected the butler to be a spirit wearing a human mask.

"Who are you?"

I hastily activated the power of the Ancient Mirror, and two beams of light erupted from it. Perhaps due to the resonance of our powers, my abilities were amplified, allowing me to unleash light-element energy attacks once more.

"Heh heh." The butler let out a sinister chuckle, revealing a fractured, dark-gold handle in his hand. I looked closely and recognized the engravings; it was the mark of the Ancient Mirror.

I lunged to seize the handle, but the butler nimbly retreated. As he did, the handle emitted an endless radiance, and the scene before me shifted instantly.

Dammit, an illusion.

The primary ability of the Ancient Mirror was illusion; the light-based energy was merely a secondary effect derived from mirror reflections. Because the mirror was shattered into so many pieces, I had been unable to use illusion magic, and with only one fragment, I could only see through low-level mirages. If I could reclaim the handle, perhaps my power would increase significantly.

In other words, this explained why the butler could generate such an illusion to deceive me—and only me. Without a master to wield them, the energy of these artifacts was limited. Just as my own power had been suppressed, the energy within the handle was similarly constrained. It was only when fragments of the same origin were in close proximity that they could draw upon each other's power.

"What exactly do you want?" I asked, gazing out at an endless grassland. Though I knew it was an illusion, I couldn't break through it. My own abilities had been bolstered, but so had the butler's. While I appeared to be in a field, I was likely still in the hallway or lobby near where we had first met.

"Butler, come out. Otherwise, don't blame me for what I do next."

"Your illusions are useless against me. As a fellow user of the Ancient Mirror, you should know that my power is to see through the false."

I deliberately activated my enhanced vision, hoping to bait him. I felt a ripple in the air and fired a beam of light in that direction. A plume of black smoke dissipated from the air; I knew I had struck him.

I kept up the act, pretending to be in control. "If you drop the handle and leave now, I will spare your life."

The butler’s figure flickered into view within the illusion. There was a wound on his arm, leaking black smoke.

"You... die. I... live!"

The ghost seemed to possess little command of language, struggling to force out one word at a time.

"You have no chance. Your illusion is useless against me."

I continued to bluff, and the ghost seemed to believe me. In truth, I had no certainty that I could defeat him; I was attacking purely on instinct. Though the butler was now far more wary, he continued his relentless assault. To avoid giving myself away, I chose the most mentally taxing path.

"Light Shield."

The spherical barrier perfectly blocked the death-energy attacks coming from all sides. As time passed, my mental energy began to drain, and the butler’s attacks grew weaker. It had become a war of attrition.

I realized I couldn't keep this up, so I decided to end it in one blow. I controlled the shield to shrink, feigning exhaustion as I slowly knelt, letting the shield's intensity wane. The cracks caused by the death energy spread rapidly. The moment the shield shattered, I instantly manifested another, expanding it to fill the entire space. The energy coating the shield was lethal to ghosts and spirits. The butler let out a pained scream, and half of his body vanished.

As his arm was vaporized by the shield, the mirror handle fell. I scrambled to pick it up. A miraculous thing happened: the Ancient Mirror fragment I had been carrying independently flew toward the handle.

It seemed as though they were yearning to become whole. A strange, eerie cat’s cry echoed from upstairs, and a crystalline object flew toward me. It was another fragment of the Ancient Mirror.

With the fusion of the second piece, the energy of the mirror surged to a new level. The illusion vanished completely. Ignoring the severely wounded ghost, I hurried to the window. The ground in the garden trembled, and a circular ring flew out of the soil, heading straight for me. Drawn by the mirror's energy, it snapped directly onto the handle.

It was the missing frame—a delightful, unexpected surprise. Defeating the ghost butler had netted me not only the handle but also a frame and a new fragment.

In an instant, the energy of the Ancient Mirror converged. It had truly transformed into an antique bronze mirror covered in inscriptions, though it still bore several damaged patches. It seemed those were the remaining six shards I needed to find.

Once the transformation was complete, I turned my attention back to the butler. He was now critically wounded, unable to escape, and watching me with wary eyes.

"What do you want?" I asked, looking down at the half-dead spirit. "If you tell me the origin of this handle, I might consider letting you go."

The ghost pondered for a moment before finally speaking.

I gripped the restored Ancient Mirror, and it emitted a blinding golden light. The ghost was instantly reduced to ash. I would never spare a man or ghost who harbored murderous intent toward me; I was not foolish enough to release a tiger back into the mountains.

Now that I knew the origin of the mirror handle, I could not afford to waste the remaining four days stuck in the Lin family mansion.