Chapter 23: The Cipher Leading to Reality

Every three turns of the wheel in his hand sent a mechanical clank echoing underfoot, but after six turns, the sound deepened, and the wheel snapped back to its initial position.

“Is it... a mirroring issue?” Jiang Wan asked from the side.

“It... probably isn’t,” he managed to reply, but before he could finish, a fierce wind surged beside him. Without thinking, Chen Qing threw his weight, dragging Jiang Wan aside. He glanced up at the sky—the images above were inverted from those below... something he had long realized.

He had tried that approach first: entering the password he’d extracted, following the reversed positions into the device.

But when things didn’t add up, Chen Qing attempted to restore the password to its original sequence.

Both attempts failed.

“This isn’t right...” He bowed his head as the creatures pressed closer. The only consolation was that, though these physical aberrations moved quickly, their attacks struck their own companions, and after a long delay, they could rise to attack again.

“Could it be... the entities themselves?” Chen Qing’s expression grew strange.

“Them? What about them, is the password tied to them?”

He glanced back at Jiang Wan, shaking his head with a peculiar look. “Isn’t it possible... the entities moving from mirror to ground... is part of the password?”

Jiang Wan frowned, puzzled, tilting her head. “So you need me to draw their attention away?”

Chen Qing eyed her holstered pistol, then glanced at the slow-moving creatures, nodding slowly. “I’ll need about four seconds at that spot. In that time... they must not be near me.”

Jiang Wan grinned, her hand hovering over her pistol, ready to fire.

With a crack of gunfire, the entities’ gaze was drawn to the powder’s flare. They swung their solitary arms, repeatedly tearing at the entrails of their kin, and the cacophony was deafening. With half an ear lost, they perceived threats only from their flanks.

As the fallen entities stirred and rose, the rest finally found direction—eyes fixated on Jiang Wan’s gun. Before Chen Qing could move, fractured bones hurtled toward them.

Jiang Wan saw it clearly: the flying bone was a rib, lustrous as jade, clean with no trace of flesh or blood, its inner arc sharpened like a blade. She swallowed hard.

“Hey! Move faster! You didn’t tell me they could attack from a distance!”

Chen Qing nodded, but his gaze betrayed no panic. He willed himself forward, and stabbing pain shot through his feet.

The sensation radiated out from his marrow, surpassin