Once he had ranted out the words in his heart, Wu Ren regained his composure. He silently recalled the words in his system prompt. The lights had already stabilised and stopped flickering. The mirrors in the bathroom had visibly started to repair the cracks from when they had exploded earlier. They started to reflect a shadowy figure with ears. Everytime a crack was restored, the shadowy figure would gain some features on their face, which was eerily close to Wu Ren's own face.
"So the objective of this mission is to break the mirror that contains my own soul? What's so difficult about that? Just break all the mirrors… but it would be strange if this was that easy. I should try breaking the mirrors after my ear stops itching." Placing his finger inside his ear, Wu Ren tried to scratch it, only to feel a strangle, glossy texture.
"What? What happened to my ears!"
Wu Ren exclaimed out loud, but his ears did not pick up on his voice at all. His face turned into a grimace as he rapped his knuckles on a toilet stall's door. There was no sound to be heard, only absolute silence.
"Was that why all the screaming outside had stopped? My sense of hearing is gone!" At some unknown point, Wu Ren's hearing had been entirely taken away. Turning his head to the mirror, he could see that the shadows in the mirror had an exact replica of his ears.
"If I do not finish this mission in time, all my senses will be gone!" Wu Ren could see what body part the shadowy figures were trying to form. It was only 2 nostrils for now, but once they perfected his nose, his sense of smell would be gone as well. His whole body trembled with fear, but his mind held on.
"I have to be calm so that I can think properly on how to find my soul." Breathing in deeply, Wu Ren regained his composure. "I should try to test the properties of this mirror."
Closing his right hand, Wu Ren made a fist. He shifted his body carefully to make a basic fighting stance so he could exert more power. Drawing his fact, he threw a shot at the center of the mirror he was in front of!
"Bang! BANG!"
Although Wu Ren could not hear it, there was a small explosion the moment he had made contact. The mirror shattered a little at the point of impact, but it was otherwise fine.
It was when the second explosion happened that Wu Ren had flown back, crumpling onto the ground. The second explosion was far louder than the earlier explosion, but since his ears had already hardened, he wasn't affected by it. He held his abdomen, which had been attacked with a massive force. Wu Ren looked up at the mirror. Even though the shadowy figure didn't have a mouth yet, he had this vague sensation that it was smiling.
"Physical force is no good. If I try to solve this through physical force, I will die long before these mirrors show any sign of damage." Wu Ren held onto a sink with all his strength and stood up again. The crack that he had inflicted on the mirror had already been repaired.
"These mirrors are too deadly to mess with. Maybe the mission could also include other mirrors? I should check the toilets…" Bearing the discomfort of the dust, Wu Ren opened the toilet stall behind him. He was half-expecting that the toilet would be dirty and filled with weird junk, but to his surprise, the toilet bowl was extremely polished.
Wu Ren extended his head to look into the toilet bowl. It was clean beyond belief, and the water was clear. It was no wonder that his body froze up when he saw a shadowy figure forming there as well, having completed a nose. He could already see that there were some slight distortions in the mouth area of the shadowy figure.
"That mirror ghost can also be in other mirrors as well? Heavens… why is everything progressing so fast?"
Wu Ren touched his nose gingerly. He could feel that unnatural glossy texture from his ears. The fact that he could not smell any odour anymore only reinforced the fact that his senses were being taken away, one by one.
"I don't believe it! That mirror ghost can't be in every reflective surface, right?" Wu Ren dipped his finger into the toilet water in disbelief, and felt a sharp poke in his back the moment he broke the water surface.
Wu Ren's face morphed into one of pain. He swallowed his pain and ran out of the bathroom stall. He had no time to waste to lick his wounds. Even if he felt pain all over, he needed to complete this mission!
"BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!"
The sound of the bathroom stall doors being roughly shoved aside by Wu Ren echoed throughout the bathroom. His eyes were filled with desperation as he was met with more and more shadowy figures, all the way until the last bathroom stall. The shadowy figures now had a hideous grin on their face, and he only felt numbness in his mouth.
"My sense of touch is next…" The figures' skin were changing into from an inky black to a healthy peach colour. There were now 2 visible holes above the nose. It was a horrific experience for Wu Ren, having an eyeless version of himself staring back at him while grinning.
"But… isn't there something weird about them?" Wu Ren saw that the figures were now turning towards him. The figures had only stood in place while trying to mimic his facade, why did they need to look at him? He would die soon anyway… unless they were not looking at him!
Wu Ren looked upwards at the position the mirror ghost was looking at. That was the exact position of the bathroom windows! On the bathroom window, an even more absurd version of himself was reflected.
Every part of his body except for his eyes were covered in mirrors. On those mirrors was the true form of the mirror ghost that he had seen earlier, the insect ridden "perfect" him. A look of rage was on the ghost's face, as it started banging on the mirrors.
"This mission was so easy? But if I didn't discover the discrepancy in the ghost's behaviour, I would have died without knowing anything…" Wu Ren felt a cold chill going down his spine. Without any more musing, he punched towards the bathroom window.
"BANG!" Wu Ren got hit by his own punch again. "WHAT??? THIS IS CLEARLY THE SOLUTION!" He wanted to scream this out loud, but his mouth was too numb to move. He could feel his eyes turning dark as the ghost tried to take away his sense of sight.
"Is it only when it is not reflecting me that it can be broken?" Wu Ren went with whatever idea he thought of. The school was too cheap to install actual louvre windows, so they had installed louvre-esque windows. The pane of glass in the window could be flipped any way if enough force was applied. He flipped the bathroom window, hoping for the best. Finally, there were no more unexpected twists, with the window no longer reflecting him any longer. Closing his eyes, he put all his hope into a final punch.
"BOOM!" Wu Ren could hear the window audibly burst. His whole body shook with joy, as he knew that he had successfully completed the mission. This joy did not last long, as a cold hand from outside gripped onto his wrist. It was such an intense force that he felt that his wrist was going to shatter in pieces if the cold hand applied anymore force.
Without any resistance, Wu Ren was pulled outside the bathroom window by the hand. He instinctively covered his head with his other arm. There were still broken shards of glass that were left on the window frame, which drew blood from his limbs as he passed them by.
The thunderstorm outside had not stopped. It had instead grown more ferocious, with frequent lightning strikes streaking across the sky and the sound of thunder reverberating all around. A chilly feeling permeated below Wu Ren's skin as the raindrops fell on him. His uniform and hair were soaked thoroughly with the rain.
Wu Ren did not bother screaming for help. After he had survived the encounter with the mirror ghost, he finally knew a damning truth. Once you were in the hands of a ghost, there was absolutely no escape! It was probably why there were so many people screaming outside the bathroom.
Even if he had successfully escaped front when mirror ghost, he would still have to face off against other ghosts. The voice had said that there could only be 1 survivor left in the world. It seemed that he would have to face even more dangerous ghosts in the future to drive him to his death.
"But they wouldn't be so unreasonable to kill me right after I finish a mission they assigned, right?" The bathroom that he was in was on the 6th floor of the school. Wu Ren's whole body was now dangling from the grip of the cold hand. Even if the hand gripped tighter to prevent him from falling, his wrist would eventually give way and turn into bone powder.
If he dropped now, he would be turned into ketchup on impact. As someone with acrophobia, his body shook involuntarily as he continued to look downwards.
"Shit… since there's no way around this, I will leave it to fate!" Wu Ren closed his eyes with hope in his heart. Who would have known that the moment he did so, the cold hand let go of its grip?
"AHHHHHHH!" Wu Ren could feel his body become weightless as he accelerated towards the ground. He was not that far from the ground, so he didn't even have the privilege of looking at the ground as it got closer. He could only afford one last look towards the cold hand that had gripped him.
"What?" The cold hand belonged to a body that was too familiar to him. It was himself, but this time, it did not have the imperfect vibe that the mirror ghost gave off when it mimicked his appearance.
This version of himself had his black hair turn white, along with bloodshot eyes that had popped out of their sockets. The limbs were horribly mangled as well, with pieces of bones jutting out at unnatural angles. The torso had numerous holes with organs spilling out of those holes. Even with all these injuries, Wu Ren only had a neutral expression on his face.
It was the last thing that the real Wu Ren saw as he finally hit the ground.