The wind carried no single direction.
It shifted every few breaths, as if the world itself could not decide where it was meant to flow.
At the edge of a broken mountain range stood a city that should not have existed in its current state.
Yuanshi Border City.
A trade hub between three major sect territories.
But now_
it was divided by something invisible.
Not walls.
Not armies.
But truth itself.
As Tiān Lán walked through the gates, he noticed it immediately.
The city was not unified.
It was overlapping.
One street: bustling merchants, normal cultivation world
Next street: ruins, as if war had happened decades ago
Another: pristine buildings, untouched, like a holy domain
Three versions of the same place existing at once.
He paused.
"…So this is a fractured region."
The Mirror inside him remained quiet.
Not gone.
Just observing.
A guard at the gate looked at him.
Then froze.
Not fear.
Confusion.
"You… are registered in all three records?"
Tiān Lán glanced at him.
"I don't think I'm registered anywhere."
The guard stepped back.
"That's impossible. One record says you destroyed a merchant convoy last month. Another says you saved it. Another says you never came here at all."
Silence.
Tiān Lán understood immediately.
"…So reality here cannot agree on me."
He stepped inside.
And the contradiction became clearer.
People did not interact consistently.
One group bowed respectfully when they saw him
Another crossed the street to avoid him
Another reached for weapons instantly
All in the same moment.
A fractured perception zone.
Not illusion.
Not technique.
Competing realities.
The air tightened.
A figure dropped from a rooftop.
Clang_
A heavy spear struck the ground between Tiān Lán and the street.
A young man, armored in dark silver robes, looked at him calmly.
"So you're the source."
Tiān Lán glanced at him.
"Source of what?"
The man narrowed his eyes.
"The contradictions."
He raised his spear slightly.
"I am from the Echo Suppression Bureau. We eliminate unstable reality anchors."
A pause.
"…And you are currently the strongest anomaly in this city."
_MIRROR_
Inside Tiān Lán:
"He perceives you as a stabilizing error point."
Tiān Lán replied inwardly.
"So I'm not a system problem anymore."
"No."
"You are now a regional disturbance."
The Echo Hunter moved first.
Fast.
Clean.
Professional.
A single step_
and the spear split into three afterimages.
Each strike came from a different "version" of reality:
one predicting his position
one ignoring causality delay
one attacking where he would not yet exist
A fractured technique.
Tiān Lán stepped back once.
Not panicking.
Calculating.
"…So each strike belongs to a different truth layer."
Guardian threads appeared instantly around him.
Silver-blue light coiled.
He raised his hand_
and the threads shifted into a rotating defensive lattice.
Clang!
The first strike collided.
Boom!
The second shattered into sparks.
The third_
missed entirely as reality "corrected" itself mid-motion.
The Echo Hunter frowned.
"You adapt to all three realities at once…"
Tiān Lán exhaled.
"I don't need one reality."
He stepped forward.
Just once.
The ground beneath him stabilized.
Not the world_
him.
A single strike.
Clean.
Precise.
No excess movement.
The Echo Hunter barely blocked.
He slid back ten steps.
Eyes widened slightly.
"…You are not just inside fractured reality."
A pause.
"You're ignoring it."
Before the fight escalated_
a voice came from a nearby alley.
"Stop."
Soft.
Calm.
But strangely… layered.
Tiān Lán turned slightly.
A girl stood there.
Simple clothing.
Carrying medicinal talismans.
But her eyes_
did not match the fractured city.
They were stable.
The Echo Hunter froze.
"You shouldn't be able to remember all three versions of him…"
The girl ignored him.
She looked at Tiān Lán.
"…You're the one causing overlap, aren't you?"
Tiān Lán studied her.
"You can see it clearly?"
She nodded.
"I don't experience the city as separate truths."
A pause.
"I remember all of them at once."
The Mirror spoke softly inside him:
"She is not affected by the fracture."
"She is… integrated across versions."
Tiān Lán narrowed his eyes slightly.
"…Who are you?"
The girl hesitated.
Then answered:
"Lian Yue."
A pause.
"I think I'm supposed to be dead in one of these versions."
Silence.
Even the Echo Hunter stopped moving.
The fractured city trembled slightly.
Not collapsing.
But reacting.
As if it had finally encountered something it could not split further.
Tiān Lán looked at both of them.
One trying to suppress reality.
One remembering too many realities.
And himself_
standing between contradictions that no longer aligned.
He spoke quietly:
"…This world is worse than the system."
A pause.
"It argues with itself."
The Mirror responded softly:
"And now you are inside that argument."
The wind shifted again.
Three directions at once.
-
END OF CHAPTER 34