Five seconds later, the other four prodigies were nursing fresh, throbbing bumps on the tops of their heads.

"Aren’t they quite the lively bunch..." Lucian whispered under his breath from a distance.

Nyx completely ignored her groaning teammates and looked toward the translucent wall once again.

Behind her, Riven quickly dusted the dirt off his hands and looked up. Seeing her moving closer to the barrier, he rushed forward, grabbing both of her pale hands before she could look directly into the glass.

"What were you trying to do? You know it’s a trap, right? It only shows what isn’t there. Didn’t you see the other students? They were absolutely terrified seeing those fake ghosts."

Surrounding them, students from various teams were already trapped in horrific mental loops, crying and screaming on the floor. Only the smart ones, who had observed the others and realized the trap, were still standing safely away from the walls, thinking it through.

Nyx easily freed one hand and lazily scratched her cheek.

"Riven... do you seriously think I’m scared of ghosts or anything else?"

Riven narrowed his eyes, looking at her drooping, exhausted eyes filled not with fear, but a tired confidence.

"Heh... you are crazy if you think I’m letting you do this alone. Just hold on... let me try something."

Nyx didn’t blink. She just stared right at him.

"So, you don’t trust me. Is that it?"

It was pure, deadpan emotional torture.

In the background, Cain giggled softly and murmured, "Ten seconds. I bet."

Morven chimed in, "Nah, I give him seven."

"You’re both wrong," Vesper smirked. "Exactly five seconds."

Lysine just squeezed her eyes shut, trying to tune out the betting trio. "Guys, come on, let’s stop Nyx before she actually looks at it..."

Exactly five seconds later, Riven’s shoulders slumped in absolute defeat.

"Fine... do it."

"Now come on, pay up," Vesper demanded with a shit-eating grin.

"Tch."

"Tch."

Morven and Cain groaned in unison, grudgingly slapping their coins into Vesper’s hand.

As Nyx turned back to the wall, she pressed her hand against the wall again.

"Oh, hehehe..." she giggled softly, staring at her reflection for quite a bit and waiting for something to happen, though nothing did. There were no ghosts or monsters like the others were seeing. Initially, she was actually quite excited about seeing a ghost, yet all she got was her own disappointed face looking back at her.

"Hey, come on... show me, show me."

Behind her, Riven watched like a hawk. The rest of the team stood in dead silence, muscles coiled, ready to yank her back at the first sign of danger.

Suddenly, her mirror illusion flickered into existence. It slowly turned its head to look at her, standing perfectly still before a wide grin split its face.

"Oh, look at that... my impending gruesome doom," Nyx murmured, letting out a sigh that fogged up the barrier. "A monster made of agony... How creative. Honestly, if you are going to eat me, just get it over with, please. I don’t have the stamina to run away today... or tomorrow."

Mirror Nyx’s smile stretched into something truly creepy and twisted.

"What? Do you really think I’m that eager to kill you? Just wait... let me tell you all the different ways you can die..."

She was cut off mid-sentence.

"No, no, let me tell you how I prefer to die... Actually, just swallow me whole. Don’t make me do anything that requires effort. Life is just an endless, meaningless cycle of waking up anyway... Maybe if you brutally murder me right now, the headmaster will finally let me skip morning classes... Everything is pointless... I just want to lie down in a nice, quiet coffin and sleep for a century..."

Mirror Nyx’s dark eyes twitched.

"Sleep?" Mirror Nyx hissed as she continued. "I will slowly peel your skin off, inch by inch, and drop you in a boiling pool of cursed lava while your exposed nerve endings scream for mercy!"

"Boiling lava?" Real Nyx sighed. "Too hot. I’ll sweat. Just inject my veins with liquid lead instead. The excruciating agony of my blood boiling from the inside out will instantly paralyze my body, and that way, I won’t have to walk all the way back to the dorms."

Seeing her reaction, Mirror Nyx roared, slamming her spectral hands against the glass.

"I will summon a thousand phantom centipedes to burrow into your skull and eat your brain while you are completely paralyzed but wide awake!"

"That sounds entirely too noisy," Real Nyx yawned. "How about getting thrown into an infinite, crushing ocean trench? The absolute terror of drowning in the pitch black, followed by millions of tons of pressure instantly pulverizing my bones to dust and exploding my lungs. Zero gravity, zero physical exertion. Heaven."

"I will pierce your neck with a thousand rusted needles!"

"Oh... that sounds a bit chilly. How about you heat them up in a fire first? A nice, warm, glowing-red acupuncture session. That way I won’t catch a cold before I bleed out."

Mirror Nyx violently twitched. It was as if the more the fake Nyx tried to scare the real Nyx, the harder the horror dose backfired on her.

The exchange suddenly began to speed up, morphing into a twisted, rapid-fire competition.

"Buried alive under a mountain of corpses!" Mirror Nyx hissed.

"Claustrophobic. How cozy..." Real Nyx replied instantly.

"Flayed completely alive!"

"Salt and lemon baths."

Mirror Nyx’s eyes widened as she began to stammer.

"Torn... torn apart by wild beasts!"

"Industrial meat grinder."

"Beheading!" Mirror Nyx screamed, her voice cracking.

"Guillotine," Real Nyx whispered softly.

"Suffocation..."

"Vacuum."

Fifteen feet away, completely invisible, Lucian and Lyria were standing stiff as boards. They couldn’t take their eyes off the scene as Black Mire’s number one prodigy literally terrified her own horror reflection.

Behind Nyx, her group was shivering. Cain was currently struggling to hold up Lysine, who had completely passed out with foam at the corner of her mouth.

"B-Boss..." Cain stammered, his face pale white. "Tell Nyx to stop... Lysine has already fainted, and it looks like Morven is about to pass out too!"

Next to him, Morven was indeed swaying on his feet, looking like he was about to vomit his own soul out.

Sweat dripped down Riven’s forehead. "J-just wait a little longer... I want this to stop too, but just look at her..."