Fairy tale: Little Red Riding Hood's wolf mentor

Beneath their feet, the surface of a smooth, round mirror.

It seemed to reflect the vast starlit sky and moonlight of the cyan night, shimmering with a faint silvery glow.

Each step of their dance sent ripples spreading across the surface.

The light, floating sensation was akin to being in a beautiful, sacred world, or dancing lightly on the surface of a calm lake.

"Is this… another illusion?"

Leike opened her eyes wide, the world before her was completely different from the style of the Mad Dancer; one could easily mistake this place for a dreamlike paradise.

"I… can't tell either."

Poro held the girl's waist, gazing at the distant night sky around them.

The air carried a captivating freshness, a kind of ethereal feeling that allowed dancers to become even more immersed.

The only similarity between this place and the previous chaotic world was that Poro still couldn't sense any traces of magic.

This was not reality.

The atmosphere, thick with an artistic conception that encouraged dance, continued to drive their movements. No audience, no restrictions, an infinitely vast world…

It even made one want to try more unrestrained dance poses.

[—But·This·Is·Not·Real—]

Just as Poro was sensing the unrestrained artistic conception around him, a calm voice interrupted his thoughts.

And the source of this voice…

Poro was stunned. In his mental world, he sensed the source of the sound.

It came from a ring-shaped Regression Book page that he hadn't used much for a long time. At this moment, without any operation from Poro, the page emitted a light and flew up on its own.

The next moment, it appeared beside Leike and Poro.

The contents of the page also appeared in their eyes.

[Ring Regression: Snow White · Mirror of Truth]

[Fairy Tale Authority: You cannot actively use it, but at certain moments, this fragment will give you the answer you want]

[Description: The storyteller's vision should not be blinded; you need to break through the haze—to see the true face!]

[At the moment of birth, a will hid within it. Will he give you a complete answer according to the agreement?]

[Are you ready? Face… the curse of truth!]

The pattern above was a shattered mirror, and at this moment, two special glittering spots appeared in the center of the shattered mirror, like a pair of eyes.

"Magic Mirror?! You… are alive again?"

Leike and Poro simultaneously looked at the two eye-like glittering spots that lit up in the golden book page and asked in astonishment.

[Yes, unexpected, isn't it? We meet again, at this moment]

The Magic Mirror's voice was still difficult to distinguish as real or fake.

This time, unlike before, as the Magic Mirror spoke from the book page, lines of text flashed quickly below the page.

[A special world, can block… that guy's sight]

The Magic Mirror's two eye-like spots flickered, as if sizing up Leike and Poro, who were still dancing slowly.

[You two, dance well—I can see that your relationship is very close, huh?]

Hearing this, Leike's face turned red again.

Having an audience and not having one still made a considerable difference at a time like this, not to mention that the audience was an acquaintance.

"No, we were just…"

The girl hurriedly tried to explain, stumbling, but the Magic Mirror spoke again:

[It's okay, no need to explain, I know everything]

Although the simple drawing on the book page didn't show any expression of the Magic Mirror, Leike and Poro both felt as if the Magic Mirror had secretly smiled.

Afterward, the Magic Mirror's words became serious:

[But the world before you has other truths, it is deliberately concealed—but I can take you to see it]

[If you are ready to face the truth, you can ask me questions]

After speaking, the Magic Mirror fell silent, waiting for Leike and Poro's answer.

Leike and Poro looked at each other and, without hesitation, directly looked at the Magic Mirror on the Ring Regression and said:

"Magic Mirror, we are ready, let us see those… hidden truths you spoke of."

Who knew, after another few seconds of silence, the writing on the book page began to change:

[Tsk, you forgot I'm the Magic Mirror, didn't you? This time the question is not standard… ]

[Forget it, not next time]

The next moment, Leike and Poro suddenly felt gravity begin to change. Caught off guard, their bodies, or rather… this world, began to flip vertically!

The silver-white mirror surface instantly submerged and swallowed them!

The vision tilted downwards, entered the mirror, and quickly righted itself. As it crossed the ground boundary, the world suddenly changed!

Beneath their feet was still a smooth, mirror-like surface, but this time, the original blue sky had turned into a dazzling blood red.

In contrast, the ground was a scarlet sea of blood.

Waves rippled chaotically, crisscrossing the ground like shattered tides.

Around them, there were no longer just Leike and Poro, but also many shadows with indistinguishable faces, dancing on the blood-colored mirror surface.

Following the floating Mirror of Truth book page, Leike and Poro cautiously moved forward.

They approached one of the blood-colored dancing figures.

The figure gradually revealed details, it was a man dancing in a Stetz court dress, his dance was very professional, with a kind of elegant beauty.

Beside him, there was also an audience shadow with an unidentifiable face.

He clapped his hands, half in appreciation and half in suggestion, saying:

"Your dance is very good, I can feel the emotions you want to express, but… your constraints on them are still a bit tight, not yet fully realized."

After the illusion's words were finished, a line of writing appeared on the Mirror of Truth book page in front of Poro and Leike:

[This·Is·Just·The·Surface]

The next moment, the blurred audience illusion quickly revealed details—

In Poro and Leike's horrified eyes, two long goat-like horns protruded from his head, his eyes lit up with two points of scarlet light, and most importantly, he had a blood-red beard!

His voice also began to carry a hoarse, low, and eerie feeling.

"Dance doesn't need any restrictions, dance is free, you shouldn't use anything to restrain it!

The audience's eyes, the rhythm of the music, the flaws in the choreography, and even your physical body—shouldn't restrain you!

Your dance must be unrestrained!"

The next moment, the dancing man seemed to begin to accept the red-bearded devil's suggestion. His dance became more and more exaggerated, gradually deviating from the most basic aesthetic norms, and aesthetics began to distort…

Eventually, it even began to violate the structure of the human body!

Tendons and bones tore, bone spurs pierced out from under the skin, but his movements still didn't stop, instead becoming even more exaggerated.

Beneath his feet, the blood-colored mirror surface reflected his distorted and chaotic figure.

Fresh blood gushed out from within his tendons and bones, but it did not dissipate. Instead, with the strange dance steps, it extended outward and solidified, turning into countless limbs twisting in all directions!

Exactly the same as the possessed dancers in the city that Leike and Poro had seen before!

The chaotic blood-colored phantom began to recede, and in Leike and Poro's vision, it turned into a blurred black shadow again.

With the voice of the Mirror of Truth, a striking line of writing appeared on the book page:

[Curse One: Unrestrained]

While Poro and Leike pondered the bizarre scene they had just witnessed, they followed the Magic Mirror forward. Before they had taken a few steps, the mirror-like ground in front of them suddenly began to vibrate.

Circular ripples spread out in all directions from the front.

[First Layer Boundary]

The blood color began to fade, and the mirror surface in front rose upwards. It was a silver streamer, like a tree, growing straight upwards, branching out…

The scene before their eyes twisted and changed.

Poro gripped Leike's hand tightly, the girl's hand was soft and boneless. Feeling the delicate skin, Poro opened his eyes again.

The world of the second illusion.

This time, it was on a magnificent and broad stage, with golden chandeliers overhead, burning with dazzling golden flames.

Around them, besides Leike and Poro, there were still many dancing figures.

In the very center, there was a pair of men and women wearing court dance clothes. Their clothes seemed incredibly gorgeous, and their appearance was top-notch for ordinary people.

From some details on their clothing, their identities could be found.

They were the kingdom's prince and princess.

The golden light seemed to gather around them, and all the dancers couldn't help but be attracted by the prince and princess's extremely beautiful and standard dance.

Their dance steps were extremely accurately on the rhythm of the music.

Watching their dance steps, the people around them, whether paired dancers or solo dancers, began to imitate involuntarily.

They changed their dance moves, wanting to be like them.

And some dancers on the outer periphery also imitated the dance steps of those closer to the prince, the rhythm and rhyme became more and more unified…

"Poro, I feel… this time the dance music seems a bit strange."

Just then, Leike, who was close to Poro, suddenly spoke.

"Hmm?"

Poro listened upon hearing this, but soon also felt a slight strangeness.

It seemed that under such a rhythm, they also began to involuntarily want to change their dance steps, unifying with the prince and princess in the center of the stage.

"Indeed, this is not right, let's try to maintain our own rhythm…"

At this moment, the Mirror of Truth, which had not spoken for a long time, made a sound again:

[The·Devil·Hides·In·The·Shadow]

The next moment, Leike and Poro's gazes seemed to break through some invisible curtain. They looked at the place where the sound came from, it was a piano made of bones and muscles!

In front of the piano, the black shadow with horns and a red beard was still sitting, the figure's demonic voice came again:

"Dance, the connection between the individual and the collective, the bridge between soul and mind, the tension of aesthetics, spreads among people, communicates between movements and gazes.

See it, understand it, imitate it, place it—in the depths of your soul!"

The devil's voice receded, Poro saw that the dancing figures around had completely turned into a unified posture, only himself and Leike seemed out of place.

Dizzying golden light pushed towards the end of the vision from all directions.

Poro saw that in the shadows outside the field of vision, there were also countless figures, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands… also began to imitate the same dance steps.

And as the dance music played by the devil finally transitioned to a distorted and deformed chapter.

The princess and prince, under the golden light, but with a bloody light, their movements began to collapse, the shape reflected on the smooth golden floor under their feet—

Tore, distorted, the process, then the same as the male dancer that Poro saw in the first layer of the environment!

And this time, in a plague-like imitation.

All the dancers in all directions, imitating the same dance, almost all mutated into ugly mad dancing monsters in this instant!

A line of words appeared on the book page:

[Curse Two: Spread]

Afterwards, Leike and Poro followed the book page, crossed this dance banquet shrouded in golden light, enough to make all the audience's reason collapse, and walked towards a corner.

The golden floor tiles cracked, and a beam of golden light sprayed out like a spring—

They gathered in mid-air, becoming a golden tree.

Under the dazzling golden light, the illusion in front of them twisted for the second time—

[Second Layer Boundary]