Ryoma once again conjured several ice butterflies, letting them scatter and scout ahead from different heights and angles.
One by one, the ice butterflies continuously triggered small-scale traps in the mirror corridor, marking a safe path for Ryoma.
He walked at the very front, with Asta and Noelle following closely behind him, no longer daring to be careless in the slightest.
Under Ryoma's guidance, they passed through the Mirror Corridor with great ease.
Just as the corridor was about to reach its end, a magical power fluctuation, completely different from before, faintly emanated from the corner ahead.
That magical power fluctuation was full of aggression.
Ryoma's footsteps stopped. He looked up ahead, it was a huge circular hall.
The structure of the hall was similar to the previous corridor; the four walls, dome, and floor were all made of smooth, pristine mirrors. And in the very center of the hall, a huge, glowing magic crystal floated.
"Wow... what a beautiful place!" Asta exclaimed innocently.
Noelle, however, felt something was wrong. She nervously clutched her grimoire.
"This place... feels very dangerous."
No sooner had she spoken than an anomaly suddenly occurred.
Buzz—!
All the mirrors in the hall lit up.
Within the mirrors, countless reflections of Ryoma, Asta, and Noelle appeared. But these reflections were completely different from ordinary shadows.
Their eyes were hollow, their faces bore eerie smiles, and their entire bodies exuded magical power from the same source as the magic crystal in the center.
The next second, those reflections in the mirrors actually stepped out of the mirror surfaces, all at once.
Hundreds and thousands of three-person teams instantly surrounded the real team in the center.
"Wh-what?!" Noelle jumped, her body involuntarily taking a step back.
"So many of us!" Asta raised his demon-slayer sword, adopting a battle stance.
"These guys seem to want to fight us."
Ryoma's expression remained calm, but his mind was rapidly analyzing.
"Illusions? No, these guys have physical magical power."
"They are duplicates."
He glanced at the magic crystal in the center of the hall.
"The core is that magic crystal, it's constantly replicating our reflections and injecting aggressive magical power."
Ryoma spoke loudly, his voice clearly reaching Asta and Noelle's ears.
"As long as we smash that crystal, these things should disappear."
However, the problem arose.
The magic crystal, through mirror refraction, formed thousands of illusions throughout the hall. It was impossible for the naked eye to distinguish which one was the true body.
Attacking any wrong illusion would not only be useless but would also expose their position, attracting a siege from all the duplicates.
Just then, those duplicates moved.
They simultaneously raised their hands, and countless ice cones and water spheres began to condense. Some duplicate Astas even raised their swords, preparing to charge.
"Oh no!" Noelle exclaimed.
"Asta!"
Ryoma's voice was calm and forceful.
"Yes!"
"Get ready!"
Ryoma clasped his hands together abruptly, and a massive magical power surged skyward.
Boom!
An incredibly huge ice mirror instantly condensed and formed in front of the three of them. The surface of the ice mirror was incredibly smooth, clearly reflecting everything that came at them from the front.
Almost at the moment the ice mirror formed, an overwhelming magical attack arrived.
Countless ice cones, water spheres, and some strange magic slammed heavily onto the ice mirror.
Bang... Bang...
However, these attacks left no trace on the ice mirror.
The next moment, something even more incredible happened.
That giant ice mirror reflected all the attacks back, exactly as they came.
Rumble!
The reflected magic precisely hit several attacking duplicates in front, instantly blasting them into fragments.
But Ryoma's goal was not this. His gaze was fixed on the trajectories of those reflected magical attacks.
He performed ultra-high-speed calculations in his brain, using the reflection angle of the ice mirror and the final landing points of the magic.
"Found it."
A sharp glint flashed in Ryoma's eyes. Among countless illusions of magic crystals, he locked onto one.
"Asta, front right, behind that mirror image!" Ryoma shouted without hesitation.
"Understood!"
Asta had one hundred percent trust in Ryoma. He didn't even think about why, his body had already reacted first.
"Haaa!"
Just as Asta was about to charge, a crystal-clear ice slide appeared out of thin air beneath his feet, extending at an astonishing speed in the direction Ryoma pointed.
Path of Frozen Dust!
Asta stepped onto the slide, and his speed instantly surged. He was like a cannonball, charging fiercely along the smooth ice path with an unstoppable momentum.
"Yaaahhhhh—!"
He held his demon-slayer sword high, black anti-magic energy wildly surging on its blade.
All the duplicates along the way, whether they tried to block with magic or collide with their bodies, were instantly erased by that unreasonable power and turned into nothingness the moment they touched the demon-slayer sword.
Noelle stayed on the inside, nervously watching Asta's figure.
Asta's target was the wall Ryoma mentioned, and that wall also reflected an illusion of the magic crystal. It looked normal, but Asta didn't hesitate in the slightest.
"Break!!!" He roared, using all his strength to fiercely slash his demon-slayer sword at that mirror.
Crack—!
An extremely crisp shattering sound echoed throughout the entire hall.
That wasn't the sound of a single mirror breaking.
It was... all the mirrors.
The moment Asta's sword struck the main body of the magic crystal behind that mirror, the entire circular hall—walls, floor, and ceiling—all the mirror surfaces, at the same time, became covered with spiderweb-like cracks.
Crash!
The next second, the whole world seemed to shatter.
All the mirror surfaces broke simultaneously, turning into billions of light particles and dissipating.
The duplicates that had surrounded the trio also, at the same moment, turned into purple smoke and instantly vanished without a trace.
The trap was disarmed.
"Phew..."
Asta leaned on his sword, panting heavily, but a smile of excitement was on his face.
"Well done, Asta." Ryoma's voice sounded.
Noelle breathed a sigh of relief. That situation just now was terrifying.
"Hmph, at least you were a little useful, idiot Asta."
Ryoma's gaze fell on a seemingly ordinary wall in the corner of the hall.
"There should be something here."
Ryoma walked over, stretched out his hand, and gently touched the cold stone wall. A trace of ice-blue magical power injected from his fingertips into the wall.
Buzz!
On the wall, previously invisible magical patterns were activated by the Ice Magic, glowing with an ethereal blue light. Those patterns rapidly spread, forming a complex magic array.
Click, click, click...
Accompanied by the sound of mechanisms turning, the wall slowly recessed inward, finally opening a secret door.
Behind the secret door was a small, not-too-large secret room.
In the center of the secret room, there was a stone pedestal.
On the pedestal, a fist-sized blue crystal, emanating cold air, floated.
"This is..."
Asta and Noelle both curiously gathered closer.
Ryoma hadn't expected such an unexpected harvest after solving the trap. He could feel that the crystal contained extremely pure ice element magical power.
Ryoma looked at the crystal and said, "This seems to be a magical tool left by an ancient Mage."
Its function was probably to enhance the effect of Ice Magic, which was a good item for Ryoma.
He unceremoniously stepped forward and held the ice crystal in his hand. The moment he took it, a cool magical power surged into his body along his arm, making him feel that his magical power circulation was a few points smoother.
"Good stuff."
Ryoma put it away with satisfaction.
However, this secret room contained nothing else besides this crystal. This was equivalent to a special treasure room and was not the way to the deeper parts of the dungeon.
The group could only retreat, preparing to look for other passages.