Krune almost lost control over his Dimond Shields, which would have turned things even worse. But he gritted his teeth and retreated with his Tribulation Lightning Movement.

'Fortunately, it was a probing attack. If I had attacked with a Heavens Fall, I might have killed myself. Let alone if I had time for a Tribulation Cannon.'

Some of the competitors were not so lucky. They used their own methods to avoid the copies defenses, striking them hard! As one can expect, they suffered even more than Krune.

Krune, just like all the other competitors, were taken in a dilemma. They can't defend forever, attacking their copies would also injure themselves. Also, they couldn't see any exit at all.

'The tricky to escape this place is the words spoke by Norzulun earlier. 'The clues are within yourselves.' But what did he mean with it? Should I try to attack myself?'

Krune then decided to return to his wisp form, where he had better control over his power. Sure enough, all the copies assumed a colored wisp form as well.

Krune was expecting it, though. He was much better with his Tribulation Lightning movement than the copies, so he quickly opened distance from them. They might be ranged attackers like himself, but he knows his own patterns better than anyone else. Besides, they don't attack with any skills unless you Krune uses it first. Just like when Krune used his Tribulation Line, they all used the same attack.

'Alright, let's try a weak attack first.'

There was no need to attack himself with Tribulation Lightning, so he simply used a weak fireball, which was among the simplest skills. The difference was that he left his Wisp Core open for the attack, no protection at all.

*Bang!*

The fireball hit his wisp core, but it didn't hurt that much. Nonetheless, it would be more than enough to notice changes in those wisp copies. However, all the wisps didn't seem to suffer any damage at all.

But it was then that he noticed, all those wisps summoned a fireball each and attacked themselves just like Krune. Ultimately, Krune felt the pain of being hit by eleven fireballs instead of one. Krune felt like crying because the damage they took was also reflected in him.

'Shit! Was I wrong?'

Suddenly...

-Number of participants who exited the Mirror World: 01.-

'So, someone already found the way out.'

Krune felt it to be way too fast. Considering the power of his Divine Sense, the distance he could observe was enormous. Yet, there was no such thing as an exit.

'In that case, the participant who passed first would not have enough time to reach an exit outside the Divine Sense range. There was simply not enough time to move that far. Also, he definitely didn't know which direction to go in the first place. That can only mean one thing, the exit is close by, and it has always been.'

-Number of participants who exited the Mirror World: 07.-

As Krune kept his distance from his copies, he noticed one weird thing.

'Why would they keep madly rushing at me without using any attacks?'

'Ah!'

Suddenly, Krune stopped. His shields were put away as he also stopped using any energy barrier. He was totally and completely vulnerable.

'Norzulun said that the clues are within ourselves, but he never said that we should be the ones to use it.'

It was a dangerous gamble, so Krune positioned himself in a place where one of the copies would arrive at him first. If anything went wrong, he would try to retreat once more.

The copies seemed to become enraged, their speed increased even more as all of them rushed at Krune at high speeds. Because of the amount of Spiritual Energy leaving their bodies, it seemed more like they were ready to explode. Most of the participants would not be able to hold themselves and would immediately flee at that sight. However, Krune steeled his resolve and didn't move at all.

When the first copy arrived, spiritual energy blew like waves, making it quite difficult for Krune to stay in his position. If this copy really decided to explode at that moment, Krune would probably be done for. Even his first plan of running away after the first copy touched him would be hard to accomplish.

Still, Krune made up his mind and did not move until the copy slammed into his body. However, instead of an explosion or anything like that, the spiritual energy waves rushed inside his body like a tide. The Wisp Copy also merged into him as if it was part of himself since the very beginning.

'So that's how it is.'

Krune then let the other copies come to him one after another. Every single one added even more Spiritual Energy into his Wisp Core. Finally, when the last copy merged with his body, gathering the rest of the Spiritual Energy inside.

"Go!"

Krune felt like something within himself had been triggered. All the accumulated Spiritual Energy suddenly exploded outwards, destroying the fabric of space around Krune completely. But at the same time, it also opened a spatial gate that immediately swallowed Krune inside. Krune's vision went blurry for a few seconds before finally returning to normal.

When he looked around, he saw another 20 or so cultivators and demon beasts. At the same time, a message appeared in his mind.

-Number of participants who exited the Mirror World: 24.-

-Congratulations, you are qualified for the last phase of the Heavenly Competition.-

Krune sighed in relief after that.

'In the end, there was a phase were strength meant nothing. What they tested was the cultivators and demon beasts capability of thinking out of the box. How many or how long would they take to understand that the clues within oneself were not for them to use? Quite an interesting exam. It has little to do with intelligence. In a certain way, one had to be a lot more 'daring' to do what I did. There was also a question of fear. At that moment, when the copy was about to hit me, I almost fled from it. The amount of Spiritual Energy coming out from the fake wisp was really terrifying.'

Krune then returned to his human form and began to wait with the others. At some point...

-Number of participants who exited the Mirror World: 39.-

Laka appeared outside, which Krune immediately recognized. It was just that he was full of injuries on his body. Not too surprisingly, Laka probably attacked the copies using his full power at first, which causes those injuries.

"Sure enough, if there was someone I thought to be 'daring' in that place, it was definitely you."

Laka looked at Krune as well and began to laugh out loud.

"Hahaha! Your grandfather, Laka, can be anything but afraid!"

Krune smiled and shook his head. Even with a body damaged like that, he still can find a chance to brag.

Laka also returned to his human form and took a few healing pills out. He swallowed all of them and concentrated on recovering from his injuries.

"Still, who was the one to think about this crazy idea? I almost killed myself in the first strike! I swear I'll get it back ten folds!"

Krune couldn't help but laugh. Such a complex formation, it definitely wasn't made by a single person or beast. Laka would need to hunt quite a lot of experts who worked on it.

Time passed, and the number of participants who came out increased.

-Number of participants who exited the Mirror World: 71.-

Iem Turo from the Dalim Universe exited.

Not only him, but other favorites for the five slots of the Dalin Universe kept coming out as well.

-Number of participants who exited the Mirror World: 97.-

A female cultivator called Karen Zetil, one of the favorites for the five slots and a representative of the Orchiv Universe, came out. The Orchiv Universe is one of the five actual Slots Owner. Obviously, the Orchiv Universe wanted to keep their slot, so they are participating as well.

-Number of participants who exited the Mirror World: 130.-

A demon beast that looked like a giant snake made of lava appeared. It was a Divine Beast called Burning Heaven Snake. This race was born in the molten lava at the center of the planets. In a certain way, this race looked like the wisps. That's because their souls were also located inside their Lava Core and not inside a brain. The Burning Heaven Snake's name was Tiango, a male demon beast of the Bondro Universe and another strong contestant for the five slots.

-Number of participants who exited the Mirror World: 179.-

Hanan finally came out of the Mirror World. His face was pale, and his Spiritual Energy was is chaos. Nonetheless, Krune could see his sigh of relief when he appeared outside.

"Who the hell thought about such an absurd idea?!"

Krune and Laka laughed out loud, too, after hearing those words.

"Don't worry, you have Laka to help you find the guys who built the formation in the future."

Hanan sighed and sat down on the floor. He seemed to be in an even worse state than Laka.

-Number of participants who exited the Mirror World: 195.-

-Number of participants who exited the Mirror World: 206.-

Cultivators and demon beasts appeared one after another. Between them, more and more famous figures could be seen too. From the number 100 onward, most of them seemed to have suffered severe injuries. Sure enough, it wasn't easy to simply let their copies jump at them as if they were about to explode. It really needed a lot of courage.

Finally...

-Number of participants who exited the Mirror World: 256.-

The last participant qualified for the final phase was decided!