The calm didn't last.
The Mirror returned not as a reflection of his power this time.
It had learned.
It no longer mirrored attacks.
It mirrored existence itself.
Every possibility every decision every potential Kael could ever enact it became.
Kael paused.
So it isn't me anymore he muttered.
It's everything I could be
This version of the Mirror wasn't a test.
It was a force of absolute equivalence.
It didn't challenge Kael by strength.
It overlapped his being existing everywhere Kael existed, faster than thought.
For a moment, Kael realized:
he could be erased not because it was stronger but because it was inevitable.
Nyx's eyes widened.
This isn't just power it's him, multiplied by everything he can imagine.
Selene whispered, No counter can reach that. Not even if he fights himself again.
Vorin clenched his weapon.
He's alone in this.
Kael's voice came to them, calm and almost distant.
I may appear alone but I am beyond alone.
He stopped using Architectural Authority.
Stopped fighting reality.
Stopped resisting the Mirror.
Instead, he became a meta concept.
Not a being.
Not a power.
A law that cannot be mirrored.
The Mirror faltered.
It had no template for beyond existence.
Kael exhaled.
Time itself quivered.
Realities stacked inside him responded to the new state of being.
He wasn't pushing, striking, or rewriting.
He was redefining the rules that allowed the Mirror to exist.
The reflection began unraveling not because it lost
but because it could not exist without a definition and Kael had become undefined.
The Mirror evaporated.
Not destroyed. Not erased.
Simply ceased to qualify as a being.
Kael remained.
Alone yet more complete.
He exhaled calmly.
This is the only way to survive an equal of myself.
To become something no one can mirror.
Kael Veyris walked forward.
Not as a fighter.
Not as a being of power.
But as existence itself, untouchable, unmirrored and irreducible.