Krad's vision went white with rage. The Moon Eater stirred inside him like a beast waking from centuries of slumber. He could feel it... the ancient power coiling through his veins, demanding release, demanding vengeance for the creatures this monster had tortured.
"I'm going to make you pay," Krad growled, his voice dropping an octave. Silver light began seeping from his eyes. "For every single one of them."
Xerxes clasped his hands together in delight. "Yes! Yes! Let it consume you! Show me the true power of---"
Then he stopped.
His head tilted, as if listening to something only he could hear. The crimson eyes behind the bone mask narrowed with what might have been... annoyance?
"Tch. How inconvenient." Xerxes glanced at the darkening sky. "It seems I've lingered too long. The Continental Association has finally mobilized their Celestial-ranked hunters. How bothersome."
[ System Alpha: Multiple high-level signatures detected. Distance: 15 kilometers and closing. ]
[ System Buddy: Wait, are those the good guys?! Finally! ]
But Xerxes didn't seem concerned. If anything, he looked... pleased.
"Well then, young vessel, it appears our dance must be postponed." He reached into his robes and withdrew something, a crystal that pulsed with the same sickly purple light as his mask. "But I can't leave without proper entertainment. It would be rude to deny you the fight you so desperately crave."
He crushed the crystal.
The air screamed.
Reality seemed to tear open behind Xerxes, a gaping wound in space that bled darkness and corruption. And from that wound, something emerged.
At first, it looked like a woman. Tall, elegant, draped in flowing robes of midnight blue that seemed woven from starlight and shadow. Her face was hauntingly beautiful, with features so perfect they seemed carved by a master sculptor. Long black hair cascaded down her back like a waterfall of silk.
But her eyes...
Her eyes were completely white... just blank, endless white that somehow saw everything.
[ Enemy Detected: Han - The Cursed Queen ]
[ Level: 5000 ]
[ Threat Assessment: Catastrophic ]
[ Warning: Domain-Type Entity Detected ]
[ Warning: Reality Manipulation Confirmed ]
"Level 5000?!" Krad's systems screamed in unison.
Mist, still struggling to stand thirty meters away, went pale. "No. No, that's impossible. Domain-types are supposed to be extinct. They were all sealed during the---"
"During the Ragnarok, yes," Xerxes finished cheerfully. "But I've been collecting such fascinating specimens. Han here is one of my finest research subjects. A queen who ruled an entire kingdom, corrupted by her own paranoia and jealousy until her power consumed everything she loved."
Han's head turned toward Xerxes with mechanical precision. When she spoke, her voice was like wind chimes made of bone. "Master... commands?"
"Kill them," Xerxes said simply, gesturing toward Krad and the others. "But make it interesting. I want to see how the vessel performs under true pressure. And Han?"
The Cursed Queen's white eyes fixed on him.
"Don't hold back."
A smile crossed Han's perfect features, a smile that held no humanity, just endless, yawning hunger.
"As... you... wish."
Xerxes laughed as the spatial tear began pulling him backward. "Enjoy yourselves, children! And vessel... do try not to die too quickly. I have such wonderful plans for you!"
"Wait!" Krad lunged forward, but the tear sealed shut with a sound like reality snapping back into place.
Xerxes was gone.
And they were alone with the Cursed Queen.
For one heartbeat, nothing happened. Han simply stood there, her white eyes surveying them with the detached interest of a collector examining insects.
Then she raised one delicate hand.
"Alter."
The world inverted.
---
Krad's stomach lurched as reality twisted inside-out around him. The ruins of the Kingdom of Darkness dissolved like watercolor in rain, replaced by something that made his eyes hurt to perceive.
They were standing in a throne room. But not a normal throne room, this one existed in multiple dimensions simultaneously. The walls were there and not-there, solid and translucent, close and impossibly distant all at once. Pillars stretched up into infinity, their surfaces covered in mirrors that reflected versions of reality that shouldn't exist.
And in every mirror, Krad could see himself.
[ System Alpha: Critical Alert! Reality parameters destabilized! ]
[ System Buddy: What is this place?! Where are we?! ]
"Welcome," Han's voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere, "to my Mirage Palace."
Mist materialized beside Krad, his sword already drawn, gray mist pouring from his body. Dani and Kora appeared a moment later, both looking disoriented and terrified.
"A Domain," Mist gasped, blood still dripping from his mouth. "She's trapped us in her Domain. This is her world now... her rules."
"What does that mean?!" Krad demanded, watching as the mirrors multiplied around them.
"It means," Han's voice purred, "that here, I am god."
The mirrors shattered.
From every broken reflection, a figure emerged. They were perfect copies—Krad, Mist, Dani, Kora... identical down to the last detail. Even their wounds, their exhaustion, their fear... all replicated with terrifying accuracy.
[ System Alpha: Entity count detected: 40 copies. ]
[ System Buddy: That's... that's too many! How are we supposed to fight that many?! ]
"You can't tell which is real, can you?" Han materialized on a throne that hadn't existed a moment before, her white eyes gleaming with cruel amusement. "That's the beauty of my domain. Every reflection is real. Every copy possesses the same skills, the same power, the same memories as the original."
She leaned forward. "The only difference? I control them all."
A Krad-copy lunged at the real Krad with a fist wreathed in silver light, Moon Eater power.
"Shit!" Krad barely dodged, the afterimage of his Evade skill flickering as the clone's fist cratered the floor where he'd been standing.
[ Skill Activated: Evade ]
[ Remaining Uses: 3/14 ]
But before he could counter, three more Krad-copies attacked from different angles. Then five Mist-copies engaged the real Mist, their swords clashing with his in a symphony of ringing steel.
"Captain!" Krad tried to reach him, but a wall of his own reflections blocked the path.
"Don't worry about me!" Mist's voice cut through the chaos as he parried four strikes simultaneously. "Focus on surviving!"
Dani screamed as her own copies surrounded her, their hands glowing with the same tracking magic she'd used to find Xerxes. "They know everything I know! Every technique, every weakness!"
Kora tried to heal herself, but her clone-copies were already casting the same spell, their combined power overwhelming her defenses and inverting the magic into damage instead.
This was insane. They were fighting themselves, and losing.
Krad ducked under a kick from one copy, blocked a punch from another, but a third caught him in the ribs with a brutal strike that sent him skidding backward.
[ Damage Received: 340 ]
[ Health: 61% ]
"How are we supposed to win this?!" Krad gasped, desperately dodging another flurry of attacks.
[ System Alpha: Analyzing combat data... Current strategy: Unsustainable. Victory probability against 10 perfect copies of you: 0.0003% ]
[ System Buddy: We need a plan! A really good plan! Like, right now! ]
Han's laughter echoed through the Mirage Palace. "There is no plan, vessel. There is no strategy that can overcome perfection. You fight yourselves, and yourselves know every move you'll make before you make it."
She was right. Every time Krad tried to attack, his copies countered perfectly because they would have done the same thing. Every dodge he attempted, they predicted because they would have dodged the same way.
It was like fighting his own shadow, except the shadow hit back just as hard.
A Krad-copy landed a devastating uppercut that lifted him off his feet. Another caught him mid-air with a knee to the spine. He crashed to the ground, tasting blood.
[ Health Points: 47% ]
Across the battlefield, Mist wasn't faring much better. Even with his Celestial-level power, he was being overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Every time he cut down one copy, two more took its place.
"This is pointless!" Dani cried out as her own magic was turned against her, tracking spells binding her in place.
Han rose from her throne, descending the steps with fluid grace. "Do you understand now? This is why Master Xerxes values me so highly. In my domain, I am unbeatable. Every fighter I face becomes my weapon. The stronger you are, the stronger I become."
She gestured, and a thousand mirrors materialized above them, each one showing a different angle of their hopeless battle.
"You cannot win. You can only die."
Krad forced himself to his feet, spitting blood. His body screamed in protest, his mana was depleted, his health was critical. And somewhere deep inside, the Moon Eater was stirring, sensing his desperation, offering power he didn't want to accept.
Let me out, it whispered. Let me devour these false reflections. Let me show this pretender what true power means.
"No," Krad gasped. "Not... yet..."
"Still resisting?" Han's white eyes fixed on him with something like curiosity. "Fascinating. Even now, with death seconds away, you refuse to unleash your true strength. Why?"
"Because," Krad met her gaze, defiance burning in his golden eyes, "I made a promise."