Chapter 54: The Reflection of Rage
Hellthunder's transformation into a being of pure, sentient lightning was a spectacle of raw, untamed power. The gravitational field imposed by Che, the parasitic younger brother clinging to the elder twin Hui's back, visibly warped around the crackling black form, the pressure struggling to contain the volatile energy. The air hummed with ozone and malice.
But Hui, the elder brother now in control of the primary body, didn't flinch. The fury and killing intent that had overwhelmed Che now settled into a cold, focused certainty within him. He didn't see a storm of lightning; he saw a reflection waiting to be made.
As Hellthunder, now a living bolt of Cursed Lightning, shot towards him with a sound like tearing silk, Hui moved. He didn't dodge. He stepped forward to meet the charge, his right arm sweeping up in a wide, mirroring arc.
Blood Demon Art: Mirror Image Genesis – Perfect Reflection.
The air in front of Hui's arm didn't just ripple; it hardened, becoming a flawless, silvery plane for an instant. When Hellthunder's lightning-form struck it, the mirrored surface didn't shatter. It absorbed.
For a fraction of a second, the raging black lightning was suspended in the silver plane, a captured image of pure violence. Then, the mirror expelled it.
An identical, coherent bolt of black Cursed Lightning erupted backwards from the mirrored surface, not at Hellthunder, but at the space he had just vacated. It was a perfect, 180-degree reflection of his own attack, its power undiminished.
Hellthunder, unable to arrest his own momentum, couldn't dodge the reflection he hadn't even seen coming. The reflected lightning struck the ground where he'd been a moment before, but the concussive blast and secondary arcs of energy washed over his trailing form, disrupting his cohesion. He screamed, a sound of crackling static and pain, as his lightning-body flickered, parts of it reverting to smoldering flesh.
He reformed a few yards away, panting, his human form visible again but covered in fresh burns, his demonic regeneration working furiously. The arrogance was gone, replaced by wary confusion and simmering rage. His ultimate attack had been turned against him with impossible precision.
"You reflect… everything?" Hellthunder snarled, black energy coiling around his fists once more.
"I reflect truth," Hui replied, his voice now a deep, resonant echo of his brother's earlier distortion. "Your power is a scream. My reflection is the echo that traps it." On his back, Che whispered another command, and the gravitational field shifted, no longer a blanket pressure, but a series of localized, intense pulls at Hellthunder's limbs, trying to throw him off balance, to make him stumble into another of his brother's mirrored counter-strikes.
Hellthunder fought against the erratic gravity, his movements becoming jerky, unpredictable. He launched smaller, faster arcs of lightning, not as a single massive attack, but as a barrage, hoping to overwhelm the Mirror Twin's ability to reflect.
Hui responded with a beautiful, terrible economy of motion. Small, fist-sized mirrors bloomed in the air around him, each intercepting a lightning bolt and sending it zinging off at a harmless angle or, worse, reflecting it towards another incoming bolt, causing them to annihilate each other in mid-air with crackling detonations. It was a defensive display that was also an offensive masterpiece—Hellthunder was literally fighting himself, his own energy being used to cancel out his attacks.
Frustration boiled over. Hellthunder abandoned technique. With a roar that shook the wooden floor, he channeled all his remaining power into a final, suicidal charge. He became a comet of black lightning, aiming not to be reflected, but to shatter the mirror with overwhelming, point-blank force.
Hui saw it coming. He didn't create a mirror this time. He spread his arms wide, and the air around his entire torso became a single, vast, curved reflector—a parabolic dish aimed directly at the oncoming comet.
The collision was silent for a heartbeat, as the lightning was swallowed by the silver surface. Then, with a sound like the world cracking, it was flung back, amplified. The reflected bolt, now condensed and magnified by the parabolic mirror, hit Hellthunder head-on with double the force he had put into it.
There was no scream this time. Just a deafening BOOM and a flash of light that whited out the arena for a second. When the glare faded, Hellthunder was on his back in the center of a charred, smoldering crater in the wooden floor. His body was a ruined mess, limbs twisted at wrong angles, chest a blackened cavity. His demonic regeneration was active, but it was slow, agonizingly slow, knitting together catastrophic damage.
Hui, the Mirror Twin, stood at the crater's edge. The silvery sheen faded from his skin. On his back, Che had sunk back into a less distinct bulge, his role complete. Hui looked down at his defeated opponent, the rage gone from his eyes, replaced by that same eerie calm.
"The reflection does not lie," he said quietly. "You were defeated by the truth of your own power, unrestrained and turned against you."
The duel was over. It had been a brutal demonstration of a fundamentally different kind of strength. Not overwhelming force, but perfect, unforgiving reaction. Hellthunder, the embodiment of volatile power, had been dismantled by his own reflection.
From the high platform, Shuichi Mayuki's voice cut through the settling dust. "The challenge fails. Lower Three, Hellthunder, remains. Let all witness the consequence of challenging a superior rank without understanding the nature of your own strength."
The message was clear to every demon present. The Twelve Kizuki's hierarchy would not be decided by mindless savagery alone. It would reward control, precision, and a deep, often cruel, understanding of one's own abilities and those of one's foes. As Hellthunder's body slowly, painfully reformed in the crater, the lower ranks were solidified, and the hunger for the upper ranks—where even more terrible and refined powers surely waited—took root in the watching demons' hearts. The game had its rules now. And its first lesson had been written in lightning and mirror-shards.
✨Enjoying the story? You can support me on Patreon —
Patreon.com/MizuSan
✨ Patreon members get early chapter access, bonus content! 🥰
🎉 Plus, I'll release 1 extra chapter for every 5 reviews!💎 Or grab 1 bonus chapter for every 50 Power Stones you send my way! 🥳
🌊 Let's reach 20 Patreon members to unlock 5 extra chapters togethe