The white mask stayed motionless, tilted slightly to one side.
"How to punish you…"
"Punish?" Borin growled, a savage grin splitting his cracked lips. "Go ahead and try, asshole."
He didn't need to focus. Even exhausted, summoning his doubles was second nature, a reflex etched into his brain as deeply as his own name. His innate skill.
His mind commanded, and the ether in his body was supposed to respond—split, materialize.
Nothing happened.
Borin blinked. A tiny, icy shiver ran down his spine.
He tried again. He visualized the inner equation, simple and clear, that birthed a double from his ether. He felt the void where the energy should have surged and shaped itself.
'Impossible.'
He tried clenching his left fist, forcing even a spark of the spectral ether hammer to appear.
Nothing. Not the faintest glow. Not the slightest connection.
The man in the white mask hadn't moved. He didn't even seem to notice Borin's failed attempt. He'd tilted his head the other way.
"Hmm…" he murmured, barely audible. "The parameters of failure are clear. The punishment method must be proportional to the disruption caused."
"What did you do to me?" Borin's voice came out weaker than he wanted—hoarse. "Who the hell are you?"
He tried again. Desperately. He closed his eyes, searching inside for the familiar feel of ether—that warm, living current that had flowed through his veins since his Awakening. He found only the cold of extreme fatigue, the dull and sharp ache of his wounds. Like he'd been amputated from a sense.
"Standard options are unsatisfactory," the masked man went on, turning slightly to survey the lunar landscape. "It needs something that… fits."
Borin wanted to lunge, hit him even without powers—with bare fists if he had to. But his legs buckled. The pain he'd held at bay with nothing but adrenaline and rage crashed back, multiplied. His cracked ribs stabbed his lungs. His dislocated shoulder sent an electric jolt through his nerves. He dropped to one knee, breath gone, hand pressed to his side.
Cold sweat broke across his forehead.
"What… did you do to me?" he repeated, voice shaking now.
His legs gave out.
A groan escaped him.
"What… what did you do to me?"
The masked man didn't answer. He just stood at the crater's edge, head still tilted. His right hand tapped lightly against his thigh.
"Hey! I'M TALKING TO YOU, DAMN IT!"
Nothing.
Borin tried to stand. His arms shook under his weight. His right shoulder refused to move—of course it did, it was ruined…
He collapsed face-first into the dirt.
"What did you do to me?" he repeated, voice barely a hoarse whisper.
The man stopped tapping his thigh.
"Ah."
Borin looked up with effort.
The man took a step forward.
The distance between them—ten meters, maybe twelve—vanished.
Borin didn't even have time to blink. One moment the man was at the crater's edge. The next he stood right in front of him, so close Borin could see his own distorted reflection in the smooth white mask.
"Your primary disruption," the man declared, as if he'd just solved a complex equation, "was acting. More precisely…"
Then Borin's feet left the ground.
He floated. His body rose gently, arms hanging limp at his sides, legs useless.
He tried to move. His muscles didn't respond.
'No. No, no, no—'
"Yes. This will be clear enough."
A flash of pain shot through his left shoulder.
Then his left arm dropped.
Borin looked down.
His arm. His whole arm. Severed clean at the shoulder, falling to the ground in almost unreal silence. Blood sprayed from the wound, splattering the earth below.
The pain hit a second later—a burning wave that surged up his torso and exploded in his skull.
He tried to scream.
No sound came out.
His throat was there, lungs pumping air, but his voice—his voice was gone, severed somewhere between thought and mouth.
The second flash came from his right shoulder.
His right arm joined the left in its fall.
This time, something broke inside Borin's mind.
'This isn't real. This isn't—'
"These arms," the masked man said.
His voice was perfectly neutral. Clinical. Like a doctor reading an X-ray.
"These are the arms that ruined my plans. It all came from these arms." He tilted his head slightly. "So, logically…"
Borin wasn't listening anymore.
He couldn't scream.
He couldn't move.
The masked man studied the result, head cocked.
"The arms are good. But insufficient. Your tongue. That's how you could report this encounter. It's another disruption variable."
He stepped closer, until the featureless white mask filled Borin's entire vision. He raised one finger.
Borin stared at the finger moving toward his mouth. Tears streamed freely now. He wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn't even do that. He was trapped in a waking nightmare.
The man's fingers reached his lips.
Borin tried to turn his head. Nothing. His neck didn't budge a millimeter.
The fingers touched his lips.
Then his mouth opened.
His jaws simply unlocked, moved by some invisible force.
Tears welled in Borin's eyes.
He didn't cry. He never cried. Not as a kid, not when his father beat him the first time, not when his mother died.
But now the tears fell.
They blurred his vision, turning the white mask into a hazy smear.
'No. Please. Please, I—'
The man's fingers closed.
Then vanished.
Not that he disappeared. He was simply… elsewhere. A movement so fast it left a faint tear in perception. One instant he was in front of Borin. The next he was hurled backward, sliding across the ground over a hundred meters, boots carving twin furrows in the glassy earth.
Exactly where he'd stood a fraction of a second earlier, a gust had passed. A concentrated wave of pure force that touched only the space he'd occupied. It sliced the air with a sharp whistle, then faded, hitting nothing but empty space.
Borin, still floating, unable to comprehend, blinked through tears.
The masked man steadied himself at the end of his involuntary slide. He straightened, smoothed the front of his outfit with one hand, and slowly turned his head.
Toward the source.
On the opposite edge of the crater, where the devastated ground met the first charred streaks of forest, a new figure stood. Over a hundred kilometers away.
Elias Mercer stood with his hands buried in the pockets of his unbuttoned uniform coat. His messy hair barely stirred in the still air. His face held no expression—not even his usual lazy indifference.
The masked man studied the newcomer for three seconds.
Then he scratched the back of his head.
"Ah. More complications. Really, today…"
He let his hand drop.
"I'm really going to get yelled at."