Chapter 33: The Shattered Prism of Xylos
The transition from the First Gate to the second was not a walk, but a violent tearing of the soul. As Cyan, followed by his four Goddesses, stepped through the rift created by the consumed Core of the First Architect, the reality they knew—the dark obsidian and the violet clouds—was shredded into a billion kaleidoscopic shards.
Cyan felt his body being dismantled and reassembled at the speed of thought. His "Law-Breaker" skill flared, a dark purple aura wrapping around his companions to prevent their very atoms from scattering into the cosmic winds.
[System Notification: Trans-Dimensional Leap Initiated.]
[Target: The Second Gate - The Prism World of Xylos.]
[Warning: Physical laws in this sector are inverted. Mana is solid; Matter is fluid.]
When the blinding light finally receded, Cyan landed on a surface that felt like soft, vibrating glass. He didn't stumble; he stood tall, his mantle of starlight snapping in a wind that didn't move the air, but moved the emotions.
He was standing on a floating island of translucent crystal. Below him, there was no ground, only an endless ocean of liquid colors that shifted from deep emerald to burning crimson. In the sky, three suns of different hues—blue, gold, and violet—clashed, creating a sky that looked like a permanent explosion.
"This... this is beautiful," Clara whispered, her spear lowered in awe. "It looks like a dream."
"Don't be fooled by the aesthetics, Clara," Cyan said, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the horizon. "In a world where everything is beautiful, there is no place for a shadow to hide. And we are the shadow."
Suddenly, the "air" around them began to crystallize. Thousands of floating prisms, each the size of a human head, began to swarm toward them. They didn't have faces, but they emitted a high-pitched, melodic frequency that felt like a drill entering the brain.
"The second guardian," Isabella noted, her emerald mana flaring to create a protective dome. "They aren't attacking our bodies. They are attacking our 'Frequencies'. They are trying to harmonize us into the world, Master. If they succeed, we will turn into crystal statues."
"Harmonize?" Cyan laughed, a sound that cracked the nearest floating prism. "I didn't come here to sing. Lilith! Azrael! Show them the discord of the Abyss!"
Lilith roared, her silver hair turning into snakes of shadow. She leaped into the swarm of prisms, her blades carving through the air. But as she struck, the prisms didn't break; they refracted her energy, firing it back at her in the form of searing beams of rainbow light.
"They absorb and reflect!" Azrael shouted, his eight wings flapping to create a localized vacuum. "We can't hit them with direct force!"
Cyan watched the battle with a cold, calculating gaze. He saw how the prisms worked; they were a collective intelligence, a literal "Firewall" of the Second Gate. To pass, one had to be "Pure" in the eyes of Xylos.
"Isabella, Elara, stay back," Cyan commanded. "This isn't a battle of strength. It's a battle of corruption."
Cyan stepped forward, his purple eye pulsing with a rhythmic, dark light. He didn't draw a weapon. Instead, he opened his arms wide, inviting the prisms to attack.
"You want harmony?" Cyan's voice echoed, drowning out the melodic humming of the world. "I will give you a melody you've never heard. The melody of the broken. The song of the betrayed."
He unleashed his new skill: [Law-Breaker: Harmonic Dissonance].
A wave of jagged, black mana erupted from Cyan's chest. It didn't strike the prisms; it infected the very light they were made of. The rainbow beams hit the black wave and, instead of reflecting, they were stained.
The beautiful blue, gold, and violet of the sky began to turn a bruised, sickly grey wherever Cyan's mana touched. The floating prisms began to shiver, their melodic humming turning into a discordant, agonizing screech.
"Look!" Elara pointed toward the center of the world.
In the distance, a massive tower of pure white diamond was beginning to crack. This was the Heart of Xylos, the Second Gate. As Cyan's corruption spread, the "Perfect" world of the prisms began to reject its own existence. The liquid ocean below began to boil, and the floating islands started to collide.
[System Notification: Corruption Progress of Xylos - 15%... 30%... 50%.]
[The 'Grand Harmonizer' has been awakened.]
From the boiling ocean of color, a titan emerged. It was a being made of pure, liquid light, four-armed and towering hundreds of feet into the sky. Its face was a mirror that reflected not Cyan, but Lyra—the girl he had sacrificed.
"You dare bring your filth to the Garden of Reflection?" the Titan spoke, its voice a thousand bells ringing at once. "Look upon your own sin, Usurper. Look at the one you killed for your ambition!"
Cyan stopped. His breath hitched as he looked into the mirror-face of the Titan. He saw Lyra's golden eyes, her sad smile, and the way her body had dissolved into the bridge. It was a psychological trap, designed to break the will of the intruder.
"Master, don't look!" Isabella cried out, trying to reach him.
But Cyan didn't turn away. He walked toward the massive Titan, his boots crunching on the crystal ground.
"You think showing me her face will make me falter?" Cyan said, his voice dropping to a whisper that carried more power than the Titan's roar. "You think I don't see her every time I close my eyes? You think I don't carry the weight of her soul in every step I take?"
He reached the edge of the island, looking up at the towering god of light.
"The difference between me and you, 'Harmonizer', is that I don't hide my scars behind a mirror. I wear them as armor. She didn't die for your 'Harmony'. She died to break it!"
Cyan's aura exploded. He didn't just use his mana; he channeled the [Grief of the Fallen Saint]—the part of Lyra's soul that was still linked to him through the Bridge.
The violet mana turned into a dark, burning gold. Cyan flew upward, a spear of pure paradoxical energy forming in his hand. He struck the mirror-face of the Titan with the force of a collapsing dimension.
"BREAK!" Cyan roared.
The mirror shattered. The Titan's head exploded into a million shards of dark glass. The liquid light of its body began to turn into black ink, raining down upon the world of Xylos.
[System Notification: The Second Gate - DEFEATED.]
[Core of Xylos Acquired.]
[New Skill Unlocked: 'Shattered Reflection' - You can now create shadow-clones that mimic the enemy's strength.]
The world of Xylos began to dissolve, the kaleidoscopic colors fading into a dark, silent void. Cyan stood in the center of the ruins, holding a small, triangular crystal that pulsed with a cold, rainbow light.
He was breathing heavily, his eyes fixed on the empty space where the Titan's face had been. He felt a phantom warmth on his shoulder, as if a hand had been placed there for a brief second.
"Two down," Cyan whispered, his voice cold and resolute. "Ten to go."
He turned back to his Goddesses. They were standing amidst the shards of a broken world, looking at him with a mixture of terror and absolute devotion. They realized that Cyan wasn't just conquering worlds; he was destroying the very idea of "Perfection" that the Architects had spent eons building.
"Prepare yourselves," Cyan said, opening the rift to the Third Gate. "The next one won't be as 'beautiful' as this. I can feel it. The Architects are no longer watching. They are preparing their own 'Sins' to face us."