As we moved forward, Trihexa walked ahead, still bearing the signs of her wounds. Her step was lighter now, more cautious. Elira had her sword unsheathed. Candy held her ice dagger, her fingers frosted from a ready spell.
"This place is wrong," Elira said. "It feels... hollow and full at the same time."
{New Objective: Traverse the First Layer of the Demon King's Fortress.} {Difficulty: Ha ha. Good luck.}
We moved as a unit, our footsteps echoing across cracked obsidian floors. The inside of the fortress was like a cathedral built by shadows. Tall spires. Bone chandeliers. Doors that whispered when we passed them.
And then came the laughter. Soft. Distorted. Childlike.
We entered a vast chamber lined with stained glass. Each pane depicted a different sin. Pride. Wrath. envy. The final one was shattered.
From the ceiling dropped a figure.
A girl. Pale, porcelain skin. Hollow eyes. A black dress stitched with crimson runes. Which made me jump back in fright and get a defensive stance.
{Mini-Boss: Dahlia the Broken} {Title: The third Sin: Envy}
She tilted her head. "Did you come to die, or to cry?"
"Neither," I said, unsheathing Excalibur. "We came to clean a rotting house."
The moment Dahlia's bare feet touched the ground, the air itself seemed to curdle. Her hollow eyes locked onto mine, and the stained-glass panes screamed as they exploded outward.
Shards rained like guillotine blades.
Trihexa spun, her nine tails forming a silver shield that rang like struck metal as glass deflected off them.
Candy crossed her arms—"Glacial Dome!"—encasing herself in a jagged ice cocoon.
I yanked Elira behind me, flaring Limitless just as a thousand razors froze mid-air inches from her face.
Dahlia giggled. "Too slow."
Her shadow-tendrils lashed out—not at us, but at the suspended glass. The shards reassembled mid-flight into a spiraling drill aimed at Candy's dome.
"Elira, now!"
Elira dove, her blade igniting with holy light. "Radiant Parry!" The drill shattered, but Dahlia was already moving—
Her dress split open down the back, revealing a writhing mass of eyeballs. Each pupil dilated in sync, and the chamber plunged into darkness.
{Status: Cursed Blindness (All non-demons suffer 80% vision loss)}
Trihexa snarled. "She's using our own light against us!"
Candy reacted fastest—"Frost Echo!" She slammed her palms together, releasing a pulse of ice that crystallised the air, creating a sonar-like map of the room.
I erased time with King Crimson, lunging where Dahlia would be—
But she twisted mid-air, her spine bending impossibly to avoid Excalibur. One of her eyes blinked.
"Got you."
Cursed mana coiled around my sword arm, freezing it solid.
Dahlia's tendrils speared toward my immobilised form—
CRACK!
A lunar-charged paw smashed through the ice encasing me. Trihexa, now in full kitsune form, wrenched me free. "Stop playing hero and fight!"
We broke apart as Dahlia's limbs multiplied, becoming a whirling storm of shadows.
She exhaled sharply, weaving signs with bleeding fingers. "Permafrost Chains!" Ice erupted from the floor, entangling Dahlia's tendrils—but the bonds shattered instantly.
"Pathetic," Dahlia sneered—just as Elira's thrown sword (wrapped in Candy's frost) speared through her chest.
No effect. The wound sealed with laughing shadows.
Dahlia's eyes gleamed. "You can't kill envy. It festers in every heart."
That's when I noticed—her attacks grew stronger when we fought alone.
"She feeds on division," I realised. "We need one synchronised strike."
Trihexa howled, unleashing a Lunar Pulse that forced Dahlia's eyes shut.
Candy encased her own hands in ice and slammed them into the ground—"Absolute Zero: Seed!"—sending a creeping frost toward Dahlia's feet.
Elira channeled all her light into her blade, becoming a blinding beacon.
I activated wings of Heimdall, wings flaring, and dove with Excalibur aimed at Dahlia's heart.
Dahlia smiled as the attacks converged—
BOOM.
The chamber flashed white. When the light faded, Dahlia stood frozen in a pillar of ice, Elira's sword through her sternum, my blade through her skull, and Trihexa's fangs buried in her throat.
Her last whisper: "You'll... envy... me... soon~"
Then she shattered into millions of pieces of glass and disappeared.
{Mini-Boss Defeated. Rewards: 90,000 EXP.} {1 Rare Item Obtained: Tear of the third Sin.}
I grabbed it and slipped it into my inventory. We'd figure it out later.
Candy breathed hard. "That... wasn't the worst thing I've seen. But it's up there."
Trihexa wiped blood from her mouth. "There will be more. Worse ones."
We walked into the next corridor.
At its end, an elevator.
One made of bone.
{Next Layer Unlocked. Estimated Survival Rate: 37%}
"So," Elira said, cracking her fingers. "On a scale of one to 'we're screwed', where are we?"
"Just past 'mildly cursed', but not yet at 'eternally damned,'" I answered.
We stepped inside.
And the fortress whispered our names sending a shiver down my spine.
♦ ♦ ♦
The elevator lurched downwards. It creaked with every shift like the bones resented being disturbed. The deeper we went, the colder it became—not just in temperature, but in spirit. Like something ancient and angry was waiting.
Candy looked up at the hanging chains above us. "This thing ever stop?"
"Eventually," I said. "Or it drops us into a pit of lava. Either way, the suspense ends."
{Random Fact: 47% of parties fail after reaching this depth. But hey, you're above average, right?}
We finally reached the bottom. A corridor stretched before us, this one lined with mirrors. They reflected not just our appearances but twisted versions—us, corrupted, broken, defeated.
One of the mirrors showed me with hollow eyes, my team dead at my feet. Another showed me as the Demon King himself.
"Ignore them," Trihexa said, voice firm. "They feed on doubt."
Halfway through the corridor, the mirrors began to hum. A low frequency that vibrated in our bones.
Candy faltered. "They're trying to get in... into our heads."
I summoned Emperor Time and let the magic flow, forcing clarity into all of us. The mirrors shattered.
Ahead was another chamber. This one circular and sealed. A riddle appeared in glowing letters:
"I am what you must face before you find truth. What am I?"
"What kind of question is that?"
'Hey, Dayne, do you know what we must face before we find the truth?'
'Since when was I the smart one in riddles?'
'So, you have no idea?'
'Nope, not a-'
"Uum—I have an idea." Elira said while looking at me.
"Look, you don't need to ask for permission to do anything. It's your life."
"O-okay. I think the answer is 'ourselves'."
The door creaked and then opened.
The moment we stepped into the circular chamber, the bone doors slammed shut behind us. The air thickened—not with heat or cold, but with a suffocating familiarity.
Then the mirrors melted.
Silver pools swirled on the floor before rising into four perfect copies: Shadow Dan, Shadow Trihexa, Shadow Candy, and Shadow Elira. Their eyes were voids. Their smiles were wrong.
{Boss Fight: Reflections of the Fallen
Type: Perfect Replicas
Weakness: ???
Threat: They know everything you do. But do they feel it?}
Shadow Dan moved first—too fast. He didn't just activate King Crimson; he anticipated it, erasing time before I could. His fist crashed into my ribs, sending me skidding across the obsidian floor.
"Pathetic," he spat. "You hesitate. I don't."
Meanwhile:
Shadow Trihexa pinned the real Trihexa with her own lunar magic, tails coiling like shackles.
Shadow Candy conjured a blizzard scythe—"You're sloppy without Beltai."
Shadow Elira fought Elira blow-for-blow, their swords sparking like colliding stars.
Every attack we landed, they mirrored perfectly. Every spell, every feint—they knew.
Candy gasped as her clone's ice dagger grazed her throat. "They're not just copying us—they're better !"
Shadow Dan laughed. "Because we're what you could be if you stopped caring."
I rolled as his Excalibur cleaved the ground where my head had been. Think. What don't they have?
Then I saw it:
Shadow Trihexa's strikes were flawless—but her eyes were empty. No rage, no grief.
Shadow Candy's ice was brutal—but it lacked her improvisation.
Shadow Elira's swordplay was precise—but robotic. No passion.
"They're just echoes!" I shouted. "They can't adapt!"
I let Shadow Dan charge—then deliberately tripped. His blade whistled past my ear as I yanked him down with Bungee Gum and headbutted him.
"You don't know pain," I growled. Blood dripped from my brow. "You don't know fear."
His nose cracked. For the first time, he flinched.
Trihexa stopped fighting Shadow Trihexa's strength—and embraced her. "You're not me," she whispered. "Because I refuse to be alone again." Her clone's tails flickered. A hesitation. And then Trihexa used all her strength to crush her in that moment of hesitation.
Candy stopped casting textbook spells and improvised—firing an ice lance behind her without looking. Shadow Candy, expecting order, froze mid-counter giving Candy enough time to throw an ice dagger in her heart.
Elira dropped her sword. Shadow Elira mirrored the move—just as Elira kicked a shard of ice (from Candy's blast) into its throat.
"I'm done being perfect," she panted. "I'd rather be human."
The clones staggered, their forms glitching. Shadow Dan snarled—
"We are inevitable!"
I grabbed his wrist. "No. You're just ghosts."
With a final Ko-infused punch, his jaw shattered. The clones exploded into liquid silver, the mirrors reforming—but now, they showed our true reflections.
Panting, Trihexa stared at her mirror self. "...Huh. I'm prettier than I thought."
{Mid-Boss Defeated. Rewards: 70,000 EXP. 1 Skill Upgrade Token.}
"You okay?" I asked Trihexa.
She nodded. "Better now."
We stepped into the next hallway.
Another whisper followed us but we ignored it and we walked on.
Toward the second layer of hell with a smirk.
♦ ♦ ♦