When mirrors crack, they don't just break—they multiply the faces that haunt you.
The Arena of Faces
The world had turned inside out.
Asher, Rosa, and Lucien stood where the cathedral's ceiling had once been—now a jagged, floating arena suspended in impossible space. The stained glass windows no longer clung to walls. Instead, they orbited like broken planets, spinning slowly around the vortex that was Mother Reflection.
Behind them, Nocturne's skyline had become unrecognizable. The city bled red light, as though the sunset were stuck in rewind—unmaking the day one color at a time.
And at the center of it all floated Her.
Mother Reflection's true form loomed tall and draped in flowing robes made of shattered prayer and guilt. Hundreds of human faces shifted across her flesh—young, old, angry, weeping, laughing—all speaking at once in a grotesque chorus.
"You wear masks, Asher Blackwood," she said.Her voice wasn't one voice. It was hundreds—layered, clashing, overlapping like a thousand regrets in stereo."Let me gift you a face that's true."
Asher stood still, gun steady, heart thundering.
Lucien muttered, "Okay, gonna need a drink after this."
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Battle Phase 1 — Face Thief
Without warning, shards of mirrored light burst from Mother Reflection's sleeves. They moved like serpents—Mirror Wisps—and they lunged for Rosa and Lucien.
The moment the wisps touched skin, the world changed.
Rosa stumbled, eyes wide. Before her, specters emerged—men and women in gang tattoos, the people she had run with, bled with, betrayed. Their faces twisted in betrayal.
"You left us," one hissed.
Lucien choked, frozen mid-aim. He saw children—young, scared, lying still in alleys. Ghosts of contracts fulfilled. Targets who never fought back.
Asher fired wildly. "Focus! It's illusion! Rip them off!"
The Mirror Wisps darted, fast and evasive, glinting in the blood-red sky. Each movement sent ripples through reality. Asher's aim sharpened, Noir's targeting overlays flaring across his vision.
"Threat level escalating," Noir reported. "Suggest suppressive fire pattern Gamma-3."
He adjusted his stance, shoulder snapping into form. A trio of precision shots cracked through the air—each one finding its mark.
Rosa roared, gripping her chain. It pulsed—faintly at first, then brighter, embers running along its metal links.
"No more guilt games!" she shouted, ripping the wisp from her chest and whipping it into oblivion.
Lucien blinked hard, his grin returning as he snapped out of the trance. "Heads are clearing... and I'm pissed."
Asher's gaze never left Mother Reflection. He knew this was just the warm-up.
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Battle Phase 2 — Truth Revealed
The arena cracked—literally. Floating platforms of cathedral stone began to shatter and drift apart as Mother Reflection let out a banshee-like cry.
Her body unraveled—humanoid shape peeling away into a churning mass of masks and sinew, her robe stretching like spilled ink across the floating debris. Eyes opened and shut across her form. Mouths whispered sins. She became something cosmic, something wrong.
The stained glass orbit shattered next. The shards did not fall—they transformed.
Each splinter twisted into a Faceless Minion, humanoid figures with smooth, blank heads and razor-edged limbs. They descended in dozens, raining down like nightmares.
Lucien didn't hesitate. He dropped to one knee and began picking them off mid-air with sniper rounds—each shot clean, crisp, surgical.
"No heads? No problem," he quipped, shell casing spinning into the wind.
Rosa intercepted a group charging Asher, her chain looping around one's neck before she slammed it into another, both breaking apart like dropped mirrors.
Asher stood firm—until he heard a whisper that stopped his heart.
"You failed me, Asher…"
He turned slowly. Amid the swirling glass was a face. Her face. The woman from the visions—now clearer. Pale skin. Eyes like a storm held back. Her expression was pain.
"You were supposed to save me."
His gun dipped. Breath caught in his throat.
"Emotional spike detected," Noir warned. "Counter with logical pattern recall. Now."
Asher's vision swam, but he clung to Noir's voice like an anchor. He remembered the facts. The timeline. The death. The case. He wasn't a god.
"No more ghosts," he growled, raising his gun. "Only targets."
He fired. The illusion shattered.
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The Final Blow
Rosa and Lucien moved in tandem—one a cyclone of fire and chains, the other a sniper's dance on crumbling stone. They bought time.
Asher stepped forward, Noir humming through his veins, syncing with every heartbeat.
The gun in his hand pulsed—not just black, not just white, but something stranger. A swirling dark-light—a paradox in motion.
Noir's voice softened, no longer mechanical. It sounded… almost human.
"Ready to sync, detective. One last confession bullet."
Asher nodded. "Let's make it count."
He aimed—not at a mask, not at a face—but at the core, the point where all lies intersected. Where the first reflection had been made.
He pulled the trigger.
The bullet screamed through the void, splitting midair into a chain of light. It coiled around Mother Reflection like judgment made manifest. Mask after mask cracked. Screams echoed—human and not.
"NO! I AM YOUR TRUTH—"
The final shot pierced through her swirling core.
There was no explosion.
There was collapse.
Glass fell like rain. Light dimmed. And the screaming stopped.
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Aftermath
Silence.
The floating arena was gone. The sky was once again Nocturne's sky—gray, tired, real.
The three stood in a pile of broken stone and ash. The cathedral was no more.
Rosa dropped to her knees, panting. "Tell me… we're done with freaky churches for a while."
Lucien lit a cigarette from the lingering embers. "Amen to that."
Asher didn't speak. His eyes were locked on a sliver of glass half-buried in rubble.
He knelt. Looked.
His own reflection stared back—wearing a cracked mask.
And then… it was gone.
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Somewhere deep in the city, unnoticed… mirrors and windows ripple. Not cracks. Not breaks. Just… ripples.
And from one of them, a familiar, mocking voice whispers:
"You can kill the reflection... but the truth always bounces back."
[End Of Chapter 80]
Preview of Next Chapter — Chapter 81: "Smoke Break in Nocturne"The team returns to the city, but peace doesn't last. New players step out of the shadows. The city's factions react to the cathedral's fall, and Asher tries to catch his breath in a world that refuses to stay still.