The Sanctum was no chamber of walls and doors—it was a mind given architecture.
Every mirrored surface reflected not the rebels but the Phantom in his endless guises. Some appeared as a man in fine frock coat and gloves, his mask polished like ivory. Others were little more than shadow, eyes burning like coals in darkness. Still others bore no flesh at all, only lattices of gears and equations that flickered with a faint red glow.
When Elric inscribed his paradox—1 ÷ 0 = ?—the reflections faltered. One figure stumbled back as though struck, its brass jaw trembling. Another shattered into motes of light. But for every broken self, two more appeared, their voices raised in contradiction.
"You are flawless," one reflection intoned, its voice calm."You are error," another screamed, hands clawing at its own face.
The air thickened with a thousand conflicting truths, each phrase vibrating against the rebels' bones. Evangeline dropped to her knees, blood dripping from her nose as glyphs burned into her skin. Selene pressed her hands to her ears, her shadows whipping about like furious serpents, unable to silence the deafening chorus.
"Elric!" she hissed, staggering. "He's multiplying! Whatever you've done—it's tearing him, but it's tearing us too!"
But Elric did not falter. His cane tapped once against the mirrored floor, steady, deliberate. He raised his chalk again, the tiny scrap now worn nearly to dust, and scrawled another paradox upon the glass:
Can a perfect circle possess a corner?
The chamber shrieked as though struck by a blade. The mirrored walls buckled inward, collapsing into splintered shards. Each shard caught a different Phantom, each screaming its own law. The reflections fought one another now, hurling contradictions that split the very air with lightning.
And in the storm, Elric's voice cut like a scalpel."Every sum has a remainder. Every perfection carries imperfection inside it. You are not infinite, Phantom. You are only afraid."
For the first time, the machine-god recoiled.