Part 1: The First Cut
The figure in the porcelain mask stood perfectly still in the shadows of the ravine. He didn't draw a weapon. He didn't cast a spell. He just stood there, hands clasped behind his back, watching the wreckage of the Obsidian Leviathan settle.
"Viper," Elian said, stepping out of the debris. He didn't raise his sword. His instincts—honed by fifty years of combat—were screaming something was wrong. Why is he here? Why isn't he in the fortress?
"You look tired, Captain," Viper said. His voice didn't come from the mask. It seemed to vibrate from the black rocks around them. "That was a messy landing."
Isara didn't wait for orders.
The fear she had felt during the approach vanished, replaced by a cold, sharp survival instinct. She was an assassin. And assassins didn't talk.
She blurred forward, using [Shadow Step].
She appeared directly behind Viper, her dagger glowing with lethal violet mana.
"Silence," she hissed.
SLASH.
She drove the dagger in a perfect execution arc, slicing through Viper's neck.
The blade passed cleanly through flesh and bone. Viper's head slid off his shoulders.
But there was no blood.
There was no body falling to the ground.
The "corpse" didn't even fall. It simply dissolved into black mist, fading into the dark air like cigarette smoke.
"Impulsive," Viper's voice echoed from the left.
Isara spun around.
Viper was standing on a rock ledge, perfectly intact.
"You're rusty, Isara. You hesitated for a millisecond on the draw."
Isara threw a throwing knife instantly.
THWACK.
It hit him in the chest.
He burst into smoke again.
"Missed," Viper's voice whispered from the right.
Now there were two Vipers. One on the ledge.
One leaning against the canyon wall.
Then they flickered.
Four Vipers. Eight. Twelve.
They didn't crowd the team. They didn't chant. They just stood there, motionless, scattered around the ravine like statues in a graveyard. They stared blankly at the team.
Part 2: The Quiet Room
"Which one?" Roger hissed, sweating. He scanned the targets through his scope. "I can't get a lock. No heat signatures. They're all cold."
"Hold fire," Elian ordered, scanning the perimeter. "Wasting ammo is what he wants."
The ravine was deadly silent. The clones didn't speak.
Viper's voice came from everywhere at once, bouncing off the magnetic rocks. He wasn't monologuing; he was observing them like a scientist watching rats in a maze.
"Valen," the voice echoed, calm and clinical. "You keep looking over your left shoulder. You're checking for the Healer."
Valen froze. He had been doing it instinctively.
"She's not there," Viper noted dryly. "Your shield is heavy, isn't it? Without her buffs, it's just a piece of iron. If you take a hit today, Paladin, you bleed until you die."
Valen grit his teeth, forcing himself to look forward, but his stance wavered. The doubt was planted.
"And the boy," Viper's voice shifted, sounding closer to the ground. "Titan. Your breathing is erratic. Are you scared of the magnets? Or are you scared that when you fall, no one here is strong enough to pick you up?"
Titan whimpered, stepping back. One of the motionless clones seemed to tilt its head slightly, watching him.
Then, a sharp, distinct sound cut through the air.
Click-click.
It was the sound of a tongue clicking against teeth. A training signal.
Isara flinched violently. It was the signal for 'Correction'.
"Your stance is wide, Isara," Viper whispered. "You're telegraphing your fear. Did you forget everything I taught you in the dark room? Fix your feet."
Isara looked down at her feet. She shuffled them instinctively, obeying the command before she realized what she was doing.
"Get out of my head," she gasped, her grip on her daggers slipping. She wasn't fighting a warrior; she was fighting her owner.
Part 3: The Thunder of a God
The team was paralyzing. They were freezing up, checking their corners, doubting their own instincts. The silence of the clones was louder than any scream.
THOOM.
The ground jumped.
It wasn't a mind game. It was a shockwave.
Two kilometers away, near the peak of the Storm Lair, a massive explosion rocked the island.
It sounded like artillery fire—a rhythmic, deafening destruction.
BOOM. BOOM. CRACK-KOOM.
The twelve Vipers turned their heads in unison toward the peak.
The illusion broke. The quiet, creeping dread was shattered by the raw, chaotic noise of war.
"What is that?" Roger whispered, lowering his rifle. "Is that... the Prince?"
It was.
High above them, a pillar of blinding white light pierced the black clouds. Prince Thal'dor wasn't just fighting; he was raging.
The sound of "bombing" was the Prince slamming into the fortress walls at supersonic speeds, discharging his mana like a living warhead. The "bazooka" fire was the sound of the Crimson Lightning trying—and failing—to strike a target moving that fast.
"He's drawing the fire," Elian realized, feeling the vibration in his boots. "No tricks up there. Just violence."
The sheer reality of the distant battle snapped the team out of the hypnosis. The whispers didn't matter when the mountain was exploding.
Part 4: Breaking the Mirror
Elian looked back at the twelve silent figures.
"You're stalling," Elian said, his voice flat.
"You're trying to keep us here while the Prince burns himself out."
Viper's voice laughed, a dry, humorless sound. "Perhaps. Or perhaps I'm just counting how many bullets your sniper has left."
Elian didn't respond with words.
He reached into his pouch and pulled out a Flash Pellet.
He didn't throw it at the Vipers. He threw it at the ground in the center of the ravine.
BANG.
A blinding flash of magnesium white light flooded the dark canyon.
For a split second, shadows were cast against the walls.
Elian scanned the ravine instantly.
Eleven of the Vipers cast no shadow. They were light-constructs. Illusions.
But one...
One figure, perched high on a ledge to the left, cast a long, sharp shadow against the cliff face.
"Roger!" Elian barked. "Ten o'clock! High ledge! The shadow!"
Roger didn't ask questions. The doubt in his eyes evaporated the moment he had a physical target. He snapped his rifle up.
"Gotcha."
BANG.
The bullet flew true.
The Viper on the ledge didn't dodge. He simply raised a hand and caught the bullet.
Clink.
The lead round dropped to the rocks.
The other eleven clones vanished instantly into smoke.
The real Viper stood on the ledge, looking down at them. The mask was cracked slightly where the bullet's shockwave had hit his palm.
"Clever," Viper said, his voice no longer echoing. Just cold. Singular.
He looked toward the exploding mountain peak where the Prince was raging.
"Your pet is noisy. He's waking up the house."
Viper stepped back into the darkness of a tunnel entrance hidden in the cliff.
"The foyer is boring me. Come to the deeper dark, Eclipse. Let's see how well you navigate without eyes."
He vanished.
Part 5: The Doorway
Silence returned to the ravine, save for the distant, rhythmic booming of Thal'dor's war.
Isara was still standing rigid, her breathing shallow.
Elian walked over. He didn't offer comfort. He offered a fact.
"He's checking your gear, Isara," Elian said quietly. "He's testing your reaction time. That's all that was."
Isara blinked, the trance fading. She looked at Elian.
"He knows we're here. He knows the formation."
"Good," Elian said, drawing Winter's Eclipse.
"Then he knows we're coming."
He turned to Titan and Valen.
"Titan. You see that tunnel entrance?"
"Yeah, Boss?"
"I don't like it. It's a choke point."
Titan grinned, the fear of the magnetic rocks forgotten now that he had a job to do. He hefted his massive shield.
"Make it wider?"
"Make it wider," Elian confirmed. "We don't play his game. We make our own door."
They marched toward the cliff face, leaving the wreckage of their ship behind, marching to the beat of the Prince's distant thunder.