OLIHA MARKET — SAME TIME
Hope lay in the wreckage of the fruit stall.
Her body was broken. Blood gushed from her mouth, her nose, the gash on her forehead. Her daggers were gone—one lost in the car, the other somewhere in the scattered oranges and shattered wood. She couldn't find them. Couldn't reach them.
Err walked toward her, eating a donut.
Not fast. Not slow. Just... strolling. Her bare feet stepped over debris like it wasn't there. The white robe was still pristine. Red eyes calm. Blood still dried on her mouth from earlier.
Hope tried to push herself up. Her arms shook. Her ribs screamed.
What is this overwhelming feeling of evil I feel?
She had fought Vanguards. Fought hosts. Fought Phobias. She had never felt anything like this.
Is this the end?
Err stopped in front of her. Took another bite of the donut. Chewed. Swallowed.
"You said all sorcerers are frauds, right?"
Hope couldn't answer. Her throat was full of blood.
Err tilted her head.
"Why, then tell me?"
Hope's eyes were wide. Helpless. For the first time in her life, she had no trick. No dagger. No escape.
Err stepped on her head.
The skull didn't crack. It busted. Like a melon. Like the fruit scattered around them. Blood and brain sprayed across the pavement. The body went limp.
Err stood over Hope's body, her bare foot still resting on the shattered skull. She took another bite of her donut. Chewed. Swallowed.
She was about to raise her hand.
A sound.
Footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. The crunch of glass on stone.
Destiny stepped out from behind a collapsed stall.
His red glasses were back. His white suit was immaculate. He had cleaned up from his last battle. His face was calm — but his hands, hidden in his pockets, were trembling.
He had seen what she did to Hope. He had seen what she was about to do.
"You," Err said. "You raise your head too high ."
Destiny stopped walking and knelt down instantly.
"Forgive me, Err."
"I was following my Lord's orders." Err tilted her head. "To follow me?."
"Not necessarily."
He took a breath. His Gift — Foresight — had recovered. He could see the next sixty seconds. Every possible future. Every angle she could attack from. Every death he could die.
He saw all of them.
And none of them ended with him walking away.
"I can't avoid this future," he said to himself. "Even if I run ."
"What does Aslam want"
"I don't know."
"Fight me." Err smiled "Or you'll die."
He moved.
Not toward her — sideways. He knew she would blitz. He knew she would aim for his chest, his throat, his head. He dodged left, dropped low, rolled — and came up with his hand extended.
His palm was open. A pulse of Faith — not an attack, a probe. He needed to measure her. To understand her.
Err laughed.
"Sorry," she said. "I underestimated you."
She moved.
Faster.
Destiny saw it coming. His Foresight showed him the trajectory — but seeing and moving were different things. His body was still human. Hers was not.
Her hand touched his shoulder.
Time stopped.
Not for her. For him.
He felt his skin wrinkle. His bones ache. His lungs shrink. His heart stutter. He aged sixty years in a heartbeat — his hair turning white, his face collapsing, his body folding in on itself.
He tried to speak. His voice came out as a wheeze.
"I... saw this..."
"You saw it," Err said. "But you couldn't stop it. That's the difference between knowing and being."
He turned to dust.
The red glasses clattered to the ground. Empty. Useless.
Err looked at them. Then at the market. At the church. At the school. At the people still running, still screaming, still hoping.
"One more thing before I leave."
She raised her hand.
The world shifted.
"Crusade :The Infinite Abyss of Mirrors."
No barrier. No warning. Just change.
The sky became mirrors. The ground became mirrors. The air itself was filled with floating hexagonal reflections—every angle, every direction, infinite. The market stalls reflected back on themselves. The shoppers, the traders, the children playing—all of them reflected, refracted, duplicated into infinity.
Err stood at the center.
"Sure-hit."
She didn't raise her voice. Didn't gesture. Just spoke.
"Dust."
Everything within 250 meters turned to dust.
The market. The stalls. The fruits and vegetables. The clothes hanging from lines. The cars. The motorcycles. The road. The Baptist church across the street. Its walls. Its pews. Its cross. The school beside it. Its classrooms. Its desks. Its blackboards. The children who had been playing.
All of it.
Gone.
People crumbled where they stood. A woman reaching for her child—dust before her fingers touched. A man lifting a crate—dust before it left his hands. A teenager on a motorcycle—dust before the engine stalled.
The church steeple collapsed into powder. The school walls crumbled into nothing. The road became ash.
Err smiled.
She laughed.
Not a cruel laugh. Not a triumphant laugh. Something else. Something wrong. A girl playing in a sandbox, knocking over towers she'd never built.
"Again."
She didn't need to say it. The mirrors obeyed anyway.
Everything still standing within 250 meters turned to dust.
The laughter continued.
Then the mirrors vanished.
The sky returned. Grey. Indifferent. The ground was ash. No stalls. No church. No school. No road. Just a grey wasteland stretching 250 meters in every direction.
Err stood in the center, her white robe somehow still clean.
She looked at the dust. At the empty space where thousands of people had been.
"You can have control back," she said. "I'm done, brat."
Her eyes changed. The split pupils merged. The red faded.
Rachel was back.
She stood in the ashes.
Her hands were empty. Her clothes were covered in dust—not hers, not Err's. The dust of everyone who had been standing within 250 meters.
She looked down at her hands.
"No."
She fell to her knees. The ash rose around her.
"No, no, no—"
She picked up a handful of dust. Let it run through her fingers.
This was a person.
She looked around. The empty space. The absence of everything she had seen on the drive here. The market. The church. The school. The children.
She had murdered them.
"No!"
Her hand found the pocketknife. She didn't remember picking it up. Didn't remember opening the blade.
She put it to her throat.
"I can't—"
She slit.
Blood sprayed.
She fell.
---
BACK AT THE COVENANT BASE — THE LABYRINTH — SAME TIME
Jonathan ran.
The base was still shifting—hallways folding, ceilings becoming floors, doors opening onto walls. He had lost count of how many Phobias he'd exorcised. How many hosts he'd put down. How many hybrids he'd smashed through.
His gauntlets were cracked. His arms were bruised. His chest heaved.
He turned a corner.
Hero stood at the end of the hall.
Eight feet of blackened, irradiated metal. Missile nose cone for a skull. Countdown timers embedded in his chest and arms, frozen at "00:01." Cold grey eyes.
Jonathan didn't stop. Didn't hesitate. He charged.
Hero raised his hand.
The blast hit Jonathan in the chest. Not fire. Not light. Force. He flew backward—upward—through the ceiling, through the floor above, crashing into debris.
His gauntlets cracked. His ribs cracked. But he was alive.
Hero walked toward him. Not fast. Not slow. Just... approaching. The Countdown timers on his chest began to move.
"You killed my sister," Hero said.
Jonathan pushed himself up. Spat blood.
"I've killed a lot of Phobias. You'll have to be more specific."
Hero's eyes didn't change.
"What were her last words?"
Jonathan raised his cracked gauntlets.
"She was crying for you."
"Really." Hero's voice softened.
Hero raised his hand.
The blast came.