The silver wire snapped with a sound like a dying violin. Luna's workshop, usually a place of rhythmic humming and soft light, went freezing cold. The oil on my mirror-skin turned to frost in a heartbeat.
"The resonance... it's gone,"
Luna whispered. Her violet eyes widened, reflecting a shadow that shouldn't have been there—a shadow darker than the digital night outside.
"Stay behind me, Luna!"
I roared. I tried to stand, but my legs were still locked in the tuning chair. The magnetic restraints hummed, refusing to release my half-polished frame. The heavy iron door of the workshop didn't just open. It evaporated. A clean, circular hole appeared where the lock used to be.
Judge stepped through the mist of disintegrated metal. He wasn't wearing his usual grin. His face was a mask of cold, surgical fascination.
"A sanctuary is only a sanctuary if the walls hold,"
Judge said. His voice was a razor blade sliding across silk. He flicked his wrist, and a drop of silver dust fell from his rapier.
[Warning: Integrity 90.1% — Maintenance Interrupted.]
[System Error: Resonance unstable.]
"Kai, don't move!"
Luna cried, reaching for her ivory hammer.
"The tuning isn't finished! Your soul is still exposed!"
Judge ignored me. He looked at Luna. He looked at her hands, the digital fingers that could mend the impossible.
"The Tuner,"
He murmured.
"The one who polishes the grief."
"Leave her alone!"
I struggled against the chair. The glass of my arm scraped against the magnetic locks, shedding sparks.
"Your fight is with me, Judge!"
"Is it?"
Judge tilted his head, his eyes twin voids of madness.
"A mirror is just glass until it is polished by tragedy. If she fixes you, you become a tool. If she fails... you become a masterpiece."
He moved faster than the system could render. He wasn't running; he was simply there, in front of Luna's workbench. His black rapier hummed with a thirsty, vacuum frequency.
"No!"
Luna screamed, throwing a handful of tuning forks at him. They were high-grade items, designed to disrupt aura. Judge didn't even bother to parry.
[Vacuum Severance].
A line of non-existence sliced through the air. The tuning forks didn't hit the ground. They ceased to be, turned into a fine, grey mist before they could reach him. Judge's blade continued its arc, striking the workbench. The ivory hammers, the silver files, the liquid starlight—all of it was swept into the void of his strike.
CRASH.
The workbench split in two, the tools shattered into useless pixels. The "Sanctuary" was gone. The only place in Euryale that could heal me was now a graveyard of scrap.
"My tools..."
Luna fell to her knees, her hands trembling.
"I can't... I can't finish the polish without the starlight..."
"Now,"
Judge turned to me, his smile returning. It was a slow, sickening growth across his pale face.
"Now you are perfectly broken, Kai."
The magnetic restraints on the chair finally snapped under my rage. I lunged forward, my mirror-skin glowing with a frantic, dying Luminous. I didn't have a sword. I didn't have a plan. I had Leo. And I had the thousand whispers of the dead screaming for vengeance.
[Skill Inheritance: Lion's Roar Slash (Bare Handed)].
"I'll kill you!"
I roared. My right fist turned into a golden meteor. The golden lion appeared behind me, its roar shaking the very foundations of the Spire. Judge didn't flinch. He didn't even raise his guard. He watched the golden light with the eyes of a starving man at a banquet.
"Yes,"
He whispered.
"Show me the dead man's light."
My fist slammed into Judge's chest—or where his chest should have been. The black mist of his cloak swallowed the impact. The golden aura hissed and sparked, but it didn't break him.
[Warning: Synapse Synchronization 110% — OVERLOAD.]
[Integrity dropping: 89%... 88%...]
"Is that all?"
Judge asked, his voice echoing inside my head.
"Leo was a warrior. You are just a recording of one."
He grabbed my golden wrist with a hand that felt like liquid ice. The golden light flickered and died, suppressed by his sheer malice.
"A mirror should only reflect the truth,"
Judge hissed.
"And the truth is... you are alone."
He drove his knee into my cracked chest.
CRACK.
The red line on my torso split open, widening by another three inches.
[Critical Damage: Core Integrity 85%.]
[Visualizing Death Clock: 032:15:00.]
I fell backward, my mirror-body sliding across the debris of the workshop. My vision was swimming with red error messages. Luna was screaming my name, but her voice sounded miles away.
"Please, stop!"
Luna begged, crawling toward Judge.
"I'll give you anything! Just don't break him!"
Judge looked down at her, his eyes cold.
"You've done enough, Tuner. You've prepared the canvas. Now, I will apply the final stroke."
He raised his rapier high, the black blade drinking the remaining light of the room. The air began to howl, sucked into the vacuum of his ultimate skill. The workshop began to pull apart, floorboards and ceiling tiles flying into the dark.
"Kai! Move!"
Leo's voice screamed in my brain.
"If that hits your core, it's over! Sakura will never see the sea!"
I tried to push myself up, but my left side was unresponsive. The "Virtual Mass" was leaking, spilling out of the cracks in my skin. I was a broken vessel, and my soul was pouring into the dirt.
"Goodbye, little mirror,"
Judge whispered. The black blade descended like a falling star of shadow.
[Vacuum Severance: Absolute.]
I didn't think. I didn't calculate. I threw my left arm up to shield my core. It was a reflex, a desperate attempt to survive for one more second. The world went silent. There was no sound of a strike. No sound of breaking glass. Only a sudden, hollow "pop" as the space where my arm had been vanished.
I stared at the spot. My left arm was gone from the elbow down. There were no shards. No dust. Just a perfectly flat, dark surface.
[Warning: Limb Deletion Detected.]
[Integrity: 80%.]
[System Error: High-Frequency Pulse approaching threshold.]
The pain hit me a second later. It wasn't a digital sting. It was the feeling of my real-world brain being touched by a hot iron.
"AAAAAAAGH!"
I collapsed, clutching the stump of my arm. The "Galaxy" inside me was spiraling out of control, stars winking out one by one. Judge stood over me, his rapier dripping with the void. He looked disappointed.
"You sacrificed a limb to save the core? How... human."
He turned his back on me, his black cloak fluttering in the wind.
"Live for a few more hours, Kai,"
He called over his shoulder.
"Go to the Boss Area. Absorb more death. Make the final moment worth my time."
He vanished into the darkness of the Spire corridors. The workshop was a ruin. The tools were gone. The sanctuary was broken. I lay in the rubble, a one-armed mirror bleeding light into the shadows. Luna crawled to my side, her face stained with digital tears.
"Kai... I'm so sorry... I can't fix this... I can't fix you..."
I looked at the stump of my arm. Then I looked at the red clock pulsing above my head.
[032:10:55]
I wasn't just dying anymore. I was being erased, piece by piece. And the whispers in my head were no longer just Leo's. They were laughing—a thousand dead players, watching me join their ranks.
"Not yet,"
I rasped, my single hand gripping Luna's shoulder.
"If I can't be fixed... I'll just have to be filled with something else."
The red crack on my chest flared a blinding, angry crimson. The real hell was just beginning.