Chapter 560: Introspection (2)

Before the main entrance pier of the Particle Power Plant.

Upon the massive bridge where the procession of wraiths summoned by Madrich Onnion converged.

The dull gleam of a war hammer flashed above the pier, violently cleaving the air.

CRASH!!

The shockwave that erupted from the air, centered on Felix’s massive body, repelled the surging wraiths.

But he couldn’t block the spear-point that thrust in, aiming for that momentary gap.

CRACK!!

He absorbed the spear blade aimed at his neck without batting an eye.

The muscles in his collarbone were pierced, scattering blood and severing ligaments, but Felix gritted his teeth and pushed his shoulder forward.

He pressed down heavily on his opponent’s ribs and crushed him.

“……!!”

The spear shaft, rotated by a completely reversed wrist, dangerously wedged itself between the two.

GRIND!!

Metal and muscle clashed, twisting and grinding in place.

With a light impact, black and white hair swayed before Felix’s eyes.

The young man let out a wry smile.

“You’re unbelievably tough. Are all your kind like that?”

“…….”

“No matter how powerful a warrior, usually if those muscles are severed, they can’t even move their neck.”

“I was taught that a truly great warrior should not be distracted in a life-or-death battle.”

Felix replied in a gruff tone.

“I am merely faithfully following that teaching.”

“Is that so. I don’t know who taught you the proper stance of a warrior, but……!!”

The young man kicked the spear shaft with one foot, drastically twisting his balance, shattering their standoff, and retreating.

WHOOSH!!

Watching Felix slide, scattering a trail of blood, Krod Azlan grinned.

“Looking at your skill, they must have been an excellent warrior, no doubt.”

“…….”

Felix did not reply.

For Felix Magat, who had settled in Vulcan after a long journey, the person who had shown him the path a warrior should take was standing right before him.

ROOOOAR!!!

A deafening roar echoed from beyond the swaying bridge.

At the same time, the two men’s heads were filled with desperate, wailing screams.

[Oooohhhhhh!!!]

Dazzling white light flashed outside the Particle Power Plant, and a vast host of specters surged like a staggering wave.

A giant pillar of light pierced the back of a wailing skeleton giant, cutting a wide crescent moon across the horizon as if setting.

A fierce battle, even though it was clashing thousands of meters away, its repercussions reverberated loudly all the way here.

The outermost edge of hell, where 8-level Peak of Extremes ability users were staking their lives against each other with all their might.

But just like Felix’s expression, Krod’s face, as he watched the scene, had also peculiarly changed.

“It’s been bothering me… but who exactly is that?”

“…….”

“Why does that white mana light make me feel such a profound sense of unease? Why does it feel so strangely familiar, as if it were my own…?”

Though not yet certain, the Krod of the past instinctively sensed it.

That the white light, grandly echoing thousands of meters away, bore a striking resemblance to his own mana.

But because it was impossibly twisted and warped, far too much to be his future self.

He simply hadn’t fully accepted that fact yet.

Felix didn’t bother to answer Krod’s question. Instead, he merely gripped his hammer’s handle so tightly it felt like it would shatter, channeling his mana.

CRACK!!

The flat surface of the hammer, sliding along Krod’s foot, directly collided with Krod’s spear shaft.

At that moment, it completely erased any lingering doubt Krod had.

Krod, who had been watching the blood-soaked, bird-headed giant, finally turned his head with difficulty.

“Right, there’s still work to be done.”

“Focus.”

“Focus?”

Krod scoffed, questioning him.

“It’s you, not me, who’s in a hurry.”

STAB!!

Immediately after, Felix’s body trembled violently once, faintly convulsing.

In that fleeting moment of confrontation with Krod, the host of wraiths that had completely surrounded them plunged their blades into Felix’s back.

[Die, die……!!]

[We’re hungry, we’re in pain……!!]

They stabbed, bit, and tore at his solid, feathered upper body, ripping through flesh and muscle.

“You’re already so overwhelmed that you can barely pay attention to your surroundings. You must have been at your limit for a while now.”

Krod whispered softly.

“What do you hope to gain by exposing your back to such low-grade specters, breaking your entire body in the process?”

“…….”

The limits brought on by successive battles. The cumulative harm and side effects of continuously using Dorye’s power were now gnawing at his body too obviously to conceal.

His stamina and mental strength, which he had forcefully pushed to maintain a battle stance with Krod and hold him in place, had also reached their breaking point.

But Felix, knowing this perfectly well, allowed the surging wraiths to tear at his flesh without hesitation.

CRUNCH……!!

Bearing the forms of countless wraiths clinging to his entire body, he pushed directly against Krod’s spear shaft.

A mournful, black mana surged between the heavy war hammer, swirling to instantly dye the hammer’s surface black.

The instant Krod’s expression drastically changed at the ominous momentum.

The spear shaft Krod was holding bent slightly, and the hammer, deflecting off it, slammed directly into his side.

CRACK!!

“Kugh……!!!”

“The teeth of these specters no longer even itch.”

Felix chuckled, crushing one of the wraiths clinging to his back.

Krod, who had clutched his side and stood up, watched him with a slightly dazed expression.

“You…”

Felix’s wounds all over his body began healing in real-time, even restoring beyond their original state.

“Before coming to the power plant, I fought and got hurt plenty, and gained temporary resistance.”

Upon gaining Dorye’s power, Felix’s constitution had noticeably changed, for better or worse.

Temporary wound resistance to the type of attack he had once sustained.

Felix had acquired this wound resistance in advance by fighting the wraiths he encountered on his way to the Particle Power Plant to assist Lennok.

This spectacle, recreating through his entire body the unique properties contained within the power of Dorye, the Ascendant once hailed as an unparalleled berserker.

Beneath the bird-headed giant, who gripped the black-dyed, burning hammer with both hands, shadows flickered wildly, growing in size.

At the same time, a powerful surge of mana erupted from his entire body.

“I can still hold on.”

Feeling the bridge slowly crumbling beneath them from the impact, Felix muttered.

“This is enough for now. Let’s continue.”

“Alright…”

After walking through the mirror labyrinth for a long time, Lennok sighed and shook his head.

“I’ll have to give up on finding the way alone.”

After Olivera’s message vanished, Lennok tried to find a way out of the labyrinth but gained no significant results.

This was because he perceived through mana-sensing that the maze’s structure wasn’t fixed, but rather paths were appearing and disappearing in real-time.

‘The path changes and splits depending on the direction and scenery reflected in the mirrors.’

Lennok fell into thought.

‘Does it mean that depending on the direction of one’s gaze, the maze’s orientation and structure distort, trapping the target within this space?’

A power incomparably alien to the Probing Mirror of Illumination, the mirror barrier Olivera used to enhance her radiance-attribute magic.

Unlike her erosion-type Domain, which directly applied the concept of light to combat, her second chosen deployment-type Domain focused on the mysteries of dispersion and reflection.

The variability of the mindscape was so profound that even Lennok found it hard to believe after seeing it directly.

Could it be that because she could handle such fluid changes in her mindscape, she was later able to change her core magic system to a Mystic Eye System?

Considering that, there’s a good chance that the actual Olivera’s Domain in reality might look completely different.

However, what he needed to consider now wasn’t what choices Olivera would make in the future, but how to escape this labyrinth.

If he couldn’t find a way, he would eventually have to break it. The answer he could think of was already decided.

Lennok pulled out his revolver from his pocket and fell into thought.

‘I can deploy my Domain once with full power. After that, there’s no turning back.’

The most effective way to break Olivera’s Domain was for Lennok to deploy his own in response.

Through the clash of Domains, he could gauge Olivera’s location, deal with her, and then go search for Kaiser.

However, even knowing this, Lennok hadn’t used his Domain yet because the one remaining charge he had was reserved for his meeting with Kaiser.

He still hadn’t heard why Kaiser wanted to meet him again.

To leave himself the right to choose when everything crumbled, he had to keep at least one trump card.

Considering that, he needed to break through this mirror labyrinth now without using his Domain.

CLICK!!

Lennok loaded his revolver and pulled the trigger, aiming at a nearby mirror.

BANG!!

The moment the bullet directly hit the mirror, the bullet ricocheted like reflected light, aiming for Lennok’s face.

The bullet fell, hitting a shield that had already been deployed before it could strike his face.

[Bolt]

CRACKLE!!

He blasted it with lightning magic, but it still reflected back along the same angle.

Lennok watched this, lost in thought.

“It’s not just a simple mirror. It’s reflecting mana and physical force as if they were reflections in a mirror…”

If Olivera had transformed her mindscape and overlaid that landscape onto reality, there must be a reason for it.

This mirror labyrinth, beyond just dispersing and reflecting light, was applying the very concept of force metaphorically to the mirror.

Was it just reflecting various forces along the mirror’s angle of reflection?

However, just because the mirror reflected the bullet didn’t mean there was no impact at all.

BANG, BANG!!

After enduring the scattered reflections and pulling the trigger a few more times, the mirror finally shattered, revealing another mirror beyond it.

As Lennok walked inside, dozens of Lennoks were reflected, surrounding him.

At the persistent spectacle of mirrors ceaselessly reflecting himself, Lennok chuckled as if understanding something.

Without hesitation, he held his revolver, pulled the trigger, and walked forward.

BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG!!!

The mirrors shattered, and the space hidden inside expanded further.

As he delved deeper, the number of mirrors increased, and the number of Lennoks reflected in them grew to hundreds, then thousands.

At the end, he reached a colossal, hemispherical mirror dome.

WHOOSH……!!

Thousands of Lennoks, his own reflections, gazed down at him—a bizarre and eerie sight.

Above Lennok, Olivera’s Six Harmonies Transmission quietly echoed.

[Do you know the tale that a human who becomes a vampire cannot be reflected in a mirror?]

“…….”

[The notion that vampires, merely demi-humans, don’t show in mirrors is a baseless rumor whose origin is unknown… yet, surprisingly, the meaning it conveys is not incorrect.]

FLASH!!

[It means that those who lose their true essence, in the end, cannot face themselves.]

The dazzling light source descended between the thousands of mirrored barriers.

Thousands of mirrors projected light, superimposing Lennok’s reflected forms onto a single point.

Simply by thousands of superimposed mirror images reflecting a single form, something began to manifest as if coalescing from empty air.

WHOOSH……!!

A black-haired young man slowly stepped out from amidst the brilliant light, standing face to face with Lennok.

The face that stared back at him was that of the haggard young man he saw in the mirror every morning.

Olivera’s voice, tinged with amusement, echoed between the two, who now faced each other.

[I wonder what you truly think.]

CRACKLE……!!

From the fingertips of the other Lennok, an immense surge of lightning erupted, striking directly at Lennok.