Chapter 274: Mirror
The doors of the private executive elevator slid shut behind Hide, sealing the circular sanctum in dead, tomb-like silence.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling panoramic windows, the sky hung bruised and choked with soot over the ruined capital, but inside the two-hundred-meter hall, everything was immaculate. Polished obsidian floor tiles stretched in an unbroken sea of black glass, reflecting the cold, recessed ceiling lights.
Across the expansive hall sat Walter Bigiva.
The 1st Commander of the International Exterminator Corporation leaned comfortably back in a high-backed leather armchair, his fingers gently cradling a crystal tumbler of amber liquor. His pristine uniform bore not a single crease, the braided epaulets on his shoulders gleaming beneath the soft illumination. He looked relaxed, as though he were receiving a colleague for an evening drink.
“Take a seat, Hide,” Walter said smoothly, gesturing with his free hand toward the empty chair on the other side of the obsidian desk. “It’s rude to stand when an elder welcomes you into his office.”
Hide didn’t take a single step forward.
His boots remained planted on the dark stone. His silver hair fell untamed across his forehead, his ocean-blue eyes narrowed into lethal slits.
“I didn’t come here to talk,” Hide said.
Walter took a slow sip of his liquor, letting out a mild, amused sigh.
“Always so tense,” Walter murmured, setting the tumbler down onto the desk with a soft, crystal clink. “You crossed the ocean, dragged your broken little squad through my checkpoints, and kicked down my front door. For what? Vengeance? A boyish sense of justice?”
Walter leaned forward, resting his forearms against the dark polished stone, the patronizing smile fading from his weathered face.
“You should have stayed buried in the rubble, Hide. You survived only because that girl threw her life for no reason, I did not want to kill you. But do not mistake it for strength. You are standing in my house. I can snuff out your breathing whenever I feel like it.”
Hide’s jaw tightened until the bone burned beneath his skin.
Every instinct in his mind roared with alarm. He remembered the incident two months ago. Walter had stepped out of thin air, flicked his wrist without drawing a weapon and killed two of his own. Even now, Hide had no idea what Walter’s Talent actually was. Standing in front of an S-Rank powerhouse with an unknown ability was suicide.
‘Don’t let him dictate the rhythm,’ Hide thought coldly. ‘Strike before he raises a hand.’
Without the slightest twitch, Hide summoned Aegis.
WHOOSH!
A massive geyser of corrupted dark mana erupted silently directly behind Walter’s leather chair.
Aegis stepped out of the void.
The iron titan did not hesitate for a microsecond. Its dark-plated armor groaned under the sudden shift, and the sapphire-blue fires burning inside its visor flared with fury. Raising both of its colossal, shield-like iron gauntlets, Aegis brought them crashing down onto Walter’s skull with the earth-shattering force of an avalanche.
BOOM!
The leather chair broke into peices. The obsidian desk snapped down the center, buckling into the floor under the titan’s monstrous weight. The concussive shockwave blew out the air across the hall, sending loose papers fluttering into the gloom.
Yet, there was no blood.
Beneath Aegis’s iron gauntlets, flesh and bone had not ruptured.
CRACK-SHATTER!
Walter’s entire form fractured into thousands of shimmering mirror fragments, cascading across the floor like broken silver glass.
“Impatient,” a dry, mocking chuckle echoed from the wall.
Hide’s head snapped sideways.
Walter stepped smoothly out of a massive full-length mirror mounted between two marble columns. His uniform was immaculate; not a single speck of dust clung to his collar.
He casually lifted his right hand, leveling his open palm toward Aegis, and gave his wrist a sharp, ruthless twist.
CRACK!
The colossal iron titan didn’t even have time to turn. Its four-meter frame of impenetrable dark-iron plate crumpled like paper. The thick, horned helmet caved inward, and the sapphire fire in its visor flickered, died, and dissolved into formless dark mana.
SWOOSH.
The shattered dark mana collapsed into a vortex, whipping across the floor and sinking forcefully back into Hide’s chest.
Hide’s breath hitched violently.
There was no sound or blue notification box flaring before his retinas to announce it. The System remained terrifyingly silent.
Yet deep within his soul, where the anchors of his Phantom Court resided, Hide felt it.
Aegis was dead.
A suffocating, icy hollow punched straight through Hide’s ribs, stealing the oxygen from his lungs.
Aegis was not just a summon.
Aegis had been his second phantom—forged back in the early days of his awakening, when Hide was nothing more than an inexperienced, desperate boy fighting in the dark.
For months, whenever death lunged at him, Aegis had been the unbreakable wall that stood between Hide and the grave.
Aegis had stepped between him and his enemies, tanking poisoned daggers with its bare iron plating.
Aegis had once saved Sora and Gideon.
And in that wretched, freezing cavern just days ago, it was Aegis who had carried Risa’s body with gentle, reverent care, cradling her frail corpse in its massive iron gauntlets so the ash would not touch her face.
Now, in less than a single second, that loyal, silent guardian was dust.
‘He killed him…’ Hide’s mind screamed, his fingers trembling violently. ‘Just like that… he crushed him like an insect…’
A sickening ache spread through his chest. Aegis had stood by his side through every nightmare, an unwavering sentinel of iron and shadow. To lose it without even a fight, without even being able to command a retreat, tore a piece of Hide’s humanity straight out of his marrow.
Hide ground his molars together until blood seeped from his gums.
Across the shattered room, Walter lowered his hand, his eyes gleaming with greedy fascination.
“I really like these summons of yours, Hide,” Walter remarked casually, dusting off his sleeve. “The mass, the loyalty, the density of dark mana… they are magnificent. And that is exactly why I need you. If I want to rule this world, I cannot rely on fragile human soldiers. I will need an army of my own, and your talent seems to be the perfect thing for it.”
Walter raised his open right palm once more, leveling it directly at Hide’s chest.
Hide’s pupils contracted to needlepoints.
He had watched Fikel die. He had watched Risa die. He had just watched Aegis get crushed into mist.
Do not stay in front of that hand!
Drawing upon Petra’s aerial agility, Hide moved at the speed of sound.
BOOM!
A thunderous sonic boom moved across the obsidian floor, blasting shattered wood and stone outward in a violent radial ring.
In a fraction of a millisecond, faster than human perception could process, Hide vanished from the line of fire, appearing directly behind Walter’s right shoulder.
The midnight-blue katana cleared its scabbard in a blinding flash of steel. Hide channeled his dark mana along the pristine edge, coating the folded metal in a razor-thin coat.
SWIK!
With a savage, horizontal cleave fueled by all the grief and hatred burning in his veins, Hide swung the katana, shearing Walter cleanly in half at the waist.
Yet, the blade met zero resistance.
The bisected torso and legs did not spray blood. They fractured into another glittering cloud of silver mirror shards, tinkling like wind chimes as they rained onto the floor.
“Too predictable, boy,” Walter’s voice echoed lazily from across the hall.
Hide spun on his heel, his chest heaving, his ocean-blue eyes wide and wild.
Walter was stepping out of an ornamental frame near the north gallery, adjusting his collar with that same infuriating, unbothered smirk.
It was only in that split second that Hide truly took in the circular architecture of the room.
His breath seized in his throat.
The walls were not merely concrete and panoramic glass. Every pillar, every partition archway, and every alcove was fitted with massive mirrors. Dozens of them. Hundreds of reflections bounced off one another in an endless, dizzying labyrinth of glass, multiplying Walter’s silhouette into an inescapable army of ghosts.
His ability lies in mirrors!
Every mirror was an entrance, an exit, and a lethal firing platform. As long as a reflection existed, Walter could step through reality at will.
SWOOSH! SWOOSH!
Hide exploded into motion, his boots tearing into the floor as the katana sang through the air as he unleashed massive, crescent-shaped waves of compressed dark mana in every direction.
CRASH! SHATTER! CRUNCH!
Mirror after mirror detonated under the barrage, spraying clouds of sharp, powdered glass across the sanctum. Hide sprinted along the outer perimeter, zigzagging frantically, constantly shifting his angles to ensure he never crossed the line of sight of any remaining glass.
He closed in on a five-meter mirror mounted against the load-bearing column. Raising the katana with both hands, he brought the blade down to obliterate the frame.
Just as the steel began its descent, the surface of the mirror rippled like water.
Walter stepped directly out of the glass Hide was about to shatter.
Before Hide could check his momentum or twist his torso to evade, Walter’s hand shot forward like an iron viper.
SNAP.
Walter flicked his fingers.
CRACK!
An invisible, concussive rupture marked Hide’s right shoulder.
The sound was sickening—muscles tore, bone splintered. A white-hot spike of agony shot down his nerves, followed immediately by terrifying numbness.
His entire right arm went dead.
CLATTER.
The katana slipped from his paralyzed fingers, clattering uselessly against the stone.
Walted kicked Hide in the stomach and the force spun him around, sending him crashing hard onto his side. He skidded across the floor.
He tried to push himself up and activate abyssall healing. His breath came in ragged, wheezing gasps as he stared up at the man towering over him.
Walter Bigiva stepped forward, looking down at Hide.
Walter raised his right index finger, leveling the tip directly between Hide’s eyes.
Around his fingertip, the air began to distort, shimmering with that familiar, fatal glassy fracture that had ended Risa and Aegis.
Trapped against the floor, weaponless, his right arm destroyed, staring down the barrel of inescapable annihilation, panic ripped through Hide’s soul.
“EVOLVE!” He screamed.
PING!
A brilliant, long-lost translucent blue screen flared into existence before his eyes.