Chapter 79: The Omen
"You..."
Lucien genuinely didn't know what to say.
The cosmic horror hanging in the sky through the stained glass was unlike anything he had ever witnessed.
His eyes widened, his lips parting for a fraction of a second before he caught himself, snapping his jaw shut to force back his usual cold, vacant mask. He took a single step backward, his boots clicking hard against the flagstones to put distance between himself and the pink-haired man.
Beside him, Mo sat frozen, his jaw slacked as he stared back and forth between the vessel and the sky. His tiny eight-year-old brain was short-circuiting under the sheer absurdity of what was standing right in front of them.
The pink-haired man smiled softly, his posture remaining completely relaxed beneath the violet glare.
"It is fine..." the man murmured, his tone dripping with an almost pitying warmth. "I knew you would refuse me at first."
He looked at Lucien like an elder watching a stubborn child make a mistake.
"I tried. And in the end, our primary objective for the district is already complete." He bowed his head slightly. "We shall meet again."
Before Lucien could draw his blade or frame an incantation, the man vanished.
Not in a cloud of black mist. Not in a flash of light.
He simply ceased to exist in the space he occupied, one frame he was standing there, and the next, empty air sat in his place.
Lucien blinked, his dark eyes sweeping the empty flagstones. He had never in his life missed someone moving or breaking away directly in front of him.
"What just happened...?"
For the first time since Mo had known him, Lucien's voice carried a faint, unsteady tremor.
Lucien shot a brief glance down at Mo before turning his back on the room, walking slowly toward the high stained-glass arch. He stared up at the pitch-black ring and the vast purple eye where the sun used to be.
He didn't even want to imagine the sheer, unbridled chaos tearing the capital apart right now.
"What's happening to the sky?!"
Screams erupted down every avenue in the outer district as parents grabbed their children by their collars, hauling them into doorways.
People stared up in absolute terror, their hands trembling over their mouths. The sun was gone, replaced by a cold, bleeding abyss.
Anyone who stared into the glowing purple center for more than two seconds felt their vision go milky white, a searing pain driving them down to their knees until they ripped their eyes away. Children clung frantically to their mothers' skirts, sobbing as the adults around them lost their heads.
The shouting spread from block to block like a wildfire through dry timber.
"The gods have abandoned us!"
"The world is ending!"
"It's the Heretic!" a man screamed, pointing a trembling finger toward the high inner wall. "The Order brought the Heretic into the capital! He angered the heavens!"
Hysteria took over completely. Within ten minutes, every market square in the lower district had collapsed into total, unreasoning panic. No one listened to reason. No one moved with purpose. People simply ran in aimless circles, trapped in their own terror, biting at each other like cornered dogs.
Stolen novel; please report.
Meanwhile, inside the upside-down warehouse...
"Look out!" Nuri yelled, drawing his mana focus. "Spechios!"
The pale figures crouching on the inverted ceiling dropped onto the floorboards with a heavy, synchronized THUD.
Everyone drew steel instantly.
Turman pulled his weapon, a thin, elegant rapier with a polished basket hilt. The blade was light, sharp, and remarkably sturdy. It looked almost identical to Talia's sidearm, and Nuri had to look twice just to make sure he wasn't seeing things.
That must be rough on him... Nuri thought, but he shoved the idea out of his head. There was no time to think about family grudges right now.
"How do we kill these things?!" Alina yelled, swinging her spear in a wide arc to catch the first Spechio's attack.
The creature's pale arm mirrored her movement perfectly, matching her angle and force down to the millimeter. The heavy shock of the impact slammed down her spear shaft, sending Alina stumbling back two paces.
"They mirror every movement you throw at them, so if you try to—"
"I can see that!" Alina screamed back, parrying another strike. "Tell me something I can actually use!"
"They carry a mirror array inside their left sleeve!" Nuri shouted over the clattering steel. "Break the glass, and the copy dissolves!"
Nuri plant his boots, raising both hands into the air.
He squeezed his mana core tight, forcing the energy out through his fingertips the way he’d seen Caelan do on the plaza steps. Golden, geometric spell-arrays burst into life around the dark warehouse, illuminating the rotting timbers in a warm, amber glow.
He had finally grasped the basic principle.
"What is this, Nuri?" Turman asked, his eyes wide as he stared at the glowing light floating over his shoulders.
Alina let out a short, breathy laugh, parrying a thrust from her Spechio. "Sometimes the guy actually pulls off a miracle. Looks pretty."
"It's a wide-area defensive ward," Nuri panted, his chest heaving under his charcoal mask. "It won't make you faster, but it'll absorb direct physical impacts. I expanded the radius as far as I could!"
"Awesome!" Turman yelled, tightening his grip on his rapier and lunging forward again.
But knowing about the mirrors and breaking them were two completely different problems. The Spechios moved at the exact same speed as their targets, blocking every angle before the blade even landed. Who had time to poke around inside a sleeve while fighting for their life?
Even Nuri was getting pushed back, his defensive ward flickering under repeated hits.
Spechios weren't supposed to be this tough. In the Order training manuals, they were listed as basic trick-monsters. Why were these ones acting like veteran mercenaries?
CRACK!
A sound like a collapsing timber snapped Nuri out of his panic.
He spun around.
Wan had grabbed his Spechio by the throat and slammed the creature sideways into a support pillar so hard the whole building shook.
Nuri's jaw dropped. He knew Wan was freakishly strong, but this was ridiculous.
The Spechio that was supposed to be mirroring Wan couldn't even match his sheer physical weight. Its arms fluttered uselessly against Wan's grey wrists as the twin held it pinned against the wood.
Wan glared at the high inverted shelves on the ceiling like they had personally insulted his mother.
He bent his thick knees.
BOOM!
Wan launched himself off the floorboards, shattering the floorboards beneath his boots.
He shot straight up into the rafters, caught the upside-down Spechio on the ceiling by its arm, reached into its sleeve, and pulled out a small, silver-rimmed glass.
Wan smashed the mirror flat against the ceiling beam.
CRACK.
The mirror shattered into a hundred glinting shards.
In an instant, both Spechios dissolved into harmless grey ash, drifting down through the air like burnt paper.
The warehouse went completely silent.
Everyone stood staring up at Wan, who landed back on the main floor with a heavy thud, huffing proudly through his nose as he dusted off his sleeves.
"Wan, you absolute brute!" Alina yelled, sprinting over and throwing her arms around his neck, violently ruffling his short hair.
Turman stared at his brother, his eyes watering with pure pride, looking for all the world like a father watching his son win a tournament.
Nuri let out a long, ragged breath, his shoulders dropping as he allowed himself a small smile behind his mask. "Alright... let me lower the ward. Let's get out of here."
They squeezed back out through the broken rear window, stepping out into the alleyway.
They had the location. They had the warehouse coordinates. All that was left was to run back to the inner precinct and hand the report to Captain Caelan.
Except the moment their boots hit the street, something felt horribly wrong.
The rain had stopped, but the air felt heavy, thick, and oily, like trying to breathe through wet wool.
Nuri stopped walking. Alina and Turman froze right behind him.
Slowly, all four of them tilted their heads up toward the sky.
The color drained from their faces in a single second, leaving them as pale as corpses.
High above the capital, where the sun should have been, a giant, unblinking purple eye was staring right back down at them.