Chapter 529: Man In The Mirror
Aventurine stood beyond the massive walls, at the edge of Belobog’s outer platform while the cold wind of Jarilo-VI moved around him in slow, restless currents, carrying snow, machine exhaust, and the distant metallic sounds.
Below, the white wasteland stretched endlessly beneath a dim cloud-covered sky, broken only by the dark geometry of the Robot Settlement and the industrial scars left behind by humanity’s stubborn refusal to die politely. Far in the distance, the massive form of the IPC vessel was descending through the clouds with slow inevitability, its shadow swallowing pieces of the frozen land as it came.
Beside him, Topaz stood with her coat drawn tighter against the cold, Numby settled comfortably in her arms with the expression of a creature that had seen far too much nonsense for one lifetime and had decided not to be surprised by anything ever again.
In Aventurine’s hand rested a contract.
At first glance, it looked like an ordinary sheet of paper — simple, elegant, and understated, written in clean script with the quiet arrogance of something that knew it did not require decoration to be dangerous. Yet even without touching it, anyone with enough sensitivity could feel the weight hanging from it.
It was the sort of thing that made even Saints pay attention.
The Interastral Peace Corporation did not merely deal in credits, fleets, and economic suffocation disguised as diplomacy. It dealt in certainty. When the IPC wanted an agreement to matter, it did not rely on trust, morality, or legal departments.
It relied on Jade, one of the Ten Stonehearts. The wielder of contracts.
The Aspect that turned agreements into chains with nothing but a stamp representing a snake.
A contract issued under Jade’s authority was not symbolic. It was law made metaphysical, a binding arrangement enforced not by courts, but by reality itself. If the terms were broken, punishment would not come in the form of fines, legal action, or military retaliation.
It would come for the Spirit.
And Spirit, once destroyed, did not allow any leeway.
It simply ceased, spiraling into the collapse of a soul that no longer had a blueprint. It was not a metaphor. It was final, absolute, and complete.
Even people who did not care about wealth, property, or conventional consequences learned to respect that.
Especially them.
Aventurine let the paper shift slightly between his fingers as he reread the clauses, despite already knowing every word by heart.
[Party 1 will return the complete corpse of the Great Devil known as Scar of the Hollow, as well as the four Supreme Soul Shards harvested from it.
Party 2 will return the comatose bodies of all the soldiers who have been sent to the Dream Realm due to Party 2’s interference, whether Interastral Peace Corporation or Silvermane Guard, to their respective faction.
Party 2 will not use the recording taken by the automaton named Svarog in order to blackmail or threaten the Interastral Peace Corporation.
Both Parties 1 and 2 will never speak of this contract to outside individuals or entities.
Both Parties 1 and 2 will not engage in physical violence against each other on the planet of Jarilo-VI, and Party 1 will be held responsible for any other forces associated, directly under, or a part of the Interastral Peace Corporation.
If any of these terms are broken, the offending Party will pay the collateral through the destruction of their Spirit.
The non-offending Party will no longer have to follow these terms.]
At the bottom sat four signatures.
Three of them looked normal.
The fourth looked like someone had handed a wild animal a pen and politely requested that it participate in civilization.
Aventurine stared at it for a moment.
Even his handwriting was confrontational.
He had to admit that the clauses regarding secrecy and violence had been clever. Infuriatingly clever, in fact.
Most people, when negotiating against the IPC, focused on visible assets. Debt forgiveness. Territorial concessions. Political recognition. Things that looked valuable because they were obvious enough for everyone to understand.
Sunny had approached it differently. Cautiously.
By forcing secrecy upon both parties, he had made the deal itself untouchable. The IPC could not quietly leverage it later, could not turn it into a political weapon, and could not expose it without injuring itself in the process. He had locked the entire affair inside a sealed box and then handed both sides a knife pointed directly at their own throats.
The clause regarding violence on Jarilo-VI was even worse.
Because it meant exactly what it sounded like.
As long as Sunny remained on this frozen little planet, the IPC could not touch him.
Within Aventurine’s storage Memory rested the bodies of the IPC soldiers that Sunny had returned.
They were preserved carefully, suspended in the strange stillness that only high-grade Memories could provide. Men and women who had stepped onto a planet as nothing but security detail were now trapped in the post-apocalyptic world of the Dream Realm.
Some of them would wake as Masters.
Some of them would not.
That, however, was no longer Aventurine’s immediate concern.
Meanwhile, far below, at the Robot Settlement, the gargantuan corpse of Scar of the Hollow remained exactly where Sunny had insisted it remain — an obscene monument of scales, ruined flesh, shattered bone, and the lingering pressure of something that had once stood at the peak of predation. Even in death, the Great Devil radiated the kind of presence that made ordinary people instinctively avoid looking at it for too long.
Automatons moved around it in careful formations under Clara and Svarog’s supervision, salvaging what could be salvaged, cataloguing what needed to be preserved, and trying very hard not to think too deeply about the fact that their city now technically possessed the remains of something capable of erasing entire districts by accident.
The four Supreme Soul Shards harvested from within it were no longer the IPC’s concern.
That particular humiliation had already been signed, stamped, and spiritually enforced.
For a very long moment, neither Aventurine nor Topaz spoke.
The silence stretched long enough to become deliberate.
Then Topaz finally exhaled through her nose and turned slightly toward him.
"Got anything to say for yourself?"
Aventurine did not lose his smile.
That, if nothing else, remained consistent.
Now that he no longer needed the blindfold, his eyes were visible again — beautiful in the way dangerous things often were. A magenta outer ring surrounding a cyan inner ring, slit black pupils cutting through both colors like precise fractures in glass, unmistakably reflecting his Avgin heritage.
He closed them for a moment.
He had to admit it.
He lost.
And not in some grand, elegant, beautifully orchestrated tragedy worthy of a professional gambler’s reputation.
No.
He had lost in the stupidest way imaginable.
He had walked into the conversation convinced that the only truly remarkable thing about Sunless was his anomalous Fate and absurd luck. That was what made him interesting. That was what made him dangerous. That was what justified attention.
Everything else had looked like noise.
A strange, reckless, irritatingly competent provincial Master with a habit of surviving situations that should have killed him and a talent for making catastrophe look personal.
A curiosity.
An anomaly.
Something to observe.
Not something to lose to.
That had been the mistake.
He had been so focused on the impossible truths — the absurd claims, the ridiculous victories, the suspiciously sincere madness of the man — that he had failed to notice the actual weapon sitting across from him.
The mind behind it.
Sunny had not overpowered him.
He had guided him.
Step-by-step.
Carefully.
Patiently.
Like leading someone toward the edge of a cliff while discussing the weather.
And Aventurine, of all people, had allowed it.
He had been maneuvered by someone weaker.
That part was what truly offended him.
Had he not once been weak himself?
Had he not built his entire existence on understanding exactly how dangerous weak people could be?
Before wealth, before power, before the title of Stoneheart and the luxury of being feared, there had only been survival. There had only been calculation, manipulation, smiling at people who could kill you while deciding how best to make them useful before they tried.
He had cheated.
He had lied.
He had gambled with stakes most people would have considered suicidal.
He had turned impossible negotiations into profitable outcomes using nothing but nerve, precision, and the refusal to accept losing as a meaningful concept.
That had been his foundation.
It seemed that somewhere after Transcending — after power stopped being something he had to desperately earn and became something he simply possessed — he had grown comfortable.
Strong enough that underestimating the weak no longer felt dangerous.
Strong enough that he had forgotten one of the oldest rules of survival: the weak were the most dangerous people in the world, because they had no choice but to become monsters with their hands tied.
That truth had always worked in his favor.
Now, apparently, it had worked against him.
He opened his eyes again, watching the descending ship.
No.
That was not entirely accurate.
It was not just arrogance.
He had gotten too caught up in Sunny himself.
That was the more irritating truth.
Beyond the anomalous Fate, beyond the absurd feats, beyond the improbable victories and the infuriating talent for saying outrageous things that turned out to be completely true, Aventurine had felt something else.
The sensation had been subtle, almost instinctive, but Aventurine trusted his intuition more than he trusted most governments.
And his intuition was rarely wrong.
Sunny felt like a kindred soul.
Someone shaped by the same kind of violence, even if the details differed.
Someone who looked at the world the way escaped prisoners looked at locked doors.
Someone who had learned that survival and morality were often mutually exclusive.
Sunny had the gaze of a slave who was not finished trying to break free of his chains.
That defiant look.
That ugly, stubborn refusal to kneel properly.
That dangerous habit of mistaking impossible for temporary.
Aventurine knew it well.
Because he had worn it once.
And perhaps, in quieter ways, still did.
But where Sunny still burned with rebellion, all Aventurine felt now was pity.
Because once chains existed, they never truly disappeared.
Even if they broke.
Even if you escaped.
Even if you climbed high enough that people forgot what you used to be.
They remained. In the things you could no longer imagine yourself becoming.
Freedom, once lost, did not return cleanly.
It came back carrying scars.
Sometimes it came back looking so much like another prison that the difference became philosophical.
His gaze darkened slightly as the ship lowered further, engines humming like distant thunder against the frozen sky.
Then, just as quickly, the brightness returned.
Masks were useful because eventually they became habits.
Aventurine smiled.
"Well, we did not lose anything on this little trip, did we?"
Topaz stared at him for several seconds with the exhausted expression of a woman reconsidering every professional decision that had led her here.
Then she shrugged.
"Sure, the other corpse was more than enough to pay off the debt, but you know as well as I do that you took a completely unnecessary risk."
Her voice sharpened.
"Calling soldiers a small sacrifice in broad daylight? Really? You might not get fired, but you could absolutely get turned into cannon fodder like the rest of the soldiers."
There was genuine irritation there.
Topaz did not romanticize corporate brutality.
She understood exactly how the IPC operated when someone became politically inconvenient.
Titles were not immunity.
They were just more expensive collars.
Aventurine chuckled softly.
"If I did not know any better, I would say you are worried about me."
Internally, however, another thought passed with far less ceremony.
’Though, becoming cannon fodder does not sound too bad.’
He did not say that aloud, lest she actually grew worried.
Topaz glared at him for several long seconds, clearly debating whether murder would violate enough internal regulations to be annoying.
Eventually, she chose restraint.
Mostly.
"You’re impossible."
"I have been told that before."
She rolled her eyes.
It was not even denial.
That was probably the most insulting part.
After a moment, Aventurine shifted the conversation with the ease of someone professionally allergic to sincerity.
"Anyway, our gains were ridiculously high today. Do you want to know why?"
Topaz raised a brow.
That alone was enough permission.
Aventurine smiled wider.
"First of all, I got an Echo from killing that Great Devil."
That made her expression change immediately.
Genuinely startled.
Because there were valuable things, and then there were Echoes.
An Echo of Supreme Rank was not merely wealth. It was absurdity made liquid. It was enough value to buy multiple star systems if converted correctly, and even that description failed to capture its actual importance.
Money was replaceable.
An Echo was power.
Military power.
Strategic power.
The kind of thing that shifted balance between major factions and made people start smiling politely while planning assassinations.
Even forgetting the financial implications entirely, the IPC’s military strength had just increased by an amount most civilizations would consider mythological.
Topaz folded her arms.
"...You were going to lead with that?"
"I enjoy dramatic structure."
She made a face.
Unfortunately, she was also impressed.
Aventurine, satisfied with this, continued.
"But that is not even the biggest gain."
He turned one hand slightly.
Between his fingers rested a shard of mirror.
Its surface reflected too clearly, too sharply, like reality improved the very concept of a ’mirror.’
Inside that reflection, a face smiled back.
The kind of pleasant expression that made rational people instinctively check whether their valuables were still present.
"Right, Prince of Nothing?"
Topaz glanced downward.
The moment she properly saw the reflection, something in her posture changed.
Wariness.
The correct response.
She stared at the shard for a moment before making a small sound.
"...Who is that?"
Aventurine replied with complete calm.
"He is going to be our weapon against Valor during the Penacony job."
He smiled faintly.
"A little family reunion. But that is not especially important right now."
Which was, of course, a lie in the same way setting a building on fire was ’a minor temperature issue.’
Still, priorities mattered.
He tilted the shard slightly as Topaz muttered the word ’Penacony’ in confusion.
"Do you mind telling her what you told me, Prince?"
The smile in the reflection widened.
"Why, of course."
The voice that emerged was smooth and warm and wrong in the way beautifully sharpened knives were wrong.
"It would not do me well to keep my allies uninformed, would it?"
Topaz visibly disliked the word allies.
Reasonable, considering the abomination it was coming from.
Mordret continued.
"You see, Lady Topaz, I am quite familiar with that Sunless fellow. After all, he had the audacity to destroy the body, soul, and Reflections of poor old me."
He sighed dramatically.
"Honestly, he should respect his elders a little more—"
Aventurine coughed.
Mordret looked offended.
Then he sighed again.
"Rude."
There was a pause, as though he were allowing the Universe time to appreciate how unfairly he was treated.
"In any case, what I wanted to say was that Sunless is a threat no less than myself."
Topaz frowned.
That was not especially clarifying.
It was, in fact, actively less helpful.
"I still do not know who you actually are."
Mordret’s smile returned in full.
That somehow made everything worse.
"You must be quite uninformed, then."
There was something almost delighted in the way he said it, like a man being handed an excuse to discuss himself.
"Allow me to introduce myself."
The reflection vanished.
A moment later, reality shifted beside them.
A tall man stood there as though he had always been part of the landscape and everyone else had simply been slow to notice.
Beautiful in the cold, unpleasant way old royal portraits often were — less like a person and more like a piece of glass given human form. Dark hair and eyes that seemed to reflect the world like mirrors.
He bowed with perfect courtesy.
"I am Mordret, the first and last Prince of Valor, carrier of War God’s blood."
Then he straightened, smile calm and utterly unnatural.
"More importantly, I am the first carrier of a Divine Aspect."
For perhaps the first time that day, Topaz looked genuinely speechless.
She stared at him.
Then she made a face somewhere between disbelief and professional regret.
"Di...vine?"
Mordret smiled like a man discussing the weather.
"Yes."
He said it so casually that it somehow became more offensive.
Then he gestured vaguely in the direction of Belobog behind them.
"And my friend back there, Sunless — the most probable carrier of the only Divine Lineage yet to appear — is the second."
He tilted his head thoughtfully.
"Or perhaps the third. Or fourth. The Waking World is not a small place."
Topaz said nothing.
Mostly because there were only so many times one could be told reality was secretly worse than expected before language became optional.
Mordret continued pleasantly.
"So, if the IPC is truly as good at assessing value as it claims, then there are only two clear choices."
His smile sharpened.
"The first is to recruit him."
A beat passed.
"The second is to kill him."
His expression remained almost cheerful.
"Unfortunately, I have not yet received permission for the latter..."