The path ended at a monolithic slab of stone, jagged and dark, like it had been carved out of a screaming mountain. Embedded in the center: a blackened iron door with no handle, no grooves—just one line etched across its surface:
"Only three knocks from the dead may pass."
They stood in silence. Not even the Rift hummed here.
"What does that mean?"
Minjae asked.
"Is it some kind of riddle?"
"Three knocks... from the dead?" Naeun muttered, frowning. "It's not a pressure seal. There's no core resonance point. No scanner."
"Maybe we all knock?"
Jinhwan suggested.
"See if it reacts."
They did. One by one, each raised a fist and rapped against the iron.
Minjae. Hana. Naeun. Jinhwan.
Three knocks each.
Silence. The door did not move.
Then—Jaemin stepped forward. Reluctantly. He didn't even know why his hand moved or why his knuckles trembled before they touched the iron.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
The door screamed open, like metal crying out as its flesh was split.
Everyone stepped back instinctively. Hana put a hand in front of Jaemin.
"…What the hell?" Jinhwan muttered.
"Why him?"
No one answered. But they all thought the same thing.
He's marked. He's going to die.
Jaemin felt it too. He felt it crawl up his spine like frostbite and fear had fused together. Something had chosen him. Not to save. To sacrifice.
Still, they stepped forward. Together.
The next chamber was massive. Vaulted ceilings. Pillars that dripped red.And then—they saw them.
Jisoo.
Rin.
Hung from spears, their bodies mutilated beyond recognition except for the gear still strapped to their broken limbs. One of Rin's daggers had been forced into her own jaw.
Jisoo's torso was pinned to the wall—but her legs were twenty feet away, stuck like antlers above the arch.
Hana fell to her knees, hand covering her mouth. Minjae turned away and vomited.
"They're trophies."
Jinhwan said quietly, trembling, jaw clenched.
"Whoever—or whatever—put them here wanted us to see this."
They moved on, feet dragging, dread thick as swamp mud.
Then—the mirrors.
Dozens of them. Embedded across the corridor. One for each of them.
Each reflection showed not life, but death. Their deaths.
Naeun was split down the middle like torn paper. Minjae had his head crushed inward, like a popped helmet.
Hana's body was faceless, head removed but still standing. Jinhwan's limbs were skewered to a wall, eyes wide open, still burning red.
But Jaemin…His reflection was begging. Kneeling. Arms missing. Teeth shattered, Head halved .
A string of corpses surrounded him, whispering his name.
"Jaemin… Jaemin… Jaemin…"
He stepped back from the mirror, eyes wild.
"This is just an illusion."
Hana whispered, trying to stay steady.
"It's just the Rift. It wants to scare us. Stay focused."
But no one was focused anymore.
They were already losing.
A sharp gasp broke the silence.
Minjae was standing dead still, eyes locked on his reflection—the one with his skull caved in like a broken melon... neck at a sickening angle.
"…No. No no no no—" he began to mumble, stepping backward and forward all at once.
"This isn't real. This isn't how I die. I-I was supposed to see my sister graduate. I was gonna go home. I was gonna—"
He dropped to his knees, fists clenched.
"We're not supposed to die like this."
Jaemin's lips parted, but no words came out.
Then they saw it—Minjae's dagger.
His hands were trembling, but he held it right over his heart, angled in.
"No more. I can't. I want out of this. I want to wake up—I want this nightmare to end!"
"MINJAE!!!"
Hana screamed, bolting forward.
She grabbed his wrist, just as the tip of the blade grazed skin.
"Look at me! LOOK AT ME, DAMMIT!"
She shouted, tears streaking down her face.
"This Rift wants you to break! You think you're alone? You think the rest of us aren't terrified?!"
"I see us dead, Hana!"
He yelled, eyes wild.
"Don't you get it? We're already corpses. They just haven't cleaned us off the wall yet!"
She wrapped her arms around him, pulling the blade away.
He struggled for a moment, then collapsed into her—sobbing, whispering something over and over.
"…Seoul. I just wanted to go home. I just wanted to go home…"
Jaemin watched them, frozen. Something in his chest ached—more than fear, more than disgust.
He realized something, standing there.
Death wasn't the scariest thing in this Rift.Living long enough to watch everyone else die... was.
Whenever a team successfully completed a Rift mission, the anomaly would eventually collapse inward on itself, releasing a thick cloud of violet-black haze known as Abyssal Dust. Invisible to normal senses but heavy with core residue, this dust was gathered, processed, and crystallized under immense heat into something far more valuable: Rift Crystals.
These crystals were coveted in every market—worth their weight in precious metal, often more. They powered elite-grade weaponry, fueled Core enhancements, and served as currency in the black sector.
But before they became the gleaming orbs traded by Coreborn and Covenant leaders, someone had to process them.
Someone like Jaemin.
He'd been one of those nameless workers—drenched in soot, gloves torn, breathing in poison-tinged air in cramped facilities far below city lines. He knew the stench of Abyssal Dust better than anyone.
He knew how it clung to your skin no matter how long you scrubbed, how it seeped into your lungs until every breath felt just a little shorter.
But today was the first time he saw where it came from.
Today, Jaemin didn't see it as smoke or crystal or wage slips.
He saw it as what it truly was—ashes. The remnants of terror. The breath of monsters.And worse: their laughter.
The Abyss wasn't just a battlefield—it was a performance.Every creature, every malformed shadow, wasn't just killing—it was experimenting.
Each Riftborn horror seemed to have a signature, a favorite move, a preferred method of mutilation. As if they took pride in it. As if each death was an art form, and humanity was nothing more than canvas.
Jaemin understood now. These things weren't animals or beasts or mindless terrors.They were artisans of suffering. Practicing their craft.
And we were the showcase.
The corridor narrowed as they stepped further into Tier 2. Gone were the grotesque, meat-walled horrors of the lower floors. Here, silence reigned.
Every footfall echoed unnaturally loud. But it wasn't the silence that unsettled them. It was the mirrors.
They lined every wall, floor to ceiling. Some pristine. Others jagged, broken, warped. There were no seams, no ceiling.
Jaemin paused. He didn't know why. Something tugged at him. A sense of being watched. Of being followed by someone not quite there.
In a mirror that didn't reflect him, stood a woman. Slender. Unmoving. Drenched in black.
A veil trailed behind her like wet silk. Her arms hung limply at her sides. She faced away, sobbing soundlessly. But the sound wasn't silent. It tapped the air like raindrops on glass.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
His body shivered with each tremor.
"...There's someone in this one," Jaemin murmured, breath hitching.
"She's crying. Black veil... she's not moving."
Hana turned immediately, her face pale.
"Did you say veil?"
He nodded. "Black. Long. I can't see her face."
Hana's hand went to her blade. Her voice dropped low and urgent.
"That's not a person. That's the Mirror Warmaiden."
The others froze.
"Who?" Minjae asked, already stepping back.
"A former Coreborn. Someone whose override embedded itself straight into her skull. It fractured her mind. She's part abyss now. She lives in the reflection, feeds on it. If she sees you... if you see her face..."
She hesitated.
"You go mad. Your mind breaks and it doesn't come back. You don't die by her hand. You do it yourself."
A long silence followed.
Jinhwan readied his blade.
"How do we kill something that hides in mirrors?"
"There is a way, She moves mirror to mirror, but she can only exist in reflections where her veil faces away. If it faces us, it's bait. The real one hides where her face is hidden. Find that, and we break it."
They began moving. Slowly. Carefully. Naeun unravelled a filament of thread from her pouch, casting it like a spider's web between the mirrors. It twitched slightly with movement. An echo.
Minjae, shaken from earlier, stumbled toward one of the mirrors. His reflection looked normal. But then... it didn't blink.
He recoiled. "God. I can't. I can't do this. I want this to end. I just want to go home."
He fumbled with his dagger, lifting it shakily toward his chest.
"Minjae!" Hana caught his hand mid-motion, holding him back again.
"Breathe. Look at me. You're still alive. This isn't the end unless you let it be. We survive. We make it back. You said you wanted to see your family again in Seoul, remember? You don't die here. Not now."
His grip loosened. The blade clattered.
Naeun's thread snapped.
The Warmaiden had moved.
"Behind!" Jinhwan shouted.
They spun. In one of the mirrors, she faced away again.
"That's her! The real one!"
Hana and Jinhwan struck. Sparks erupted against the glass. It cracked, but didn't break.
Jaemin moved instinctively, pressing closer to one of the untouched mirrors. And then he froze.
Her face was there. Inches from his own. The veil lifted slightly.
Eyes like bright yellow suns burned through streaks of weeping black blood. Her expression was sorrowful. Agonized. Beautifully broken.
Jaemin couldn't move. Couldn't scream. The reflection pulled at his mind, like nails scratching at memory.
CLINK!!!!
Hana's blade shattered the mirror beside him. She pulled him down just before the Warmaiden could reach through the glass.
"Never look into her face!"
More mirrors shimmered. Her voice began to echo, soft sobs turning to strangled screams.
Jinhwan roared, slamming his sword down into the final mirror where her veil still turned. With a thunderous crack, it shattered.
The crying stopped.
All mirrors blackened. One by one, they turned dull. Her presence faded like mist.
Silence returned.
The team exhaled.
Jaemin, still trembling, looked at his hands.
The air was heavier now. Denser. The further they moved through the corridor, the more silence replaced the tension.
Then, a tremor.
Nothing new. Just a rumble. Jaemin braced instinctively, hands clutching the sides of the walls as dust rained softly over them.
But then...
CRACCK!
The crystalline bottle slipped from one of the tanks' hands, the impact painting the cracked floor with streaks of water. Minjae cursed, barely above a whisper.
"Reflections," Jaemin said quickly, breath hitching.
"Don't look at them. Cover your eyes—wrap them now!"
The warning came too late.
The water spread slowly, an inkblot crawling across the stone, reflecting fragments of the cursed Tier 2 chamber. And there—rippling in the reflection—stood a figure. Black veil. Long dress. Weeping.
The Mirror Warmaiden had entered the world.
The moment felt still. Cold. Every soul froze in their skin. The two Bastion Coreborn—stoic tanks who had fought tooth and nail in Tier 3—were now unmoving. Staring. Drenched in fear. One of them dropped his weapon.
They had seen her eyes.
The Warmaiden tilted her head, veil fluttering despite the stillness, and smiled beneath it—black blood weeping from her sockets like tar. Her arms spread outward, and without touching them, the two tanks were lifted slowly into the air, limbs outstretched like crucified puppets.
And then—they dropped.
The group had their eyes bound, per Jaemin's call, but nothing could block out the sounds.
One of the tanks—heavy boots dragging, breath gurgling—slammed his skull into the stone with a wet crack. Once. Again. A third time—Splatter. It was like watching a melon break. The dull squelch echoed far too long.
The second tank screamed something unintelligible before shoving a shard of glass into his own eye.
And then the other.And then he kept pushing, jamming the glass deeper by smashing his face again and again into the jagged ground.
The sound was worse than the visuals ever could've been.
Jaemin couldn't breathe. Even with the cloth tied over his eyes, he could feel her presence growing closer. Her breath—if she breathed—was like wind behind a closed door, cold and waiting. SHE WAS UNHOLY. And then—he felt weightlessness.
He was rising.
"No—no no no no please—" Jaemin whimpered.
"I'm not like them! I'm not strong! I'm not like them, I'm not—"
The cloth was torn from his face, and there she was.
Her eyes—yellow, cracked with golden fire, bleeding black like paint down the porcelain white of her face. Her gaze was a thousand knives, and yet empty, void-like. There was no malice, no rage. Just cold inevitability.
Jaemin's screams turned guttural, his body trembling violently midair. The horror of death was no longer abstract. It was a mirror, reflecting everything inside him he never wanted to see.
The abyss didn't just kill you. It broke you first.
"No more..." he whimpered, voice shaking.
And then—Hana moved.
A blur of emerald light. She tore the cloth from her own eyes—not to see, but to act. In her hand: a jagged shard from the broken crystal bottle. Her voice didn't scream.
"Look at yourself instead!!!"
She slammed the cracked glass in front of the Warmaiden's eyes.
A scream exploded from the creature—not from her mouth, but her very soul. A sound of blinding rage and rejection. Her body contorted in unnatural angles, thrashing against invisible chains.
The reflection turned against her.
The Warmaiden fell, face-first, smashing into the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Her veil burned away, her skin cracking. She was lifted into the air—her body upside down—suspended by her own cursed power.
And then—she ignited.
Fire from no source consumed her. Screaming like a banshee, her twisted form burned, rising higher into the dark.
Then silence.
Just the sound of everyone breathing hard. No one said a word.
The two tanks were dead. Their remains were too grotesque to retrieve. Jaemin remained on the ground, curled, eyes wide and wet with terror.
The Mirror Warmaiden wasn't just any Abyssal creature—she was among the most fearsome and powerful entities born from the Rift's darkest nightmares. A being whose very presence could unravel sanity and civilization alike. If such a creature ever slipped fully into their world, humanity's extinction wouldn't be a question—it'd be a certainty.
Hana's sharp mind raced as she pieced together the grim truth. The cracked mirror they'd seen earlier, the one with jagged fractures snaking across its surface, was no mere shard of glass. It was a portal—a passageway to the exit of this dreaded Tier.
But which mirror held the key? In this labyrinth of reflections and horrors, choosing wrong meant an encounter with the Warmaiden's gaze—and a death worse than any physical wound. The maiden was so powerful that even after she vanished, her lingering presence haunted the mirrors themselves; choosing the wrong reflection could doom anyone to a death through the cold, merciless grasp of her residual curse.
The team's breaths hitched, and Jaemin's heart thundered as they faced the harrowing choice: trust their instincts and step through, or risk being consumed by the abyssal nightmare lurking just beyond the veil.
The dim, oppressive silence weighed heavily on the group as Hana finally broke it, her voice steady but grave.
"This Mirror Warmaiden... When she manifests, she doesn't just attack physically—her power lingers, infecting anything that reflects her image. That's why we can't simply break the mirrors or touch them carelessly. Even a shard or a reflection can be deadly."
She let her words hang in the stale air, watching the team digest the weight of the revelation.
Jinhwan's hands clenched into fists, eyes shadowed with grief as he silently mourned their fallen comrades, those who'd been lost so brutally just moments before.
Jaemin's mind was racing beneath the surface, analyzing every detail with that quiet, determined intensity he often hid behind his calm exterior.
His gaze darted from mirror to mirror, then toward the puddle of water glistening faintly on the cracked stone floor—the water that had spilled when the crystal bottle shattered.
"I… I think I might have an idea."
Jaemin finally spoke, his voice cautious but gaining confidence as he pieced the puzzle together.
"If all the mirrors are her creation, all deadly and designed to kill, then the only safe thing would be something not of her making… something outside her influence."
The team turned to look at him, anticipation and desperation mingling in their expressions.
"See the water on the floor? It came from the crystal bottle—something we brought in from the outside. It's not hers. So, if we circle the mirrors near the water, we might find a way to distinguish the true exit from the cursed reflections."
Hana nodded slowly, brows furrowed.
"It makes sense. Her power is tied to the mirrors themselves, the reflections she controls. The water's natural, untainted by her abyssal energy."
Jaemin moved carefully, tracing a slow circle around the mirrors closest to the water with his foot, his heart pounding in sync with the tension in the room.
The water shimmered under the faint bioluminescent glow of the Rift, tiny ripples breaking the heavy silence.
Suddenly, the water began to gleam—an eerie, pale light spread across its surface.
The glow intensified, revealing a swirling abyssal energy within the puddle, expanding outward like a living thing seeking escape.
"It's working."
Jaemin whispered, barely daring to breathe.
The mirrors themselves began to shift, their reflections warping and distorting.
One mirror, the largest and most fractured among them, shimmered with a strange light. Ancient runes—etched in a forgotten language—glowed faintly on its surface, forming a seal unlike anything they had seen before.
Hana's eyes widened.
"An ancient seal… this must be a portal."
The air thickened, the space before the mirror rippling like disturbed water.
The team exchanged anxious glances as the portal opened slowly, revealing a swirling void beyond. The endless blackness seemed to pulse, beckoning them onward yet warning of unseen dangers lurking in the darkness.
Jinhwan's voice broke the moment, quiet but resolute.
"This is our way out… but nothing here comes without a cost."
Minjae swallowed hard, gripping his weapon tightly, while Hana moved to the portal's edge, steadying herself against the creeping dread.
Jaemin's palms were sweaty, his mind racing to prepare for whatever awaited beyond this ancient threshold.
Taking a deep breath, Jaemin stepped forward first, the others close behind. As they fell into the void, the portal sealed behind them, leaving only silence—and the echo of the Mirror Warmaiden's curse lingering faintly in the mirrors they left behind.