The world was silent.
Cities crumbled under skies that forgot how to change color.
No laughter.
No voices.
Only the cold winds sweeping through hollow streets.
Sam and Wang wandered the ruins like shadows.
No destination.
No mission.
Just surviving.
They kept their cracked masks on.
Out of habit.
Out of fear.
Out of respect for what they had lost.
It wasn't victory.
It wasn't even survival.
It was… existence.
Some nights, Wang would sit by a broken billboard and stare into the starless sky.
"Maybe we didn't win," he would whisper.
Sam never argued.
They had shattered the monolith.
They had broken the Mirage.
But the world didn't snap back.
It remained hollow.
Like the Mirage had never truly needed the mirrors.
It had already lived inside people's desires.
And those desires had no off switch.
Sam feared…They were still there.Buried in the cracks of every shattered screen.In the corners of every fractured mind.
Waiting.
Breeding.
One evening, as they walked past the ruins of the old flower nursery—the place where it all began—they heard something.
A whisper.
But not in the glass.
Not in reflections.
It came from the soil.
From the earth itself.
A soft hum, like breathing.
Sam kneeled, touching the dirt.
Something pulsed beneath.
A root?A heartbeat?
No.
It was something else.
A… seed.
Glowing faintly in the blackened earth.
Wang touched it.
And in that moment, they both saw visions.
A new Mirage.
Not of glass.
Not of mirrors.
But of flesh.
Of roots.
Of petals.
Of vines.
Something… older.
Something that had waited beneath the Mirage of glass and reflections.
And now that the mirrors were shattered…It was waking up.
They had been fighting the wrong Mirage.
The Blooming One had always been beneath.
Waiting for the world to fall into silence.Into stillness.
Because that was when the roots could truly spread.
That was the true Path of No Return.
Sam let the seed fall from her shaking hands.
They had shattered the glass world.
And unknowingly… opened the door to something far worse.
Something ancient.
Something that didn't whisper sweet dreams.
But devoured them.
Sam looked at Wang.
He looked back.
Neither smiled.
Because now they knew.
Their war wasn't over.
It had only changed form.
From glass…To bloom.
They stood.
And walked toward the awakening hum beneath the earth.
This wasn't the Mirage of reflections anymore.
This was The Blooming Mirage.
And they were stepping into Part 2: Path of Endless Bloom.
End of Part 1: THE BLOOMINGMIRAGE - Path of No Return