The elevator to Sector 7 didn't hum; it sang.
As the rusted cage descended past the Abyssal Layer, the air pressure rose until ears popped and sinuses throbbed. The temperature dropped, not to the freezing cold of the surface, but to a crisp, dry chill that smelled of ozone and crushed silica.
Varian stood in the center of the cage, the Sun-Piercer strapped to his back. He was silent, his eyes fixed on the darkness below.
"We're deep," Gorgon rumbled, checking the seals on his Crimson Paladin armor. The red metal was dull, the rage dormant for now. "Deeper than the mines. My stone skin itches. The rock here... it feels different. It vibrates."
"It's not rock," Lady Venom corrected, running a gloved hand over the moisture on the cage wall. "It's silicate. Crystal growth. We are entering the Geode."
Rix was curled in a ball in the corner, his paws over his eyes. "Too shiny. Too many Rixes."
"Stay sharp," Varian ordered. "The Architect said the Crystal Leviathan is an Emperor Rank. But it's not a brawler like the Hydra. It controls light. If you see something, don't trust it."
PING.
The elevator hit the bottom. The doors groaned open.
They stepped out, and the world shattered into a billion facets.
Sector 7: The Crystalline Deep
It was a forest, but not of trees. Massive pillars of quartz, amethyst, and diamond rose from the floor to a ceiling so high it was lost in a haze of glittering dust.
Bioluminescent moss didn't grow here. Instead, light was carried through the crystals themselves—refracted beams from the distant magma veins of the core, split into rainbows that danced across the walls.
It was breathtaking. It was a cathedral of glass.
And it was a maze.
"Which way?" Gorgon asked, looking at three identical paths winding between towering emerald shards.
Varian activated his Genetic Archivist sight.
[Environmental Scan Initiated.][Error: Signal Refraction.][Error: Visual Data Corrupted.]
Varian blinked. His HUD was glitching, multiple overlays stacking on top of each other.
"My sight is useless," Varian said, rubbing his eyes. "The crystals scatter the signal. We have to do this the old-fashioned way."
He looked at Rix. "Can you smell the path?"
Rix uncovered his eyes, squinting against the glare. He sniffed.
"Smells like... nothing," Rix whispered. "Clean. Too clean. Like staring at the sun."
"Pick a direction," Varian said. "We keep moving. If we stop, we get lost."
They walked into the maze.
Ten minutes in, the unease set in.
The crystals weren't just walls; they were mirrors.
Varian walked past a slab of polished obsidian. He saw his reflection. The black Abyssal Armor, the spear, the tired eyes.
But when he walked past, the reflection didn't move. It stayed there, watching him.
Varian stopped. He turned back. The reflection turned with him, perfectly synced now.
"Just a trick of the light," Varian muttered.
"Boss," Gorgon stopped. He was staring at a wall of blue crystal. "Why am I... red?"
Varian looked. Gorgon's reflection wasn't wearing the dormant armor. It was wearing the Berserk Crimson Paladin. The helmet was glowing with blinding red light. The reflection raised its hammer.
Gorgon flinched. "It wants to kill me."
"Don't look at them," Venom warned, her voice tight. She was staring at a shard of mirror-glass. In it, she wasn't a mutant with a tail. She was Elara Vane, beautiful and human, wearing a ballgown. The reflection was crying tears of blood.
"It shows us what we fear," Venom whispered. "Or what we lost."
Varian looked back at his own reflection.
The Varian in the mirror wasn't wearing armor. He was wearing rags. And standing behind him, with a hand on his shoulder, was Iron-Jaw.
The cyborg merchant looked alive. He was smiling. But his chest was a hollow crater of burnt wires.
"You left me," the reflection of Iron-Jaw mouthed. No sound came out, but Varian felt the words in his skull.
Varian's heart hammered against his ribs. The Hydra Heart pumped faster, sensing stress.
"It's an illusion," Varian said, his voice shaking. "Ignore it. Move."
They tried to walk. But the reflections stepped out of the glass.
SHIMMER.
The Mirror-Varian stepped onto the path. The Mirror-Gorgon raised his hammer. The Mirror-Elara drew a dagger.
[Enemy Encounter.][Subject: Mirror-Mimic.][Rank: Variable (Matches Target).][Ability: Hard-Light Projection.]
"They're solid!" Rix screamed as a Mirror-Rat lunged at him with claws made of diamond.
"Defend yourselves!" Varian shouted.
The Mirror-Varian lunged. It held a Sun-Piercer made of white light.
Varian blocked with his real spear.
CLANG.
The impact was heavy. Real.
"You killed him," the Mirror-Varian whispered, pressing the attack. It moved with Varian's speed, Varian's strength. "You flew too close to the sun, and you let him burn."
"Shut up!" Varian roared.
He channeled the Magma-Core. His blade erupted in fire. He slashed.
The Mirror-Varian mimicked the move exactly. Fire met Light.
BOOM.
The explosion threw them both back.
Behind him, Gorgon was fighting for his life. The Mirror-Gorgon was relentless, swinging with the full fury of the Crimson Paladin. The real Gorgon was hesitating, afraid to unleash his own rage.
"I can't hit him!" Gorgon yelled, taking a blow to the shield. "He knows my moves before I make them!"
"Because he is you!" Venom shouted, dodging a poison dart from her doppelganger. "Stop fighting the image! Break the source!"
Venom rolled under a slash. She didn't strike the Mirror-Elara. She struck the crystal wall the mimic had stepped out of.
She threw a vial of Liquid Nitrogen.
CRACK.
The crystal froze and shattered.
The Mirror-Elara flickered, distorted like a bad signal, and vanished.
"Break the mirrors!" Venom yelled.
"Easier said than done!" Varian gritted his teeth, locking blades with his copy. "There are thousands of them!"
Every surface was a mirror. Every shard was a potential enemy.
Varian looked at his copy. The copy sneered.
"You can't break the world, Varian. You're just a parasite."
Varian stared into his own eyes.
"You're right," Varian said softly. "I am a parasite."
He dropped his guard.
The Mirror-Varian thrust the spear at his heart.
At the last second, Varian didn't dodge. He activated Onyx.
[Form Shift: The Mirror.]
His armor turned chrome-silver. Perfectly reflective.
The Mirror-Varian struck Varian's chest. But instead of piercing, the hard-light spear hit the reflective surface.
Light reflects off a mirror.
The beam bounced back.
The Mirror-Varian was hit by its own attack. The light spear pierced its chest.
The mimic looked confused. It looked down at the wound.
"Reflection..." it whispered.
Varian slammed his own spear—the real, heavy, magma-wreathed spear—into the mimic's face.
"Shatter."
CRASH.
The mimic exploded into shards of glass.
"Gorgon! Polish your armor!" Varian shouted. "Reflect them!"
"Polish?" Gorgon was confused. Then he understood. "Onyx! A little help?"
Varian pointed his hand. A glob of Onyx shot onto Gorgon's shield, coating it in chrome.
Gorgon angled the shield. The Mirror-Gorgon's laser-eyes hit the chrome and bounced back, blinding it.
"Hah!" Gorgon smashed the blinded mimic with his hammer. It shattered into dust.
Silence returned to the maze. The shards of the mimics lay on the floor, dissolving into light.
Varian stood panting. He looked at the shattered crystal wall.
"They weren't just monsters," Varian said. "They were a test. The Leviathan is watching."
"Rix found it!" The Rat-Boy shouted from down the hall. He was sniffing a crack in the floor. "Air moving. Not clean air. Heavy air. Smells like... old light."
"Lead the way," Varian said. "Before the mirrors come back."
They followed Rix through a fissure in the crystal, descending another hundred meters.
The tunnel opened up.
If the maze was a cathedral, this was the throne room.
A massive cavern, circular and perfect, lay before them. The floor was a lake of still, clear water. In the center of the lake stood an island made of a single, uncut diamond the size of a castle.
It was faceted, geometric, and impossibly bright. Beams of light from the ceiling hit the diamond island and scattered into a spectrum of colors that illuminated the entire cavern.
[Location Discovered: The Prism Spire.]
"It's beautiful," Venom whispered, her eyes reflecting the rainbows.
"It's a fortress," Varian corrected.
They walked across a bridge of natural glass toward the island.
As they stepped onto the diamond floor, a vibration hummed through their boots.
HUM-HUM-HUM.
It wasn't a sound. It was a frequency.
The light in the room shifted. The rainbows coalesced. They gathered in the center of the island, weaving together like threads of silk.
A shape formed.
It was serpentine, massive, and majestic. Fifty meters long, coiled like a spring. Its scales were not skin; they were prisms. Its eyes were faceted gems. It had no wings, but it floated on waves of light.
[Legendary Encounter.][Subject: The Crystal Leviathan.][Rank: Emperor (Mid-Tier).][Attribute: Light Refraction / Psionic Projection.]
The Leviathan lowered its head. It looked at Varian.
It didn't roar. It didn't open a mouth.
It spoke.
But not with words. It spoke with Light.
A beam of pure white light shot from its forehead, hitting Varian directly in the eyes.
Varian flinched, but he didn't look away.
Inside his mind, colors exploded.
Blue = Sadness. Red = Anger. Gold = Curiosity.
The colors formed concepts. Concepts formed words.
[WHY DO YOU DARKEN MY HALLS, SHADOW-BEARER?]
The voice echoed in Varian's optic nerve. It tasted like peppermint and felt like cold water. Synesthesia.
Varian stepped forward, planting the butt of his spear on the diamond floor.
"I am Varian," he said aloud. "I come for a trade."
The Leviathan shifted. Its scales rippled, sending waves of violet light (Amusement) through the room.
[A TRADE? THE MICE TRADE WITH THE LION? YOU CARRY THE STENCH OF THE VOID. YOU CARRY THE ARMOR OF THE TRAITOR.]
"The Traitor?" Varian asked. "You mean the Abyssal Knight?"
[HE WHO SWALLOWED THE LIGHT. HE WHO BROUGHT THE DARKNESS TO THE SKY.]
The Leviathan hissed—a flash of jagged yellow light.
[I AM THE KEEPER OF THE PRISM. I PRESERVE THE PURITY OF THE SPECTRUM. WHY SHOULD I NOT BURN YOU WHERE YOU STAND?]
"Because I'm going to kill an Angel," Varian said.
The colors stopped swirling. They froze.
White. Pure, stark white.
[AN ANGEL.]
"A Seraphim," Varian clarified. "Monarch Rank. It has Hard-Light armor. My weapons can't break it. I need a Prism. I need one of your scales."
The Leviathan uncoiled. It circled Varian, its massive body moving silently.
[THE FALSE LIGHT,] the Leviathan projected. [THEY WHO STOLE THE SUN AND CAGED IT IN STEEL. I HATE THEM.]
It stopped in front of Varian.
[BUT HATE IS NOT ENOUGH. POWER IS NOT ENOUGH. TO WIELD THE PRISM, YOU MUST UNDERSTAND THE NATURE OF LIGHT.]
The Leviathan reared up.
[ANSWER MY RIDDLE, PARASITE. IF YOU SPEAK TRUTH, I WILL GIVE YOU THE SHARD. IF YOU LIE, OR IF YOU FAIL... YOU WILL BECOME A STATUE IN MY GARDEN FOREVER.]
Varian looked at the frozen statues of scavengers lining the walls of the cavern.
"Ask," Varian said.
The Leviathan's eyes pulsed.
[THE LIGHT BURNS. THE SHADOW HIDES. WHEN THE BEAM STRIKES, THE WEAK ARE CONSUMED, AND THE STRONG RESIST.]
[BUT TO BREAK THE LIGHT... WHAT MUST YOU BECOME?]
Varian frowned. It was a philosophy test.
"Strong?" Gorgon whispered. "To break it, you have to be stronger?"
Varian shook his head. "I tried strength. The Angel laughed at it."
"Darkness?" Venom suggested. "Shadow swallows light."
"No," Varian said. "The Angel burned my shadows away."
He looked at the Leviathan. He looked at its body—transparent, crystalline.
He looked at the Sun-Piercer in his hand. The crystal blade.
When light hits a rock, it stops. When light hits a mirror, it bounces. But when light hits a prism...
"To break the light," Varian looked up, his eyes meeting the Leviathan's gaze.
"You don't fight it. You don't hide from it."
Varian dropped his armor.
The Abyssal Armor retracted. The Onyx plating melted away. He stood there, unarmored, vulnerable. A human boy in tattered clothes.
"You must become Clear," Varian said. "You must let it pass through you. Only by accepting it can you bend it."
Silence.
The Leviathan stared at him.
Then, the colors exploded again. Not chaotic this time. Harmonious.
[TRANSPARENCY,] the Leviathan sang in his mind. [THE HARDEST STATE OF ALL. TO HAVE NO EGO. TO BE A VESSEL.]
The beast lowered its head.
[YOU ARE NOT CLEAR, SOVEREIGN. YOU ARE FULL OF MUD AND BLOOD AND RAGE. BUT...]
It touched Varian's chest with its snout.
[YOU UNDERSTAND THE PATH. YOU FIGHT NOT FOR THE LIGHT, BUT FOR THOSE WHO LIVE IN THE SHADOW.]
CRACK.
A massive scale, the size of a shield, detached from the Leviathan's neck. It floated down to Varian's hands. It was perfectly clear, humming with potential energy.
[TAKE THE PRISM SHARD. BUT BE WARNED.]
The Leviathan began to fade, retreating into the light of the room.
[IT WILL NOT JUST BREAK THE ANGEL'S SHIELD. IT WILL REVEAL THE TRUTH BENEATH. ARE YOU READY TO SEE WHAT LIES INSIDE THE MACHINE?]
"I've seen inside monsters before," Varian said, gripping the shard. "It's usually just guts."
[NOT THIS ONE,] the Leviathan's voice faded. [THIS ONE... HAS NO SOUL.]
The light dimmed. The Leviathan was gone.
Varian stood holding the Prism Scale.
"We got it," Rix cheered, doing a backflip.
"We got the key," Varian agreed. He handed the scale to The Architect, who had been cowering behind a rock taking notes.
"Can you mount this?" Varian asked.
The Architect adjusted his glasses, drooling slightly. "Mount it? I can turn the Sun-Piercer into a Diffraction Cannon. One hit, and the Angel's shield will scatter into a thousand harmless rainbows."
Varian turned back toward the exit.
"Then let's go home. We have a bird to cook."