The ruins of the Grand Library smoldered behind Arlan, but the fire wasn't orange—it was a cold, abyssal violet. Arlan stood in the center of the palace square, his new height and pale skin making him look less like a prince and more like an ancient deity.
[Status: Evolution in Progress]
[Sanity: 42% - Warning: Reality is becoming 'Fluid']
"Arlan, stop!" Lyra shouted, her voice trembling. "The sky... look at the sky!"
The clouds over Valoria had torn open. Two out of the twelve seals were gone, and the "Void Beyond" was leaking into the world. Reality was thinning. Buildings in the distance were flickering in and out of existence like a glitching video game.
"The world is breaking because it was never meant to be whole," Arlan said, his voice overlapping with a thousand whispers. He looked at the Chronos Key in his hand. "My father didn't build a kingdom. He built a waiting room for my execution."
Arlan didn't walk toward the Palace. He simply raised his hand and twisted the air as if he were turning a doorknob.
[Skill Activated: Reality Warp (Rank: EX)]
[Mana Cost: 2,000 MP]
[Effect: Folding Space-Time]
CRACK.
The space in front of him shattered like a mirror. Instead of the palace gates, a rift opened directly into the Throne Room's Secret Dimension. Arlan stepped through, followed by a terrified Sebastian and a determined Lyra.
They emerged not in a room of gold, but in a hall of mirrors. Thousands of Arlans reflected back at them—Arlan as a child, Arlan as a corpse, Arlan as a King.
[Area: The Hall of Infinite Regret]
[Guardian Detected: Saint of Reflection, Mirra (Level 36)]
"Welcome home, little anomaly," a voice echoed from every mirror at once. A woman made of shimmering glass stepped out of a reflection. "Here, you cannot hide behind your shadows. Here, you are just a broken boy."
Mirra waved her hand, and the reflections of Arlan stepped out of the glass. There were hundreds of them, all wielding the Eclipse Blade.
"If you are the catastrophe," Mirra hissed, "then let the catastrophe destroy itself."
[Combat Log: Arlan vs. 100 Reflections]
[Warning: Reflections possess 100% of your current stats.]
The hall exploded into violence. Arlan fought himself—every move he made was countered by a hundred versions of his own skill. He was being cut by his own blade, burned by his own shadow-fire.
[HP: 1,400 / 3,800]
"You can't win," Mirra laughed. "I am the truth of who you are—fragmented and lost."
Arlan took a deep breath, letting a reflection's blade pierce his shoulder. He didn't flinch. Instead, he grabbed the reflection's arm and smiled. "You made a mistake, Mirra. You reflected my stats... but you couldn't reflect my Void."
He unleashed the Chaos Core at 100% capacity. Since the Void is "nothingness," it cannot be reflected. The mirrors began to turn black. They didn't show a reflection anymore; they showed an empty abyss.
"If there is no light," Arlan whispered, "there is no reflection."
[Ultimate Move: Total Eclipse]
The darkness swallowed the hall. Mirra screamed as her glass body began to crack. She couldn't exist in a place where there was nothing to reflect. One by one, the mirrors shattered into a billion pieces, each shard carrying a memory of the Empire.
Arlan stood in the center of the glass storm, his eyes glowing like twin green suns. Mirra lay at his feet, her body turning into sand.
[Saint Extinguished: Mirra, the Reflection]
[Exp Gained: 45,000]
[Level Up! Level 33 -> Level 35]
[New Skill: 'Mirror Image' - Create a perfect copy of yourself.]
The third tower—the Tower of Sight—collapsed outside. The sky cracked further.
Arlan looked up. The throne was only a few floors away. But standing in his way were the final eight Saints, led by his father's strongest general.
"Three down," Arlan said, his voice now purely monstrous. "Nine to go."
As the last shards of Mirra's glass body turned to dust, Arlan didn't move. He stood staring into a single remaining fragment of the mirror that hadn't shattered. In it, he didn't see the pale, monstrous Prince. He saw a silhouette made of pure, swirling stardust—a being that looked like it belonged to the birth of a galaxy, not a human kingdom.
[System Alert: High-Level Soul Sync - 89%]
[Warning: Your human vessel is reaching its structural limit.]
"Arlan, your hand..." Sebastian whispered, pointing.
Arlan's fingers were becoming translucent, flickering like a flame in a dark room. The Reality Warp hadn't just moved him through space; it was beginning to unravel his physical existence. He wasn't just using the Void; the Void was finally claiming its host.
"The more I break their world, the more I break myself," Arlan realized. He felt a strange sense of peace. "But a cage must be destroyed for the bird to fly."
The hallway leading to the Inner Sanctum suddenly expanded. The walls of the palace melted away, replaced by a battlefield of frozen blood and rusted spears. This was a Domain Expansion—a high-level ability only possessed by the First Circle of Saints.
[New Area: The Field of Eternal Slaughter]
[Hostile Presence: Saint-General Valerius II (Level 42)]
A man in crimson armor, three times the size of a normal human, stood waiting. He was Arlan's older brother—or what was left of him. His eyes were replaced by glowing red crystals, and he carried a banner that dripped with liquid mana.
"Brother," the General's voice was a mechanical grind. "Father said you would come. He said you would be the sacrifice that completes the God-Core."
"He sent a puppet to do a King's job?" Arlan stepped forward, the ground beneath him turning into black glass. "I've already killed three of your 'Saints'. You're just another piece of code I need to delete."
The General didn't use a sword. He slammed his banner into the ground, and a shockwave of Holy Fire incinerated everything within a hundred yards. Arlan didn't dodge. He raised his hand, and the flames didn't burn him—they turned black and flowed into his palm.
[Skill Triggered: Abyssal Absorption]
[Mana Recovered: 5,000 MP]
[System Notification: You are over-clocking! Damage to Sanity +5%]
"I am the fire, Arlan!" the General roared, charging with the speed of a comet.
Arlan met him mid-air. The collision was so powerful that the Field of Eternal Slaughter began to crack. Arlan's Eclipse Blade clashed against the General's crimson spear, creating sparks that tore through the fabric of the dimension.
In that moment of contact, Arlan saw into his brother's mind. There was no soul left—only a set of instructions programmed by their father.
"You aren't my brother anymore," Arlan hissed, his green eyes flaring. "You're just a battery for the throne."
With a roar of agony and power, Arlan unleashed his Reality Warp at point-blank range. The space around the General's heart began to fold in on itself, crushing armor and flesh into a singular point of nothingness.
[Saint-General Vital Signs: CRITICAL]
[Chapter 18 END]