---
The creature stood perfectly still.
At first.
Its head tilted slightly—off to the left. Its arms hung limply, but one longer than the other. Its skin rippled like water under oil, and its facial features shifted subtly every second. No two moments were identical.
Takumi stared into its face.
He saw his own.
Not just in appearance, but in posture. In the way it scanned the room. In the way it slightly flared its nostrils before a step. But there was something off. Something unbearable.
Its footsteps were uneven.
Its symmetry was broken.
Its breathing was not synchronized.
Takumi's heart pounded.
He could feel his hands starting to shake.
---
> [Aberration: Fragment of the Selfless Mind]
This entity reacts to your mental state.
Disorder within you strengthens it. Calmness weakens it.
Current Threat Level: Rising
---
Lisette took a step forward, reaching into her satchel.
"Let me help," she whispered.
"No," Takumi said sharply. "Don't touch it. Don't interfere."
"You don't understand—"
"I do," he said, not looking at her. "If my mind loses structure, it will win. This thing is me. Or… what I would be if I let myself unravel."
He stepped into the circle.
The creature moved.
It mirrored him—but with errors.
When Takumi raised his hand cleanly, the creature raised its—at a slightly different angle.
When Takumi's foot slid forward, the copy lurched, like a puppet pulled on tangled strings.
And still, it smiled.
---
They struck at the same moment.
Takumi's punch aimed at center mass—perfect geometry. The creature's strike veered off, wide and chaotic, but powerful.
They clashed.
Takumi dodged precisely, but the creature's arm twisted unnaturally mid-air, catching his shoulder.
He spun with it, using the force to redirect.
His hand cracked the creature's chest.
It didn't bleed.
It shifted—its ribs reshaping around his fist.
Takumi reeled back.
> [Mental Load +6%]
[Current Level: 23]
[Status: Stable]
---
The creature opened its mouth.
His voice came out.
But wrong.
"Balance is a lie. Everything breaks eventually. Even you."
Takumi's breath hitched.
The creature surged forward.
This time, it didn't attack—it mimicked.
Takumi stepped back, breathing shallow.
It followed.
Takumi turned his head to observe the crystals in the chamber.
The creature did too.
Out of sync.
Each movement—one second delayed, one percent off.
Like a corrupted echo.
---
Lisette shouted from the edge of the chamber, "You can't fight it with precision! It's feeding off it!"
"No," Takumi said, whispering more to himself than to her. "It's not feeding off precision. It's feeding off my attachment to it."
He closed his eyes.
Let his heartbeat settle.
Slowed his breathing.
In. Out. Four seconds each.
He released the tension in his shoulders.
Stopped thinking about lines and measurements.
He stopped trying to control the symmetry.
Instead, he accepted imperfection.
The lines of the room faded. The crookedness no longer stabbed at his vision.
He opened his eyes.
The creature twitched.
And shrank.
Its left arm folded back into normal proportion.
Its jaw clicked into place.
Its breathing began to mirror his own.
---
> [Mental Load -8%]
[Aberration Weakening…]
---
Takumi stepped forward.
The creature lunged in desperation—but this time, slower.
Takumi dodged, not with precision, but grace.
He let the rhythm guide him, not the geometry.
And when he struck—
He didn't aim perfectly.
He just trusted.
His palm hit the center of the creature's chest.
A pulse of light.
Cracks spread across the creature's body like shattering porcelain.
It crumpled.
Dissolved into mist.
Gone.
---
> [Aberration Purged.]
+5 Levels
Current Level: 28
[Skill Gained: Inner Silence Lv. 1]
"In calm, you disarm disorder."
---
Lisette walked over, jaw half-dropped.
"What… just happened?"
Takumi didn't speak for a moment.
Then: "I stopped fighting myself."
"…That worked?"
"No. It nearly didn't."
He looked at his trembling hands.
"They created that thing from my imbalance. My need to fix everything. And it almost won."
Lisette gently touched his arm. "But it didn't."
He met her eyes for a long moment.
Then nodded, just once.
---
As they left the shattered hall, the dungeon behind them began to quiet. The walls no longer moved. The corridors stabilized.
The labyrinth had acknowledged his will.
It wouldn't twist again.
Not for now.
---
High above, in an unseen spire of glass and shadow, a figure watched the confrontation in a mirror of ink.
A robed figure with no face. Only cracks.
It murmured.
"The infinite one resists disorder... but at what cost?"
Then it turned to a wall of mirrors.
Each showing a version of Takumi…
And all of them eventually breaking.
---
🔹 End of Chapter 7