Netherhold had grown.
What was once a decaying prison buried in oblivion had become something alive—a fortress of bone and ambition, held together by magic, hatred, and intent.
I stood at the highest balcony, overlooking the transformation I had wrought. Towers of twisted soulsteel pierced the air like fangs. The Hall of Mutation pulsed with light beneath me, a heart of broken gods and unnatural rebirths. Grave servitors marched in coordinated silence. Darkflowers bloomed from once-dead soil, feeding on ambient magic.
But growth meant nothing without purpose.
I turned.
Behind me stood three figures—my creations. My sins.
Virella, wings of bone and light, silent and sharp.
Ka'Zhur, breathing magma, eyes like molten judgment.
Silthis, cloaked in silence, unreadable even to shadows.
And then… Glepharion.
Grinning, vibrating, watching me with too many eyes.
It was time.
> [Expedition Protocol: Active]
[Objective: Survey Outer Fringe | Threat Assessment | Field Test – Mutant Vanguard]
[Squad Assigned: Tier 1 Aberrants + Adaptive Jester]
"The world will not notice us," I whispered. "Not yet. But it will feel the shift in its foundations."
Glepharion bowed with exaggerated flair. "Should we knock on their doors, or just haunt their windows?"
"Neither," I replied. "Stay in the shadows. Watch. Test. Adapt."
Ka'Zhur stepped forward. "No survivors?"
"Only if they interfere," I said. "This isn't conquest."
"Yet," Silthis muttered from nowhere.
I allowed myself the ghost of a smile.
---
THE MIRRORWOOD
The trees in this forest devoured light.
Not by choice. By nature.
The Mirrorwood stretched across the western fringe of the ancient continent. Abandoned after the Cataclysm, feared for its illusions. Explorers who entered never returned unchanged. Some came back with reversed memories. Some came back as copies—flawed, stuttering, echoing voices they never had.
Most… didn't come back at all.
It was perfect.
The four moved like a single organism—Virella flying overhead, silent as a falling feather; Ka'Zhur stomping forward, radiating heat; Silthis slithering in and out of visibility; Glepharion… bouncing.
"The trees are whispering," Glepharion said, licking bark with a too-long tongue. "I think they like me."
"They don't like anything," Virella replied. "They only remember."
The squad moved deeper. The canopy grew thicker, and time began to bend. Shadows twisted at odd angles. Echoes came before footsteps. A broken world clung to the edges of reality here.
And then—
They saw them.
Eight figures standing perfectly still between the trees.
At first glance, they looked… familiar.
Too familiar.
A twisted Virella, her wings blackened and shriveled.
A molten mockery of Ka'Zhur, leaking uncontrolled flame.
A shadowy Silthis—but twitching, unstable.
Glepharion laughed. "Oh no. Not them."
> [Entity Detected: Simulacrum – Mirrorborn | Threat Level: Unknown]
[Note: Imperfect Reflections of Squad | Behavior: Aggressively Mimetic]
Without command, the battle began.
---
THE FIRST TEST
Virella struck first. She ascended and descended in a blink, her bone-wing slicing clean through the skull of her mirror-self.
But the simulacrum didn't bleed. It cracked—as if made of mirrored glass—and dissolved into mist, shrieking in backwards whispers.
Ka'Zhur roared, slamming his obsidian fist into the earth. Magma burst outward, encasing his twin in molten stone. The copy tried to mimic, but failed—its body couldn't withstand its own fire. It shattered, screaming soundlessly.
Silthis darted from shadow to shadow, colliding with his reflection. Their movements were identical—until Silthis blinked sideways into a realm of his own design. A place between void and wind. When he emerged, his blade was already through his reflection's neck.
But not all copies broke so easily.
Two remained.
One bore a grin. Wide. Wrong. Familiar.
It mimicked Glepharion—but its laughter was forced, its movements rigid.
The real Glepharion stopped.
His grin vanished.
He whispered, "That's not me."
And then he danced.
---
It was not a fight.
It was performance art laced with murder.
Glepharion summoned illusions, phantoms, echoes of possible deaths. He turned the air itself into a joke—blades made of punchlines and firework limbs.
The copy tried to mimic.
It failed.
And as it died—melting into a pool of laughter and tears—it whispered, "Why… do I… exist?"
Glepharion whispered back: "To be wrong."
Then crushed its face with his foot.
---
The final simulacrum was different.
It didn't move.
It resembled me.
A broken version. Hollow eyes. Robes of ash. It stared at them all, unmoving, unblinking.
Ka'Zhur looked toward the treetops. "Orders?"
They waited.
And I answered—through Glepharion's lips.
"Don't touch it."
The simulacrum of me tilted its head… and collapsed into dust.
> [Residual Echo Logged: Rejected Memory]
[Analysis: Mirrorwood holds reflective fragments of intruders' subconscious]
[Risk: Existential Contamination – Moderate]
I took a deep breath from my throne far below the earth.
That was a piece of me.
One I didn't remember.
---
RETURN TO NETHERHOLD
They returned hours later, silent.
No wounds. No fatigue.
But something about them had changed.
Virella walked with slower wings. Ka'Zhur's fists were tighter. Silthis looked… deeper into shadows. Glepharion, for once, was quiet.
They brought with them shards—pieces of their mirrored selves. I analyzed them in my lab, pressing them against soulsteel and voidglass.
The results were strange.
Each shard held traces of emotion.
Not just data. Not mana.
But things like shame. Fear. Pride.
Even… doubt.
One shard whispered my name.
"Azrael... is this the path you chose?"
I crushed it before it finished.
---
THE PRICE OF REFLECTION
As I sat in the chamber alone, something gnawed at my mind.
The Mirrorwood didn't create. It reflected.
So what did that say about what we saw?
Those simulacrum—those broken versions of my soldiers, and of myself—were not born of the forest. They were born of us. Of fear, regret, and possibility.
Perhaps evolution did not erase the past.
Perhaps it just buried it.
I looked to the Mutation Codex. New entries glowed—flashing data from the expedition.
Then I stared at the map of the outer world.
The names of cities. The spires of kingdoms I once ruled. The empire that betrayed me.
They did not know I was alive.
Not yet.
But now... I had a squad.
Now… I had proof.
I whispered, almost lovingly.
"They remember shadows…"
"…soon, they will remember me."
---
END OF CHAPTER 10