CHAPTER 63: CHAPTER 63 – “A THORN AGAINST THE INFINITE”

The battlefield was silent.

Shards of black glass littered the ground like a graveyard of forgotten selves, each one still humming faintly with echoes of Ren’s laughter, rage, screams. The ichor giant was gone, reduced to nothing but fragments and ash.

But the silence wasn’t victory.

It was anticipation.

The Pane was watching.

Ren leaned on the Thorn, his chest heaving, sweat mixing with blood. His arm—no, his entire side—was now wrapped in ruin. Black fire pulsed beneath his skin, crawling up his neck, flickering across his face like a second heartbeat.

The girl’s silver flame steadied at his side, though her breathing was ragged. She glanced at him, her hand trembling as it hovered near his ruined arm.

"You can’t keep holding that inside you," she whispered.

Ren laughed under his breath, dry and cracked. "If I let it out, this world won’t be here long enough to argue about it."

Before she could answer, the sky cracked.

Not like glass. Not like thunder.

It spoke.

A voice rolled down from above, heavy, metallic, echoing from every direction at once. It was vast, mechanical, but threaded with something disturbingly human—like a cage trying to pretend it wasn’t alive.

"REN."

The girl flinched, flame faltering. Ren’s head tilted back, eyes narrowing.

"YOU WERE MEANT TO BE ERASED. YOU WERE A FRAGMENT, NOTHING MORE. WHY DO YOU STILL EXIST?"

Ren smirked, his laugh bitter, ragged. He dragged the Thorn up from the ground, pointing it at the cracked sky.

"Because you buried the wrong me."

The air shimmered. Every shard of glass around them began to rattle, lifting into the air like a thousand broken wings. Faces flickered across their surfaces—some screaming, some silent, some smiling. All Ren.

The girl clutched her chest, her breath quickening. "It’s waking up fully. The Pane—it’s not sending shards anymore. It’s—"

Ren interrupted with a grin that was all teeth. "—coming down here itself?" He twirled the Thorn in his hand despite his trembling grip, ruin licking up his arm like wildfire. "Good. About time I stopped punching through puppets."

The voice deepened, splitting the air into vibrations that shook their bones.

"YOUR REBELLION ENDS HERE. I WILL STRIKE YOU WITH EVERYTHING YOU HAVE DENIED."

The sky cracked open wider.

And through the wound descended not a beast, not a shard, but a shape of pure light. Thousands of hands, thousands of eyes, swirling like a cathedral made of broken prayers. Its body wasn’t solid—it was made of the rules of the world itself, woven into something that shouldn’t move but did.

The girl’s knees buckled. Her flame flickered violently, threatening to snuff out under its gaze.

Ren only grinned wider, ruin flaring from his arm like an eager predator straining at its leash.

"Finally..." he muttered, stepping forward as though to greet it. His voice was hoarse, but burning with a defiance that cut through the trembling air.

"...the cage itself came to play."

The sky was no longer sky.

It was a wound.

The split bled light—not warmth, not hope, but the sterile glow of order. Silver latticework stretched downward, weaving into a vast structure of countless hands and eyes. Each eye was a moon, blinking open, then closing, then opening again. Each hand was carved from rules, frozen in gestures of judgment.

The Pane wasn’t an enemy.

It was the law itself.

And it was here to erase him.

The girl staggered, clutching her chest, silver flame dimming as her voice cracked. "It’s not just descending—it’s collapsing into this place. The Mirror World won’t hold. Ren—if you fight it here, the Veins will—"

Ren’s lips curled in a grin, even as his chest heaved from exhaustion. "—shatter? Good. Maybe it’s about time."

The Pane’s voice rolled again, shaking every bone in their bodies.

"REN. THE PANE IS NOT YOUR ENEMY. YOU WERE BORN FROM IT. YOU ARE OUR ERROR. RETURN TO STILLNESS. ACCEPT OBLIVION."

Ren twirled the Thorn in his grip, its ruin-light blazing like a devouring star. His arm shook from the effort, but his eyes burned hotter than ever.

"Oblivion, huh? Sorry—" he spat blood onto the ground, his smile crooked, feral—"I’ve already lived through worse."

The Pane moved.

Not like a beast. Not like a god.

It shifted like a law being written, each of its hands turning, reconfiguring, folding the air into shapes that could not exist. The battlefield rewrote itself. The ribs of ancient beasts twisted into cages of glass. The ground became a grid of silver lines. Gravity bent sideways, then upwards, then nowhere at all.

And from those shifting laws, hundreds of mirror-shards burst outward, forming soldiers. They were faceless, each one wielding weapons forged from commands—swords of silence, shields of repetition.

The girl staggered back, flame trembling. "It’s rewriting reality into its courtroom. Ren—we can’t win this here!"

Ren stepped forward. His ruin wrapped tighter around his arm, crawling up his throat, flickering dangerously near his eye. He looked half-devoured by it now—but his voice was steady.

"That’s the point."

He struck the Thorn into the ground. The black fire screamed, surging out in jagged lines. The silver lattice cracked.

The Pane’s voice thundered in reply, this time not calm but sharp.

"YOU DARE TO STRIKE LAW ITSELF?"

Ren lifted the Thorn again, shoulders trembling, veins dark. "You bet I do."

The soldiers of light advanced. They didn’t walk—they glided, inevitable as falling. Ren surged forward, Thorn blazing. He swung, and ruin tore through the first rank, shattering them into splinters of law. Their collapse didn’t spill blood—it spilled commands, words like RETURN, ERASE, SILENCE—but the Thorn burned through them all.

Each swing left his arm screaming, his chest burning like a furnace tearing itself apart. But each swing also carved space—space the Pane couldn’t control.

The girl flared her silver flame, joining him at his side. Her hand trembled, but her voice rose firm. "If it rewrites the battlefield, then I’ll rewrite the flame."

She pressed her palms together. Her fire burst upward, forming not just a glow but symbols. Sigils of rebellion. Her flame wasn’t law, it was choice. And for every soldier that surged from the Pane’s command, her fire gave Ren one more step forward.

The Pane shifted again. A thousand eyes turned downward, focusing on Ren alone. Its voice cracked the air like judgment:

"REN. YOU ARE NOT A HERO. YOU ARE NOT A SAVIOR. YOU ARE NOT EVEN REAL."

Ren stopped mid-stride, breathing heavy, Thorn dripping ruin. His grin widened despite the blood running down his chin.

"Exactly. That’s why you’re afraid."

The Pane hesitated. Just a flicker—but Ren felt it.

He surged forward, shouting, ruin exploding from him like a second heartbeat.

The Thorn cut into the lattice itself.

The world screamed.

The Pane’s structure bent, fracturing in ways it had never bent before. A dozen eyes shattered into black liquid. A hundred hands cracked into dust. The courtroom of reality wavered.

The girl’s silver flame roared higher, feeding on Ren’s defiance. "He’s cutting through the rules... he’s making it bleed!"

Above them, the Pane’s voice faltered—not in power, but in certainty.

"...YOU CANNOT WIN. EVEN IF YOU STRIKE ME, I AM EVERYWHERE. I AM EVERYTHING. TO DESTROY ME IS TO DESTROY YOURSELF."

Ren staggered, but didn’t stop. He planted his foot on the fractured ground, Thorn raised high, ruin devouring the sky above him. His voice cracked, but carried through the collapsing battlefield.

"Then I’ll take everything with me."

The Pane froze.

For the first time since its existence began, the cage of rules understood something new.

Fear.

The battlefield no longer felt like ground. It was a verdict.

The Pane loomed above, its lattice of eyes and hands trembling, struggling to stitch itself back together. Its voice was everywhere—inside their ears, inside their veins, inside their memories.

"REN. YOUR STRUGGLE IS FUTILE. YOU HAVE CUT, BUT CUTTING MEANS NOTHING. FOR EVERY FRACTURE YOU MAKE, A NEW RULE WILL FORM. THE LAW CANNOT DIE."

Ren stood panting, Thorn gripped in both hands now, the ruin-light creeping over his neck like wildfire. His muscles shook, his lungs burned, his vision swam. Every time he raised the Thorn, it felt like it was tearing him apart from the inside.

But he didn’t stop.

He smirked through the blood dripping from his lip. "Good. Then I’ll just keep cutting until there’s nothing left to rewrite."

The Pane shifted, its thousand eyes narrowing into slits.

"...THEN YOU ARE MAD."

Ren’s laugh was hoarse, broken—but real. "Yeah. And free."

The soldiers of law surged again, their shields gleaming with inevitability, their swords humming with silence. The Pane wove new cages around him, closing, suffocating.

But the girl—flame burning brighter than before—threw herself forward, hands outstretched. Sigils of rebellion burst from her palms, scattering like shards of choice across the cage. The silver fire dug into the grid, undoing the Pane’s work, unraveling the courtroom it had tried to form.

Her voice cracked, but rose sharp: "You won’t bind him! Not him, not again!"

The Pane bellowed, its sound shaking the marrow of the world.

"CHILD OF SHATTER, YOUR EXISTENCE IS VOID. YOU WILL BE RETURNED."

The girl staggered as one of the Pane’s hands shot downward, massive, skeletal, fingers made of law itself. It descended like a decree.

Ren moved faster.

The Thorn howled, black ruin exploding in arcs of jagged flame as he swung upward with everything left inside him. His voice roared through the collapsing court:

"—TRY ME!"

The Thorn met the Pane’s hand.

The impossible happened.

Law bled.

The silver lattice cracked, not like glass but like certainty shattering into doubt. The massive hand split apart, fingers severed, raining down as broken symbols—commands that no longer had authority.

The Pane reeled. Its voice, once flawless, now cracked like an old record.

"...YOU... STRUCK ME..."

Ren’s chest heaved. His vision dimmed. His arm burned like it wasn’t his anymore. But he tightened his grip.

"And I’ll do it again."

He lunged forward, Thorn screaming with ruin, his entire body trembling on the edge of collapse. Each step shattered the grid, each swing carved holes in inevitability. The Pane’s courtroom began to collapse in on itself, its soldiers faltering, freezing, their forms glitching as if unsure they were supposed to exist.

The girl’s flame surged to match his fury, her voice echoing like a chorus. "You’re not law anymore—you’re afraid."

The Pane’s thousand eyes blinked all at once, their glow flickering.

Ren raised the Thorn high. His body screamed to stop. His veins felt like they were turning inside out. But he pulled on every ounce of ruin left in him.

And struck.

The Thorn carved upward, slamming into the very core of the Pane’s descending lattice. The ruin-light erupted like a black sun, flooding the courtroom, consuming order, swallowing silence.

The Pane screamed.

Not in judgment.

In pain.

The wound he carved didn’t seal. It spread. Silver lattice splintered. Eyes burst into rivers of dark light. Hands crumbled into dust. The Pane—the infinite law—was bleeding ruin across the Mirror World.

Ren staggered, almost collapsing, the Thorn smoking in his grip. His grin was ragged, broken, but unshakable.

"Guess even infinity can crack."

The girl caught him before he fell, silver fire surrounding them as the battlefield shook itself apart. Her eyes were wide, glowing with both awe and terror.

"You... you hurt it. No one has ever—"

Ren coughed, wiping blood from his mouth, forcing a crooked grin. "Then I’ll finish what no one else could."

Above them, the Pane’s voice came again, fractured, trembling like broken glass.

"...REN. IF YOU STRIKE AGAIN... YOU WILL NOT SURVIVE."

Ren laughed hoarsely, leaning into the girl’s support, Thorn still burning in his hand.

"Wasn’t planning to anyway."

The battlefield trembled. The Pane bled.

And for the first time in eternity—

Law feared rebellion.