CHAPTER 73: CHAPTER 73 – THE BELL OF SHATTERED TIME

The moment Ren stepped onto the fractured expanse, the world twisted in ways his mind barely managed to contain.

The sky above was not one single color, but layers of broken glass smeared across an endless horizon—crimson shards bleeding into violet, streaks of obsidian tearing into pale blue. Every time Ren blinked, the heavens shifted, like someone was turning a kaleidoscope too violently.

Beneath his boots, the ground wasn’t ground at all. It was made of broken reflections, smooth yet uneven, each step rippling across shards that carried faint impressions of other lives—his childhood self laughing, the boy who had first crossed into this mirror world, the countless faces of strangers he had never met but who somehow knew him.

The Mirror’s Rebellion followed close behind, their steps echoing unnaturally, as if the world did not want them here. The silver-haired girl walked at Ren’s side, her shard-wings trailing faint crystalline dust that glittered like frozen stars. But her face was tense, her eyes locked on the horizon where a jagged tower loomed, half-formed and unstable.

"Do you feel it?" she whispered, her voice so soft it barely reached him. "This place is being pulled apart. The Shard-Keeper’s presence is unraveling the balance."

Ren nodded. He could feel it—every beat of his heart was echoed back by the world, like the mirror itself was breathing with him. A strange pull gnawed at his chest, urging him forward, deeper into the chaos.

"Ren," one of the Rebellion members muttered, a scarred man gripping his weapon tightly, "are we really... walking into this? That tower feels like it wants to erase us just by existing."

Ren stopped, staring at the tower in the distance. Its structure wasn’t solid—each time he looked, it seemed to rebuild itself with different pieces, like a puzzle that refused to finish. But it was the whispers that unsettled him most. They weren’t loud, but constant, gnawing at the edges of his thoughts.

Ren... come back...

Ren... you are ours...

Ren... do you still remember?

He clenched his fists. The voices weren’t random—they were pieces of himself. Memories he had sealed away, mistakes he had buried, regrets he had tried to outrun. The mirror world was dragging them to the surface.

The silver-haired girl glanced at him, concern flickering in her gaze. "Don’t let them in. Not yet. If you answer them now, the Shard-Keeper will consume more than your strength—he’ll take your will."

Ren smirked faintly, though the pressure in his chest felt like it would crush him. "I’ve come too far to let someone else own me. If the Shard-Keeper wants my will, he’ll have to break me first."

The path to the tower stretched like an endless hallway of glass. Each step they took was answered by distant cracks, as though the world itself disapproved of their march forward.

And then it began.

The horizon fractured.

Figures spilled out from the broken sky—mirror silhouettes of themselves, twisted and wrong. Ren watched as his own reflection stepped forward: a version of himself with eyes empty of light, smiling with a coldness that stabbed into his gut.

"You’re not strong enough to save them," the reflection whispered, voice laced with venom. "You’ll lose them all, one by one, just like before."

The Rebellion members faced their own mirrored selves—each shadow taunting, each reflection dripping with the bitterness of their deepest fears.

The silver-haired girl’s reflection stepped forward too, her shard-wings cracked and bleeding, her face contorted in agony. "You’ll never be more than a fragment," it hissed at her.

She flinched, but Ren stepped between her and the phantom, his voice cutting sharp through the suffocating air.

"Enough. If this world wants to break us, it’s going to learn that I don’t shatter."

The mirrors around them vibrated, the whispers rising to a shrill chorus. The first clash between selves was about to begin.

The first blow struck like lightning across glass.

Ren’s mirrored self lunged at him, movements sharp, inhumanly fluid—like a puppet dancing on invisible strings. The impact sent cracks running through the ground beneath their feet, and the shockwave rattled through his bones.

"You fight because you think you can protect them," the reflection sneered, its voice identical to Ren’s but twisted, hollow. "But you know the truth. Every time you reach out, the ones you care for suffer more."

Ren swung his blade upward, the steel singing as it met its twin—because of course, the reflection wielded the same weapon, the same stance, the same intent. Their strikes mirrored perfectly, canceling each other out in a storm of sparks.

Around him, the Mirror’s Rebellion fought desperately against their shadow selves. A woman screamed as her reflection whispered every betrayal she had committed, paralyzing her until her double nearly gutted her. A scarred man bellowed, swinging wildly at his own twisted form, but his strikes always seemed a fraction too late—as if his shadow already knew the rhythm of his heart.

The silver-haired girl staggered back, her cracked-winged reflection advancing like a predator. "You’re not whole," it hissed, shards dripping from its body like blood. "You’re nothing but broken glass pretending to shine. How long before he abandons you too?"

Her breath hitched. She tried to raise her wings, but they faltered under the weight of the words.

Ren caught the moment out of the corner of his eye, and fury surged through him. He shoved his reflection back with a forceful kick, glass shattering beneath them, and spun to face the girl’s shadow. His blade slashed, scattering shards of the phantom’s body across the fractured ground.

"You don’t get to touch her," Ren growled.

The broken-winged reflection only smiled, reforming from the scattered pieces, its voice dripping with venom. "Why? Because she’s your savior? Or because you’re just as broken as she is, and you’re hoping her cracks will make you feel less alone?"

The words stabbed deeper than any blade. For a heartbeat, Ren faltered. His chest tightened. Because in a way... it was true. He wasn’t whole. He never had been.

That was when his own reflection struck again. The twin blade slashed toward him, forcing him to raise his weapon at the last instant. Sparks erupted, the sound of steel on steel echoing through the endless hall of glass.

"You can’t escape me," his reflection whispered. "I am every choice you regret, every weakness you bury. The Shard-Keeper doesn’t need to destroy you, Ren... because I already am you."

The words echoed inside him, heavy and suffocating.

But then, the silver-haired girl’s voice cut through the chaos like a blade of its own.

"Ren! Don’t listen!" Her shard-wings flared, scattering crystalline dust that pulsed faintly with light. Her eyes, though trembling, locked onto his. "A reflection only has the power you give it. If you believe in yourself—truly believe—then they’re nothing more than cracks on the surface."

Ren tightened his grip. His reflection leaned in, grinning with a hollow face, but something inside him shifted.

"I’m not denying you," Ren said quietly, his voice steady. "You’re me. My fears, my mistakes, my regrets. But you don’t own me."

The reflection’s smile faltered.

Ren’s blade ignited with shimmering light, drawn from the very shards beneath his feet, and when he struck this time, it wasn’t a clash of equals. The mirrored self staggered, fractures running down its body as the glass world around them screamed.

All across the battlefield, the other reflections shuddered too, destabilized by Ren’s defiance.

And then, from the distance, a sound tore through the chaos.

Clang.

Clang.

Clang.

A bell toll, metallic and ancient, echoing from the jagged tower on the horizon. With each strike, the world seemed to buckle, and the reflections began to converge, their fragmented forms drawn toward the tower like moths to flame.

The Shard-Keeper was calling his servants back.

The battlefield fell silent. The tower loomed closer now, as though it had taken a step forward.

And Ren knew.

The real fight hadn’t even begun.

The tolling bell reverberated through the mirror world, each strike heavier than the last.

Clang.

Clang.

Clang.

Every note crawled beneath Ren’s skin, sinking into bone, as if the sound itself wanted to fracture him from within. Around him, the last fragments of their reflections dissolved, pulled like streams of glass toward the black spire in the distance.

The tower.

It was impossibly tall, jagged like an open wound in the sky. Each side gleamed with endless mirrors, twisting and folding, catching distorted reflections of everyone who dared look too long. The eyes in the sky had drawn back, circling the spire like vultures awaiting a corpse.

Ren’s breath was ragged. His arms ached from clashing with himself, but he forced his grip tighter on his blade. Around him, the Mirror’s Rebellion gathered, battered but alive. Their faces bore the hollow looks of people who had stared too long into themselves and barely survived.

The silver-haired girl staggered closer, her shard-wings faintly glowing. They looked fragile, pieces barely holding together, but her eyes burned with defiance.

"It’s calling us," she whispered, her voice trembling with both fear and certainty. "The Shard-Keeper... he’s ready."

Ren followed her gaze to the spire. The pull was undeniable. It wasn’t just summoning them—it was demanding.

"Then we answer," Ren said, his voice steady even as unease gnawed at him.

A scarred man from the rebellion spat blood, glaring at the horizon. "March into that thing’s den? We’ll be slaughtered."

"No," the girl said firmly. "If we wait, it’ll come for us anyway. But here, we still have the choice to move forward. That... matters."

Her words seemed to still the group, anchoring them to something other than dread. Even Ren felt a faint steadiness return.

They began their march.

Every step toward the tower made the world bend. The ground was no longer stable earth but shifting glass, bending into reflections of things Ren had never wanted to see—his childhood room warped and burning, faces of people he couldn’t save, echoes of his mother’s voice begging him not to go.

He clenched his jaw, forcing his eyes ahead. The tower loomed larger with every heartbeat, until it consumed the horizon entirely.

Then the bell tolled again.

Clang.

The world froze.

Shards rose from the ground like jagged teeth, circling them in an instant, forming a labyrinth of glass. From the spire, a crack of darkness split down its center, spilling shadows like liquid.

A voice seeped out, deep and resonant, carrying both command and mockery.

"Shattered children. Broken echoes. You dare walk my halls with your unhealed scars?"

Ren’s heart clenched. The voice wasn’t loud, yet it filled every corner of the glass labyrinth, vibrating through marrow, digging into old wounds.

The silver-haired girl gasped, wings trembling. "He’s... inside my head. Inside all of us."

Ren lifted his blade. "Then we drag him out."

The glass maze shifted, opening a jagged pathway toward the tower’s heart. Beyond it, the darkness pulsed like a heartbeat.

Ren stepped forward first. The rebellion followed, though fear clung to them like chains.

Each toll of the bell pressed harder against their skulls. Each step felt heavier, the shadows whispering doubts in voices they trusted.

But Ren didn’t falter.

Because no matter how much the Shard-Keeper clawed at him, no matter how much it tried to convince him he was broken, he had already made his choice.

He would fight.

Even if it meant shattering himself completely.

The path opened wider, leading them directly to the black gates of the spire.

And as they crossed the threshold, the voice whispered again—closer now, almost amused.

"Come then, Ren. Let me see if your fragments can withstand eternity."

The gates of the Shard-Keeper’s domain groaned open.

And the true nightmare waited inside.