The realization came not with a roar, but a whisper of fate.
Dawn stood at the heart of the forbidden realm, heart hammering, the raw shape of his will pressing outward into the soil, sky, and sea he had forged. It was no longer a dead space.
It was alive.
It could be his astral body.
A breathless excitement surged through him — like seeing light through a cracked door. A way forward. A future.
Then the fire faltered, doubt creeping in like cold mist.
"Defeat yourself," the Codex had said. Only then could he survive the collapse of his halos.
But how? How does a man slay his own reflection without losing his soul?
As frustration boiled over, Dawn muttered aloud, voice scraping in the heavy silence, "Defeat myself... but where is the battlefield for that?"
Then heavens answered as if by fate.
With a shudder that cracked the clouds, twelve colossal mirrors fell from the sky.
They didn't crash; they arrived — as if reality itself bent to make room for them. Each one was a monolith of polished nothingness, taller than mountains, heavier than guilt.
Dawn did not flinch.
Something in his bones recognized this moment. And he immediately prepared for battle. He didn't know who or what he was up against but he was ready to fight!
The lesson wasn't written in words.
It was stitched into scar tissue and reflex.
Dawn exhaled slowly, raising his fists. The faintest smile touched his lips — grim, knowing.
The mirrors pulsed.
And then, the voice — dry and wry — echoed across the dead world:
"Every being born from the Primal Origin Light casts a reflection, even if unseen. These mirrors will draw out what lurks in you... and give it form."
"Defeat it, and you defeat yourself."
The first mirror trembled.
And a figure stepped out.
---
It was him. No — worse. It was him perfected.
Every scar, every callous, every breath and flaw and triumph woven into a flawless mirror.
Even the strange flickering anomaly within his soul — the broken shadow — was reflected with terrifying precision.
Dawn's gaze hardened.
No roar. No bravado.
Only a slight shift of his stance — the ghost of countless wars past whispering through his body.
The reflection moved at the same instant.
Their fists collided — no magic, no blazing halos, just flesh and bone and sheer ferocity.
It was like fighting his own ghost — no, worse — like fighting a version of himself that had already lived a hundred lifetimes of war.
Jab — parried.
Sweep — countered.
Elbow — blocked.
Each motion was precise, mechanical, inevitable. Dawn's every thought was met, measured, and crushed before it fully formed.
Breath tore through his throat as he broke away, blood already slicking his palms.
"If I keep fighting like this, I'll lose."
The thought flared — and with it a voice whispered in the back of his mind — a voice older than memory.
Blurry images flickered through his skull — a forgotten battlefield drenched in light and blood, an old man's calloused hand resting heavy on his shoulder.
"When you can no longer think, survive. When you can no longer see, remember. When you can no longer hope, adapt."
The reflection could only copy what already was. It could not foresee what had never yet been.
Dawn let instinct overtake thought.
He fumbled — deliberately.
He missed a step — deliberately.
He staggered and lunged in ways no logical fighter would.
And the Reflection — bound to the memory of who he had been — faltered.
A kick, sloppy and wide, twisted into a brutal sweep at the last second. The Reflection stumbled back, for the first time.
For the first time, Dawn drew blood.
---
He pressed the advantage.
Not like a knight, not like a hero — but like a beast that had learned the smell of its own death and refused to kneel.
He battered forward with imperfect, ugly strikes. Fists found ribs. Knees found thighs. Elbows split skin.
It wasn't pretty.
It wasn't glorious.
It was survival.
The Reflection snarled — a perfect copy of Dawn's own rage — and counterattacked in a wild blur, but Dawn twisted under it, dropping low, driving his shoulder into the Reflection's gut.
Dust rose around them in ragged gasps.
Sweat blinded him.
Pain anchored him.
But beneath it all, a grim light burned in Dawn's chest.
"I'm still alive."
---
Watching the scene from an unfathomable and unknown distance away, the Grand Instructor rubbed his beard.
This lad, truly a monster. Mayne I should give him a challenge worthy of a madman after all. Madness is infectious indeed!
He waved his hand and conveyed a command through his Primal Origin Light.
Then the mirrors stirred.
A low, dreadful hum rolled across the sky.
The other eleven mirrors began to ripple — like ponds catching the first raindrops of a coming storm.
Figures shifted within — eleven more Dawns.
Eleven more battles.
Dawn, bloodied and panting, raised his head.
He did not smile.
He did not despair.
He simply stood.
The Reflection he battled mirrored him — face bloodied, eyes bright — and charged once more.
Their fists met again, the sound sharp and clear as a bell.
Above them, the other reflections began to step forward.
The true war had only just begun.
---
[TO BE CONTINUED]
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