The moment Moo’s fist struck the mirror floor,
the world gave way.

Not cracked.
Not splintered.
Collapsed.

A single, deafening KRAAASH tore through the void.
The mirror shattered beneath all of them like a sheet of glass under a sledgehammer, the surface buckling into an impossible whirlpool of falling shards and distorted reflections.

There was no time to think.
No time to brace.

The world simply dropped them.

Weightless.
Soundless.
A freefall through endless black.

Shards of the mirror spiraled around them like falling stars, each one flashing distorted images of their fears, their failures, their shadows—until they, too, crumbled into dust midair.

And then—

Impact.

The three landed hard onto a new floor—rough stone, slick with dark liquid that moved like ink. The air was heavier here, humming with corrupted mana that pressed against their ribs like a second heartbeat.

Above them, the shattered remains of the mirror realm turned into a storm of shadows raining downward.

Those shadows didn’t fall separately.

They converged.

All the doppelgangers—
all the demons,
all the fractured memories,
all the echoes of guilt and fear—
collapsed inward like iron filings pulled toward a magnet.

A roiling mass took shape in front of them, enormous, twisting, barely contained by its own form.

And then it rose.

When it inhaled, the room trembled.

When it exhaled, the darkness pulled toward it like a tide.

Then its face opened — not a mouth, but a void lined with too many teeth — and a voice rolled out, layered with every whisper they’d heard before:

“YOU FALL…
AND STILL YOU CLING TO PURPOSE.”

“SHOW ME.”

The demon slammed both clawed hands onto the ground, and the entire chamber quaked.