The resonance of restored mana still vibrated in the crystalline streets of Orahm. Above, the newly reawakened domes shimmered with radiant pulses of sapphire and violet. At the edge of a circular plaza—its tiles arranged like a shattered sun—the party of six gathered.
Tessara was the first to feel it.
Her hand pressed against the smooth pavement. "Something stirs beneath."
The ground shuddered.
From the plaza's heart, a massive mirror platform rose, cracked in a perfect circle. From the center, crystal golems emerged—seven in total, humanoid and pristine. But as the party watched, the constructs rippled with shifting colors... and took on familiar shapes.
"Those are..." Laverna narrowed her eyes.
"They look like us," Zera finished grimly.
Each golem reflected their own image—one for each of them. They moved with uncanny precision, as if sculpted not only in appearance, but in spirit.
"They're mimicking our abilities," Alexandra said, stepping behind Shin. "But something's wrong. Their cores are corrupted. Moon-shards—tainted ones."
"Then we cleanse them," Shin replied.
The plaza exploded into motion.
Golems lunged forward with unnatural grace. Tessara's mirrored doppelgänger floated, her mask etched into its crystalline face. It mimicked her illusions with staggering fidelity. Zera's clone held a forged Clarent, casting a phantom blaze. Maika's twin blurred forward in flashes of golden light, twin kunai gleaming. Alexandra's echo hummed with an eerie hymn.
Shin's clone stood at the center, orb aglow, gripping a false Yoshimatsu.
"Split and counter!" Shin ordered.
Laverna's clone descended from above like a falcon, jamadhars glowing with corrupted lightning. Sparks flew as she collided with the real Laverna mid-air, blades locking in a vicious spin. The shockwave forced them both apart.
But this time, another figure landed between them—Shin's clone.
"It brought backup?" Laverna growled.
The mirror Shin moved with chilling familiarity—his grip on the false Yoshimatsu perfect, his stance mimicking Shin's kata with uncanny precision. Real Shin landed beside Laverna, eyes narrowing.
"They're pairing up, like we do," he said grimly.
"What now?"
"We show them the original is better."
The Shin clone lunged, blade flashing in a mirrored arc as Laverna's doppelgänger shot forward from the opposite side. Shin blocked his mirror's strike, steel shrieking. Laverna rolled beneath the other's jamadhar slash.
"Switch!" Shin called.
Laverna leapt toward the Shin clone while Shin intercepted her duplicate. They clashed—metal, magic, and will. Sparks rained in every direction.
Laverna danced around the clone's blade with kunoichi grace, channeling foxfire through her strikes. Shin, in turn, parried the mimic's jamadhars with fluid kenjutsu, reading each false intention with uncanny clarity.
Finally, they regrouped, back to back.
"End this?" she asked.
"Now."
She flipped upward off Shin's back, fire trailing from her blades. He dashed forward, drawing the clone Shin's attention. The real Laverna twisted mid-air, launching twin arcs of fire downward.
Crimson lightning burst from Shin's blade to meet her strike.
The Laverna clone shattered under the dual assault.
But the Shin clone staggered, retreating with a damaged core to another golem's side, merging with its crystal.
Laverna landed beside Shin, breathless but victorious. "That one's not done."
Shin nodded. "Then neither are we."
Zera's clone moved like a master duelist—her exact stance, posture, and battle tempo mimicked down to the inch. Each strike of her forged Clarent was calculated, flawless.
"She fights like me. But she doesn't feel," Zera muttered.
"Let's show her what fire and instinct look like," Shin said.
They fell into motion—but before they could close in, a second figure stepped into the fray: the Shin clone.
He mirrored Shin's every movement, blade humming with corrupted lightning. Now the Zera clone had support, perfectly mimicking the synergy between Shin and Zera.
"Two-on-two," Zera said with a grin. "Good. I wanted a real challenge."
They clashed.
Shin met his clone in a flurry of strikes—Yoshimatsu against its false twin. Sparks rained as they spun and locked. Meanwhile, Zera engaged her mirror, blades clashing in rhythmic tempo.
"Switch!" Shin called.
Without a beat, they traded targets. Shin intercepted the Zera clone's strike mid-swing, deflecting with a fiery arc. Zera dashed under the Shin clone's guard and slashed at its ribs.
They regrouped. Shin lifted Yoshimatsu. "Let's end this."
"Ready," Zera replied.
She charged, faking low. The clone dropped to intercept, but Shin was already there. He leapt over Zera, twisting mid-air. The Shin clone met him head-on, blades clashing. At the same moment, Zera unleashed a sweeping flame arc from Clarent that knocked both golems off balance.
With a shout, Shin stabbed through the Zera clone's chest, while Zera's blade cut down the Shin clone's shoulder.
The Zera clone shattered into glowing shards.
The Shin clone staggered, then retreated, its core flickering. It vanished toward another crystalline golem in the distance.
Zera smirked. "Still flawless."
"Not over yet," Shin replied. "But we're getting there."
Tessara's golem hovered high, casting mirrored illusions across the battlefield. It weaved chaos with frightening grace, turning light against them.
Then, the Shin clone appeared beside it—silent and flawless, gliding between the mirrored phantoms as if they were extensions of his will. He vanished and reappeared in unison with the golem, their coordination uncanny.
Tessara pulled off her mask, letting the moonlight feed into the Kagetsu no Men. "We don't need sight. Only sound and trust."
She tapped her staff against the ground. Harmonics rippled outward. Dozens of illusions bloomed around the golem and its ally. The battlefield became a maze of ghostlight.
Shin dashed into the illusionary field. "Guide me, Tessara."
She began a chant that resonated through the ground, syncing her voice with the moon's rhythm. The illusions moved, danced, creating echoes and blurs.
The Tessara clone twisted in confusion. The Shin clone slashed randomly into the illusions, failing to find the real targets.
"Now," Tessara whispered.
She struck her staff down with finality. A single beam of moonlight burst from above, bathing the plaza.
Shin stepped through an illusion, a flicker of red lightning in his wake. He feinted past the Shin clone and vaulted off the back of a shifting reflection, driving Yoshimatsu straight into the heart of Tessara's golem.
The beam from Tessara's chant struck simultaneously.
The doppelgänger unraveled into stardust.
The Shin clone staggered, cracked and flickering. With a final glance at Shin, it retreated silently, merging once again into a distant crystalline form.
Tessara lowered her staff, her expression calm and resolute. "Let's do that again."
Shin met her eyes and smiled. "Any time."
Maika's clone was lightning-fast, teleporting between rooftops and throwing kunai with pinpoint precision. A mirror of her most lethal instincts.
But it wasn't alone.
The Shin clone appeared beside it, silent and precise. Together, they moved in eerie synchrony—one launching ranged attacks, the other deflecting any counters.
Maika grinned. "Try to keep up, Shin."
"Ladies first," he answered, narrowing his eyes as both enemies advanced.
She launched herself into the air. Her sunfire mask flared. Kunai flew like comets. The clone deflected them all, while the Shin clone blinked beside Maika in an instant, swinging a corrupted Yoshimatsu.
Real Shin intercepted it mid-air with a parry that sent shockwaves across the rooftops. "They're mimicking our coordination," he said. "Let's give them something they can't replicate."
They burst into motion. Maika and Shin moved as one, blurring and vanishing between light and shadow. The clones tried to adapt, but their reactions lagged by a heartbeat.
Maika ducked low and swept with a leg strike as Shin leapt over her and clashed with his copy. Blades sparked. Maika threw radiant kunai upward. The clones deflected two, but the third struck the Shin clone's shoulder, staggering it.
"Pin it!" Maika yelled.
Shin responded instantly, slicing through the legs of the Maika clone while dodging a counter from his copy. Maika descended in a spin, twin blades shining, and drove both into her doppelgänger's core.
Radiant gold erupted.
The Shin clone recoiled, its shell cracked, before retreating with flickering distortion to another crystalline golem across the field.
Maika landed beside Shin, panting.
"I liked that one."
Shin grinned. "Let's make the next even better."
Alexandra's clone sang in twisted harmony, a hymn of false authority. The sound distorted the battlefield, warping the ground beneath their feet and turning the air heavy with pressure.
Then came the Shin clone, his voice silent but his presence undeniable. He stood beside Alexandra's echo, poised like a knight in corrupted glass. Together, they advanced with the practiced grace of dark royalty.
Alexandra raised her voice in response, defiant and pure. Her chant rose above the cacophony, cutting through the dissonance like a blade of sound.
"Let her feel what real power sounds like," Shin said, already moving to meet his clone.
Alexandra's lance spun into her hand with radiant silver light. She stepped forward, her gait queenly, and clashed with her mirror image. Sparks flew from each impact as her lance met the corrupted replica, song intertwining with steel.
Meanwhile, Shin met his clone head-on. The clash of Yoshimatsus sent shockwaves rippling through the plaza.
Alexandra pivoted and lunged, her real voice cresting in a crescendo. The clone faltered. With perfect timing, she hurled her lance like a comet, embedding it into the chest of her double.
"Shin!"
"On it!"
Shin surged forward with speed, dodging the Shin clone's desperate slash. Lightning coiled around him. He spun once and brought Yoshimatsu down in a clean arc, slashing through the corrupted crystal, following the line of Alexandra's embedded lance.
The clone screamed as the core cracked, energy fracturing outward.
The Alexandra golem burst in a flare of purifying light.
The Shin clone staggered, fractured and flickering. But instead of retreating immediately, it let out a sharp, wordless cry—and in an instant, its body ignited with a brilliant, corrupted aura. Red lightning crackled around it as its form shifted, bones elongating, eyes blazing gold and red.
It had mimicked Shin's Kitsune form—his most powerful transformation, remembered from the deepest vaults of Shin's battle psyche.
The very memory of it made the air tremble.
Shin narrowed his eyes. "Everyone, back. This one's mine."
The others obeyed without hesitation, stepping aside. Shin's orb flared violently. His clothes billowed as golden rings formed in his irises. His left eye bled red with fox-blood fury, his right shining like morning sunlight. Lightning cracked. Crimson light spiraled around him. His transformation erupted in silence and force.
The clone lunged first.
But Shin moved faster.
To the others, only the arcs of red lightning were visible—flashes of light and pressure that shook the plaza. Stone cracked beneath each step. Blades clashed like thunderclaps. The sky dimmed from the sheer force of their exchange.
Maika's breath caught. "He's terrifying like this."
Zera nodded, gripping her blade. "That's why we follow him."
"He's not just our Master," Tessara whispered. "He's the storm that breaks the chains."
The clone twisted in the air to strike—but Shin spun around it, blade tearing through the corrupted Kitsune's ribs.
Their movements became a dance of mirrored fury—until Shin surged forward, not with anger, but with purpose.
In a flash, he disappeared.
There was silence.
Then a hundred crimson arcs lit the air around the clone—each slash faster than thought, forming a blazing circle of death.
Shin landed behind it, Yoshimatsu slowly being sheathed.
A breath passed.
The Shin clone roared in defiance.
And then it shattered—dozens of crystalline pieces splitting apart in slow, flickering collapse. Shards of corrupted moonstone and false flesh scattered like ash caught in a storm.
The clone's core cracked in half midair and dissolved into particles of failing light.
What remained of it—its spirit, its memory, its mimicry—fled to the looming crystal titan at the center of the battlefield, fusing into the shell that pulsed with waiting malice.
Alexandra watched it vanish, breath steady but eyes wide with awe.
"He's calling us there."
Shin's form settled, Kitsune traits fading. He nodded, jaw set. "Then let's finish what we started."
The towering crystal titan at the center stirred. It pulsed once—then again, louder. Echoes rang like a heartbeat of glass. The corrupted Shin's essence fused fully into its core, awakening a monstrous humanoid of glistening crystal and churning energy.
Shin stepped forward, orb pulsing at his side.
"No more copies," he said. "This is the final trial."
They rushed forward, spreading out instinctively. The battle erupted in a maelstrom of flashing light and synchronized movement.
Laverna vanished and reappeared in spiraling lunges, her jamadhars slicing through exposed joints. Zera met a massive blade swing with Clarent, locking steel in a blinding clash. Maika spun between the titan's legs, embedding radiant kunai into vulnerable chasms.
Tessara raised illusions that split the battlefield into dreamlike layers, masking their real positions.
Alexandra's voice rang through the storm, empowering them all. "Hold strong! Drive into the center!"
Their crests flared in tandem. Shin's voice echoed through each of their minds via the Servant Crest, linking them like a living network.
"Zera, flank left. Maika—create an opening!"
"Copy that," Maika responded aloud.
"On your mark," Zera said.
Maika launched radiant bursts of sunfire that blinded the titan just as Zera struck its side. Tessara's illusions converged, confusing its vision.
Alexandra's chant surged, restoring and boosting them as crimson bolts from Shin carved a path through its chest.
"Laverna—now!"
Laverna leapt skyward and drove her blades into the crystal titan's exposed core.
Shin appeared behind her, blade raised high. Yoshimatsu descended in a thunderclap of crimson light.
The crystal titan's core shattered.
The beast convulsed, groaned, then erupted in a silent implosion. Mirror fragments scattered across the sky like a cascade of falling stars.
They landed in a wide circle—brilliant, clear, untainted.
The plaza fell silent. Mirror fragments lay scattered like the constellations in the sky.
Alexandra approached one of the shards, now clear and whole.
"A pure shard," she said. "One untainted by Falzath's corruption."
Shin retrieved it, holding it up. The shard pulsed in his palm.
"This is the next key. To understand why Orahm slept—and who wanted it that way."
They looked around, the glow of victory settling into their bones.
Above, the sky cleared. A single beam of light passed through the highest spire, bathing the plaza in soft blue.
Orahm had tested them again.
And they had answered with truth, unity, and fire.