Some battles are fought with fists. Others… with the pieces of yourself you've tried to forget.
The Mirror Realm Shatters Open
It felt like drowning in versions of himself.
Asher stood paralyzed, the Queen's face a perfect, mocking reflection of his own. Cracks ran across her cheeks like golden scars, and from them bled thick ribbons of liquid shadow. It dripped onto the mirrored floor and spread like ink in water.
Behind her, the Original Mask loomed — faceless, titanic, its very presence muting the air. There was no malice, no anger. Only the cold weight of inevitability. It didn't need to speak. Its silence screamed.
Then the mirrors began to ripple.
One by one, they stepped out.
Asher the Addict — sunken eyes, trembling hands, mouth smeared with pills and smoke.
Asher the Detective — trenchcoat sharp, gaze sharper, baton drawn with clinical detachment.
Asher the Monster — talons, fangs, red-stained coat and eyes that glowed with appetite.
Asher the Hero — perfect smile, polished boots, eyes too clean to be real.
Noir flickered, her projection sputtering, her eyes cycling rapidly through color codes.
"Warning," she buzzed. "Identity fracture detected. Psychological combat imminent."
Asher clenched his fists, trying to center himself, but the mask-wearing versions of him only stared — judging, accusing, mocking.
The Detective Mask moved first.
He struck with the baton — precise, merciless. Asher barely ducked, but the edge caught his shoulder, and a hot bloom of pain flared. He stumbled back, clutching the wound, and blood soaked his fingers.
"You think you're saving people?" the Detective sneered. "You're just mopping up your own mess. You protect nothing. You delay collapse."
Asher gritted his teeth. "Shut up."
But the voices didn't stop.
The Monster Mask lunged with inhuman speed, snarling, mouth wide and jagged.
"You enjoy the violence," it howled. "You live for the hunt. Every excuse is a lie."
Asher met it head-on with a brutal headbutt, sending the creature staggering. His skull rang. His breath was ragged. But he was still on his feet.
Behind him, Rosa shouted, her fists trembling.
"Don't listen to them, Asher!"
Lucien, leaning lazily against a cracked column, smirked while loading his bleeding revolver.
"Frankly, I find this whole thing thrilling. Top-tier inner torment."
Rosa shot him a look. "Not the time."
But cracks were forming behind her now — in her mirror.
She looked away.
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Noir's Glitchy Boost
Noir hovered closer, her screen stuttering with interference. Her voice wavered, distorted and emotional.
"Detective… you need to reprogram yourself. Overwrite the masks. Inject your code."
She projected fragments of data like a shield, forming a shimmering lattice that hovered around Asher like ghost armor. For the first time since entering the mirror realm, his heartbeat slowed. He could breathe.
Asher whispered, more to himself than anyone:
"I'm not just a mask. Not a failure. Not a hero. I'm the bastard who keeps standing after all of them fall."
Something clicked. Something real.
He surged forward — not with rage, but with purpose.
He gripped Hero Asher by the throat and tore the porcelain mask away.
Beneath?
Nothing. Just static.
The image fizzled and collapsed.
Asher crushed the mask in his hand. It exploded into fragments of light.
Next came the Monster. Asher met it mid-charge and — with both hands — ripped its jaw off.
"You're just my hunger. You don't get to speak for me anymore."
Smoke poured from the wound, and the Monster collapsed into ash.
One by one, Asher dismantled them all:
The Addict screamed curses before evaporating.
The Detective fell to his knees, baton dissolving.
Each time a mask fell, the mirror walls cracked wider. The entire realm trembled, as if disbelieving it could be undone.
And then — only one remained.
The Original Mask.
It floated forward. It didn't need limbs. Its presence moved reality around it.
Every step Asher took toward it felt like walking against gravity made of guilt.
Behind him, Rosa screamed:
"Don't let it make you wear another one, Blackwood! You're too damn stubborn to break now!"
Lucien raised his bleeding gun and fired.
The bullets turned into butterflies.
"How poetic," he muttered.
Asher stepped into the shadow of the Mask.
It didn't attack — it only watched.
And Asher felt everything.
Every case he'd failed.
Every innocent he hadn't saved.
Every bottle emptied. Every lie. Every midnight compromise.
You're nothing.
You'll wear me like all the rest.
But Asher smirked — a broken, bleeding smirk.
"You want me to fit in a box? Sorry. I'm a shape no one carved right."
And with one final roar, he punched the Mask dead center.
The sound was like glass breaking underwater.
It cracked.
It didn't vanish.
Instead…
The Mask shattered.
But instead of disappearing, the fragments flew outward like golden shrapnel.
Each sliver pierced through the walls of reality.
They embedded into the citizens of Nocturne — random, chaotic.
A banker fell to his knees, sobbing as his face twisted into a lion's snarl.
A child laughed as her mask became a flower crown of writhing vines.
A preacher split into three versions of himself — each shouting a different truth.
Noir's alarms screamed.
"New anomaly detected: Citywide Mask Contagion. Reality instability surging. Nocturne is fragmenting."
Asher stood trembling as he watched the city glitch.
Above, on a distant rooftop, a new figure emerged — masked, smiling, their silhouette flickering like a broken reel of film.
"Now…" the figure whispered.
"…the real game begins."
[End Of Chapter 76]
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Preview of Next Chapter (77) — "The Masks of Nocturne"
Asher and the crew race against time as the entire city begins wearing their fears and sins as living masks. Reality bends into grotesque parodies of itself. Noir's system becomes unstable, Lucien may betray them, and Rosa's mind teeters on collapse. Asher must save a city that doesn't want salvation — and might tear itself apart before he can.