The first reflection struck him, Its claws dug into Jason’s chest, cold and sharp. Its face, his face, twisted in a scream of hatred. Jason staggered back, golden fire bursting instinctively to throw it away. But three more took its place. Then ten. Then a hundred.They poured out of the cracks, endless, writhing, a sea of Jason Millers, each one more grotesque than the last. Some had empty sockets where eyes should be, bleeding violet fire.Some had skin that peeled away in ribbons, revealing bones charred black. Some dragged their chains behind them, others clutched weapons forged of their own broken ribs.Every mouth moved the same way. “You are nothing.”Jason’s knees threatened to buckle. He could barely breathe. His chest was still split from the abyssal blade, blood running in rivers down his ribs. His arms shook violently as he summoned fire to his hands again. The first wave hit.Jason roared, fire blasting outward in a sweeping arc. Dozens of them disintegrated instantly, th

The blade drove deeper.Jason’s breath hitched, frozen in his throat. His chest tore open as the abyssal edge carved through flesh and bone. Heat and cold slammed into him all at once, his fire sputtering violently as if suffocating in its own blood.The reflection’s eyes burned gold, perfect and unyielding. Its voice was calm, merciless.“Do you feel it? The end of you. The beginning of me.”Jason tried to speak. Blood bubbled from his lips. He coughed violently, the sound wet and broken. His knees gave way, but the blade held him upright, speared like prey on a hunter’s pike. The reflection leaned close, whispering in his ear.“This is mercy. No more scars. No more failure. No more pain. Just perfection.”Jason’s vision swam. Elias’s voice echoed faintly in the distance, but it felt so far away now, muffled, like it belonged to another world. His fire, his stubborn, raging fire, flickered weakly, gasping for air.The abyss pressed closer. Shadows crawled up the blade and into his ch

The claw struck.Jason’s hand, once outstretched in desperate yearning, slashed forward with a violence that wasn’t his own. Violet fire ripped from his arm, screaming across the void like a scythe of annihilation.Elias’s eyes widened, but he didn’t retreat. Golden threads burst from his palm, weaving into a shield of pure radiance. Jason’s claw struck it dead-on, the collision shattering the air with a thunderous crack.The explosion flung Jason backward. He tumbled across the void, violet wings flaring, his body writhing under forces that were no longer his to command. His scream tore from his throat, but even that wasn’t his voice anymore. It was doubled, his own, and a deeper, hungering resonance.“Elias—!” he cried.“KILL HIM,” the shard roared through his mouth.Jason’s hands clutched at his head, fire exploding from his body in violent bursts. His gold and violet flames collided, ripping at one another. Each surge tore his skin open, glowing fissures carving across his chest,