2025-08-18 04:58:24Jason’s sneakers pounded against the pavement, weaving through a sea of people who didn’t react to his panic. He shoved past a man in a suit, dodged a food cart, nearly tripped over a delivery bike.
Behind him, the shriek split the air again, high, distorted, like claws raking against metal, Jason risked a glance back.
The shadow-creature was forcing its way through the crowd, its twisted limbs cutting unnaturally sharp angles. Its claws sliced clean through a lamppost, but no one screamed. Pedestrians passed by as though nothing was happening, eyes glazed, conversations uninterrupted.
Jason’s chest tightened. They don’t see it. They don’t see anything, A hand yanked his arm.
The stranger in the gray coat pulled him sideways into an alley, narrow and choked with dumpsters. Jason slammed against a wall, gasping. The man’s eyes flashed. “Focus.”
Jason swallowed hard. “That thing, it’s real, right? I’m not losing my mind?”
The man’s voice was low, urgent. “Real enough to kill you. Hold still.”
He pressed his palm to Jason’s chest. For a split second, heat flared. Strange runes spiraled faintly across Jason’s shirt, glowing before fading.
Jason staggered. “What did you just?”
“Masking spell. Won’t last long. Now shut up.”
The hiss came again. Louder. Closer, The shadow slid into the alley, eyes blazing white in the dim light. Its head twisted unnaturally as it sniffed the air. The thing’s limbs dragged against brick, leaving grooves in stone like chalk lines.
Jason pressed against the wall, heart pounding, The creature froze. Its eyes scanned the alley. Its gaze passed over Jason and the stranger once, twice then moved on.
Slowly, it crept past the dumpsters and slithered out the other end of the alley. Its hiss faded with the crowd noise beyond. Jason exhaled so hard his knees almost buckled.
The stranger finally released him. “It’s distracted. For now.”
Jason swallowed hard, his voice cracking. “What the hell was that thing?”
The man studied him for a long moment, then spoke. “A Shade. A hunter born of corrupted mana. Drawn to imbalance. You touched the artefact, didn’t you?”
Jason’s stomach knotted. He didn’t answer, The man’s expression didn’t change. “I can see it in you. The shard lit a beacon in your body. To them, you’re prey, and prize.”
Jason’s chest burned, the memory of healing too raw. “Prize? I’m not”
“You’re not ordinary anymore.” The man’s tone was sharp, final. “You carry power now. And power always has a price.”
Jason’s mouth went dry. “And you? Who the hell are you?”
The stranger’s eyes narrowed, as if debating. Then he extended a hand. “Elias Crowe. Warden of the Ninth Seal.”
Jason blinked. “That’s supposed to mean something to me?”
“Not yet.” Elias’s hand didn’t waver. “But if you want to live long enough to understand, you’ll need me.”
Jason hesitated. Every instinct screamed not to trust this man. But the memory of the Shade’s claws, the way they had sliced through metal like butter, tipped the scale. Slowly, Jason took his hand.
The moment their palms touched, a jolt ran through him. Not pain recognition. Like Elias’s energy had brushed against the shard still pulsing deep inside him.
Elias’s eyes narrowed. “Stronger than I thought.”
Jason pulled his hand back quickly. “Stronger? I don’t even know what’s happening to me!”
“You will,” Elias said. His tone softened slightly. “But not here. It’s not safe.”
Jason opened his mouth to argue, then froze, At the mouth of the alley, shadows twisted unnaturally again. The Shade was back. And this time, it wasn’t alone.
Two more shapes unfolded beside it. Taller. Broader. Their eyes glowed with the same unearthly light, Jason’s blood went cold.
Elias’s hand slid inside his coat. Runes flared along his forearm like tattoos coming alive. He glanced at Jason once. “Run when I say. And don’t look back.”
Jason’s heart hammered. His legs felt like stone, The creatures hissed in unison, claws scraping concrete. Elias smiled grimly. “Now.”
Flame erupted from his palm, a circle of searing light that roared forward and slammed into the Shades. The alley lit up with fire, shadows shrieking as they burned.
Jason stumbled backward, heat singeing his skin. His instincts screamed at him to bolt, but his body locked. He couldn’t leave. Not yet.
Through the blaze, one of the creatures pushed forward, half-charred, eyes blazing hotter. It wasn’t dying. Jason’s breath caught.
Elias gritted his teeth, runes burning brighter. “Move, Jason!”
Jason’s feet finally obeyed. He ran.
But as he turned the corner, the last thing he saw was Elias, standing against the flames, three monsters closing in, And the terrifying realization that if this stranger fell, Jason Miller would be next.
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Chapter 165 — The Merge
Jason woke to the sound of breathing, two rhythms, overlapping, discordant. One shallow. One too deep.His body ached. Blood crusted down his arms. Shards of glass had melted into his skin, pulsing faintly with ember light. He tried to move, but his hands were locked in iron, or no, not iron, flesh. Two bodies.His fingers were tangled in two bodies that weren’t two anymore. He opened his eyes. The world had changed.The labyrinth was gone. No sky, no floor, no reflection. Only a pulsing expanse of translucent matter, endless and alive, breathing in slow waves of dull luminescence.Every inhale drew motes of broken glass toward its center; every exhale scattered them like stars. And in the middle of it, cradled in his shaking arms, they lay.The half-borns, what remained of them, had fused. Their skin shimmered between flesh and mirror, patches of muscle giving way to panes of polished glass that revealed arteries of light beneath.The two faces had merged down the middle: one side so
Chapter 164: The Refusal
The glass plain trembled under Jason’s boots, humming like a thousand voices holding their breath. Before him knelt two half-born Arias. Identical. Both bleeding, both trembling, both reaching for him.Flesh and glass warring across their skin, human eyes cracked with terror, mirrored eyes flickering with unstable light. Both whispered in the same cracked breath: “Save me, Jason.”Jason’s throat closed. His fists trembled. His ember pulsed like a star about to explode, clawing at his chest. This was the choice. This was the trap. And he hated it.Jason staggered a step forward, then froze. His breath came ragged. His whole body screamed at him to lunge, to grab, to choose.But his mind, raw, ragged, torn though it was, still clung to the one defiance that had carried him through every impossible truth so far. “No,” he rasped, voice shaking but steadying.Both half-borns flinched, glass chains rattling from their shoulders.“I won’t choose. Not like this. Not between you. Not ever.” Ja
Chapter163: The Thousand Faces of Her
Jason staggered upright, fire dripping from his wounds in slow, molten arcs. The mirror-ocean had hardened beneath his boots into a glass plain that stretched forever, slick and gleaming, every step echoing back at him with the sound of breaking crystal.Above, below, and around, there was no horizon. Only reflection. Infinite Aria-faces stared at him from every direction, each one alive, each one watching. And in his arms, emptiness. The half-born was gone.Jason’s hands trembled as he looked down, blood dripping onto the mirrored floor. He’d held her. He’d sworn not to let go. But now there was nothing, no warmth, no weight, only his own shaking limbs.“Aria!” His voice thundered through the abyss, echoing into a thousand mouths.Every reflection moved their lips with his cry, repeating her name in different tones, sweet, bitter, angry, pleading.Some said it with hatred, Some said it with devotion, Some didn’t say it at all, only mouthed silence. Jason’s heart lurched. He forced hi
Chapter 162: The Fall Between Voices
Jason fell. The abyss was endless. Glass winds howled around him, slicing his skin raw. Fragments of towers, faces, and storms whirled in an infinite cyclone.Gravity itself seemed to have abandoned reason, tugging him downward but also sideways, backward, inward. He didn’t care. All he cared about was the body in his arms.Aria or the thing half-born as her, shook violently, torn between warmth and frost, flesh and glass. One half of her clung to him desperately, nails biting into his neck as though she feared being ripped away.The other half lashed with mirrored tendrils, chains of fractured light jerking against him as though she wanted out, wanted release, wanted destruction.Jason locked his arms tighter around her, ignoring the cuts, ignoring the fire tearing his own veins open. “Stay with me!” His voice was shredded raw, nearly drowned in the storm. “Stay—dammit, Aria, stay!”Her head thrashed against his chest. Two voices erupted from her throat, overlapping, fighting.“Jason
Chapter 161: The Half-Born
The cocoon split with the sound of a world breaking. Glass rained in torrents, golden light spilling into the storm like blood into water.Jason staggered to his feet, broken but braced, arms wide to catch the hand pushing through. It was her. It had to be her.Her fingers curled around his wrist, warm, trembling, human. His heart nearly burst. He pulled, pulled with every shredded muscle, every last ounce of will, dragging her free.The cocoon shattered, light blinding. And then he saw. Her body fell into his arms, but it wasn’t whole. Not Aria. Not yet.She was half-fused, her form a battleground. One half was hers, skin pale, hair tangled, eyes cracked open with that sharp glint of recognition.But the other half shimmered like molten glass, broken reflections stitched into flesh. Faces flickered across her cheek and shoulder, Aria’s features repeating in jagged echoes.Her arm was translucent, veins of mirrored chain running under the skin. Jason’s breath caught. “Aria…”Her real
Chapter 160: The Gambler of Silence
The storm howled, glass shrieking as the tower shook under the monster’s weight. Jason’s ember clawed at his chest, a caged sun begging to be unleashed. The perfect voice thundered again: “Burn everything, Jason!”But beneath it, faint, cracked, nearly drowned out, her voice, raw and imperfect: “…don’t you dare.”Jason’s entire body convulsed. He could feel his veins straining, blood boiling under the pressure of his restrained fire. Every instinct screamed to obey the perfect command. Every shard in him wanted release.But he closed his eyes, teeth clenched, blood dripping from his lips. “I’ll take the broken one,” he whispered.And he held. The monster descended. Claws like towers pinned him to the ground, each talon digging into his flesh. His ribs cracked under the weight, blood flooding his mouth.Its hundred mouths stretched wide, exhaling a hurricane of ash and glass that burned his skin raw.Still, he did not strike. His ember boiled against its cage, bursting through in ragge
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