"
"What is a reflection?"
A dark void surrounded a young girl with jet-black hair. The voice echoing through the endless expanse belonged to her.
"If your reflection were to disappear… what would happen?"
As she spoke, the girl seemed to grow older, as though time itself warped around her words.
"If the body were separated from the soul, would it cease to exist… or continue living on?"
The moment those words left her lips, the dark void surrounding her began to tremble violently, as though something massive was pounding against its surface from the outside. Thin white cracks spread across the darkness in an instant.
Then the world shattered.
"Hey, Seris, wake up!"
A familiar male voice pierced through the haze as Seris regained consciousness.
The world spun violently around her. Her balance was gone, her ears ringing so fiercely it felt as though a bomb had exploded directly in front of her face.
Then came the pain.
A brutal surge erupted through her abdomen, forcing the metallic taste of blood into her mouth. In the span of mere seconds, she had been launched backward and slammed into a giant boulder in the distance.
"Damn…"
The curse slipped from her lips in a bitter hiss.
Finally managing to steady herself, Seris looked up, her jet-black hair falling across her face. There was no time to brush it aside.
And then she saw it.
A Mirror Beast.
An amalgamation.
The creature towered nearly nine meters tall, its massive frame supported by both its front and hind limbs. It resembled a gorilla, though far more grotesque—hundreds, perhaps thousands, of jagged glass shards protruded from its back like crystalline spines. Its reflective eyes were hollow and lifeless.
What it wanted was painfully obvious.
And unless Seris stopped it, the beast was going to get exactly what it came for.
Seris glanced down at the fractured mirror shard clutched tightly in her hand.
"Like hell. I'd rather die. You'll have to pry them off my corpse."
Despite wasting precious seconds on that pointless remark, Seris forced herself into a fighting stance.
Actually seeing the beast up close put everything into perspective. The thing was horrifying—far beyond what any ordinary human should be capable of fighting.
Each of its massive hands looked powerful enough to crush boulders like pebbles.
And yet, here she stood.
Face to face with the abomination.
'It's just a low-tier beast. Nothing special.'
The thought crossed her mind alongside a battered grin.
The beast suddenly went still.
But Seris knew better.
The shards embedded across its back began glowing with a vibrant blue radiance, pulsing brighter and brighter by the second.
Whatever it was preparing, it was going to be far worse than a simple physical attack.
Seris moved first.
It was insane, really—a normal human girl charging headfirst toward certain death.
Yet the forest around them glowed with an eerie blue brilliance, turning the entire battlefield into something almost dreamlike.
'Fine. You want the shards?'
Her grip tightened.
'Then take them.'
Seris pulled her arm back and hurled the mirror shards toward the monster.
Right before impact, something changed.
The shards she had thrown suddenly began resonating with the ones embedded in the creature's back.
The beast convulsed violently.
Its body twitched as though the foreign shards were disrupting something deep within it.
Then it froze completely.
The glow across its back vanished instantly, returning the creature to its natural state—save for the newly attached shards that did not belong there.
A blinding explosion of blue light erupted outward.
The force nearly ignited the surrounding air itself.
Everything was thrown backward.
Seris desperately clung to a nearby log to keep from being swept away.
But the beast suffered far worse.
Its back had been almost completely obliterated, leaving only a few surviving shards near one of its three tails.
Then the transformation began.
The creature's body started collapsing in on itself. Purple sludge poured from its frame as flesh melted away, exposing bone beneath.
Then it began to shrink.
Half its size.
Then a quarter.
Then smaller still.
Its extra tail disappeared. Its muscles withered away. Its monstrous frame collapsed entirely until what remained barely resembled the abomination from before.
Now it looked more like a frail little monkey.
The once-terrifying beast had been reduced to a pathetic shadow of its former self.
And yet…
The reflection in its lifeless eyes still burned with savage intent.
Without warning, the creature lunged toward her.
'You've got to be kidding me!'
Seris pushed herself off the log and sprinted straight toward it.
The distance between them vanished rapidly. Within seconds, they would collide.
Her sleek black tracksuit fluttered as she ran, the oversized fabric hanging loosely off her slim frame. But that looseness served a purpose.
Concealment.
Just before impact, Seris dipped low and reached into her pocket.
A blade flashed into view.
It was a small double-sided knife, barely larger than her hand. Yet whenever its polished surface reflected another living being, it radiated an unsettling sense of dread.
It felt less like metal—
And more like a mirror aimed directly at the soul.
The beast charged straight toward it.
In one smooth motion, Seris flipped the blade into a reverse grip and drove it into the monkey's left arm.
A deafening shriek tore from the creature's throat.
The moment the blade pierced flesh, it began glowing brighter and brighter, its reflective silver surface slowly turning gold.
Still, the creature refused to fall.
It staggered back to its feet and desperately clawed at the knife lodged in its arm.
But it wouldn't budge.
The blade had fused itself to the beast as though it had become part of its body.
Seris stepped behind the creature and turned to face it once more.
A fierce grin spread across her face.
"Now we can have a fair fight, bastard."