---
When Yun Che opened his eyes, the night was still there. But something beneath it had changed.
Jasmine lay asleep beside him, her breathing soft, her hand still loosely entwined in his. The moonlight was thin now—veiled behind strange clouds that hadn't been there before. The stars seemed... quieter.
And the mark on his palm burned.
Not with pain. But with summons.
The Mirror of Samsara—cracked, imperfect, ancient—was calling.
---
He stood without waking her.
Every step felt heavier than the last, as if the world itself was testing him. Stones shifted beneath his feet. Air thickened. Even silence had weight now.
He reached the Mirror. It hovered, suspended in space that was not truly space. A surface of glass, etched in divine language long forgotten, its fracture pulsing like a heartbeat.
As he reached out, a ripple spread across the surface—distortion, not reflection.
"What do you see when you look at yourself, Yun Che?"
The voice did not echo. It existed inside his bones.
He said nothing. He only placed his hand upon the glass.
The Mirror opened.
---
He fell—not through space, but through memory.
Visions shattered around him:
A Yun Che who became the Monarch of Ash.
A Yun Che who devoured the Gods to bring back one life.
A Yun Che who never met Jasmine and died forgotten.
Each version reached for him, eyes hollow, mouths whispering truths he had never lived.
"You are every choice not taken."
"You are every scar never healed."
"You are what remains when destiny collapses."
He screamed, but it was not his voice.
---
When he awoke, he was standing.
The sky above him was white fire. The land beneath him was black glass.
And in front of him stood a man—no, a reflection—with his face. His form. But his aura was wrong. It bent the world. It unwrote the ground he walked upon.
"So you're the one the Mirror chose."
The reflection tilted its head, smiling without warmth.
"Let's see if you're strong enough to survive your own truth."
It raised a hand—
—and the realm shattered into battle.
---
Back in the real world, Jasmine stirred. She clutched her chest, her soul mark glowing faintly.
"You're not supposed to be there alone," she whispered.
And far away, the Evil Infant opened her eyes.
---