Mirror World: Destined Return

This must be how she died before, Seong-Hwi thought as he looked back at Onie Yuki panting heavily.

Chronologically speaking, he was sure she had been betrayed and killed in the dungeon.

“Grrr! Filthy traitors! How dare you backstab us?!” Having undergone Mythical Beastification with the Black Dog of Grievance, Yuri growled as he bared his teeth. “I’ll tear you apart!”

He instantly charged forward. Nakivarro raised his Tuluta Round Shield and activated a skill.

[Activating Skill: Power Defense.]

A blue mana enveloped the shield.

“Hurgh!” Nakivarro grunted as he blocked Yuri’s attack, the veins in his neck bulging.

Khanh provided cover fire.

[Activating Unique Skill: Penetrating Bullet.]

[Activating Unique Skill: Armor-Piercing Bullet.]

She fired a bullet with enhanced penetrating power and an anti-artillery bullet, but Leo easily blocked them with his D Weapon, Rhodes.

“Huy gaga!”

“Dammit, look! We’re on the same team!” Nakivarro shouted.

“Same team, my ass! Bastards who betray their teammates in a dungeon deserve to die a thousand times over!” Frank shouted as he raised his Flame Sword, overpowering Nakivarro alongside Yuri.

Several drones in the air kept Khanh in check. Enrique’s shooting drone lacked destructive power, but its bullets were enough to disturb the enemy. The blade drone’s propellers were made of blades and slashed at Khanh dangerously.

“Dammit!” Khanh cursed as she fired at the drones.

However, the drones were too fast to hit. Khanh was a raumdeuter, a one-shot-one-kill ultra-ranged attacker, hence she had no wide-area skills. Her D Weapon was also a bolt-action M1903 Springfield, meaning she had to load a bullet manually between each shot.

Sonya, who had been close with Khanh, activated a skill that terminated their friendship.

[Activating Unique Skill: Tannesberg’s Winter Storm.]

She blew on her D Weapon, Tannesberg Pinwheel, generating freezing, sharp gusts.

“Kyaaah!” Khanh, whose position required a tank to protect her, took a direct hit.

The wind blades cut her skin, and the frost entered her wounds to freeze her bones.

“G-Gardner! Heal m—” she called Gardner with a shaking voice, but the winter storm severed her head before she could even finish.

Around the same time, Yuri’s claws pierced Nakivarro’s heart.

“Kurgh!” Nakivarro grunted and died with his eyes widened.

“A winter storm, huh?” Seong-Hwi mumbled as he examined Sonya’s skill. He turned around and stared at the middle-aged man with brown hair and beard, white as a sheet. “You’re the only one left, Gardner.”

“S-spare my life! I-I only did as I was told!” Gardner pleaded.

“Simply doing as you’re told is a problem in its own right. Take responsibility for the consequences of your actions. You’re an adult, aren’t you?” Seong-Hwi replied as he approached Gardner.

Knowing he was no match for Seong-Hwi, he tried to persuade, “I-I’m this team’s only healer! An interno! You need me!” He pointed at Yuki, panting heavily behind Seong-Hwi, and shouted, “That woman won’t survive without me! She will die in a few hours!”

“The team’s only healer, huh? Come to think of it, I never showed you guys.”

“What?”

A card flew out of Seong-Hwi’s Tarot Deck of Destiny and shone with a golden light.

[Activating Unique Skill: Symbol Embodiment.]

[Regenerating Crown, one of the symbols of No.2 The High Priestess]

A silver crown engraved with the lunar phases appeared on Yuki’s head.

“Cough! Huh?”

Yuki stared at the white steam rising from her body. All external injuries, including the injury on her flank from Nakivarro’s machete, were healing.

“I-impossible! You even have a healing skill? How can you use so many different mana patterns without them entangling?!” Gardner shouted in disbelief.

Seong-Hwi replied coldly like the Grim Reaper, “None of your business.”

The Zanaka Karambit flashed, separating Gardner’s head from his body. With this, Kabuka’s spies, growing like a poisonous mushroom inside the team, were eliminated.

“That’s all of them,” Frank remarked.

All of them, huh? Seong-Hwi said inwardly as he stared at the three individuals fighting from afar.

“An angel, an undead who can use Demon Force, and a boss Chaos,” he mumbled with a smile. He licked his dry lips and remarked, “Just a little longer, and I’ll have the perfect feast ready for me.”

***

The battle between the three individuals was nearing its end.

“Kikikik!”

Taizet, who had taken over Krypta’s body, drew out more power from his main body without caring about what would happen to Krypta.

[Activating Unique Skill: Hellfire Threefold.]

Blazing fireballs the size of humans, black as if filled with Demon Force, appeared as they combusted in midair.

“Die!” he shouted as he pointed the Demonic Sword Fatum at Adolf.

The hellfire balls flew toward Adolf as if dancing. Seriel, who received the blessing of the archangel Gabriel, activated a skill as Lily Holy Force gathered around his sword and fired it at Adolf like a laser.

[Activating Race Skill: Glory Amante.]

Adolf underwent his secondary transformation, feeling danger from the fireballs and the laser.

“GAAAAAH!” he screamed.

His skin evaporated, exposing his red flesh and blood vessels. A metal sphere, emitting an unsettling noise, was embedded in his chest.

[The Nuclear Reactor Heart has awakened.]

[Radioactivity levels soaring.]

“Haaah!” Adolf activated a skill with his Chaos Mana, which had grown several times stronger.

Yellow energy gathered in each hand. One fired at the Hellfire Threefold, and the other fired at the Glory Amante like lasers.

[Activating Unique Skill: Meltdown.]

As one would expect from its name, Meltdown melted the two skills. The immense shockwave forced Taizet and Seriel to fall back.

“Kikik! I can’t believe I’m struggling against a Hispar-rank Chaos. It’s all because this body can’t handle my full power!” Taizet complained, blaming Krypta’s fragile body.

If he had been here personally, he wouldn’t have struggled to this extent against even a Hispar-rank boss Chaos.

“O Great Gabriel! I apologize for my incompetence!” Seriel expressed resentment for his body, which couldn’t use the archangel Gabriel’s power to its full potential.

They both had the same weakness.

“Kikik! I suppose we have no choice but to join forces, pigeon,” Taizet suggested to Seriel.

Seriel replied irritably, “We’re already working together!”

“No, we’re just activating skills separately. Don’t be like that, and let’s activate our skills together.”

“What?”

“Demon Force and Holy Force are opposites! Kikikik! Bring them together, and the force generated from their repulsion will be beyond our imagination!”

Seriel nodded. He did not want to work together with a filthy demon, but he had no choice.

He doesn’t know about the Elixir. Searching for it will be a piece of cake once the boss is dead, Seriel said inwardly.

“Very well. Support me to the best of your ability,” he remarked.

“Kikik! That’s fine. After all, only the strong have the right to offer support. We must use our full power to defeat him with one attack. Otherwise, he’ll counter us.”

“I know! O Great Gabriel!”

Seriel’s halo shone intensely and spun rapidly. Gabriel sent him even more Lily Holy Force through the Open Halo Channel.

“Haaaaah!” he screamed as he was struck by immense pain from receiving power beyond himself, and spread his six pairs of wings widely.

Enormous power gathered around his wings, and his feathers, unable to handle the power, turned to dust one by one. Anyone could see that he was putting everything into this one attack.

Seriel flapped his wings, which generated a giant tornado that flew toward Adolf.

[Activating Race Skill: Glory Flap.]

The tornado was filled with Gabriel’s Lily Holy Force, making it look like a blade storm of lily petals.

“Kikikik! Good! I won’t lose either!” Taizet shouted as he drew more power from his main body.

Krypta’s bones were creaking and breaking, but he paid it no mind. He pointed the Demonic Sword Fatum at Adolf, and a pillar of black hellfire shot out from its end.

[Activating Unique Skill: Hellfire Pillar.]

Seriel’s Glory Flap combined with Taizet’s Hellfire Pillar, creating a colossal explosion as the conflicting Demon Force and Holy Force clashed. A fiery storm, growing even bigger as if one poured oil on a flame and fanned it, engulfed Adolf.

The explosion shook the entire dungeon like an earthquake. All the tubes in the mass incubation room broke and melted, and the black flames and white storm destroyed everything in their path.

“Kikik! Looks like even a cocky pigeon has its uses.”

“Ahhh! O Great Gabriel! Cough!”

Taizet and Seriel, both in terrible condition, watched the destruction they caused. Krypta’s body, which Taizet had taken over, was on the verge of falling apart; all his bones were dry and cracked like an arid land. As for Seriel, only the bones of his wings remained, with his feathers reduced to dust, and blood trickled from his mouth.

The destruction settled, revealing Adolf.

“Gurgh—! You... bastards!”

His arms were melted off, and a third of his face, including his right eye, was gone.

“Kikik! We did it!” Taizet shouted, certain of their victory.

Although Adolf survived because he protected his os, he would not survive long in that state. Adolf knew he did not have long to live either.

“Over a century has passed since I dedicated my life to my mission! Humanity’s future!” he shouted, his remaining eye gleaming with madness.

The unsettling sound from his Nuclear Reactor Heart grew louder.

“The Ark will be complete, even in my death! Everything is for humanity’s future!”

Adolf had already connected the pipes under the mass incubation room with the tanks of No.1,000 and No.1,002 in the director’s room. He had also programmed it so that if the perfect blood entered the system, it would be automatically separated from the other blood and pumped into the tanks.

Hence, my death will complete the Ark Project! Adolf shouted inwardly.

The Nuclear Reactor Heart glowed yellow as serious amounts of unstable Chaos Mana gathered around it.

“Is he... going to self-destruct? Kikik! He’s insane!” Taizet cackled as he stared at Seriel. “I’ll be fine, but it looks like you’ll die here. Kikikikik! Thanks for the fun time, pigeon!”

“Urgh! We have to stop—Cough!”

Seriel’s eyes widened as Taizet mocked him. His death meant nothing, but the real problem was that he would be unable to complete the mission that the God of Heaven gave him if Adolf were to self-destruct. He had already used all his strength, so he did not have the power to stop Adolf.

[Commencing mass decay of the Nuclear Reactor Heart.]

[5.]

[4.]

[3.]

...

“Ahaha! I will lay down my life for the Ark! For the next generation of—”

As Adolf was about to self-destruct with certainty for the project’s success, a spear suddenly flew toward him as it ripped through the chaotic air and heat. Adolf’s left eye widened as the spear’s leaf-shaped end penetrated the Nuclear Reactor Heart.

“It’s pointless! Once the self-destruct process has begun, it cannot be—huh?”

Dark red rust instantly enveloped the Nuclear Reactor Heart and turned it into a lump of rusted metal.

“NOOO—!” Adolf screamed in despair as he felt the Nuclear Reactor Heart no longer functioning.

An arrow penetrated his left eye, which was his os. He squirmed in despair and pain, and he collapsed.

“Kikik! What was that?” Taizet said.

“Who’s there?!” Seriel shouted.

They turned to where the arrow had flown from and saw a man with black hair, eyes, and wings, floating in the air.

“Kill-stealing is always delicious,” Seong-Hwi remarked.

If he were to make a comparison, it would be a Ferrero-Rocher chocolate.