The canyon funneled the morning light into sharp, jagged beams, slicing through mist and dust like knives. Every shadow twitched, every sound amplified—the rasp of wind, the scrape of stone, the whisper of displaced dust.
The air reeked of shard energy—ozone, grit, and the metallic scent of something ancient stirring.
Hunters crouched along the ridges and behind shattered rocks, masks glinting with shard-light like fractured mirrors. Their presence pressed down on the Five and the survivors, a suffocating weight that never wavered.
Every instinct screamed caution. Every heartbeat felt borrowed.
Law's scarf whipped in the canyon wind, echoes scattering like restless ghosts. His pulse thundered in his ears. Too many… and they're closing in.
"Form up!" he shouted. "They're not letting us escape!"
His voice cut through the wind like steel.
Nysera's wolf-aura flared, smoke-gray tendrils lashing outward. Her low growl vibrated through the canyon walls, primal and raw. The scent of blood hit her nose, sharp and cold. Her muscles burned, but her spirit surged.
Liora's shields gleamed, scattering shard-light into the mist. Her hands trembled from overuse, but her stance never broke.
Beside her, Laura's golden ripples flowed over Zero, stabilizing him—keeping him upright despite the corruption crawling beneath his skin.
From above, a sharp whistle cut through the air.
Three Hunters dropped into the canyon, their descent silent and predatory.
Boris led, a mountain of muscle and cruelty, shard energy crackling around his gauntlets like restrained thunder. Kazamir followed, whip-threaded shards writhing like serpents. Dmitry moved last—silent, surgical—twin knives humming with gravitational hums that distorted the air itself.
Law's echoes multiplied. Dozens of phantom selves split from him, darting forward to intercept.
Dmitry struck fast—blades cutting through illusions, scattering them like smoke. Sparks erupted, shards flared, and the canyon lit with raw energy.
Law gritted his teeth. They've trained for this. They've studied us.
Boris charged through the chaos. Nysera met him head-on, claws crashing against his gauntlets in a storm of sparks. Each strike sent shockwaves through the canyon floor. Her claws tore through a spear's shaft, splinters flying, but another blade slashed her ribs.
Pain lanced through her body. She snarled, aura flaring gold and shadow. Blood dripped, but her grin only widened. "You'll need more than that."
Liora shifted her stance, weaving light barriers around the scrambling survivors. Each pulse of her magic cracked her defenses, but she held on. "Keep moving! Don't stop!"
Her shields shimmered, fracturing under the onslaught, yet reforming again, burning bright enough to blind.
Laura's pendant glowed, golden threads weaving into the air. Stones slowed mid-fall, shards froze in motion. Her veins strained under the pressure, magic burning through every nerve.
"I… can't hold it much longer," she hissed. But she didn't stop. She couldn't.
Every second she bought mattered. Every delay meant another villager survived.
Zero staggered forward, pale and trembling, veins blackening as the corruption gnawed at him. Twin blades slashed through Kazamir's summoned husks—distorted echoes of the dead.
Each movement cost him, each strike shaved away a piece of him—but he didn't hesitate. His eyes glowed faintly, cold and sharp. The canyon itself seemed to bend around him, light twisting from his presence.
Law's instincts screamed. They're not trying to kill us. They're herding us.
The Hunters' formation tightened. Each strike, each collapse of stone, every angle—they were forcing them toward a narrow stretch of the canyon where shard energy distorted reality itself.
A crucible.
From the back, Viktor convulsed. Shard-light flared black and crimson, coiling around him like fire made solid. His scream tore through the wind, ragged and terrible.
Dmitry lunged for his heart.
Viktor struck back. Energy erupted from his chest, the shockwave throwing Dmitry across the canyon. Rock shattered where the Hunter landed.
Viktor's veins pulsed, shards orbiting his body in violent spirals. His breath came in ragged bursts. Shadows bent toward him, drawn to the corruption threading his core.
"Viktor!" Law shouted.
No response—just another surge of power.
Nysera leapt, intercepting a spear meant for a fleeing child. It shattered against her aura. Blood streaked her side, but she didn't flinch.
Liora's shields flickered, barely holding under the renewed assault. "Just—go!" she yelled, forcing another barrier to life with sheer will.
Laura's golden ripples spread farther, catching falling debris midair, freezing them in slow motion. Her hands trembled uncontrollably. Not yet… I can still hold it…
The canyon floor split from the pressure.
Law's echoes darted everywhere, intercepting attacks from every direction. Boris's gauntlets crashed against illusion after illusion. Kazamir's whip lashed through the air, severing stone. Dmitry reappeared, knives a blur of light.
The Five stood their ground.
Viktor roared—a sound of agony and defiance combined. Shards exploded outward, flinging the Hunters back. His aura raged, black fire streaked with crimson veins. The ground quaked beneath him.
"Stay… alive… dammit!"
His voice broke, but the will behind it didn't.
The others fell into formation around him. Nysera crouched low, aura flaring in rhythm with Viktor's. Liora threw up layered shields, overlapping arcs of light. Laura extended her time ripple to encompass them all, freezing fragments mid-flight.
Law stood at the front, eyes hard, echoes multiplying until the canyon seemed filled with ghostly reflections of him.
They fought as one.
Boris slammed into Nysera's defense, the impact rippling through her entire frame. She snarled, shoving him back with a burst of gray smoke.
Kazamir's whip lashed out, severing three of Law's echoes. The real Law darted through the mist, countering with a flurry of afterimages.
Laura screamed as her threads snapped one by one. Time itself wavered—slowing, accelerating, then freezing entirely for a single impossible second.
In that second, Law saw everything.
Zero's blades flashing. Liora's shield fracturing. Nysera's aura splitting the ground. Viktor at the center—barely human, barely contained.
Then the moment shattered.
The canyon erupted.
A deafening shockwave consumed sound, color, and light.
Dust and shards hung suspended, glowing faintly in the strange stillness that followed. The world seemed caught between seconds.
Law hit the ground hard, the impact knocking the air from his lungs. His echoes flickered out, fading like dying stars. The survivors lay scattered—but alive.
Through the haze, Viktor stood trembling, eyes dimming from crimson to gold, then gray. The corruption receded, leaving behind only exhaustion and silence.
One by one, the Five regrouped—forming a loose, instinctive circle. Shields shimmered faintly. Echoes whispered like fading ghosts. Golden ripples wove through the mist, soft as breath.
The canyon itself pulsed faintly, alive with residual shard energy.
Then Law felt it—a rhythm beneath the ground, deliberate, ancient, watching.
The realization hit him like cold water. This wasn't a battle. It was a test.
He glanced at the others. Liora's light flickered, dim but unbroken. Nysera bled from half a dozen wounds yet grinned through her teeth. Laura swayed, barely conscious, her pendant still faintly glowing. Zero leaned on his blades, chest heaving. Viktor stood in the center, aura faint, eyes empty but alive.
Beyond the mist, deeper in the canyon, the air shimmered—reality warping like glass under heat. Something old stirred there, vast and unseen.
Law's heartbeat slowed. The Whispers of the Mirror…
He didn't know how he knew the name—only that it fit.
Older Law would remember this moment for the rest of his life. The crucible tested them not for victory, but for unity. For endurance.
It was the first flicker of what they would one day become—the moment their shards resonated in harmony, however briefly.
Viktor had stood on the edge of oblivion, and they had followed.
Every shard. Every echo. Every breath. Measured.
Leaving him behind had never been an option.
That night, survival itself became the storm they could never forget.
And in the faint shimmer of each of their eyes—gold, silver, pale blue—burned the first reflection of what waited beyond the shards: the path, the power, and the promise of trials yet to come.
The Whispers lingered long after the echoes faded.