The chamber convulsed with blinding light and deafening sound. The Harmony's core shattered into a storm of radiant shards, each one pulsing like a living heart. The air smelled of ozone and burning metal.
Arka shielded Lyra as fragments of pure energy whirled past them, embedding themselves into the walls like molten glass. The figure of light and shadow hovered above the ruins of the core, its body pulsing in rhythm with the chaos around them.
Its voice echoed softly, both tender and terrible.
"I am what you refused to complete. The balance you feared to acknowledge."
Lyra's voice shook. "You're the distortion. The Void given will."
"No," the being replied. "I am your reflection. The truth behind your perfection."
Arka stepped forward, his aura igniting — a fierce blue flame laced with silver. "We built this world to heal the scars of the old one. You're not truth. You're the infection that slipped through."
The being tilted its head, almost curiously. "Then why does your power look so much like mine?"
It raised a hand. The light around it twisted, forming tendrils of glowing darkness that lashed toward them. Arka moved first, striking with a burst of starlight that split the air. The impact sent shockwaves through the chamber, hurling both him and Lyra back.
The being didn't flinch. Instead, it absorbed the attack — and its form became clearer, more defined.
A silhouette like Arka's, but with Lyra's eyes.
Lyra's breath caught. "It's… us."
The reflection smiled. "Of course. You made me. Two souls joined in creation, yet divided in truth. You desired harmony — but all harmony requires sacrifice."
Arka gritted his teeth. "We won't let you consume it."
"Consume?" The being's tone softened. "I only wish to finish it."
The floor beneath them split open, revealing a vast abyss filled with fragments of both light and shadow — memories, lives, echoes of all they had created. From within, countless figures began to rise: humans, beasts, spirits — all hollow-eyed copies of the living above.
The reflection's voice deepened. "They seek what all beings seek: balance. I merely grant it."
Lyra pressed a hand to her crystal, forcing her energy to stabilize. The golden glow returned to her eyes. "If balance means erasing life, then you're not Harmony."
The being's smile faded. "Life cannot exist without death, Lyra. You of all should know that."
Something inside her twisted painfully — a flash of memory, of the countless worlds she and Arka had burned before building this one. Her voice broke. "That was before. We learned."
The reflection reached out a hand toward her. "Then show me what you learned."
The air warped. Lyra was pulled forward, vanishing into the storm of fractured light.
"Lyra!" Arka shouted, lunging after her — but a force slammed into him, hurling him into the wall. The impact cracked stone and bone alike.
He staggered up, bleeding, his vision split between light and shadow. Through the storm, he saw Lyra suspended in midair, her aura being drawn out of her body, twisting into black ribbons that coiled into the reflection's form.
"Stop!" Arka roared, summoning his blade of starlight once more. "You want balance? Then take it from me!"
The blade flared brighter than ever — white fire streaked with blue. He drove it straight into the reflection's heart.
The explosion shook the world.
When the light faded, the reflection was gone — but so was the core. Only a vast wound remained, a silent void where energy once pulsed.
Lyra lay on the ground, barely breathing. Arka knelt beside her, trembling.
Her eyes fluttered open. "Arka… the core…"
He looked up. The light from the city above was flickering, dimming one by one.
"It's bleeding," she whispered. "The Harmony… it's dying."
Arka clenched his fists. "Then we'll save it. Even if we have to rebuild it from its ashes."
But behind them, from the shattered fragments of the core, a faint whisper answered.
"You already have."
And a small crystal began to glow again — half gold, half black — pulsing like a new heart learning to beat.