"Righteousness without mercy is only another kind of darkness."
Moonlight bled across the canyon walls, turning the red stone silver. The Dominion convoy lay still below — guards posted, torches flickering, and the crystal cargo pulsing faintly in the sand.
Unit 3 moved like phantoms — silent, swift, precise.
"Rayon, secure the left flank," Po whispered.
"Got it."
"Jet, watch the drones."
"Already fried one," Jet muttered with a grin.
Kaen followed Lana down the ridge, every footstep sinking softly into the heated sand. His pulse was steady now. He could feel the Source nearby — like gravity itself tugging at his chest.
The fragment glowed within its containment crate, pale blue and alive.
"Almost too easy," Lana murmured.
That's when Kaen noticed it — the way the torches around the camp didn't flicker. Their flames moved perfectly still, frozen in the air.
"Wait—" Kaen whispered.
The world shattered.
The ground under them turned to glass, reflecting the sky above. Their images stretched and fractured — twisted, standing upright where they should've fallen.
"Reflection field!" Po shouted.
The air screamed.
From the dunes, mirrored phantoms emerged — perfect copies of Unit 3, faces blank, movements mechanical.
Jet blasted lightning toward his reflection — the energy hit, vanished—
Then came back.
The same lightning shot from the other direction, striking Jet square in the chest and sending him flying.
"JET!" Lana roared.
She launched a wave of fire at his reflection — but it, too, was swallowed, absorbed into the mirrored air.
And then—
A voice. Calm, deep, and chillingly certain.
"Light does not reflect the unworthy. It purifies them."
He stepped from the storm like a vision sculpted of glass and holy fire. His armor shimmered in the moonlight — not metal, but layers of translucent resonance hardened into living crystal.
In his right hand, he held a spear — long, elegant, its blade refracting the world into shards of color.
The Warden of Glass.
His helmet bore no face — only mirrored plates that caught Kaen's reflection in infinite loops.
"Dominion Warden, Class Gold Special Grade," Po whispered. "Resonance: Reflection Absorption."
The Warden's voice echoed softly:
"You are the shadow called Kaen. The Devourer the Dominion warned us of."
Kaen's heart stuttered. "I'm not—"
"You destroyed Brindle Hollow."
Kaen froze.
Lana stepped forward, fire lighting around her fists. "That's not what happened—"
The Warden turned toward her, the reflection of her flame dancing across his armor.
"Truth is not what happens," he said. "It is what endures."
He raised his spear — the flames flickered, then vanished from her hands.
Absorbed.
The weapon pulsed once—
And released.
A beam of white fire tore through the air, striking near Lana's feet, scattering sand into glass shards.
"Scatter!" Po ordered.
Rayon surged forward, drawing the water from the canisters strapped to his side, turning it into spears that whirled like silver serpents. He hurled them — the Warden's armor shimmered, swallowing the water whole.
Jet recovered, eyes glowing. "Let's see you reflect this!"
He fired a lightning bolt into the ground — resonance pulsed through the sand, refracting upward—
The Warden spun his spear, catching the bolt midair, absorbing it with a sound like glass singing.
"Such potential wasted," he said softly. "You channel the Source through impurity."
Then he thrust.
A sonic boom tore through the canyon. The bolt returned — magnified tenfold — slamming into Jet and detonating in a burst of blue lightning.
Jet hit the ground, smoking, alive but unmoving.
Lana screamed his name, unleashing a torrent of fire so bright it turned night into day. The flames coiled around the Warden, wrapping him in a spiral of molten fury—
But the fire bent.
The heat reversed.
The inferno shot backward, engulfing Lana instead. Kaen dove, pulling her away, his hands burning as the reflected heat licked at his skin.
She gasped, trembling. "I can't— he's— unstoppable."
Kaen's head rang with chaos — Jet down, Lana scorched, Po and Rayon struggling to hold the line.
The Warden raised his spear skyward — light bending toward it like worship.
"Those who twist the Source shall be erased," he declared. "By divine command of the Radiant Cross."
Then came a whisper inside Kaen's chest.
"Child… look closer."
Erevos.
Kaen clenched his teeth. "If I look any closer, we're dead!"
"He takes. You pull. His hunger feeds yours."
Kaen's pulse throbbed. His vision tunneled — the air around him warped, the sand beginning to tremble.
He looked at the Warden's resonance — not light, but mass, dense and contained.
And he pulled.
The ground cratered beneath him. The energy flowing into the Warden's spear faltered, bending backward, drawn toward Kaen's halo.
The Warden staggered for the first time, the reflections around them flickering.
He looked up, voice still calm but heavy. "So the corruption answers."
Kaen's voice broke through gritted teeth. "I'm not corruption!"
The Warden planted his spear. "Prove it."
The canyon erupted in motion.
Kaen launched forward, gravitational pressure cracking the glassy floor. The Warden spun, spear glinting like sunlight on water. Their powers collided — light and gravity, purity and pull.
The impact shattered the ground, sending waves of molten sand outward.
Each strike was a hymn — spear against force, conviction against chaos.
Kaen's halo flared bright behind him, pulling every beam the Warden cast. For the first time, the reflected light bent away from him instead of toward him.
But the Warden was relentless — every motion sharp, efficient, divine. He spun the spear like wind and light fused, parrying Kaen's gravitational bursts with perfect timing.
"You cannot fight holiness," the Warden said.
Kaen spat blood, staggering. "Then maybe holiness should stop killing everything it touches."
The Warden struck him across the face with the spear's shaft, sending him crashing through a dune of glass.
⸻
Kaen fell to his knees, vision blurred, breathing ragged.
The Warden raised his weapon — resonance building to lethal radiance.
"May the Source forgive what I cannot."
He thrust—
And the world went white.
"Conviction is the armor of gods… and the blindness of men."