Cold.
That was the first thing Hetu felt—an impossible cold, not of air or water, but of something that cut through the marrow, slicing deeper than flesh. His breath caught in his chest as his senses reeled, weightless in the void.
Then came the light.
Not blinding, but endless—a silver shimmer spreading outward in ripples, as if the world itself were made of liquid glass. When his feet found ground again, it wasn't soil or stone beneath him, but a smooth, reflective surface that stretched infinitely in all directions.
He turned slowly. Every movement produced echoes—not sound, but faint images, like shadows lagging behind. His reflection stared back at him, a thousand versions of himself stretching into the horizon. Some smiled faintly; others frowned, wounded or furious. One turned its head before he did.
"This… is not the mortal realm," he whispered.
"No," came a voice that wasn't his. "This is the veil between seeing and being."
The sound resonated from every reflection at once, overlapping, forming a chorus of near-familiar tones. Hetu steadied his breathing, recalling his training. The Dharma of Light taught that illusions held no true substance, while the Dao of Shadow warned that denying illusions gave them power.
So he neither accepted nor rejected what he saw. He simply observed.
"Show yourself," he said quietly.
From the nearest reflection, something shifted. The mirrored surface rippled, and one image stepped forward—detaching itself from the glass as if born from it. It looked exactly like him, yet its eyes gleamed with silver flame, and its presence radiated a calm, terrible wisdom.
"I am what you seek," the reflection said. "And what you fear to become."
Hetu studied it carefully. "Are you my inner demon?"
The reflection smiled. "If that helps you understand me."
It began to walk in a slow circle around him, each step leaving ripples that spread through the mirrored plane. "You've walked between two doctrines—Dharma and Dao—and now your essence is torn between them. But balance isn't found by cutting one away. It's forged by surviving both."
Hetu's fists tightened. "Then teach me how."
The reflection paused, turning to face him. "Teaching is for masters. I am only your shadow. You'll learn by confrontation."
And then it struck.
Without warning, the silver-eyed Hetu lunged, palm wreathed in light and darkness interwoven like twin serpents. Hetu barely had time to raise his guard before the impact flung him backward. He hit the glass floor with a resonant crack, shards of energy scattering outward like fragments of reality.
Pain lanced through his ribs, but he forced himself upright, channeling both energies at once. A thread of golden light wrapped around his arm; a coil of dark mist spiraled from his palm. They met, resisted, and finally aligned—just long enough for him to strike back.
Their palms collided, and for a heartbeat, the world froze.
The mirrored plane shattered outward into suspended fragments, each fragment showing a different vision—Hetu as a monk, as a tyrant, as a fallen god, as nothing at all. Every possibility reflected in infinite glass.
The reflection's voice echoed through them:
"To balance light and shadow, you must embrace the truth beneath both: that creation and destruction are one breath."
Hetu roared, summoning everything within him. His energies flared, overlapping into a storm of gold and obsidian. The impact sent both figures flying apart. When the echoes faded, the reflection knelt on one knee, a faint smile playing on its lips.
"You begin to understand," it said. "But this place—this Boundary—isn't where you finish. It's where you choose."
"Choose?" Hetu asked, panting.
"To remain divided… or to walk the path that unites."
The mirrored surface began to glow, threads of light rising like veins beneath glass. The reflections around them blurred, merging into a single radiant horizon.
Hetu closed his eyes. Memories flashed—his mother's voice, his master's words, Yura's warning, the night of the invasion, the whisper that led him here. All of it converged into one quiet certainty.
He stepped forward. "Then I choose unity."
The reflection nodded once—and dissolved into light.
That light surged toward Hetu, piercing through his body, burning and freezing at once. His vision went white. The Boundary trembled as his inner energies collided, screaming for dominance, until—
Silence.
When he opened his eyes, the mirror beneath him had turned black, and within it, two streams of energy flowed as one—one radiant as dawn, the other deep as midnight. They intertwined without conflict.
He had done it.
He had forged the Path of Dual Harmony.
But before he could take another breath, the air split open behind him. The mirror surface fractured once more, revealing a distant sky of stars—yet not the stars of the mortal realm. These burned brighter, sharper, alive with intent.
A shadow emerged from that rift—a cloaked figure, face hidden, aura vast enough to make his newfound balance tremble.
"So," the voice said, smooth and cold, "the boundary finally birthed its heir."
Hetu turned slowly. "Who are you?"
"A witness," the figure replied. "And the one who will test whether your unity can survive reality."
Before Hetu could react, the shadow raised a hand. Reality twisted again—light imploding, darkness expanding—and the mirror realm collapsed into a vortex.
Hetu was pulled through.
And the Boundary of Mirrors disappeared behind him, as if it had never existed.