CHAPTER 19 — THE DIMENSIONAL LAST STAND
Arc 2: Shattered Crowns
The world shook as the final barrier collapsed.
A roar—deep, ancient, hateful—rolled through the crumbling underground chamber, blasting dust from the walls and sending cracks racing across the floor like lightning. Adriana staggered back, her crimson aura flaring around her as she braced herself. Adrian planted his feet, ice breath coiling around his arms, frost humming beneath his skin.
And from the molten tear in the air…
The silhouette wearing Rin Kaito's coat stepped forward again.
But now, for the first time, its illusion peeled away.
The figure was taller, broader, twisted by shadows that crawled like living ink across its body. Its face was hidden beneath a hood, but glowing red eyes cracked the darkness.
It wasn't Rin.
It was something using Rin's shape.
A puppet of the Elite—specifically, the one called:
Kaelvar, the Mirror of Fear.
The one who forced victims to fight the versions of people they feared the most.
And Adrian? Adrian feared something that looked like Rin.
His fists clenched so tightly frost dripped from his knuckles.
Kaelvar's voice stretched like a broken violin string.
"Found you… little light-bringer."
The ten alternate versions of Adrian and Adriana stepped forward in unison, forming a half-circle around the twins. Their auras—blue, crimson, gold, obsidian, emerald—flared like a warborn rainbow.
Blue Adrian spoke first.
"We'll help you hold him off."
Crimson Adriana cracked her whip.
"We didn't cross dimensions for a warm-up."
Adrian shook his head.
"Not this time. This one… is meant for me."
Kaelvar twisted its head, joints cracking like snapped glass.
"Bold. Wrong… but bold."
The creature lunged.
Adrian didn't even have time to raise his arms before Kaelvar's shadow fist slammed into his ribs, launching him across the chamber. He crashed into a pillar, cracking it in half before rolling across the ground.
"Adrian!" Adriana yelled, sprinting toward him.
She didn't reach him—Kaelvar's shadow tendrils wrapped around her leg and slung her like a doll, flinging her into the opposite wall.
But then—
Blue Adrian, Crimson Adriana, Gold Adrian, Phantom Adriana, and all the others charged at once, unleashing dimensional energy that shook the room.
Kaelvar unleashed a shrieking wave of darkness.
Alternate twins were thrown away like leaves in a hurricane.
The chamber dimmed.
The air iced.
And Adrian's heartbeat finally steadied.
He stood up.
With a deep exhale, a single pulse of cold exploded from him, freezing the dust in midair.
His weapon—once a normal blade—began to glow. The metal cracked open like a cocoon, revealing a core of swirling blue frost.
The blade elongated, sharpened, breathed.
An ICE KATANA formed in his hand.
Adriana rose at the same time, her eyes blazing. Her old whip materialized—only now wrapped in crimson lightning, deeply familiar but ten times more potent. It crackled, whipped, and burned through the air like a living serpent.
The twins stood together.
Kaelvar paused—its red eyes narrowing.
"You both evolved. How… inconvenient."
Adrian dashed forward.
And everything else disappeared.
The world compressed to icy footfalls, shadow claws, and the roar of colliding power. Adrian's katana released a sweeping arc of frozen light, slicing through Kaelvar's first wave of shadows. Ice burst across the ground, freezing tendrils where they slithered.
Kaelvar cracked its neck and rushed back.
Adriana dove in at the same time.
Her crimson whip roared, curling around Kaelvar's arm, burning through shadow flesh. Kaelvar howled—a sound that shook the ceiling—as Adriana jerked the creature forward.
"Adrian! Now!"
He spun, katana trailing a comet tail of frost, and sliced across Kaelvar's chest. The cut wasn't deep, but it burned with freezing agony, blue veins spreading across the creature's form.
Kaelvar snapped its fingers.
Shadows erupted from the ground like spears, forcing the siblings apart.
It rushed at Adrian again.
Adriana pursued.
Alternate Adrians and Adrianas recovered, regrouping behind them.
Blue Adrian stepped forward.
Crimson Adriana wiped blood from her lip.
Gold Adrian cracked his neck.
"We assist when needed," Blue Adrian said.
"And leave when this world no longer calls us," the golden one added.
The battle intensified.
Every clash lit the chamber with bursts of frost, crimson lightning, and dimensional energy. Kaelvar split into three shadow clones; the alternate twins engaged them, each clone as terrifying as the original.
Gold Adrian pressed his palms together, creating a gravitational field that crushed one clone. Obsidian Adriana sliced another with her void-whip. Blue Adrian froze the third.
But Kaelvar simply reformed.
It was unkillable—unless its illusion core was destroyed.
Adrian knew it instinctively.
But Kaelvar was reading his thoughts.
"You seek my core, little frost. Then… find it."
A shadow cage snapped around Adrian, cutting him off from the others. Kaelvar stepped inside the cage, its breath cold and rotten.
Adrian's chest tightened.
Rin's silhouette.
The person who left him.
The person who saved him.
The person he feared he would lose twice.
Kaelvar laughed.
"You fear abandonment. You fear failure. You fear the moment the people you care for walk away…"
A shadow blade formed at its fingertips.
"…so let me give you what you fear most."
The blade stabbed toward Adrian's chest—
And stopped.
A crimson whip wrapped around Kaelvar's wrist, scorching it.
Adriana yanked the creature backward and roared:
"Shut. The hell. Up."
Her aura erupted—crimson fire spiraling around her like a storm.
Adrian shattered the cage with a swing of his ice katana.
"Adriana—together!"
She grinned.
"Always."
They moved as one.
Adrian froze Kaelvar's legs to the ground. Adriana wrapped her whip around its throat. The alternate twins unleashed their final combined dimensional strike—ten beams of multi-colored destructive energy that pinned Kaelvar in place, forcing it to its knees.
Kaelvar shrieked.
"You cannot end me—!"
Adrian raised his katana.
Adriana pulled her whip tight.
"Watch us," they said in unison.
And with a synchronized strike—
They shattered Kaelvar's illusion core.
The demon's body exploded into a storm of dissolving shadows.
Silence fell.
Then—
dimensional portals flickered open behind the alternate twins.
Their time was over.
Blue Adrian stepped forward, clapping a hand on Adrian's shoulder.
"You led well."
Crimson Adriana hugged her counterpart tightly.
"Take care of him. And yourself."
One by one, they stepped through their portals—
Gold Adrian, Phantom Adriana, Emerald Adrian…
until the last portal closed with a soft hum.
Adrian and Adriana stood alone in the basement chamber, surrounded by fading light.
Adriana exhaled.
"That was… insane."
Adrian wiped frost from his blade.
"And it's not even the end."
Because somewhere deeper underground—
beyond these ruins—
beyond the illusions—
the real threat waited.
The first Elite.
And behind them…
the real Demon Queen: Asmodra.
Adrian tightened his grip around his icy katana.
Adriana cracked her crimson whip.
Side by side, they walked toward the next corridor.
And the darkness trembled.
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