For the next several days, the Academy hummed with an activity reminiscent of preparations for a cataclysmic storm. The air thrummed with concentrated magic, smelling of ozone, scorched metal, and overheated runes. On Leng Wei's orders, information about the "feeble defenses" of his old home was artfully "leaked" through channels sure to be monitored by the True Masters' agents.
Meanwhile, within that old house, something defying ordinary comprehension was taking shape.
The Elder and the Academy's most skilled runemasters, their faces grey with sleeplessness and strain, were transforming the humble dwelling into a colossal magical instrument, invisible to the naked eye. The walls were inscribed not with glowing symbols, but with light-devouring sigils. The floor was laid with a mosaic of obsidian and moonstone, forming immensely complex concentric circles—antennae designed to capture and amplify hostile energy.
In the center of the main room, where his mother's bed once stood, a transparent crystal now hovered in mid-air. Inside it pulsed a droplet of the purest essence from the Heart of Harmony. This was the "trigger" and the very heart of the trap.
Leng Wei watched the work from the doorway, not interfering, trusting the Elder's expertise. But his own feelings were in turmoil. Every visit here was torture. Seeing this house, filled with warm memories, converted into a lethal mechanism felt profoundly wrong.
"The energy circuit is closed," reported one of the runemasters, his hands trembling from exhaustion. "The Mirror Trap is ready for activation. Any targeted attack bearing the signature of the True Masters' soulless will shall be captured, amplified by the Heart of Harmony's energy, and returned to its source along the reverse path. Theoretically."
"'Theoretically' is the only word in that sentence I don't like," Han grumbled darkly, testing the edge of his blades against the wall. He and a squad of elite fighters were to be stationed in ambush nearby, ready to intervene if anything went wrong.
"Theory is all we have against them," Leng Wei replied, his gaze fixed on the crystal. "They are the embodiment of law. We strike them with an exception to their own rules."
Lin Mei approached him, her expression grave.
"Everything is ready. All that remains... is to activate it. And wait."
This was the moment Leng Wei dreaded most. Activation required one thing: his mother's voluntary consent to enter the trap's center and become its living anchor. She had to be the bait not just symbolically, but energetically.
When he returned to his chambers in the Academy, his mother was waiting for him. She looked calm, almost serene. Two simple clay teacups sat on the table before her.
"Son," she said, gesturing to the chair opposite. "Sit. Drink tea with me."
He sat, feeling not like a mighty king, but a small boy. He poured the tea. It was bitter, fragrant with wormwood and roots.
"You are afraid," she stated, not asking.
"Yes," he admitted honestly, clutching the warm cup. "I fear their power. But more... I fear I am using you. That I am turning our love into a weapon. That I am becoming just like them."
His mother reached out and covered his hand with hers.
"You are forcing no one. I go into this willingly. You are not using our love, son. You are protecting it. There is a vast difference. One makes you a monster. The other makes you a human. And a king worthy of your father."
She looked him directly in the eyes.
"They want to prove that love is a weakness. Show them they are wrong. Show them it is the strongest armor in the world and the sharpest blade. Use my faith in you. Use my willingness to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you. Make it our shared weapon."
Her words washed away his final doubts, leaving only pure, cold resolve. He nodded.
The next morning at dawn, the two of them entered the old house. Leng Wei's mother, dressed in simple robes, walked with imperturbable calm to the chair placed in the room's very center, directly beneath the floating crystal. She picked up a book—an old volume of poetry—and began to read as if it were any other day.
Leng Wei, the Elder, and the runemasters took their places outside the mosaic's outer circle. At Leng Wei's signal, they raised their hands in unison.
"Now," he said.
The Heart of Harmony's essence within the crystal flared with a blinding white light. Energy surged through the runic channels, and the entire Mirror Trap shuddered to life. The air in the room trembled, growing thick and viscous. The room did not vanish, but seemed to recede, becoming a reflection of itself, ready to shatter and wound anyone who tried to breach it.
The trap was set.
Now, they had only to wait. The longest night of their lives.
Leng Wei stood outside, shrouded in the shadows of the trees, his eyes locked on the window where his mother sat. Beside him, hidden, waited Han, Jin, and Lin Mei.
"Nothing's happening," Lin Mei whispered after several hours.
"They will come," Leng Wei replied just as quietly. "They cannot ignore the challenge. Their pride won't allow it."
And he was right.
Exactly at midnight, as the moon reached its zenith, the air above the house... imploded. Not with a roar, but with a deafening, soundless rupture of nothingness. From this tear in reality oozed a shadow. Not a creature, but the very idea of annihilation given form—a giant, faceless hand woven from darkness and silence. The Hand of the True Masters.
It reached down, slow and inexorable, toward the roof of the house, intent on unmaking it and all within to dust.
Leng Wei froze, his heart hammering. His entire plan, all his faith, hung by a thread.
The Hand touched the roof.
And in that instant, the Mirror Trap reacted.
The entire house flashed for a moment like a second sun. Not with the blinding white light of Harmony, but with the same absolute nothingness that composed the attack. The trap did not reflect the blow. It absorbed it, channeled it through the Heart of Harmony's amplifier—which, feeding on life, twisted the lifeless energy of the assault—and released it back.
Back into the tear in reality.
From that very rift came a sound. Not a scream—the True Masters likely had no vocal cords. It was an overwhelming, universal SCREECH of rending matter, the shattering of reality's glass, mingled with pure, undiluted shock.
The faceless hand convulsed and began to crumble, consuming itself.
The trap had worked.
But the triumph was short-lived. The rift in reality did not close. It quivered, distorted, and from its black depths, a GAZE fell upon them. Cold, indifferent, and filled with an anger so ancient that Lin Mei let out a choked cry and Han felt the blood freeze in his veins.
They had not merely deflected an attack. They had wounded them. And now they were looking into the eyes of not just an enemy, but an offended deity.
The message conveyed by that gaze was clearer than any words:
"THE GAME IS OVER."