The Hall of Mirrors

  "Let him go!"

  Carlisle squeezed a hoarse roar from deep within his throat. He tried to mobilize True Script again, but the severe pain deep in his brain made his vision black. Noseblood dripped onto the console, dyeing that line of error-reporting red code even more dazzling.

  Useless.

  Physical rules had failed here; logic laws were thoroughly polluted.

  In mid-air, Savage's screams had become faint. That huge rotten tentacle strangled him dead tight like a python. The secreted acid had burned through the leather armor and was eroding his only remaining flesh and blood body. The dwarf's proud mechanical arm now dripped black metal solution like a candle softened on fire.

  "Run... quick..."

  Savage's voice sounded like a broken bellows being pulled. He used the last bit of strength, trying to reach for the grenade at his waist—he wanted to die together.

  But even this last dignity was stripped away.

  Those gray Creeps spread along his arm, instantly wrapping the grenade, "Assimilating" the gunpowder components inside into mud with no explosive power.

  This was the shape of despair.

  Just in this suffocating dead end, a slight sound of footsteps rang out.

  Those footsteps were very light, as light as dew dripping on leaves, but in this noisy mechanical roar and screaming, they appeared so clear, so out of place.

  Carlisle raised his head with difficulty. In his blurred vision, he saw an incredible scene.

  Lyria threw away the longbow in her hand.

  That living weapon "Wind Whisperer" that had accompanied her for years was now discarded on the oily ground like a dry branch.

  She even untied the leather armor that was corroded full of holes by acid, letting it slip off, wearing only a thin linen lining. In the air full of fatal radiation and corrosive gas, she walked toward that mad tumor monster bare-handed like this.

  "Lyria! Come back!" Carlisle hissed, reaching out trying to grab her ankle, but his fingertips only touched a corner of her robe. "That's a high-concentration pollution zone! You will die!"

  Lyria didn't look back.

  Her eyes no longer looked at Savage, nor at that monster, but through layers of ugly rotten meat, looked at that faint emerald light deep inside.

  She heard that voice.

  That voice that kept shouting "I hurt so much." That wasn't a monster's roar; that was the cry of a pure soul imprisoned in a cage of steel and flesh.

  "It doesn't want to kill..."

  Lyria whispered, her voice trembling, but her steps were unusually firm.

  "It just... wants to go home."

  She walked to the edge of the abyss, reached out her hands, and actually pressed directly on that layer of disgusting, wriggling dark red tentacles.

  Sizzle—

  The strong acid that should have melted her instantly actually shrank back like meeting a nemesis the moment it touched her fingertips. That layer of gray decaying Creep seemed to feel some warmth and stopped madly proliferating.

  Lyria closed her eyes, taking a deep breath of this air filled with rust and blood.

  Then, she opened her mouth.

  No clumsy magic spells, no mandatory commands.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  She sang a song Carlisle had never heard before. That was the "Ballad of Homecoming" long lost by the elves, a melody her mother hummed to her when she was still a child on nights when the Blackthorn Woods withered.

  At first, it was just humming without any lyrics.

  Carlisle watched this scene in shock and immediately endured the severe pain to activate [Truth Vision]. He must figure out what principle this was.

  In his data vision, an incredible "Duet" began:

  Hummmm————

  That voice wasn't grand but extremely penetrating. It was like a breeze from an ancient forest, instantly penetrating the heavy metal dome, passing through the valley full of white bones, and finally gently stroking this cold, desperate land of steel.

  "Sleep, oh sleep..."

  The singing sounded softly.

  But in Carlisle's [Truth Vision], this wasn't just singing.

  [Warning: High-Frequency Bio-Wave Detected]

  [Target Source Status: Chaos Red Wave | Amplitude: Extremely High]

  [Input Source Status: Calm Green Wave | Amplitude: Weak]

  "Wrong..." Carlisle stared dead at those two completely mismatching waveform lines in his vision, pupils constricting violently. "Frequencies don't match! The monster's mind is too chaotic; her singing will be swallowed!"

  However, Lyria seemed to feel that "Resistance." She didn't stop but instinctively adjusted the vibration of her throat; the voice became more ethereal and deep.

  Lyria sang lyrics in Ancient Elvish. In Carlisle's logic vision, these syllables didn't need translation, directly turning into the gentlest imagery:

  "...in the cradle of ash."

  As this lyric was sung, the data stream in Carlisle's vision underwent an astonishing jump.

  [Input Source Frequency Shift Detected]

  [Phase Calibration in Progress...]

  [Calibration Complete!]

  Carlisle gasped: "She's tuning! She doesn't even need calculation! She is using intuition to find that monster's soul frequency!"

  In that instant, the green waveform perfectly slotted into the trough of the red noise wave.

  Like a key, precisely inserted into the keyhole. A perfect fit.

  As this lyric fell, that huge tumor began to tremble violently.

  But that was no longer the charging before an attack, but a relaxation after unloading a heavy burden.

  "Flesh to soil, bone to grass."

  With this lyric, the two waveforms began to Resonate.

  A clear, hostility-free signal was forcibly written into the monster's cerebral cortex: "I heard you." "No more pain." "Sleep."

  The monster's huge, turbid compound eye suddenly stopped rotating. Its brain, chaotic for ten thousand years, was "soothed" by this gentle waveform in this instant. Those red data streams representing madness instantly turned into calm straight lines.

  It understood this kindness. It agreed to this release.

  The constraints on Savage loosened.

  That rotten tentacle strangling his neck dead tight stiffened and relaxed the moment "Resonance" was achieved.

  "Cough cough cough—!"

  Savage, wrapped inside, fell to the ground with a thump. He gasped for air heavily, looking at his mechanical arm still smoking but having stopped corroding, eyes dull, completely unable to understand what happened.

  Everything seemed to be ending.

  However, a sudden mutation occurred.

  That soul constantly shouting "I hurt so much" indeed wanted to sleep, but the "Madness" accumulated in its body for ten thousand years—those "Dirty Data" piled up by error codes, resentment, and greed—refused to die!

  Zzzzt—!!

  The red data stream that had calmed down suddenly launched a violent counterattack.

  Like a drowning person grabbing the only straw. That mass of filthy consciousness followed Lyria's singing link, madly flowing upstream!

  "Ah——!!"

  Lyria suddenly let out a shrill scream.

  Her singing was interrupted instantly; her body twitched violently like getting an electric shock.

  "Lyria!"

  Carlisle watched in horror as Lyria's originally liquid gold eyes were instantly covered by a layer of turbid scarlet. Black vascular patterns spread madly upward along her fingertips, climbing up her neck like a vicious curse.

  [Warning: Mental Link Reverse Invaded!]

  [Warning: Assimilation Progress 15%... 20%...]

  "It's eating her!" Carlisle hissed, voice cracking from fear. "That virus doesn't want to die! It wants to occupy Lyria's body as a new container!"

  "Damn it! Fight it!"

  Savage on the ground roared, wanting to crawl up, but having just escaped, his bones felt like falling apart; he fell again before standing firm.

  Lyria knelt on the ground, hands strangling her own throat dead tight, trying to stop that invading severe pain, but her consciousness was being rapidly drowned by that massive malice.

  Once she was assimilated, everyone here would die.

  Carlisle's brain spun fast.

  Cut the link? No, forcibly cutting would directly tear Lyria's soul apart. Physical attack? Useless, that was a game on the spiritual level.

  The only way...

  Carlisle looked at the Creep undulating like alveoli under his feet, a trace of crazy determination flashing in his eyes.

  "Since you want to eat..."

  He threw away the dagger in his hand, took off the goggles full of cracks, revealing that left eye flashing with extreme blue light.

  "Then come eat Me!"

  If you don't enter the tiger's den, how can you catch the tiger's cub. Since the battlefield was in the spiritual network, he would turn himself into a virus to fight poison with poison!

  "Savage! Guard our bodies!"

  Carlisle roared, giving the dwarf no time to react.

  He knelt down sharply, hands carrying blue high-voltage arcs, ruthlessly inserting into the Creep connected to the monster's neural network under his feet!

  [Active Deep Dive Protocol: Initiated]

  [Target: Second Epoch Logic Substrate]

  [Firewall: Disabled]

  BOOM!

  No transition.

  Nor the so-called "Out of Body" lightness.

  Only severe pain from the brain. That pain was like being thrown into a centrifuge running at full speed, while tens of thousands of red-hot steel needles flowed upstream along the nerves of fingertips, piercing directly into the cerebral cortex.

  Sounds of the real world—Savage's roar, Lyria's scream, the sizzling of electric current—were forcibly cut off at this moment.

  Carlisle's body fell limply beside Lyria, like a puppet with cut strings.

  Only dead silent snowflake white noise remained.

  He was In.

  > The "Lullaby" is singing, but this song is not for sleep—it is for survival.

  > **Current Status:** HIGH-INTENSITY COMBAT.

  > **Objective:** Endure the Ash.

  > `>` **Date:** December 24/25.

  > `>` **Message:** Even in the deepest depths of Aethelgard, the cycle turns.

  > `>` **To all Code-Breakers:** Whether you are in the light or the void, **MERRY CHRISTMAS.**

  > As a holiday bonus, a key location concept art has been unlocked:

  > ??? **Asset Name:** `THE_HALL_OF_MIRRORS` .

  > **Directive:** Access the **Patreon** conduit to view this exclusive setting, along with the full archive of character illustrations and official novel covers.

  > **See the world behind the code.**

  > I have deployed the "Lullaby" (Chapter 16) as my offering to you.

  > If you wish to send a gift back to the system architect (me), the most valuable resources are:

  > ?? **LIKE (Heart):** To keep the algorithm warm in the winter.

  > ?? **FOLLOW (Favorite):** To ensure you don't get lost in the snow.

  > ?? **RATE/REVIEW:** The ultimate signal boost.

  > **Your support is the fuel that keeps this story burning bright.**

  -Field Analyst Zimo ???

  // Stay warm. Survive the night. //