CHAPTER 58: CHAPTER 58 – “SHATTERPOINT”

The world around them stilled.

No whispers.

No hymns.

No shattering.

The Pane held its breath.

Ren stared across the cracked silver ground at his double—the "cold self." Same eyes. Same body. Same Thorn pulsing in his chest. But everything in his stance screamed different. No weight of memory. No cracks of pain. Only control, as if every motion had been measured, rehearsed, perfected.

Selene could barely breathe. Her fingers curled at her sides, nails cutting into her palms as she whispered, "That one... it doesn’t feel human."

Ren didn’t take his eyes off him. His grin flickered. "That’s the point."

The cold self tilted his head, the smirk widening. His voice was smooth, patient, like ice sliding across glass.

"You talk too much. That’s why you’re weak."

In the blink of an eye, he moved.

The Thorn in his grip didn’t hum like Ren’s. It sang. A piercing, perfect note that rang through the Pane, making Selene stumble to her knees. The strike came faster than Ren could follow—his blade was already there, intercepting—but the force sent him sliding back across the cracked ground.

Ren’s boots screeched. His ribs ached from the resonance. The Thorn pulsed violently, straining like it was facing its maker.

The double stepped forward without haste, Thorn balanced easily at his side. His eyes never blinked. "You fight like a rebel. Wild. Desperate. Inefficient."

Ren spat to the side, smirking through the sting in his arms. "And yet here I am. Still standing."

The double’s expression didn’t change. "Not for long."

He lunged again, this time with a chain of strikes—each one perfect. No wasted movement, no hesitation. Each thrust, each slash carried the weight of inevitability. Ren blocked, parried, twisted—but every defense felt like it had been anticipated.

Selene shouted, "Ren! He knows you—every move, every flaw!"

Ren’s teeth clenched. Sparks rained as their Thorns clashed again and again. But he couldn’t deny it.

The cold self wasn’t fighting him.

He was outplaying him.

Finally, a strike slipped through—slashing across Ren’s ribs. Blood mixed with silver glow as he staggered back, breath ragged.

The double pointed his blade at him, head tilting slightly, like a teacher correcting a foolish student.

"You can’t win against me. Because I am you... without weakness. Without choice. Without Selene."

At her name, Selene stiffened, heart skipping. The cold self’s gaze flicked to her, unblinking.

"She’s the crack in your armor. The reason the Pane hunts you. Remove her, and you return to what you should have been. Complete."

Ren straightened, blood dripping down his side. His smirk was sharp, but his voice burned hotter than his wound.

"Funny thing about cracks..."

He raised his Thorn, its glow raw and jagged, unlike the double’s perfect light.

"They let the light through."

The double’s smile vanished.

For the first time, his stance shifted. Not calm. Not perfect.

Hostile.

The Pane shivered, the crescent eyes in the sky bleeding harder. The ground cracked as if it couldn’t contain what was about to happen.

Selene whispered, trembling but fierce:

"This isn’t just a duel. If you lose... the Pane rewrites you. And there won’t be a Ren left."

Ren’s voice came low, steady, dangerous.

"Then it looks like I don’t get the option of losing."

Their Thorns ignited—one jagged rebellion, one perfect inevitability.

And they clashed.

The Pane screamed.

The Pane wailed as steel met steel, each clash shattering echoes into the air like lightning splitting glass.

Ren’s cold self pressed forward without pause, each strike slicing through space with unbearable precision. No flourish. No waste. Just inevitability.

Ren gritted his teeth, arms screaming as he parried, twisted, sidestepped. Sparks of silver burst across the cracked surface beneath their boots. The Pane itself was breaking apart under their fight, fragments of memory leaking into the void—shards of laughter, of screams, of places Ren half-recognized.

Selene stumbled back, shielding herself from the shockwaves, her heart pounding. She could see it—her Ren was slowing. His movements sharper than ever, yes, but also more desperate. Each block came later, each breath harsher. His opponent wasn’t just a mirror—it was the endgame version of himself, stripped of every flaw that made him human.

And yet...

Ren’s eyes burned with something his double lacked.

A fire.

The cold self forced Ren’s blade down, driving his Thorn toward his chest. The glowing edge came within inches of piercing his heart—

CLANG!

Ren’s knee slammed into his double’s ribs, breaking the perfect rhythm. He twisted his sword upward, jagged light tearing through the balance of perfection.

For a brief second, the double’s expression cracked—not in pain, but in recognition. His lips curled in something close to disgust.

"Sloppy. Brutal. Inelegant."

Ren grinned, blood dripping from his lip. "Yeah? That’s the point."

He swung. Wild, raw, unchained. Not patterns, not logic. Just chaos.

The Pane roared as jagged arcs of light slashed across the silver ground. The cold self blocked, parried, countered—but for the first time, he had to adapt. His steps weren’t rehearsed now—they were reactive.

Selene’s breath caught. Her heart slammed against her ribs. "He’s forcing him off the script..."

The double growled low, his Thorn ringing violently. He pushed Ren back with a brutal shove and spun, blade slicing horizontally in a perfect arc—

—but Ren ducked under it, driving his shoulder into the double’s stomach. Both of them hit the ground hard, blades sparking as they locked in close combat.

Silver blood sprayed from Ren’s cut arm, but he didn’t let go. His smirk widened through the pain.

"You’re flawless... but you don’t bleed."

The double hissed, eyes burning like the Pane’s fractured moons. "Because bleeding is weakness."

Ren slammed his forehead into the double’s, stunning him for an instant.

"Because bleeding means I’m alive!"

The Pane shrieked.

A jagged light burst from Ren’s Thorn, splitting upward into the silver sky. The eyes above widened, countless crescents trembling as cracks spread across them.

Selene gasped, clutching her chest as her own reflection wavered in the shards around her. The ground beneath her fractured, showing glimpses of another world bleeding in—Ren’s bedroom mirror, faint and distorted. And within it, the silver-haired girl leaned closer, her lips brushing the glass as she whispered, "Closer... almost there..."

Ren and his double broke apart, both on their feet again. Both bloodied, both breathing hard.

The cold self wiped silver blood from his mouth, his calm façade finally cracking. For the first time, there was no perfection in his voice—only venom.

"You’ll burn everything, just to prove you’re different."

Ren’s grin was sharp, teeth flashing. His Thorn pulsed with chaotic, jagged light, humming with the echoes of every fragment he’d ever carried.

"Then let me burn you first."

The Pane screamed louder than ever, as if the duel itself was splitting reality apart.

The Pane trembled with each heartbeat, its endless surface rippling like a mirror on the verge of breaking. Shards of memory bled from the ground, twisting into warped reflections that staggered around the battlefield—half-formed figures of Ren’s past, laughing, crying, accusing.

The cold self moved through them like they were nothing, his Thorn slicing through every fragment with ruthless ease. His silver eyes never left Ren.

"You don’t belong here," he spat, his calm veneer gone, stripped raw. "You’re unstable. Incomplete. A distortion."

Ren wiped the blood from his mouth, chest heaving, every nerve burning. His Thorn pulsed jagged light, irregular and wild, but alive. "Yeah... I’m incomplete. That’s why I’m still moving."

The double surged forward, blade flashing—a perfect arc, lethal and absolute.

Ren met him head-on.

Their swords clashed, jagged chaos against flawless precision, each strike sending fractures spiraling across the Pane. The air screamed with the sound of splitting glass, thunder and lightning wrapped into one.

Selene pressed her back against a crumbling shard-wall, heart pounding as she watched. Her hands trembled, caught between terror and awe. She’d never seen Ren like this—never seen him so close to breaking, yet so alive.

The cold self shoved Ren down to one knee, Thorn aimed at his throat. "You are a mistake that should never have existed."

Ren looked up, smirking through the blood dripping down his chin. "Funny. I was just thinking the same about you."

With a roar, he let go of his blade with one hand, grabbing the double’s wrist. His other hand drove his jagged Thorn upward in a reckless arc—sloppy, unrefined, but full of brutal intent.

The cold self blocked it—almost.

The jagged edge tore across his shoulder, ripping silver blood into the air. For the first time, the perfect reflection bled.

The Pane howled. The countless eyes in the sky cracked, silver tears raining down.

The double staggered back, staring at the wound, disbelief breaking his features. "Impossible... you can’t wound me. I am the truth of you!"

Ren stood, blade trembling but burning bright. His grin was savage, teeth bared.

"Truth doesn’t bleed. Lies don’t bleed. I do. That’s what makes me real."

The shards of memory all around began to collapse inward, dragged toward the duel like gravity itself recognized the turning point. Selene’s reflection shattered, and she fell to her knees, clutching her chest as a silvery echo of herself screamed in silence before dissolving.

And in the waking world—inside Ren’s bedroom—the silver-haired girl pressed her hands against the mirror, eyes wide and hungry.

"Yes... break it. Shatter it all... and I’ll finally reach you."

Ren’s Thorn blazed with wild, jagged light, every crack in him becoming fuel. He charged, screaming, his strike messy and human—but unstoppable.

The double raised his sword in a flawless counter.

The Pane shattered.

Glass exploded outward in a storm of shards, fragments of sky, memory, and reflection tearing apart. The battlefield dissolved into a whirlpool of silver and black, dragging everything into the collapsing void.

Ren and his cold self clashed one final time, locked together in the maelstrom—two reflections, one jagged, one perfect—until the storm swallowed them both.

Selene’s voice pierced the chaos, raw with terror:

"REN!"

And then—silence.

Only the sound of dripping glass, and the faint whisper of the silver-haired girl from beyond the veil:

"Found you again..."