CHAPTER 60: CHAPTER 60 – “THE BLADE THAT BREAKS CONSEQUENCE”

The sound came first.

A low, bone-deep groan, like mountains grinding against each other. The Pane wasn’t just cracking anymore—it was trembling.

Ren’s Thorn still burned in his grip, silver veins racing up his arm, but even the weapon seemed uncertain. The girl beyond the glass—his consequence—stood calm in the chaos, her shards swirling like a constellation gone mad.

"Do you feel it?" she asked. Her voice was low, nearly drowned out by the rumbling around them. "The Pane isn’t watching anymore. It’s breaking."

Ren spat blood onto the fractured floor and raised his weapon. "Good. Let it fall apart."

Her eyes softened, almost pitying. "You don’t understand. If the Pane collapses, everything it holds collapses too. Including you. Including me."

The world screamed.

The ground cracked open beneath Ren’s boots, silver rivers of reflection pouring upward, defying gravity. Shards of the void fell and rose at the same time, warping space until forward and backward became the same motion.

Ren clenched his jaw. "Then we fight until there’s nothing left to collapse."

But before he could strike—something else happened.

The air rippled. A pulse surged through the Pane, and for an instant, Ren saw both worlds.

—The Mirror World collapsing in spirals of glass.

—And his room in the waking world, the cracked mirror glowing like a wound.

And in that reflection—someone was staring back.

A girl with long silver hair. The one who whispered "Found you again, Ren".

But this time, she wasn’t just watching.

She pressed her palm against the glass from the waking side—and the mirror rippled outward, trying to pull her in.

Ren’s eyes widened. "Her..."

The consequence girl tilted her head, silver gaze flickering. "An echo..." she murmured. "Another one that slipped through."

The Pane shook again, violently enough to throw Ren to one knee. The shards orbiting the consequence girl spasmed, losing formation. For the first time, she looked unsteady.

Ren forced himself upright, glaring between the girl beyond the glass and the rippling image of the silver-haired girl trying to enter from the waking world.

"What happens if she breaks through?" he demanded.

The consequence girl didn’t answer. Her silence was louder than any truth.

The Pane groaned louder, fractures splitting across the sky like veins of lightning.

And then—for the first time since stepping into the Mirror World—Ren felt something he hadn’t before.

Air.

Real, cold air.

The walls between worlds weren’t just cracking. They were thinning.

The consequence girl stepped forward, her expression unreadable. "Ren... if she crosses, neither of us will remain what we are."

Her words hung heavy.

And in the waking world, the silver-haired girl smiled faintly, her palm still pressed against the mirror.

"Almost there," she whispered. "Almost with you again."

Ren’s grip on the Thorn tightened. His heartbeat thundered in his chest.

The Pane was trembling.

The two girls—one inside, one outside—were converging.

And Ren was the only constant tying it all together.

The choice wasn’t just fight or flee anymore.

It was who he would let through.

Ren didn’t hesitate.

His eyes locked on the consequence girl—the embodiment of what his choices had birthed. Whatever the silver-haired figure outside wanted, whatever she was whispering, Ren knew one thing: this girl before him was his responsibility.

The Pane trembled like a living thing as he surged forward, Thorn blazing silver.

The consequence girl raised her hand, shards whirling into a storm around her. They weren’t random anymore—they were forming shapes. Wings of jagged glass unfurled from her back, gleaming like a fallen angel forged from reflection.

"You won’t win this way," she said softly, though her voice carried the weight of thunder. "I am not your enemy. I am your mirror."

Ren snarled. "Then shatter!"

He swung.

The Thorn cleaved downward, trailing a streak of silver fire that split the air. The wing of shards intercepted, sparks and fragments exploding in every direction. Each shard that fell didn’t just cut the ground—it opened brief flashes of his own memories.

—His first time standing before the Pane, unaware of what it demanded.

—The faces of those who followed him into rebellion.

—The moment he first doubted himself.

They flickered like knives across his vision, threatening to blur his focus. But Ren gritted his teeth, refusing to look away.

The consequence girl advanced, shards swirling tighter, each movement perfectly measured. Her strikes weren’t wild—they were surgical. Every thrust of her glass-wing blades angled not to kill him outright, but to force him to see himself.

Ren dodged one, countered with the Thorn, sparks blinding.

"You think you’re truth," Ren spat between swings. "But you’re just a cage. A reminder someone forced on me."

Her expression didn’t waver. For the first time, though, her voice trembled.

"A reminder... or a warning?"

Ren lunged, feinting left then twisting right, Thorn cutting through her guard. For a moment—just a moment—the wing shattered, shards scattering into the void.

She staggered.

Ren pressed forward, fury blazing in his chest. The Pane above screamed louder, fractures widening like open wounds. The girl outside pressed harder against the mirror, her image rippling, but Ren didn’t turn to look.

"Warning or not," Ren growled, "I don’t bow to my consequences."

He raised the Thorn high, ready to drive it down.

The consequence girl met his gaze with silver eyes that no longer looked calm—no longer looked detached. They were pained, human, almost... pleading.

"If you destroy me..." she whispered, voice barely audible beneath the Pane’s roar, "you destroy yourself too."

The Thorn froze mid-swing. His pulse thundered.

Was she bluffing? Or was this the truth of the Pane?

The world quaked harder, silver rivers rising into the sky, shards spinning out of control. The two girls—the one within and the one beyond—were converging, their existences trembling on the edge of collapse.

Ren’s next strike would decide everything.

The Thorn trembled in Ren’s grip, silver fire running up his arms like veins set ablaze. The Pane howled above, the cracks branching deeper, light and shadow spilling through like wounds in reality.

The consequence girl stood before him, wings half-shattered, her breath uneven, yet her voice steady.

"If you strike me down, Ren... you cut down your own truth. You will not escape what you are. You will only... destroy yourself."

For a heartbeat, he faltered. The words pressed against his chest like a weight.

But then he gritted his teeth, every memory, every scar, every betrayal flashing like lightning in his mind. He saw the rebellion’s faces. The blood he had already shed. The paths burned behind him.

"I don’t care," Ren whispered, and the Thorn pulsed, responding to his resolve. His voice rose, cracked with fury.

"I don’t care if I cut myself down. I don’t care if this ends me. What I won’t do... is bow to the cage you call truth!"

And with that, he struck.

The Thorn came down in a silver arc that seemed to split the Pane itself. The consequence girl raised her remaining wing in a desperate guard—but the blade cut straight through.

The world screamed.

The shards exploded outward like a storm of razors, cutting across the air, the ground, even the Pane above. Each shard carried a piece of Ren’s reflection, his failures, his choices—splintering into nothingness.

The girl gasped, a sound like glass breaking. Her form flickered, fragments of her body scattering into shards of silver light. She reached out, fingers trembling, as if she wanted to touch him one last time.

"You... chose this," she whispered, her voice dissolving into static. "Then may your reflection... bleed forever."

Her hand never reached him. Her body shattered fully, dispersing into a thousand fragments that were swallowed by the storm.

Ren staggered back, chest heaving, the Thorn still glowing, dripping with shards that melted into silver fire. For a moment, silence fell.

Then the Pane roared.

It was no longer trembling—it was breaking. The cracks spread like wildfire, lines of light racing outward. Rivers of liquid mirror poured from the sky, flooding the space. The Pane was collapsing under the weight of his defiance.

Ren looked up, sweat and blood mixing on his skin, eyes blazing.

"Then let it break," he snarled. "If I fall with it, so be it."

But the world wasn’t done with him yet.

From beyond the Pane, the other silver-haired girl—her hands pressed desperately against the barrier—suddenly screamed. Her voice pierced through the shattering storm.

"REN!"

Her palms broke through. Cracks spiderwebbed out from where she touched, and her arms reached in. The collapsing Pane bent around her, as though it feared her touch.

Ren’s breath caught. The consequence girl was gone—but this other one was forcing her way into his broken reflection.

The shards around him shifted. They weren’t showing his failures anymore. They showed her. Her face, her eyes, her outstretched hand.

The storm of fragments twisted violently, half-devouring itself, half-reshaping into something new. The Pane groaned like a dying god.

Ren tightened his grip on the Thorn, his heart hammering. He had struck down consequence itself. And now, in its wake, something else—something far more dangerous—was being born.

The Pane split one final time, a fracture so wide it felt like the sky was tearing open. Through it, the girl’s figure blazed with silver fire, her hair like a comet, her voice steady despite the chaos:

"You broke it, Ren. Now you’ll face what comes next."

The shards rained down like meteors. The Pane howled its death. And Ren, standing in the storm, raised the Thorn defiantly.

"I’ll face anything," he growled. "So come through."

The mirror world answered.