Celia’s eyes were already open.
A deep, abyssal blue, their color bleeding into the air, an unnatural frost creeping through the very particles of existence. But it wasn’t the frost that mattered.
It was what lay within her gaze.
The Door.
"I see it." Her voice carried a soft hum, almost a whisper, yet in the frozen, suspended mirrored world, it rang with an unnatural finality.
She smiled. Wide. "I see it."
She turned slightly, her gaze flickering toward Jess, who stood beside her, flames licking at her form, negating the space around her. Celia’s voice was firm, calm.
"Our way out."
And in that moment,
They were gone.
Hela’s breath caught.
Just a fraction of a second, the smallest, most imperceptible hitch.
But she knew.
They were no longer in her world.
Her rewind... her carefully constructed, inescapable loop space, had been abandoned.
CRACK.
A hairline fracture slithered across the rewind world’s sky. A thin, jagged line of blackness, as if something behind reality itself had splintered.
Hela’s lips parted, but she said nothing.
CRACK.
The fracture deepened. And from its depths.. cold.
Not ordinary cold. Not even something as trivial as absolute zero.
But absence.
Frost that was not frost.
A creeping, silent void that swallowed all meaning, all purpose, all function.
And it was spreading... like a tide unfolded...
The rewind world fractured as the corruption seeped through, an unrelenting force that did not attack, did not consume.. it simply existed.
And because it existed...
Nothing else could.
CRACK.
The world shattered.
R𝑒ad lat𝒆st chapt𝒆rs at free𝑤ebnovel.com Only.
Not with a roar. Not with destruction.
But with a quiet, final collapse.
And then,
ZOOOOOOM!...
Time lurched forward.
The rewind was undone. Or so it seemed.
The mirrored world snapped back to its original state.. before the ambush, before the rewind had begun. before everything..
The loose camp stood as it was, its darkened, distorted reflection flickering beneath the false light of the mirrored night sky. The embers of a dying fire pulsed faintly, casting sluggish, elongated shadows across the empty mirror loose camp ground.
For a moment, Hela remained still.
But it was then... She noticed.
Something was wrong.
Her breath steadied, her mind calculating. She glanced around, gaze sharp, scanning, searching.
But she was not in her mirage form.
And neither was Guoly.
They were not where they were supposed to be.
The ambush had been reset, but they had not been placed back into position.
A chill settled at the base of her spine, creeping upward, gnawing at the edges of her composure as in that moment... She saw it.
The fire.
The same loose campfire, flickering weakly in front of her. But its light was different. Diminished. The mirrored world had dimmed its glow, warped its warmth into something foreign, something unnatural.
And then realization dawned.
She was sitting.
The exact position Celia should have been in.
Her fingers curled slightly, an unconscious movement, as her gaze snapped to her side..
Where Celia’s teammate, Jess should have been.
She wasn’t there... but instead it was another person..
A corpse. A man’s corpse.
His head tilted at an unnatural angle, his lifeless eyes wide open.. dark blue. His black hair was disheveled, strands clinging to the dried blood on his skin. A rough beard traced his jaw, unkempt, wild, as if he had been left to rot in time itself.
Guoly.
Dead.
A silence deeper than the void itself settled over the camp.
Hela did not move.
She simply stared.
The air was thick. Suffocating.
And in that silence..
The weight of existence settled as Hela’s gaze lingered on the corpse a little while longer..
Unmoving.
Guoly.
She spoke his name, but her voice held no weight, no trembling grief, no fractured anger. Just a quiet utterance, like an afterthought, drifting into the cold, mirrored air. Yet.. deep in the depths of her irises, past the void-dark sheen that swallowed all reflections, there was a flicker.
An empty sadness.
A remnant of something human. Something that did not belong in a night like this.
She let out a breath.. long, steady. Her fingers twitched, barely noticeable, before she stretched out her right hand.
The air warped.
Not an ordinary distortion.. not heat, not pressure. It bent inwards, collapsed upon itself in absolute silence, a wound in space.
And from it, she pulled.
A shape emerged, shifting into form as she retracted her hand. Dark brown wood, its surface smoothed with age, yet still bearing the imperfections of something handmade.
A mug.
She turned it over, inspecting the faint traces of past use. The edges had been worn slightly, the wood darkened near the rim where liquid had soaked in too many times before.
Then, with her left hand, she reached again.. another tear in space.
This time, a bottle.
The glass was deep blue, its surface etched with markings that shimmered faintly under the dim, mirrored glow of the fire.
Hela uncorked it with a flick of her thumb.
The scent unfurled, subtle at first, then sharp, like overripe blueberries, sweet but with a biting undercurrent of something sour, something fermented too long in silence.
She poured.
The liquid cascaded smoothly, pooling into the mug with an almost luminescent glow.
A pause.
Then, she lifted it to her lips.
The first sip.. short, calculated. Testing.
The second sip was longer, drawn out. Letting the warmth settle, letting the bitterness bite.
Then, without hesitation, she poured another.
A quiet rhythm. A ritual, perhaps.
Crossing her legs, she leaned back slightly, the tension in her shoulders unwinding just enough to suggest something close to acceptance.
"You can come out now." She said, her voice was smooth, unhurried.
"I won’t fight you."
She exhaled through her nose, a small, almost amused sound escaping as she tilted her head slightly.
"I give up, alright?"
The air shifted.
Not like before... not a distortion in space, but a presence pressing against reality, peeling back the unseen layers between worlds.
Across the flickering campfire, where the darkness had once stretched undisturbed, two figures emerged.
One.. white hair, long and untouched by time, cascading like strands of silk in the dim, fractured light. Her eyes, deep blue, vast as the calm abyss, held no immediate emotion, yet there was something unyielding behind them. A presence that did not bend, did not falter.
Celia.
Beside her, the second figure.
Red hair, burning even in the muted world. Her deep orange eyes gleamed with something raw, something smoldering beneath the surface.... Jess.
The fire crackled between them.
Hela’s lips curved, slow, intentional.
Then... she raised her hand in a small, lazy wave.
"Well, look who we have here."
Her grin widened, a sharp crescent against the dim glow.
"Yoo-hoo." Hela’s voice rang, drifted only by the mirrored loose camp air..
Celia and Jess said nothing.
They sat across the flickering campfire, unmoving, untouched by the slow crawl of time in this fractured place. Their gazes bore down on her.... unreadable, yet heavy, pressing against the stillness like a weight waiting to settle.
Hela let out a small breath, shifting slightly in the log beneath, where she sat. The wooden mug in her hand tilted just enough to let the liquid swirl, catching the dim glow of the flames as it moved.
"Not even a reply, huh?"
She spoke with the ease of someone used to silence. It didn’t bother her. Not really.
Bringing the cup to her lips, she took another sip... longer this time, letting the warmth burn at the back of her throat before she pulled it away with a quiet sigh.
Then, with a casual flick of her wrist, she lifted the cup slightly, tilting it just enough for the liquid inside to catch the firelight.
"Want a drink?"
A simple offer. A meaningless gesture.
She gave the cup a small shake, watching as the liquid swayed within its confines, a rhythmic motion, steady, unhurried.
Celia, still watching her, leaned forward slightly. The mirrored flames cast shifting shadows across her face, making the blue of her eyes seem darker, colder.
"Pass."
Her voice didn’t waver.
A pause. a lingering paused before a voice. "Why?"
Not just a question. A demand.
Celia eyes didn’t leave Hela, the intensity behind them was palpable.
"Why did you do this?"
The words hung between them, stretching into the quiet.
Hela tilted her head slightly, the movement lazy, unbothered.
"Why?"
She echoed the word, rolling it over her tongue, testing its weight before answering.
"Because I wanted to. That’s why."
She said it simply, as if it required no further explanation.
Celia’s gaze didn’t shift, didn’t falter.
"Still wrong."
Hela stilled for a fraction of a second.
A flicker of something passed through her expression.. not quite surprise, but something adjacent, something close.
Her lips parted slightly before curling into a slow smirk, one that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
"Oh?"
She sat straight, shifting the cup in her grip, letting her fingers tap absently against the wood.
"And how exactly am I wrong, princess?"
The title was spoken with deliberate amusement, the kind that didn’t need to be loud to feel condescending.
"You don’t seem like that kind of person." She said calmly, her words were steady. Not sharp, not accusing... just certain.
"You try to act like you are, but it feels forced."
Upon hearing this, Hela stilled.
Then... she laughed.
A short, dry sound. No real humor, just a scoff of disbelief.
"Speak for yourself."
She took another sip, slower this time, eyes half-lidded as the liquid burned down her throat.
Then, as she lowered the mug, her voice dropped... not in volume, but in weight.
"Do you think anyone would survive if you didn’t do things beyond just humanity?"
A whisper. Almost to herself.
She let out a slow breath, barely more than an exhale, before taking another sip.
Celia said nothing.
Because she understood... Everything.
The silence stretched on, the fire crackled between them as everyone stared at the it, quiet...
For that moment... it was enough...