The mirror pulsed once—then again, deeper this time. The ripple grew into a whirl, and the ancient frame groaned under invisible pressure. Then, with a sound like cracking ice, a figure began to emerge.
It didn't walk—it spilled forward like shadow-glass, humanoid in shape but made of liquid darkness rimmed in violet light. Its face was a mask of shifting silver, featureless and smooth.
Azlin stepped back instinctively, breath catching. "That's not a construct. That's a memory-wraith. Ancient… corrupted."
The creature turned to them with no eyes, yet still seeing.
Rania blinked. "It's ugly. Nagara, handle it."
"I was going to," Nagara snapped, stepping forward. "Stop acting like this is afternoon tea."
"I would be having tea if you stopped shouting," she murmured, fanning herself with her sleeve.
The wraith let out a chime-like hiss and rushed forward, faster than expected.
Nagara reacted instantly, summoning ice in a sharp wall that shattered the floor and redirected the strike. The impact rocked the corridor.
Azlin chanted quietly, tracing glyphs into the dirt with his fingertip. "If I can pin it with its own magic—I need time."
"Buy it," Nagara growled. "I'll hold it."
The wraith swept around the corner, slashing with blade-like limbs, and Nagara met it head-on. Water and ice clashed with shimmering shadow, each strike sending crackles through the air.
"Rania!" he shouted over his shoulder. "If you're going to order people around, at least pretend to help!"
She didn't even flinch. "Oh, I am helping. I'm staying out of the way."
Azlin's voice rose. "Done!"
A blast of silver sigils shot out from the glyphs, wrapping the wraith in glowing chains. It shrieked, writhing—but bound. For now.
Nagara stepped back, breathing hard, his frost flickering along his jawline.
Rania smiled faintly. "Well done, boys. I knew you had it handled."
"Next time, I am leaving you behind," Nagara muttered.
"Duh, I'm giving you the spotlight," Rania responded calmly.
Azlin watched the chains pulse with a distant look in his eyes. "This ruin… wasn't random. Lazlark sent us here to test us. Or warn us."
Nagara's breath slowed. "Then consider us tested."
They left the ruin at dusk, shadows long and silence heavier than before.
And somewhere in the broken seal of the mirror, a single crack appeared, unseen by any of them.
The air grew colder. The cracked mirror in the ancient ruin began to bleed shadows—tendrils of dark mist curling like smoke laced with screams. Nagara took a step back and attack it with the ice.
"Don't touch it," Azlin warned softly, reading the shifting glyphs on the floor. "The wards are breaking."
Too late.
With a splintering howl, something surged out.
A Black Jinn—twisted, malformed, its body writhing like living smoke stitched together by teeth and molten bone. It towered above them, eyes glowing with cruel red light, pure negative energy dripping from its presence.
Rania, standing safely behind a cracked pillar.
"Oh. This seems unpleasant."
"Stay back!" Nagara barked, stepping forward, water and frost igniting in both palms.
The Jinn snarled, and the air rippled with its hatred. Its focus, at first, was on Nagara—recognizing power. They clashed—flame and frost against void and rot. Magic collided, warping the ground. The ruin trembled.
But then… it shifted.
The Jinn stopped.
And turned toward Azlin.
Azlin froze—eyes wide, breath caught.
"Why—" he began.
The Jinn screeched, and before anyone could react, it lunged—faster than thought—and wrapped itself in a vortex of shadow around Azlin's chest.
"Nagara!" Azlin screamed, clawing at his own ribs, falling to his knees.
Nagara moved, but the shadows pulsed—thump-thump-thump—a heartbeat of dark energy that knocked him back.
Azlin's body arched, then twisted violently.
"Azlin!" Rania cried—not with fear, but a rare sharpness in her voice.
The shadows burrowed into Azlin's skin, his veins turning black and his irises fading to silver-blue. His glasses cracked and fell. His mouth opened but no words came—only a low, choked gasp.
And then, silence.
The Black Jinn was gone.
And Azlin knelt at the center of the ruin, trembling, head bowed—his aura completely changed.
Nagara slowly stood. "Azlin...?"
Azlin looked up.
But the boy who looked back was not Azlin.
At least—not completely.
…
Azlin slowly rose, his once-soft green eyes now swallowed in pure black, rimmed with shadow. A sinister grin tugged at the corners of his mouth—wrong in every way.
"Azlin?" Nagara stepped forward cautiously.
The figure turned to Rania.
"Such a pretty one," he hissed in a voice that wasn't Azlin's. "So fragile... so breakable."
Then, without warning, he lunged.
A wave of dark energy spiraled toward Rania like a blade of air and shadow.
Nagara surged forward, intercepting it with a barrier of crackling frost. The impact knocked him back, sliding across stone, but Rania was unharmed.
"Get behind me!" Nagara barked, eyes burning.
But Rania… had changed.
She stood tall now, veil of apathy lifted. Her golden eyes were focused, calm—but sharpened like tempered steel. "He's possessed," she said coldly, voice like glass over fire. "Not Azlin. Something's inside him."
The possessed Azlin tilted his head, smirking. "Smart girl."
Then he laughed—low and cruel. "This boy… this weak, desperate shell—how boring he is… but the soul inside? Ancient. Tired. Worn."
He turned toward Nagara again. "You… you smell like fire and blood. You're still whole. But this one…" He tapped his own chest mockingly. "An aging soul trapped in a brittle body."
Nagara froze. "What… do you mean?"
The Jinn inside Azlin looked confused for a moment, then amused. "He doesn't even know."
His hands lifted, and dark magic erupted, slamming toward Nagara in spirals of corrupted flame and violet lightning. The floor cracked, ancient glyphs shattering.
Nagara barely dodged—his cheek grazed by shadow-fire. "This isn't him. This isn't Azlin."
"I know," Rania said, voice still even, but her hands subtly drawing sigils near her side. "But if you don't stop him, he'll kill you."
Nagara gritted his teeth.
The true fight had just begun.