The Mirror failed to reflect anything but the 11-year-old prodigy.
Darcie Malfoy stared at herself, her lips arching up with every second. There was a great sense of accomplishnt in a re reflection, she realized.
This is hard, Kai thought, frowning within. Hanging between the boundary of Facelessness.
Kai had attempted it before, but not to this extent. Acting as both Darcie Malfoy and himself while wearing her face...
This was one of the ways Kai had devised to push his mastery over the Three Contrasts of the Faceless by another degree.
No Faceless Man, whether a Contestant or Character, would reject him being one of them now.
However, it wasn't in Kai's nature to be content with the current power he held.
Any power that he couldn't push further was never true power, to begin with.
Kai stared at the Mirror, then. He walked around it, observing it from all angles, and then returned to his starting position.
Hmm... Kai brooded, holding his chin. Nothing. Not even the barest hint of Black's presence on or within it. What actually happened?!
Kai wasn't overly worried about Black.
Worse ca to Worse, he would just use D-Mail.
For now, he knew that if Black purposefully took risks then the Ad Infinitum believed that Kai could gain major rewards through them.
Otherwise, the AI would have never allowed the Item to go through with it without informing Kai first as the two were still not in Synchronization.
"Thinking of playing with ti again?" Darcie's voice buzzed in Kai's ears.
Kai's head snapped up. His heart almost skipped a beat.
There she was, looking back at him — Darcie Malfoy, the Celebrity of the Wizarding World.
Even if he couldn't access his Stats with this face, he could still guess the true identity of the person smiling at him from the other side of the mirror.
"Tiline..." Kai worded, his poisonous, green pupils shaking.
By now, Kai had already confird many things related to the Deep Ones, Tilines, and organizations that remained out of the tilines as Overseers.
It was especially so after he regained his sealed mories.
There was a symbiotic relationship between the Tilines, the Bubble Entities, and an Outer One with the authority over Crawling Chaos — Nyarlathotep.
Neither the Tilines nor the Bubble Entities favored each other. And both didn't tolerate an Outer One's presence.
However, their presence in the Random World was just too crucial for their mutual existence.
The Tilines needed Bubble Entities for the potential invasion of an Outer One, who could cause invariable resonances between the tilines of different Random Worlds.
Such a process could render the tilines of both Random Worlds useless; dead, to be precise, birthing sothing new; an abomination.
The Bubble Entities needed the Tilines to replicate the Concept of Infinity; the source of their powers. They extracted their powers from Pillars, Mirrors, and Keys, becoming Unique and Infinite.
Regardless of their intentions, the existence of tilines was irreplaceable for them.
And, if a Tiline sohow tried to elevate its existence, without becoming an abomination, then it needed the help of external influence to bring out an early Karmic Dissolution.
That's where Nyarlathotep ca into the picture.
As such, the Bubble Entity too tolerated such an Outer One's existence.
Yet, these all also acted as Parasites, feeding off each other.
That's why, in the case of Tilines, the less the Bubble Entities, the better. And in the case of the Deep Ones, the fewer variations in the Tilines, the better.
Nyarlathotep's existence was already unique if such an Outer One ever ca into being.
Standing on the opposite spectrum of these symbiotic eldritch entities were Overseer-like Organizations.
The Tilines tolerated such things because, more often than not, they couldn't interfere with the fate of their own Characters; in turn, they also couldn't control any variations in those fates.
The Bubble Entities tolerated them for the sa reason.
However, both Deep Ones and the Tilines remained wary of them, too, because of their potential and the beings who were such Organizations' mbers.
But, unlike Bubble Entities and Tilines, the Overseer-like Organizations abhorred the presence of an Outer One.
In the case of The Order Of The Immortal Lotus, this was the sa. Not to ntion, they didn't even know that the Outer One who had invaded their Bubble was not just an Outer One, but Nyarlathotep!
Darcie looked at her reflection gaining an eldritch vibe. "What do you an?"
The Tiline chuckled. "Your precious Item doesn't exist in past, present, or future... anywhere."
Kai scoffed the mont he heard those words.
Then his heart skipped another beat.
The Ad Infinitum had just generated a possibility that he had buried deep within himself. His deepest desire ca bubbling out, nauseating him to the greatest extent.
"Desires are not so innocent as people think them to be," Darcie's reflection told him, a small smile hanging on her lips. "Do you understand?"
Kai couldn't give two fucks to the Tiline right now.
He was busy working on theories and possibilities of Black seeing his deepest desire co true through the Mirror.
The Conclusion left him breathless.
Kai narrowed his eyes at the girl in the Mirror, regaining his breath after a while. "Why are you here? What's in it for you?"
Of course, Kai had already figured that the Tiline must have co to him because IT knew how to bring Black back.
"So Bugs have invaded ," Tiline said, her voice chilling the bones. "I want them gone. Their presence here is against the Great Old Contract."
Bugs? Kai frowned.
Then he rembered. Those presences Black had sensed which then the AI had shared with him.
Contestants!
Kai had always wondered how they teleported to the tiline without him getting to know about it. Now he believed they had descended into the tiline through unconventional ans.
But, he felt sothing fishy.
"What does it matter?" Kai asked. "Invasion or not, Bugs are Bugs. I refuse to believe that you can't deal with them yourself."
Darcie's reflection scoffed. "My existence is at a delicate point. Any montary weakness can push back to being a re Mirror. That's where you co in, Nyarlathotep. If you want your precious Item back, then help deal with them."
For a mont, Kai wanted to reject the Tiline.
However, if he was right, then Kai might not be able to regain Black... like ever. If even reversing ti failed, then there were little things that could bring what didn't exist in ti itself.
"I have conditions," Kai said.
"Of course, you have."
Kai ignored the blatant sarcasm. "First, I want to know what exactly happened with Black," he said, lifting his fingers one by one. "Second, I want to understand how the Mirror works. Third, I want to know how to make the Mirror mine."
Kai was interested in anything that could bypass his mindscape.
For the Mirror to break through his AI's defense and access his deepest desire, it might lead to unexplored possibilities to further advance the Ad Infinitum, increasing its Proficiency.
"You demand as if you can easily kill those Bugs," Darcie's reflection chuckled.
"...?" Kai shrugged. Why wouldn't he think that? They were just Contestants. Once he went all out, he could take care of any Bugs, no matter how powerful.
He was the Supre Protector!
The Tiline lifted her fingers one by one, starting with her thumb. "First, you should have asked what it ans to invade a Tiline. Second, you should have asked what it ans to go against the Great Old Contract. Third..."
The Tiline closed the thumb and forefinger and then opened up her middle finger.
"... Third, you should have asked are you strong enough to survive against those Bugs."
**************
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100 Power Stones: 1 Bonus Chapter
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