The Return Of The Exiled Villain

"Dammit, dammit!"

Gray scratched his head intensely, his eyes scanning the riddle over and over again. And yet, he still couldn't figure out the meaning.

Thankfully, the hourglass seemed not to have activated.

"Think... THINK!"

He nervously continued glancing at the hourglass.

"I do not speak, yet I answer all..." he murmured.

"No breath... but reveals truth... ends confusion…"

His eyes glanced from the hourglass to the glowing symbols. There were ten tiles, ten elements, and exactly ten chances to guess wrong.

"A voice that doesn't speak... guides kings, but blinds gods…"

His eyes slowly widened.

"...A mirror..."

"Yes! A freaking mirror! That fucking makes sense!"

He looked again at the symbols on the floor.

Fire, Earth, Water, Air, Shadow, Light, Time, Space, Life, and Death.

None of them were labeled "mirror," obviously.

"So which of these represents the mirror's nature...?"

His breath quickened.

And suddenly...

Click!

The hourglass clicked.

Time had begun.

Tik, tok!

Tik, tok!

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK! Alright, think! Which one…? Mirror... reflection... truth... deception... vision…"

He looked at the Light tile.

"Light... it needs light to reflect. But it's not light itself."

Then his gaze moved to Shadow.

"Shadow... exists because of reflection. But that's too symbolic."

And then, his eyes stopped on the Time tile.

"Wait... what did it say? 'Ends confusion... begins madness…' 'Linger too long...'"

His face darkened as some memories surfaced.

"Yeah. That's a mirror, alright. You look at yourself long enough, you lose yourself. Just like memories. Just like regret."

His eyes turned to the tile with the Time symbol, glowing soft white.

"Time reflects us. Just... in the other direction."

But doubt clawed at him. If he was wrong... he could possible die.

TIK, TOK!

The hourglass ticked louder.

He stepped toward the Time tile.

"If I'm wrong, I die... but if I'm right..."

He closed his eyes.

And stepped onto the symbol.

...

...

CLICK.

Nothing happened.

Clunk!

Suddenly, the hourglass tipped sideways, and the silver sand began to fall once again.

Directly after, from the floor in front of him, another tablet rose slowly.

[Correct.]

[But the answer alone is not enough.]

The air rippled violently, and the chamber shook.

RUMMMMBLE!!

From the shadows, walls began to shift as massive stone slabs rotated, revealing five identical paths.

Each had a dark hallway, disappearing into pitch blackness.

Each was marked with the same riddle glyphs.

The hourglass flipped again.

Ten minutes.

Again.

A second riddle scrawled itself across the new stone slab, glowing with faint gold fire.

"I am not alive, but I grow.

I do not breathe, but I need air.

I have no mouth, but water kills me."

Gray's face instantly twisted at the riddle.

"Another riddle... and five doors this time? You fucking bastards…"

His eyes flicked between the paths and the glowing script.

"Not alive... but it grows... no breath... but needs air... dies with water..."

His eyes flared... metaphorically, of course.

"Fire."

"It's fire."

He spun around. One of the five paths had the Fire glyph marked faintly above it, carved into the stone like a hidden hint.

He grinned, blood still dripping from his chin.

"You almost got me, assholes."

He limped forward, muttering.

"If this next hallway turns into a furnace, I swear I'll bite a god…" He crossed into the second passage, and just as he passed through the threshold...

THUNK!

The door sealed shut.

"Fuuu... that was easier than I thought," he sighed in relief.

But as he looked around, his lips instantly twitched.

"These fuckers..."

Because... the riddle trial was far from over.

And now, the hallway was made of mirrors.

There were hundreds of them, and in every single one... Gray saw a different version of himself.

Smiling.

Dead.

Screaming.

Laughing.

Crying.

Each one moving just slightly out of sync with his actual body.

"...Oh." He stopped.

"So this is what the riddle meant."

And suddenly, the air turned colder, and the light dimmed slightly. From somewhere, a faint laughter echoed through the room.

"Ah... fuck no."

And then, from the far end of the mirrored hallway... something began to move.

Something shaped like him.

Step, step, step...!

And it approached him slowly.

He had the same rapier on his waist, the same milky white skin, and a face that should've been Gray's.

Only it wasn't.

Its smile was too wide, its gaze far too still, and its body completely mimicked every injury Gray had suffered, bloody ribs, busted lip, torn coat, but it moved like none of that mattered.

"Great. Now the dungeon's trying to get poetic with me," Gray muttered bitterly, tightening his grip on the rapier.

The hallway around him shimmered with perfect, cruel reflections, creating an infinite maze of mirrors, each echoing that same twisted version of himself.

The creature stopped about ten paces away.

And then... it spoke.

"Poor little Gray," it whispered, voice distorted like glass grinding on bone.

"You gave everything... and they threw you away."

Gray narrowed his eyes.

"You're not me."

The thing smiled wider.

"No, of course I'm not. I'm what you could be if you stopped pretending."

It stepped forward, and in response, Gray stepped back.

"Okay, okay... It's trying to get in my head," he whispered to himself.

"That means it's not just brute force. It's testing my thinking. My stability, my willpower." His eyes turned to the side.

Endless mirrors, a smooth stone floor, and no obvious traps.

But the hallway itself...

It was slightly sloped.

Barely noticeable, but sloped nonetheless.

"The hallway's not straight…"

He looked up, and his eyes widened slightly.

There was no ceiling, just a dark glass above.

"So that's it… this is one of those illusion-based loops. The creature isn't real, it's an anchor!"

"And the mirrors... they're watching how I react. If I fight it directly, I'll lose. It's probably designed to be stronger than me. But if I outmaneuver it...!"

The reflection lunged.

FWOOP!

Gray ducked, letting the creature's slash go wide, then darted backward into the mirrors, blade still sheathed.

"Can't fight head-on. But if this is a mental maze… then I need to change the reflection."

He looked into a mirror on his left.

In it, his reflection was moving just half a second ahead of his real body.

"Delayed… no, accelerated. This one predicts me."

He glanced to the right.

That one was slower.

"That means some mirrors are echoing real time. Some are messing with my brain. Fuck... this is so tricky!"

He spun and reached forward.

CRACK—!

He punched the "delayed" mirror.

The glass cracked, taking the shape of a spider's web.

Behind it, there was complete darkness.

He slowly reached into the empty frame.

Wind.

Cold air blew across his hand.

"A vent? Hidden behind the mirror...?"

And just at that moment, he heard a faint sound.

The creature's steps.

And they were too close to him.

"FUCK!"

Gray dove sideways just as a blade of shadow slashed across where his head had been.

SWISH!!

He slammed into another mirror, but didn't fall. Instead, he stood, now covered in shattered reflections, his hand bleeding from the punch.

His eyes turned to his reflection again.

This one… wasn't smiling.

It looked scared.

"...This one's real."

He moved backward, watching carefully the reflection.

The reflection didn't follow.

"This is the only non-illusion mirror. The rest are manipulating emotion, direction, even pain perception…"

His lips twisted into a grin.

"You tried to fuck with the wrong lunatic."

Then he sprinted.

Swoop!

Straight toward a set of rapidly shifting mirrors.

SWISH!

CLANG!

The creature chased him, fast and silent, now howling with a soundless scream.

Gray weaved through the shifting path, making sure to dodge every single attack, almost calculating every single step he took.

He stepped only in front of mirrors where his reflection hesitated, stumbled, or faltered.

"Hesitation means delay. Delay means it's feeding off my doubt. I just need to find one that responds exactly in sync!"

He quickly looked around, and soon enough, he found it.

One mirror.

As he passed, the reflection moved perfectly with him.

He had the same eyes, the same wounds... he wasn't smiling at all.

Just calm.

Gray skidded to a stop, spun on one foot, and yanked the mirror down with both hands.

CRAAAASH—!!!

The floor behind it caved.

"This...?"

An altar.

It was so old that it was covered in dust, probably the kind one uses to end a trial.

But before he could reach it—

The creature pounced.

It screamed this time, a soundless, hateful howl, its face shifting into countless failed versions of Gray in rapid succession.

"YOU ARE NOTHING!! YOU WERE NOTHING!! YOU WILL ALWAYS—"

Gray threw his rapier like a spear—

THUNK!

The blade embedded into the wall beside the altar, just barely missing the creature's eye as it charged.

But it was a distraction as Gray wasn't aiming to kill.

He just needed a second. He grabbed one of the broken mirror shards from the ground and angled it upward.

"Let's see how you like your own mind, bastard."

The creature lunged.

Gray stepped aside and held up the mirror.

The creature's gaze landed directly on it.

And almost immediately...

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

It screamed.

Its own twisted reflection hit it like fire.

It shattered apart, limbs breaking like glass under pressure, its form unraveling with the sound of howling wind.

And just after, there was complete silence.

"Haah... damn fuckers..."

Gray stood still, breath ragged, blood pouring from his hand, ribs on fire.

But the trial...

It was finally over.

The altar glowed, and suddenly, the ground shifted again. A spiral staircase unfurled from the altar, leading downward into deeper blackness.

Gray didn't smile.

He couldn't.

He was shaking too hard.

But he looked down the stairs with burning eyes.

"…That's two."

"Bring on the next."