The "unmarked" stealth ships didn't stay hidden for long. As the Mining Guild freighters—massive, lumbering hulks filled with raw ore—approached the Steel Reef's gravity well, the void behind them seemed to bleed.
"Three... no, six signatures," Vanya reported, her voice as cold as the ice she was named for. "They aren't Imperial. These are 'Void-Wraiths,' the elite mercenaries of the High Inquisitor. They aren't here to talk, Lord Captain. They've already locked their phase-missiles on our mining ships."
"They want to starve us out before we can process the ore," Lin Feng mused, watching the tactical display. "But they've made one fatal mistake."
"What's that, Boss?" Kara asked, her hand already hovering over the launch button for her new mecha.
"They think they're the only monsters in this sector."
The Shadow from the Deep
Just as the mercenaries prepared to fire, the local space began to groan. A massive, localized warp-rift opened—not with the clean blue light of a ship's engine, but with a sickening, oily purple tear in reality.
Out of the rift slid a nightmare. It was a World-Eater Worm, a biological disaster three hundred kilometers long, covered in plates of chitin that could deflect battleship-grade lasers. Its mouth was a swirling vortex of teeth capable of grinding moons into dust.
"An Abyssal Behemoth!" Lilith hissed, her wings flaring. "The Inquisitor must have lured it here with a beacon! They want the monster to do their dirty work!"
The mercenary ships quickly darted behind the beast, using its massive bulk as a shield. They planned to let the worm destroy the Steel Reef, then scavenge the remains.
"Lord Captain, we should retreat into the station's inner ring!" Vanya urged. "The station's shields won't hold against a direct ramming from a creature of that mass!"
"Retreat?" Lin Feng stood up, the Mirror Locket erupting with a blinding, violet light. "This isn't a disaster, Vanya. It's a delivery."
The Mirror of the Beast
Lin Feng stepped toward the massive observation window, his hand outstretched toward the approaching monster.
"Locket! Level 3 Sync!" he roared. "Don't just scan the metal—scan the life! Bio-Organic Refraction!"
[Target: Abyssal World-Eater (S-Rank) Detected.]
[DNA Chain Sequenced... 100%]
[Warning: Massive Soul Energy Drain. Converting Mining Ore to Energy...]
[Mirroring Initialized!]
The raw Star-Iron inside the Mining Guild's freighters began to vanish, converted into pure energy by the Locket's power. In the void between the Steel Reef and the monster, space began to ripple and fold.
To the horror of the mercenaries, ten identical ripples appeared.
Suddenly, the original World-Eater wasn't alone. Ten "Mirror-Behemoths"—perfect copies made of a strange, translucent silver-chitin—materialized out of thin air. They didn't have the hunger of the original; they had the cold, tactical mind of Lin Feng.
"Eat," Lin Feng commanded.
The ten Mirror-Behemoths lunged. The original worm, confused and outnumbered, tried to roar, but it was instantly swarmed by its own likenesses. They tore into the original beast with coordinated precision, their silver teeth glowing with energy.
The Mercenaries' End
The Void-Wraith mercenaries tried to warp away, but the space was already too cluttered with the massive bodies of the behemoths. One mercenary cruiser was swallowed whole by a Mirror-Worm; another was crushed like a soda can by a silver tail-fin.
Within minutes, the original World-Eater was nothing but a floating cloud of bio-matter, and the "unbeatable" mercenary fleet had been erased from existence.
"Lord Captain..." Vanya whispered, staring at the ten silver monsters now orbiting their station like loyal guard dogs. "You've turned a galactic extinction event into... a pet."
"Not pets, Vanya," Lin Feng said, his breathing heavy from the drain. "The Mirror-Behemoths are now our primary heavy-defense layer. And tell Kara to start harvesting the original worm's remains. I want those chitin plates integrated into our mecha armor. We're moving beyond steel."
The Message Received
Back at the Imperial Capital, in a dark chamber lit only by flickering candles, the High Inquisitor watched the final static-filled recording of the battle. Beside him, Kaelen was trembling so hard his wine glass shattered on the floor.
"He copied a World-Eater?" the Inquisitor's voice was a rasping shadow. "That locket isn't an artifact. It's a god-key."
"What do we do?" Kaelen stammered. "He's coming for us, isn't he?"
The Inquisitor looked at a map of the galaxy. "He won't come for us yet. He doesn't have the political standing. But there is a Gala coming up—the Centennial Auction. He will be there to buy back his family's pride. That is where we trap the mirror."
Lin Feng, millions of light-years away, felt a chill. He looked at the Locket. "They're planning a party," he told Lilith. "Go find my best suit. We're going to give the Empire a night they'll never forget."