Squelch~!
At the same time, blood mixed with searing pain gushed from Ivan's temple. Even with a wound that should've been fatal, he didn't flinch.
"Congratulations. You won this round," the mirror said. "I really can't kill you. But so what? You can't kill me either."
It let go of the knife and stared at Ivan with those pitch-black eyes. "You beat me once, but that doesn't mean you'll always win. I only need to win once."
With that, its body slowly faded away until it vanished completely in front of him.
"This bastard is really annoying," Ivan muttered. "Anyone with slightly weaker willpower would've fallen right into its trap." Seeing the mirror disappear, he finally let out a breath of relief. The Desire Mirror didn't test the body. It tested the mind.
No matter how strong your body was, once desire took control, even Homelander would become a pathetic monster craving worship.
Of course, that assumed Homelander could even get infected in the first place.
Ivan opened his panel. The fusion progress had shot up to 76%. Good thing he hadn't stopped the mirror from stabbing itself. Otherwise, the "I don't want to die" desire inside him would've probably gone nuclear.
He had to admit, this version of the Desire Mirror was smart as hell and its abilities were disturbingly weird. A few times even he had nearly been caught off guard.
Just as Ivan was about to leave the room, the ground suddenly shook violently, like a full-blown earthquake. The ceiling above him cracked loudly, spider-webbing with fissures. Chunks of concrete and bricks started raining down.
An earthquake? Was there something like this in the original story?
The intense tremors made Ivan's body sway. The glaring cracks spreading across the walls told him he was out of time. He had to get out before the entire building collapsed on top of him.
His arms turned into razor blades, slicing apart the falling debris. His legs morphed into a sleek, powerful leopard structure for maximum speed.
"Shit! What the fuck is this?!" Ivan cursed as he exploded forward. He moved like a real cheetah, weaving through the collapsing hallway. Anything he couldn't dodge, he cut through mercilessly.
Thanks to his insane reflexes and speed, he soon reached the main iron gate on the first floor.
Ivan glanced back at the corpses crushed under fallen rocks. Looked like this instance was getting destroyed. He wondered if Cha Hyun-soo would survive the earthquake. If things got too bad, he might have to leave this world early.
Bang!
A massive concrete slab weighing over a ton slammed into Ivan's shoulder, driving half his body into the floor.
Boom!
Several thick tentacles exploded upward, crushing the slab into pieces. Covered in dust, Ivan slowly stood back up. He faced the iron gate and swung his blade-transformed arm. The razor-sharp edge sliced a clean gap through the reinforced door.
Right as he was about to step through, he froze.
Something was wrong. Very fucking wrong.
Ivan spun around and charged back toward the corpses. He reached down and yanked one body out from under the rubble. Its face was completely smashed beyond recognition.
He kept digging through the falling debris, pulling out more bodies, but every single one was either crushed beyond identification or covered in so much blood that their faces were unrecognizable. Not a single survivor.
"This is still the fucking mirror space!"
Ivan's rage boiled over. Crack!
A deafening explosion echoed as a colossal figure emerged from the dust. A four-meter-tall Titan with blades sprouting all over its back like tentacles. Eyeballs covered its chest, arms, and face, all of them glowing with vicious intelligence.
"Having fun? Don't let me find you," Ivan snarled, his mouth splitting open all the way to his ears, revealing rows of razor fangs.
He finally understood. Everything in this mirror space was fake — pure illusion created by the mirror. The injuries it had given him earlier were also illusions. It had tricked him into believing it could reflect damage, when in reality it had only planted fake wounds in his mind. The pain was all in his head.
That was why it couldn't actually kill him.
As a Desire Mirror, its only real power was control over the mirror space, and that power grew stronger the higher his fusion progress became. Before, it could only affect him slightly. Now it could create an entire convincing disaster.
The moment he realized this, the earthquake stopped abruptly. The falling rocks dissolved into bubbles the second they touched him.
Sizzle~~!
Twelve bright blue laser beams erupted from the eyeballs all over Ivan's body. Everywhere the lasers touched, the illusions shattered like glass.
"Found you."
In the room where he had started, Ivan spotted the mirror's real location.
Ivan flashed a vicious grin. With a thunderous boom, his massive body shot forward like a cannonball and vanished from the spot.
Anything in his path got smashed to pieces. As he charged toward the mirror entity, the floor ripped open with deep, bottomless cracks, but Ivan didn't give a fuck.
He tore across the broken ground like it was flat pavement and slammed right up to the mirror bastard.
BOOM!!
A terrifying explosion shook everything. Ivan's fist drove the mirror straight into the wall. Chunks of concrete flew everywhere as the wall blew apart.
"Fun, wasn't it?" Ivan growled, his fingers digging into the mangled mirror's body. He lifted it up to eye level. "I'm your desire. As long as you don't die, I can't disappear."
The mirror opened its one remaining eye and stared at him. At the same time, thick black fluid started pouring out of its body. That liquid was pure desire—Ivan's own. As long as his will to live stayed strong, the mirror could keep regenerating. That was why the fucker had been so cocky.
"You are my desire," Ivan said, "but only a small part. You really think I can't wipe your sorry ass out?"
The second the words left his mouth, several colossal, pitch-black shadows rose up behind him, towering and monstrous. The sheer oppressive weight they gave off was suffocating.
For the first time, real fear of death flashed through the mirror's mind. Am I actually going to die?
It had been born from Ivan's desperate refusal to die. Yet the same fear of death now gripped it. The moment it believed it was finished, it truly was. Its body shattered like glass into countless pieces, and the entire mirror dimension crumbled along with it, vanishing before Ivan's eyes.
Back in the room, Ivan opened his eyes. Everything that had just happened felt like nothing more than a bad dream.
[Adaptive Self-Healing Talent Fusion: 99%]
Good thing the mirror had its own consciousness. Otherwise it would've been even harder to deal with. He had nearly gotten dragged under himself this time.
...
As evening approached, Cha Hyun-soo successfully brought Han Doo-shik and the others down to the first floor.
He also told them about the fast-moving monster.
Meanwhile, Yoon Ji-soo and Jung Jae-heon had turned bedsheets into a massive SOS banner. They planned to hang it outside the apartment building. If any military unit passed by, they'd see it and know there were still survivors inside.
Seo Yi-kyung, who had come down with Cha Hyun-soo, had finally accepted the fact that she was pregnant.
"What happened to him?" Ivan frowned, staring at the unconscious Byeon Sang-wook.
"He's still alive," Park Yu-ri said while bandaging the man's wounds. "He got attacked by a monster and fell into a coma."
Ivan didn't know it, but at that exact moment, a flood of brutal memories tore through Byeon Sang-wook's mind… the desperate worker begging him to find his missing daughter, the night he watched his own father burned alive by thugs, and how he'd crawled out of the flames himself, choking on pain.
Those images slammed him awake. His hand shot up on pure instinct and clamped around Park Yu-ri's throat.
She had been checking his wounds when the sudden attack hit.
"Hey, old man! Let her go!" Cha Hyun-soo shouted, rushing in to pry the big man's fingers off.
"Cough—cough—cough!!" Park Yu-ri gasped hard, clutching her chest. Her asthma made it dangerous. She quickly pulled out her inhaler and sprayed it into her throat.
The next day, the group ran an internal drill to prepare for fighting the monsters.
The results were solid. Everything went according to plan.
Ivan didn't join the training. Instead, he went looking for Ahn Sun-young. She was carefully watching over Kim Soo-young and her little brother. Thanks to Ivan's interference, she hadn't locked herself in a bathroom and turned into a giant cocoon like in the original story.
"Come catch me, hehe! You can't!"
The moment Ivan pushed the door open, he saw the two kids running around and playfully fighting with each other.
Ahn Sun-young sat quietly nearby, smiling as she watched them.
"Is something wrong?" she asked.
"Nah, just came to check on the little ones." Ivan pulled out two lollipops and handed them over. He'd grabbed the candy from the green market earlier. While he was there, he'd accidentally seen Kim Seok-hyun's wife bringing him food.
Kim Seok-hyun had been pissed at her and chewed her out hard. The woman, who had suffered years of domestic abuse, waited until she left the isolation room, then hid a knife behind her back. She clearly wanted to stab the bastard, but in the end she couldn't go through with it.
"These two are pretty energetic," Ivan said, using his analysis ability while he spoke.
Ahn Sun-young gave a gentle, happy smile. "Yeah. Just as lively as my own child used to be… it's a shame."
Her eyes drifted to the empty baby stroller in front of her, a flicker of sadness crossing her face. Still, she seemed to be pulling herself out of the darkness. That was a good thing. If she kept drowning in the delusion that her baby was still alive, her desires would eventually devour her completely and turn her into a mindless monster.
A few minutes later, a notification popped up on his panel.
[Analysis Complete]
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[]~(￣▽￣)~*
Read 12 Advance Chapters—P@t- Captain69