As Aria helped the villagers using her scrolls, suddenly she noticed something odd. The vessel, a pale youth by the name Chrome was missing among the crowd of the villagers. Suddenly a bad feeling welled inside her as her instincts warned her. Her memory warned her that Chrome had been present when she had entered the room, which meant he had disappeared when she was dealing with Kor'moros. Feeling that something wrong was going to occur she rushed towards her friend.

Aria's heart raced as she placed the scroll containing the entity's consciousness in Thalia's hand and spoke.

"Thalia, the vessel isn't here. He's missing. I have a bad feeling about this. Hurry, relocate the villagers to safety. Join me by the banyan tree, and ensure this stays secure"

But before she could react, a tremendous wave of sinister energy washed over them, originating from somewhere outside. Beside her, Thalia's eyes widened in shock and concern. Aria's face changed as she realized what had happened. The sinister energy that had washed over them left no doubt – Kor'moros, or at least a part of it, was free. The vessel was missing, and her fear had been realized.

"We need to act quickly," Aria urged, her voice trembling with urgency. "If Kor'moros is loose, it's only a matter of time before it regains its strength and targets the villagers again. It will want to regain strength as quickly as possible. Right now it should still be in a weakened state and part of its consciousness is already trapped. Go and strengthen the safe house while I will try to distract it till you join me."

Thalia nodded in agreement but then said with concern. "But I can't let you face it alone. Its too dangerous."

Aria's mind raced. She knew it was dangerous to face the entity on her own, but saving the villagers was also important. Even more so when the entity would try to devour them to recover. Then, a plan began to form in her mind.

"Remember we don't have to subdue the evil entity, we just need to delay till the sunrise. Try to join me as soon as possible, but prioritize saving the villagers. Now move quickly, only you can teleport around the village." Saying as much, she again pulled out blank scrolls from her backpack and started preparing.

Thalia hesitated for a moment, worry etched across her face. "Are you sure you can handle this alone?"

Aria offered a reassuring smile. "I've prepared for this. I have the runes and scrolls that can at least help me escape in the direst situation. Besides, we don't know yet how much of its power the entity is even able to exert."

Thalia nodded, her trust in Aria evident. "Very well, I'll make sure to protect the villagers and join you at the banyan tree. But be careful, Aria."

With those words, Thalia waved her hand, conjuring a magic circle that spread around the room. The villagers had all heard the conversation, and decided not to interfere. They understood at that moment that they were liabilities. Saying anything won't change the present, neither were they capable of providing any help.

But just then, a young man stepped out of the crowd and approached Aria. He had a resolute look in his eyes as he spoke, "Please let me be of help. I can help you with handling scrolls. I am an apprentice in magic but also a grade three swordsman."

Aria glanced at him briefly before nodding her head. She could use help indeed, and someone who had experience with magic before could certainly help her. After all she herself was only an apprentice too. Thalia who saw her nod, did not comment and the next instant vanished from the room with the remaining villagers.

The room became empty, but Aria was too busy right now. She then flicked two scrolls towards the guy who had offered to help and explained.

"The chant of activation is *servo*. It will help against the entity's attempt at controlling you. The other one is *lanuae* which will randomly teleport you anywhere in the village. It has a small radius. Use it in case you need to escape."

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The young man, named Chrono nodded his head and place both the scrolls in his pockets. He thought for a moment before saying, "The vessel that you mentioned before, is that the entity's main body?" His voice was strained as he asked.

Aria did not raise her head, continuing to draw on her scrolls. A second later she spoke, "It is not its main body. But the body of a villager that the entity is controlling. Its main body is actually heavily restrained in the infinite prison of reflections beneath the banyan tree. Do you have any clues about the vessel?"

She raised a sketch of the pale youth that Thalia had shared with her earlier and showed it to the Chrono. From his voice, she could guess that he knew something. When he saw the sketch, he sighed as if he had confirmed his doubts.

"That is Chrome, my partner. We both are well known mercenaries that operate within this village. I had suspected something was wrong with him about three months ago, but I could not confirm anything. When you talked about the vessel, something had clicked in my head. Right now there are gaps in my memory due to the entity's control over me for a long time. But even from the stuff I remember, I can't seem to remember seeing him for more than a month. I just wanted to ask, but it seems my doubt is confirmed."

His voice was shaking, as he tried to hold it together. But Aria could tell that he was anguished at learning this. Nevertheless, now wasn't the time for it. She steeled her resolve and looked at Chrono, "We still have the opportunity to save him. Kor'moros has seemingly escaped from its prison so it no longer needs to control Chrome. What we need to do now is to contain it, prevent it from going after any other villagers. It can feed on anything living to regain strength. I'll need your help to contain it."

She wasn't good at such talk, that was Apollo's job in their group. But right now he was the only one who was here to help her. So she had to try her best. After that she discussed with him the plan that had formed in her mind earlier.

She had read mage Sylas's notes and had learnt why he had chosen to use mirrors to contain the evil entity. She was going to take inspiration from that to do something similar. But this time she would be facing its real body.

"Let's go if you are ready now. The energy wave from earlier confirmed that Kor'moros was trying to break free from its prison, but its not that easy to do so in little time. Even for an ancient evil, a grandmage's prison formation would take a while to break out of. If we want to face it, right now is a good time."

Chrono nodded as he picked up the scrolls that he would have to use in their battle next. Their destination was the banyan tree, as they both moved out of the House of Mirrors.

........

Mage Sylas had explained in his notes that Kor'moros was a creation of some Dark mage from ages ago. It was supposed have the ability to devour anything that had life. Or anything that made up life. While Sylas had not confirmed if that was true since the entity was already weakened when he encountered it, he still placed caution around it. Because if the entity could indeed devour anything, then it was also possible it could devour the magic of a mage itself.

Magic in itself carried a trace of life in it. After all life was considered a magical phenomenon too. So the notion that it could devour magic made Sylas careful. He could not trap it in a magical formation, or it would eventually break out of it. After thinking about it for some while, he decided to imprison the entity by using its devouring power against it. Which where the idea of using mirrors came.

The prison was actually not impossible to break from for a magical being, but for Kor'moros whose ability was devouring, it was quite tricky. The way the formation was arranged was such that if it tried to devour the magic holding the mirror shards around it, the power would be reflected at itself. In essence, if it tried to escape, it would devour itself in the process.

The only thing Mage Sylas had not known was that the mirrors could also possibly lead to another magical way to connect with other mirrors in the village that he had also designed. In some manners, the prison instead became its hibernation chamber to recover ever so slowly.

Of course, if there had been no mistakes, the entity would have withered over the years with no one being aware of its existence due to the presence of the magical mirrors of Serenbrook. They constantly siphoned its magic to power their magical abilities after all.

Knowing about the way Sylas had managed to imprison the evil, she had made use of his notes to design some knew scrolls that used the principal of reflective magic to protect herself from the entities attempt to attack her using its formidable abilities. Her plan at confronting it also revolved around this idea, as this was the only probable weakness she knew of the entity. Everything had to go according to plan for her scrolls to be of use first though.

Which never really seemed to happen...