Chapter 104 - Confrontation

Fingers materialized out of the reflection, oozing a transparent, viscous liquid that pooled on the floor. They clutched at the edge of the dressing table, still and silent.

Goosebumps erupted across Vern's skin, but he dared not take his eyes away from the hand. He didn't forget that the entity couldn't advance as long as he was looking at it.

He pulled out the revolver and took aim. There was no way he'd miss the shot when it wasn't moving at all.

However, he didn't know how it would react to being shot, so he held back and focused on the structure of the dressing table's mirror instead, ready to destabilize it at a moment's notice.

Unfortunately, he couldn't perceive the fingers of the entity directly. They were subjective and appeared darker than black. The second axiom of Observation was at play here.

With all this prepared, he stared daggers at the uncanny fingers, his mouth going dry just looking at that drenched pale flesh.

Cedric should be here any moment. And his ears indeed affirmed the fact as the footsteps grew closer.

As the seconds ticked by, his eyes began to feel unnaturally dry, the urge to blink growing irresistible. Finally, he gave in, but the moment his eyelids shut, he felt sharp pinpricks within his eyes, and his lids became impossibly heavy.

Panic surged through him. It's doing something to my eyes! Struggling to open them, Vern realized with horror that it felt like small hooks were physically keeping his eyelids closed.

His heart pounded in terror as the entity, a sinister shape darker than black, seemed to stretch out toward him within his blurred perception.

What the hell do I do!?

The blink that was supposed to last for a mere instant turned into seconds as Vern failed to cope with the disturbing situation.

His steps faltered, and he backed away, the shape closing in at an uncanny speed.

Focus!

A deep, unsettling chill coursed through him as the corrupting outline in his perception pounced at him.

Focus! Vern!

This finally snapped his mind in place, and he did what should have been obvious. Obvious, if he hadn't let the cold terror of losing control overwhelm him.

Vern rubbed his sleeve against his eyes, prying his eyelids open just in time to recoil from the advancing entity, feeling a brief gust of wind brush against his leg.

"Damn it, Cedric, hurry up!" he shouted, the adrenaline coursing through him.

He managed to fix his gaze on the entity's dark, liquid-drenched eyes, the droplets shimmering menacingly. It finally halted its unrelenting advance.

It stared at him from behind the shadow of the wall—unmoving itself, but there was a frantic cadence to the vibration of its black pupil.

Vern strained the muscles on his eyes as hard as possible, trying to figure out what the hell went wrong. What exactly did it do to his eyes?

However, at that moment, besides the heavy dread, he felt a weird sense of discordance within his Thought space. A peculiar imbalance.

Yet, before he could analyze it further, Cedric rushed in and gasped, "Oh my lady!"

He peeked over Vern's shoulder, a serious expression emerging on his face.

He penned down something on the book in his hand and said in a heavy tone, "Do not let it get closer to us! I need a few seconds to set up the cleansing."

Vern followed the words to the letter, his eyes zeroed in at the head even though his heart pounded like crazy.

"Be careful," Vern warned, his voice tense. "It just did something to my eyes, forcing them shut after I blinked. I had to physically pry them open."

Cedric continued scribbling as he replied after a short pause, "Hmm, it probably has something to do with the fact that eyes can also reflect. However, everything has to follow the second Axiom."

"Then how? And what else can it do to our eyes?" Vern shouted back, not feeling safe at all.

"It's probably just a minor control over the reflection itself and not your eyes. If it could control your eyes, you would be blind right now."

Vern's fingers clenched hard on the grip of the vapor blaster as he nodded after a while. That was right.

If he thought about it, this tactic worked so well on him because it was a surprise. If he had been prepared for it, it wouldn't be a problem at all.

He could just use his hands to open his eyes instantly.

Also, the fact that the entity had to go through these weird hoops just to not be seen for a couple seconds spoke volumes about its powers.

It was bound by some rules and limitations.

So Vern took a deep breath and focused on the task at hand.

In every second that passed in this disturbing atmosphere, his heightened senses picked up more and more sinister details.

The sound of liquid dripping on the floor, the vibrating pupil, the indirectly illuminated face of the entity.

Maybe if he moved just a little to the right, his light would even hit it directly.

But he didn't take any chances and simply stared at that pale-ish forehead that shook side to side at a maddening pace.

His every instinct screamed at him to get the fuck out of here, but it might actually be the worst choice in these circumstances.

He took short, deep breaths, keeping his eyes peeled and open, and finally, it came.

"It's ready!"

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Cedric had written something in his book, but Vern didn't make the mistake of taking his eyes away to read what it said.

The scholar then pulled at something on his neck and brandished it towards the hall.

A brown glow appeared in Vern's peripheral, and the moment it did—

SCREEEEEEEEEECCCCCCCCCCCCCCHHHH

An ear-piercing scream thundered in his ears, and it took all his grit to not drop the gun and clamp his ears to block out this fiendish shriek.

He felt a scream of his own rise within him, but he tamped it down and focused on tracking the squealing entity as its barely visible body twisted and turned into grotesque angles.

That's when Cedric said with a smug tone, "Good. Another one down for—"

But before he could even finish the sentence, a cold terror gripped Vern as a patch of darkness appeared in his perception around his legs.

A sense of panic fluttered within him, and his eyes involuntarily shifted toward his waist.

His eyes bulged as he barely made out the contour of a hand wrapping around the flame inside the lamp, and the very next moment, everything turned dark.

"It's trying something!" he yelled, and—

BANGG

This was his only opportunity to make use of the weapon. The muzzle's flash breathed a momentary brightness into the scene, but that alone was enough for him to be sure that he'd missed the shot.

The entity had disappeared from its place. The light that should've been coming in from the door and windows was entirely gone, too.

His gaze darted frantically, trying to focus on the entity to stop it, while his other hand took hold of the lamp's latch and yanked it, throwing it far away. Something was inside it right now!

He could make out nothing with his physical eyes. After trying and failing, he realized that all he had to work with was a chaotic world of grays in his perception.

He sensed a bright white in front of the pendant in Cedric's hands, contrasted by a patch of utter darkness that skittered across the floor straight back toward the mirror.

"It's running away!" Vern shouted.

His words prompted a sigh from his companion, "Too bad. I can't accelerate the cleansing at this moment. I guess we'll have to set up a trap and try again later."

What? Is he giving up already?

Vern frowned. He had no plans of letting this abomination leave just like that. It had already consumed someone's wife, and who knew how many more people.

What could it not do in that extra time? On top of all that, a part of him was furious at the entity for destroying his composure and scaring him like that.

So he shouted back, "Don't stop the cleansing! I might be able to do something about it."

Having said all that had to be said, he focused on that semi-gray reflective mirror in his perception with a singular focus and commanded internally, Instability Inducement.

CRACKK

Sounds of glass shattering filled the room, followed by a frightening screech threatening to burst his ears.

"Ohh," gasped Cedric before Vern heard him scribble something.

The patch of darkness skittered towards the hall's other exit, corrupting his perception. Vern felt a tinge of excitement amidst the chaos. His simple intervention had thrown a wrench in the entity's plans.

But what is it doing right now? He mused. Are there any other mirrors of its size in this house?

However, Vern sucked in a cold breath when a mouth-like outline appeared around the entity, which tore at its own body and threw a chunk toward the shattered glass.

SCREEEECHHHHHH

It hissed in what seemed like pain, but Vern was having none of it.

A white ring flashed in his eyes, and he focused on the very shard, imagining it to become as unstable as possible.

It was about destabilizing a structure to the most fundamental degree, and he knew all there was to know about glass's composition.

So right when the chunk of darkness was about to disappear into the shard…

Crinkle

The somewhat triangular gray shard exploded into black particles, and the dark lump that was like a black hole in his perception hit the floor with a thud.

SKREEEEEEE

A blood-curdling wail came from the entity, and its shape turned towards Vern, sending him into utter panic for a moment.

What do I do if it comes for me!? He considered, but as if the entity was eavesdropping on his thoughts, it did just that, and jumped towards them with a ferocious momentum.

Shouting, "It's coming for us!!" Vern took cover behind the kitchen wall.

But right as it was about to pounce at unmoving Cedric, the brown glow flared again.

An illusory eye formed from the radiance, and the imperceptible entity recoiled.

The very next moment, a hundred jagged edges appeared on its dark outline, and soon, many pieces of this corruption flung themselves toward other shards of glass scattered around the room.

Vern clenched his fists and decided to go all out.

Focusing on the shape of each and every shard of glass in his perception, he imagined their demise…

Crinkle

Crack

Chime

Hundreds of such tiny sounds reverberated in his ears, and his perception was saturated with dark particles that exploded everywhere.

Numerous terrifying wails followed this sound, but the eye in front of Cedric only grew brighter and brighter, corroding the dozens of little black holes in his perception with something akin to ropes constricting the lumps.

Blood pumped through Vern's heart with intense thumping as he gazed at the happenings with a tense mind.

He had shattered everything in his perception, but there was too much 'noise' in what he could perceive because of the entity corrupting the shades of gray with its presence.

So he wasn't sure if he had accounted for everything.

His pulse continued to race, each beat a loud echo in his ears. As seconds stretched into minutes, the darkness shrouding the distant lamp finally receded, allowing light to break through.

The oppressive darkness enveloping them also faded away, slowly but surely. When the purple light filled the corridor, white powder lay scattered everywhere—a result of his Vision.

However, there were no traces of that abominable entity anywhere.

His shades of gray settled down into stable states, and all the chilling sounds vanished into silence.

That seemed to have done it.

Regardless, Vern continued to focus on the patches on the ground where those lumps of the entity were lying a while ago.

He had to be sure.

But then, suddenly, something gripped his shoulders, and his nerves exploded. His body moved on its own, and he pointed his gun at the movement.

Only the sudden accompanying words, "Calm down, kid. Calm down," stopped him from mashing that trigger.

Fuck! Vern cursed under his breath. That scared the hell out of him. It was just Cedric, his book held between two fingers.

"It's over," he added with a steady tone.

Vern gradually lowered his arms, scolding himself for letting this overwhelm him so badly. After a while, he leaned on the wall behind him and sighed.

Wiping away the cold sweat that had built up on his forehead, he asked, "So, that was it?"

The man nodded, "Yep, that's it. Didn't really expect you to pull that off, though," sounding a little impressed.

Vern's heart slowly calmed down, and he nodded back, "Thanks for saving my ass there."

Cedric didn't reply but instead tipped his chin towards the exit. The three men were slowly closing back in towards the entrance, a terrified look on all their faces.

The skeptical one had some kind of talisman in his hand, while the other two huddled around him as they advanced.

He wants me to get them out of the way, doesn't he? Vern shook his head and instead asked, "Don't we need to clean up for any lingering traces or something? Can they come back here just like that?"

He shrugged, "No need, and don't worry, they don't expect us to clean up their house for them."

Right.

So Vern walked towards the exit, still trying to get his heart rate back to normal. Glimpses of that scene still lingered in his mind, and his skin prickled at the mere thought.

But it was over.

He picked up his lamp, which had a small dent on its top, and took a deep breath, trying his best to wipe away the terrified look.

When he stepped out of the House, the fresh air cleared his mind, and he saw many people standing on their doors.

The gaunt one soon walked up to him and asked, "Milord, is it—dead?"

Vern announced, "It's done. This mirror spirit will haunt you no more."

An elated look flashed past his eyes, but the second man looked at Vern with confusion before asking, "But Lordship, my Siri. My Siri…?"

Vern winced. He had no idea. Was that being the amalgamation of all the spirits it had captured? If it was, they had already evaporated it out of existence.

That Siri woman was most probably gone.

Not that she could be considered alive if she was assimilated within that entity, anyway.

All the eyes around him looked at him with awe. Even the skeptical one looked on with a mixed feeling. Everyone except Jesec, who stared vacantly at nothing in particular.

A mixed feeling washed over Vern as he tried to figure out how to clear the path for Cedric without coming off as insensitive.

But right at that moment—

AGHhhh!