I WAS Humanity's HOPE-Chapter 35: Mirror Overlord

Inside the vision, the fight whittled down to chaos.

Skulkers lay scattered like broken toys...

At last, only one skulker remained, its hide blistered, tail half‑severed.

It limped in a circle, hissing.

Adrian, chest heaving, raised his wand for the coup de grâce—then hesitated.

The creature crouched low, its little lungs rattling, and opened its maw.

A globule of blue fire guttered on its tongue: a perfectly imperfect imitation of Adrian’s spell.

"Oh, no you don’t," Adrian snarled, stabbing his wand forward.

Too late.

The skulker spat.

The makeshift fireball wobbled, veered left, straight into Elaine’s chest.

She had turned, trying to cast a healing spell on a bleeding Peter.

The spell struck dead‑centre, bathing her robes in azure flame.

She gasped once, sound swallowed by smoke.

The skulker toppled a beat later, spent, its mimic spell fizzling out as its life bled away.

A horrible quiet descended.

Adrian staggered to Elaine, dropped to his knees, hands flitting uselessly above the blackened fabric.

Ava knelt opposite, whispering frantic words that Richard’s party could not hear.

Elaine did not move.

"She’s dead," Nadia said softly, horror threading every syllable.

Richard opened his mouth—but every instinct flared at once.

A weight, vast and cold, settled across the round room.

Then, in the glass directly beside Richard, a shape resolved that wasn’t a skulker nor a senior.

His warning never left his tongue.

The mirror to his right puckered like a lake struck by hail, silver ripples racing inwards until the glass tore.

A figure pushed through: nine feet of gaunt majesty stitched from night. Robes flickered between ragged velvet and flowing void‑stuff; helm and crown were one thorned shell, eyes banked embers.

Around its shoulders whirled mirror shards, each reflecting deformed versions of the hunters staring back.

A single breath from the creature bent every torch flame.

Richard’s classmates—Nadia, Anne, Trevor, Oren and James—froze mid‑step. The Sovereign lifted a finger, and an invisible tide rolled across the rotunda.

Five pairs of knees buckled at once. Wands and swords slipped from nerveless fingers.

Trevor’s "oh—" cut off in a choking wheeze as he crumpled. Oren folded next, arms limp.

Anne sagged forward, forehead thudding the marble. Nadia’s sword clanged down. James toppled without a murmur.

In less than a breath, they lay in a ragged circle, breathing but unconscious.

Only Richard remained upright, almost unaffected, though the aura’s chill gnawed at the edges of his mind.

The Sovereign considered its stubborn quarry and unfurled its arms.

Shards tore away and hovered above each fallen hunter.

Their surfaces liquefied, extruding twisted copies of the humans.

Nadia, Anne, Trevor, Oren, and James’s reflections stood tall beside the monster, their eyes dripping shadow, each pulsing with D-Rank menace. Last came Richard’s A-Rank reflection, broader-shouldered, grin unnaturally wide.

The copy twirled twin daggers that trailed dark mist. Richard slid his own obsidian blades free.

He moved first.

A coursing arc felled the distorted Trevor. Two flits of black steel severed Oren’s puppet at the neck. Anne’s copy blocked once, then staggered as Richard’s heel drove into its knee; a follow‑up pommel strike shattered its skull. Nadia‑shade and James‑shade fell in turn, collapsing to chalk‑dust glass.

Only his mirror‑self remained, four glyphs flaming. Impossible.

The double blurred sideways—Did he just use Burst Step?—and lunged.

Richard parried, skidding until marble squealed.

Astral Ward blossomed around it, soaking up Richard’s slash.

The copy then used Celestial Bind and Richard felt the gravity trying to seize his limbs. He grimaced, knuckles whitening, and broke free of the effect.

Fourth glyph fired white. Starlight Convergence.

"Fuck you," he growled.

Richard’s own fifth star detonated—Nova Ascension—and molten power roared through his body.

He performed a super‑charged dash and closed the distance between them; blade met throat, and the copy’s head spun away like a kicked ball. Shards chimed, glittering out.

That was when James—real James—screamed. "NO! MUM! DAD!"

Richard spun.

His classmate knelt rigid, eyes rolled, nails raking his cheeks.

The Sovereign’s helm was angled towards him.

Richard threw one of his daggers.

The boss bent aside, and the blade shattered a circling shard.

Silver dust geysered, and the aura wavered, colour returning to torch flames. His classmates did get up, but the suffocating pressure eased by a hair.

I found your weakness, bastard.

Twisting its cloak, the Sovereign unleashed black spears—a copy of the Starlight Convergence it had just witnessed.

No fucking way. What the bloody fuck is wrong with this dungeon and the ability of everything to copy spells.

A beam of astral energy sliced through the air, and Richard realised that the boss hadn’t just copied his ability—it had overpowered it, pushing its strength to A*-Rank.*

He used Burst Step in quick succession, dodging the beam.

I need to end this fast. It might kill the others—if it hasn’t already finished James.

Richard breathed deeply, knowing the significance of what he was about to do.

Shaking his head, he summoned a Mask with constellation patterns on its surface and two masterfully balanced blades of enchanted steel, honed to a mirror’s sheen.

When the mask clamped down, Richard’s senses sharpened, and his heart could beat a calm soldier’s march.

The Sovereign used the same ability it had on James.

Oh yes, you bastard. A mind attack?

It collided with Mind Veil, one of the mask’s passive abilities that rebounded psychic attacks.

The monster’s attack ricocheted, the psychic whiplash making the monster clutch its crown.

Richard darted forward to capitalise on his advantage, intending Mirror Step, an active ability from his daggers that allowed him to blink in a ten-metre radius.

But the floor lurched, and for a split second every mirror in the hall flashed silver.

Richard materialised two paces short of his target, half‑turned, stagger‑stepping to keep balance. Oh shit.

The boss’s glaive of void‑iron slammed down towards him.

A shallow cut scored his shoulder guard.

So the monster could distort his teleport. Because why not?

He ducked under the backswing and raked both daggers across a passing shard.

It fractured, shattering through several spectral reflections.

The aura flickered like a lamp fed poor oil, and a side glance told Richard that faint colour bled back into Nadia’s cheeks, though she remained prone.

The Sovereign hissed: a sound of rusty chains across slate.

One long arm swept out.

Twenty rats squirmed up from cracks, eyes ruby pinpoints. They scuttled for the laying students.

Richard’s eyes widened, and he slapped a hand to the ground. "Celestial Bind."

Gravity folded.

The rats slammed mid‑scurry into an invisible pocket, and Richard heard their bones breaking.

A heartbeat later, they exploded—scarlet fog gusting away.

No. Go hide there, behind the shadows, a voice advised Richard.

Instead, he triggered Split Gleam and his daggers blurred twice with every heartbeat.

He feinted left, drew the Sovereign’s glaive wide, and sliced clean through two more mirror‑shards. They detonated, spraying diamond rain.

Only two shards remained, orbiting fast, streaks of hairline cracks crawling across them. The monster bled motes of night from breaks in its armour.

It pivoted, thrusting a palm, and the surviving shard fired a saw‑edged disc of compressed dread.

Richard risked Mirror Step again, choosing a destination not behind the Sovereign but beside the disc’s flight line.

The monster tried to wrench the blink, but it only managed to put him a stride off‑mark.

The momentum carried him through, and Richard’s daggers snapped up, and the shard shattered.

Time to finish it.

Nova Ascension surged once more, brighter than before.

Richard ducked under a clumsy arm sweep and was so close to the monster that he could touch it.

His dagger flashed and carved the final shard in two.

Cracks spider‑webbed from blade‑point to crown.

The Sovereign juddered under Richard’s blade, torso caving inward.

Light folded into the cracks and in a rushing hiss it imploded, sucked into its own collapsing reflections, leaving only dust and the soft chime of dying glass.

Silence reigned.

You have slain an Umbral Sovereign (S-Rank). You have levelled up! You are granted Sleeker Boots (B-Rank).

Richard’s daggers dripped night‑ichor that smoked away.

He peeled his mask off, exhaustion hitting him like a hammer, but he remained upright.

All five classmates stirred simultaneously—one groan, five sets of eyelids fluttering open. No one looked fresher than the next.

Trevor swore, voice thready. "What ran me over...?"

"A nightmare," Richard answered, kneeling beside James, who was blinking sluggishly. "It’s gone."

Nadia propped herself on an elbow, trembling but otherwise looking fine. Anne’s wand hand shook as she retrieved it; Oren wiped blood‑tinged drool from his chin.

"Is anyone hurt?" Richard asked.

Murmurs of negative.

James tried to sit, failed, and fainted again. Richard eased him down, noting the self-inflicted scratches on his cheeks. "He’ll wake later. He needs some time."

Trevor cast a wary glance about. "Sure, it’s dead?"

Richard gestured to the glass dust dispersing in the air. "The System announced the kill."

Anne tapped a shard stub with her boot; it crumbled to grit. "So... what now?"

"Now," Richard said, rising to his full height, "we smash every mirror in here and leave this dungeon."

Nadia managed a wan smile. "That’s a lot of glass."

"Then we’ve a lot of smashing to do." He twirled an obsidian dagger, more weary than jaunty.

A glance at the room’s perimeter told Richard that the boss’s death had made their exit door reappear.

At least I don’t have to dig our way through...