The heavy iron doors flew open. They hit the stone walls with a deafening crash.
The pale, wet monsters poured into the chapel. There were too many of them. They filled the aisles, their bare feet slapping against the floor. Their empty eyes were locked on the group. Their terrible, wrong smiles were wide and hungry.
Mira screamed. Seren covered her ears and curled into a ball.
Kai stepped right in front of Lina. He used his own body as a shield. "Get behind me!" he yelled. He picked up a heavy wooden pew that had been broken in the chaos and held it like a weapon.
Nia threw her hands forward. A bright blast of blue magic hit the first row of reflections. They shattered into black water with a sound like breaking ice. But the ones behind them just stepped over the puddles, their smiles never fading.
"We cannot fight them all!" Nia cried. Her magic was flickering. She was too tired.
A reflection with the face of a tall boy lunged at Lina. It moved faster than the others. Its cold, wet hands reached out and grabbed her shoulders.
Lina froze. She braced for the pain. She waited for her face to be stolen, for her life to be taken.
But the pain never came.
Instead, the reflection let out a horrible, screeching sound. It sounded like metal tearing. The monster's hands started to smoke. Black cracks appeared on its pale fingers.
The monster looked at Lina's face, and its empty eyes went wide with pure confusion. It tried to copy her. It tried to steal her face.
But it had nothing to copy.
Lina had no reflection in the brass door. She had no name. The Quill had wiped her clean. She was a blank page. The mirror monsters needed a reflection to latch onto. They needed an identity to steal.
Because Lina was blank, the magic could not stick to her.
"You have no face," the monster hissed. Its voice was like grinding glass. It tried to let go of her, but its hands were burning. "You are empty."
"Yes," Lina said. Her voice was calm. She felt a strange, cold power waking up in her chest. The hole in her mind where her name used to be felt like a shield. "I am empty. And you are just a copy."
Lina reached up and grabbed the monster's wrists.
Where her bare skin touched the wet, pale flesh, the reflection began to dissolve. It turned into black ash and blew away in the cold air. The monster let out one last shriek before it vanished completely.
Kai stared at her in shock. "Lina... what did you do?"
"I don't have a reflection anymore," Lina said. She looked at her hands. They were steady. "They can't copy a blank page. They can't take what isn't there."
Another reflection lunged at her. Lina didn't run. She stepped forward and punched it right in the chest. The monster shattered into a million pieces of black dust.
"I can touch them," Lina realized. "I can break them."
She turned to her friends. "Stay behind me," she ordered.
Lina walked into the sea of monsters. She was a void. She was a walking shadow. Every time a reflection tried to grab her, it burned and dissolved. She punched, pushed, and tore through the army of stolen faces, clearing a path for her friends.
For the first time all night, the monsters were afraid. They backed away from her, their perfect smiles faltering.
But as Lina pushed them back, she saw the black water rising around their ankles. The chapel was filling up. The reflections were still pouring in from the doors, and there were hundreds more waiting in the dark.
She could break them one by one. But she could not break them all.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2026
All rights reserved.
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Next Chapter Summary for Chapter 129: Lina uses her blank identity to fight off the reflections, but the rising black water in the chapel forces the group to find a hidden exit, leading them straight into the Founder's private chambers.