The sky had ruptured.
From the wound poured the impossible—Luciens twisted by other timelines, born from choices never made, sins never taken back. They descended like fallen stars, landing amidst the battlefield with echoes of unspoken atrocities.
Naia stood still. Calen clenched his jaw. Lucien staggered, bloodied but smirking.
The Mirror War had just evolved into a multiversal catastrophe.
[Alert: Chrono-variant Entities Detected.]New Protocol: Crown Protocol Alpha — Only One Lucien May Remain.
The Tower itself had spoken. Not a test. Not a game. An execution.
A thunderclap.
Murderer Lucien lunged first—blade made of children's bones, laughing as he cleaved through his weaker variants.
Messiah Lucien raised an army of spectral followers from the shattered earth, their hollow hymns warping reality with every note.
Lucien the Tyrant, armored in obsidian, stood motionless at the center, his eyes twin suns of annihilation.
And then there was Lucien Prime—the one we followed. Bleeding. Smiling.
"Well... guess it's time to kill myself. Several times."
He turned to Naia and Calen.
"Still want to stop me? Or do you want to survive?"
Naia didn't flinch. "We fight the devils you created. But don't mistake this for forgiveness."
Calen tossed Lucien a spare blade—one forged from the Library's truthsteel.
"Save your lies for after we survive."
They turned. Faced the oncoming tide.
And charged.
The battlefield transformed. Glass and steel formed towers and trenches in moments, terrain shaped by narrative energy.
Lucien Prime faced off against Lucien the Tyrant, both of them blinking between positions, rewriting short-term outcomes in real time.
Trait Activated: Liecraft – Temporal Redaction.
He feinted left—was stabbed. He lied that he wasn't—wound sealed.
The Tyrant countered by lying that Lucien had never learned how to block.
Pain exploded across his body. Lucien coughed blood.
Warning: Core Narrative Integrity 41%.
Meanwhile, Naia battled Messiah Lucien in a duel of voices.
His false gospels twisted her sense of self. Her Mark of Truth flared bright, purging illusions.
"You promised them salvation!" she screamed.
"And I delivered it through beautiful delusion! Is that not mercy?!"
They clashed midair, truthsteel colliding with spectral light.
Each strike rewrote the memory of the battlefield, past becoming present, lies reborn as wounds.
Calen fended off Murderer Lucien, dodging blood-soaked blades, rage glowing in his eyes.
"You made me weak!"
"I gave you faith!" Murderer Lucien laughed. "And you died praying!"
But Calen had evolved. His blade channeled not just truth—but conviction.
And when he struck, he didn't cut flesh—he severed narrative threads.
Lucien Prime stumbled.
The Tyrant had forced him to forget his name for a moment. He almost vanished.
Then he remembered why he lied in the first place. Not for power. Not for survival.
But because the truth was never his to begin with.
New Trait Awakened: The False Crown.Effect: You may assume the dominant narrative of any battlefield for 10 seconds.
He stood tall.
"My turn."
Reality shifted. Time stopped.
And for ten seconds— Lucien rewrote everything.
His enemies staggered. Naia landed the final blow on Messiah Lucien. Calen struck down his murderer.
Lucien faced the Tyrant.
And whispered:
"You should've lied better."
Then impaled him through the throat.
The battlefield stilled.
The Tower pulsed.
[Protocol Alpha Complete.]Dominant Lucien Designated.
Lucien Prime fell to one knee.
Naia approached slowly. Her blade still unsheathed.
"We helped you survive. But don't think this means we trust you."
Lucien looked up, face pale.
"Good. Trust is overrated."
And behind him, the door to Floor B91 opened—
Leading downward.
Not upward.