“Second throw,” the supervisor said. “Present.”
The dice leapt from his palm in a streak of light, arcing across the table. For a heartbeat they hung there, suspended over polished obsidian, before clattering down in a crisp, echoing cascade.
Eathan caught a flash of Chewie’s tense profile, Lady Foxfire’s half?smile, a blur of lanterns and watching ghosts—
Then the world cracked sideways.
Sound folded in on itself. The Eternal Pavilion, the crowd, even the supervisor’s raised gavel blurred into mist as the floor dissolved from under his shoes.
When clarity returned, Eathan was staring directly into his own eyes.
The space around him was nothing—just soft, diffuse grey, like he’d spawned inside a half?rendered loading screen without any ceilings or floors. Yet his feet stayed planted, held by some invisible ground.
Across from him stood another Eathan Lin.
Same dark hair tousled, same worn grey hoodie, same old sneakers stained by questionable subway puddles. The same slightly hunched posture from years of carrying too many thoughts and not enough sleep. Every detail identical, down to the faint shadow under his eyes.
But the eyes were wrong.
The Eathan opposite him held himself with unsettling calm. No fidgeting, no sardonic twitch of his mouth to undercut the moment. There was a quiet weight in his gaze—a composure he had never managed outside of pretending.
“Well,” the reflection said. “We’re really doing this.”
Eathan swallowed, throat dry. “Guess we are.” His own voice sounded younger, rougher around the edges.
The reflection studied him, head tilted slightly. “You’re here to ‘save’ Mister White.”
“That’s the idea, yeah.”
“Is it?” The other Eathan’s lips curved, though it was not quite a smile. “You’re very sure of that for someone who rarely seems sure of anything.”
Eathan exhaled slowly. Of course this game wouldn’t just show him embarrassing childhood moments. No, it went straight for the existential crisis.
“Look,” he said. “We both know why I’m here. Mister White sacrificed himself. His core’s scattered. If we don’t find it in time, he—”
“—ceases,” the reflection finished matter?of?factly. “Disperses. Becomes a line in a ledger.”
He stepped closer, footsteps soundless. “But tell me this: are you really doing this for him… or for yourself?”
The question landed with an echo.
Eathan felt the air thin around him. “That’s… a stupid distinction.”
“Is it?” The reflection’s tone remained maddeningly gentle. “You’re Qilin’s vessel. Without Bai Hu, there is no Mister White. No COZMART. No convenient anchor for your fractured identity.”
He held Eathan’s gaze, eyes dark and steady.
“You don’t know who you are without him,” the reflection said quietly. “If he goes, everything you’ve built these sixteen years goes with him. Every choice, every risk, every ridiculous thing you did because he told you you’d be ‘fine’—all of it collapses. So ask yourself honestly.”
He took one more step forward, close enough now that Eathan could see every detail of his own face.
“Are you truly saving him for his sake, or are you just desperate to preserve your version of yourself?”
[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION:
[Humanity] has decreased by 1%! (49% → 48%)
Eathan swallowed against a sudden wave of nausea.
This wasn’t new. These thoughts had been pacing in circles inside his head for weeks, gnawing at him whenever the world went quiet. He’d just never… heard them spoken so cleanly from his own mouth, stacked like arguments in a debate.
“You’re awfully eloquent today,” he muttered.
The reflection’s brows lifted faintly. “Evasion.”
“I call it coping.”
“Call it what you like.” Reflection?Eathan crossed his arms loosely. “Let’s be precise, shall we? You claim Bai Hu would want to live. Very noble. But is that really what he thinks?”
Images flickered unbidden behind his eyes: the White Tiger’s expression beneath layers of cold divinity; Taeril’s tired smile in COZMART’s flickering light; the quiet way he’d said mercy before everything tore apart.
“I—” Eathan started, then stopped.
The reflection didn’t press, just watched him with unbearable patience.
“No,” he answered for him. “You only assumed. Because you couldn’t bear the idea that he might not want to be saved. Because then you’d have to respect that choice and walk away.”
The words slid under his ribs like thin knives.
“If he truly wished to rest,” the reflection continued, “if that final self?destruction in Commander’s Nightmare was not just strategy but desire… then by dragging him back, aren’t you violating the same autonomy you claim to protect?”
He took another step, close enough that Eathan could see the faint scar on his own chin from a bike fall at thirteen.
“You tell yourself this is something that must be done,” the reflection said. “But what if it’s selfishness dressed in righteousness? What if this is all just… you refusing to let go?”
Silence stretched.
Eathan’s heart thudded, heavy and off?beat.
He opened his mouth, then hesitated. It felt like someone had neatly sliced open all his organs, leaving him exposed beneath scrutiny.
What if the illusion was right? What if this entire mission, every reckless step, every sacrifice, was just him trying to quiet the guilt that had been screaming in him since the Nightmare?
Taeril White had chosen destruction. What if undoing that choice was the most selfish thing Eathan had ever done?
[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION:
[Humanity] has decreased by 3%! (48% → 45%)
The world pressed tighter. Around him, the gambling hall had grown quiet, spectators watching the seconds tick down.
The reflection watched Eathan with expressionless calm. “If he dies fully… it will hurt. COZMART will never be the same again. You lose the only person who ever grabbed your life by the collar and rearranged it. It’s understandable that you’d fight that.”
He tilted his head.
“How about you be honest, just once. Is this ‘rescue’ truly about him… or about preserving the parts of yourself that are convenient to keep?”
Something in Eathan wanted to flinch back, to agree, to just say fine, you got me and let the verdict fall. It would be easy. The world loved narratives where heroes discovered they weren’t selfless after all.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
He stared at the other him, at the measured sentences, the perfect dissection of his motives.
And slowly, through the rising panic, another thought surfaced.
Since when was I this composed?
He blinked.
The reflection raised a brow. “Doubt already? That was fast.”
“Shut up,” Eathan said reflexively. Then he frowned. “…No, actually. Don’t shut up. Keep talking. I want to hear this.”
The reflection’s eyes narrowed. “Deflection. You’re—”
“Am I, though?” Eathan cut in. “Because I’ve been listening very carefully, and I’ve noticed something.”
He gestured vaguely between them.
“You’re making… really good points,” he said. “Like textbook good. You took my worst insecurities and laid them out in neat bullet points. But I don’t… think like that.”
The reflection’s expression didn’t change, but the air around them tightened by a hair.
“When I spiral,” Eathan went on, “it’s messy. Five different fears screaming over each other. I get stuck on specific stupid details. I don’t stand in a void calmly cross?examining myself like a philosophy professor with stable blood pressure.”
He stared at the other him for a long moment.
“You sound,” he said slowly, “like someone who’s read my file and prepared an argument for court.”
The silence that followed wasn’t quite natural.
Somewhere far away—outside this illusion—he had the vague sense of noise: whispers in the gambling hall, Chewie’s small figure on the edge of his vision, the faint clack of chips. Time here was heavy; time out there was thin.
Eathan exhaled, a strained laugh escaping.
“I’m not saying your points are wrong,” he admitted. “They’re not. I am selfish. I am scared of losing COZMART and Mister White and whatever identity I’ve stitched together since Westpoint.”
He lifted his chin, forcing himself to look the reflection straight in the eyes.
“But the fact you can say all that this calmly?” His mouth curved. “That’s how I know you’re not actually me.”
The reflection’s eyes chilled. “You expect me to believe you’ve never had these thoughts?”
“Of course I have.” Eathan barked a humourless laugh. “They’re living rent?free in my skull. But if this were really my own internal monologue, I’d either be panicking so hard I couldn’t form sentences—”
He held up a finger.
“—or repressing everything so thoroughly my [SYSTEM] would throw a warning about emotional constipation.”
[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION:
Host has made an accurate self?assessment!
[Humanity] has increased by 1% (45% → 46%)
The reflection’s jaw tightened—so small a movement most people wouldn’t have noticed.
Eathan did.
He took a step forward now, closing some of the distance.
“Look. Maybe I am doing this partly for me,” he said. “Maybe I don’t know where Eathan Lin ends and ‘White Tiger’s intern’ begins. Maybe saving him is the only way I currently know how to live with myself.”
He let out a breath.
“But at the end of the day… does that change what I’m going to do?”
He smiled. There was something unhinged and oddly freeing in it.
“The moment I learned there was a non?zero chance to get him back, there was never a Plan B,” he said quietly. “You can call that selfish. Noble. Stupid. Broken. Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”
Golden script flickered at the edge of his vision; he ignored it.
“I’m going after him,” Eathan said, voice steady now. “Not because it’s morally pure. Not because it’s strategically optimal. Because I want to. Just like how he always did exactly what he wanted.”
A stubborn act, yes. But so what?
Eathan spread his hands.
“He might be angry. He might be disappointed. Either is fine. I just need him alive enough to argue with me about it later.”
For the first time, the reflection faltered, his expression went flat in a way that felt foreign.
The grey space shivered.
Somewhere above, a voice cut in, distant and ritual?stiff.
“Ten seconds, Challenger.”
The supervisor.
Time in this illusion snapped taut.
Eathan exhaled once, long and even. Then, he looked his doppelg?nger in the eye.
“You make an excellent argument,” he said. “Too excellent.”
He rolled his shoulders, tension unlocking with the decision.
“But for a ‘true reflection of my heart’?” he finished, mouth quirking. “You’re overqualified.”
The world cracked.
The reflection shattered into a spray of glass?like shards, each one catching flashes of his own face mid?panic, mid?doubt, mid?laugh. They whirled around him, then dissolved into dust.
Sound slammed back in, and all of a sudden he was thrown into the roar of the Eternal Pavilion.
Eathan staggered, catching himself on the gaming table with one hand. His heart was still hammering like he’d sprinted up twelve flights of stairs. His palm left a faint smear of gold on the obsidian before it faded.
Almost immediately, he lifted his gaze and, before anyone could say anything, spoke in the clearest manner possible:
“Present throw—false.”
Above them, the supervisor cleared his throat. His onyx gavel pulsed once. “Challenger has declared: False.”
The arena hushed.
Chewie’s small hand was on his sleeve instantly. “Eathan.”
He looked to her and blinked, vision focusing.
“You were gone longer this time,” she muttered. “Kinda weird.”
“Ah, sorry.” Eathan swallowed. “Got caught up in an existential crisis.”
A thin beam of light rose from the dice, scanning him from head to toe. Lady Foxfire lounged on her throne?like chair across the platform, chin propped on the back of one hand, fox?tail fans swishing behind her.
The scan concluded with a soft chime.
“Result,” the supervisor announced, voice carrying across the platform. “Second throw—correct. Illusion classified as deceptive construct. One point to Challenger. Score is now tied: 1–1.”
At the same time, the air around them condensed in an updated message.
[ROUND TWO]:
FOXFIRE - LOSS
LIN - WIN
The crowd exhaled collectively, a wave of whispers washing over the platform.
“Did you see his aura spike—”
“Tier?Two indeed…”
“Thought he’d fold on that one…”
Karmic numbers ticked on Eathan’s ID in the corner of his vision. The second stake remained intact, Karma bleeding only from the first failed round.
Lady Foxfire clapped three times, each tap of her hand somehow audible above the murmurs.
“Not bad, little Phantom,” she purred. “Most challengers fail the Present. They trip over their own motives and call them truths.”
“Your game,” Eathan, still slightly dizzy, managed, “has terrible customer service.”
Foxfire laughed. “ Quite the contrary. I offer people an opportunity to confront themselves. It’s not my fault most of them don’t like what they see.”
“Gee,” Chewie muttered under her breath. “How philanthropic.”
One of Foxfire’s attendants shot Chewie a scandalized look. Another guard coughed a warning, clearly recalling the part where insulting the Empress was a good way to get turned into karmic debt.
The vixen commander just laughed, eyes never leaving Eathan.
“Still game?” she asked. “You can walk away now, you know. I’ll give you the option to. Forfeit the last round, keep your remaining Karma, go light incense somewhere and pretend you’re not curious.”
Eathan’s gaze flicked briefly to his glowing ID. The staked amount—nine thousand Karma—hovered like a guillotine figure in the corner.
He licked his lips.
Then he met Lady Foxfire’s gaze and said, “Third throw.”
Chewie’s grip tightened on his sleeve, but she didn’t argue.
The vixen’s smile widened. “Good answer.”
She snapped her fingers.
“Final round—the Future.”
The supervisor lifted his onyx gavel. “Third cast,” he intoned. “Begin.”
The pavilion went utterly silent, anticipation humming like static in the air. All eyes watched as he swept the three dice into his palm, then extended his hand over the table. For a moment, time stretched thin, the entire den holding its breath.
Then, the dice dropped.
The three dice—Past, Present, Future—dropped altogether, but it was the last one that caught Eathan’s eyes. A small cube of crystal, its faces etched in shifting sigils, spinning faster and faster until it was a streak of light.
It struck the obsidian surface with the clarity of a bell, bouncing once, twice—
—and when they landed, the world ripped away so violently it felt like Eathan’s soul tripped.
***
This time, there was no gentle fade, no soft peeling of colour.
The impact threw him forward into screaming red.
Heat slammed into his face. The air reeked of smoke, singed qi, and the clawing, metallic tang of blood. Eathan staggered, coughing, and raised one arm reflexively to shield his eyes as sparks and ash flew past.
When he forced his vision to focus, his heart stopped.
He was standing in the ruins of Area 001 HQ.
Or what used to be it.
The sky was wrong first.
Area 001’s familiar skyline had always been clean and secure, a quiet hum of power under glass and steel. Now it was a jagged mouth against a bleeding sky. Towers were sheared in half, and chunks of floating qi-plates drifted overhead like broken halos, occasionally sparking in slow, useless arcs.
The headquarters plaza was a crater.
Tiles Eathan remembered walking across a thousand times were split open, blackened as if something had clawed its way out from beneath. The giant Area seal at the plaza’s heart was cracked straight through, the White Tiger emblem scorched to an unrecognisable smear. Around it lay bodies—armour charred, uniforms torn, faces turned away or covered by ash.
Some of them wore Elite patches. Some of them wore the plain dark jackets of interns.
Eathan’s throat closed. He couldn’t make his feet move.
Farther ahead, a ring of silver-armoured figures stood unshaken amidst the ruin. Platinum Paladins—he’d only ever seen them once during the Games. Here, their cloaks were dust-stained, helms splashed with soot, but their formation was perfect. Chains of light anchored the ground around them, pinning down a single kneeling figure at the center.
Himself.
Kneeling in the wreckage, wrists bound in glowing script, head forced down by the weight of a dozen binding arrays. The sigils etched into the chains flickered with cold, bureaucratic precision.
“…unauthorized interference with a Commander’s core,” one Paladin’s voice cut through the ringing in Eathan’s ears. “Unsanctioned traversal of the Realm of Passing. Disruption of karmic order. Primary target in the current operation.”
Eathan’s heart lurched. No.
Each word landed clear and heavy, like nails hammered into stone.
“Judgment will be rendered,” another intoned. “On the instigator.”
The kneeling Eathan didn’t argue, didn’t even look up. He knelt all chained up with his head bowed, hair shadowing his eyes.
Because of me?
The thought rose unbidden.
Wind tore at Eathan’s clothes where he stood unseen in the ruins. His pulse roared in his ears, drowning out everything but the echo of those charges.
He shook his head, backing away a step that didn’t disturb so much as a grain of dust.
“No,” he whispered into the burning air. “That’s not—”
Yet everywhere he looked—shattered wards, fallen banners, silver helms gleaming over a broken seal—the future stared back.
Area 001 had fallen.
And it was because of him.