Chapter 5: The Mirror’s Truth

The mirror-Reyes lunged, a dagger of black glass glinting in the fractured light. Instinct took over—Mike sidestepped and fired his rifle—but the shot passed harmlessly through the spectral form and found its mark on Arin's shoulder.

"Don't!" Arin gasped, clutching his wound. "It's not him—it's you!"

Before they could recover, the very walls around them began to warp. Stone melted into countless mirrors, each one reflecting a different version of Mike: the steadfast soldier, the ruthless killer, and the broken man who'd let his team burn. A sibilant voice echoed from the shifting surfaces, "Choose. Which ghost defines you?"

The mirror-Reyes circled, its tone mocking. "You think you're fighting the Key? You're fighting yourself—the man who abandoned his team, the coward who survived."

Mike's corrupted arm flared, runes spreading like wildfire toward his neck. "I didn't abandon them," he snarled. "I killed them."

The figure's form flickered, briefly revealing the haunting visage of Colonel Hayes. "Yes. You did. And you'll do it again."

Elyra's urgent voice cut through the chaos. "Mike, the Key's using your guilt to create this! Break the cycle!"

For a long, agonizing moment, the castle's whispers crescendoed: Destroy the mirror. Become the weapon you were meant to be. But then, with a heavy sigh, Mike lowered his rifle. "No."

The mirror-Reyes sneered, "No? You'd rather die a coward?"

"Better a coward than a monster—every single time," Mike shot back. With that, he slammed the rifle's stock into the mirror. In a shattering cascade of reflective shards, the illusion broke, and the warped room dissolved around them.

When the debris settled, they found themselves in a stark circular chamber. Hovering above a stone pedestal, the second key—a dagger etched with the same infernal runes now fused to Mike's skin—glowed ominously. Elyra stepped forward, her sword trembling at her side. "It's a trap. That key is tied to the very heart of this castle."

"Then we burn it down," Mike declared.

Arin's voice, low and cautious, cut in. "You can't. The Hollow Crown is the key. To destroy it, you'd have to—"

"Sacrifice yourself," came a cold echo from the doorway. The Cabal leader stood there, crimson armor gleaming in the dim light. "The Old Gods don't want the keys destroyed. They want you to become them."

A new horror unfurled as the scene shifted. The drowned city of Lythrim loomed beneath turbulent waves, its spires encrusted with coral and bone. Mike now stood at the edge of a poisoned lagoon, the Key's corruption creeping up his neck while its insidious whispers mingled with the roar of the ocean. "How do we reach it?" he asked.

Arin, adjusting the enchanted scope on his sniper rifle, replied, "The locals say the city rises at twilight. But its guardians… they aren't human. They're echoes."

Elyra waded into the shallows, her dragon-helm dripping with saltwater. "Echoes of whom?" she asked softly.

Mike's reflection rippled in the dark water, not showing his true face but that of the doppelgänger from the castle. "Of me," he murmured.

Then the lagoon erupted. The drowned city ascended like a leviathan of stone and seaweed, its towers crowned with glowing runes. From the ruins emerged spectral figures—knights in rusted armor, mages with barnacle-encrusted staves—and one man who mirrored Mike in every detail, even down to the corrupted Key runes.

"You shouldn't have come," the doppelgänger intoned, his voice a chorus of a thousand drowned souls. "The Cabal's already harvested your memories. They'll use them to break the world."

Mike fired a shadow-bolt from his rifle, its dark energy tearing through the doppelgänger's chest. The figure dissolved into salty brine—only to reassemble moments later. "You can't kill what's already dead," it taunted.

Amid the chaos, Elyra clashed with a tide-wielding mage, her sword ringing against a staff that crackled with tidal magic. "The Cabal's siphoning your past!" she cried. "Every mission, every death—they're feeding the Old Gods!"

Arin's rifle sang as he picked off other echoing apparitions. "The third key's in the cathedral! But your doppelgänger is tied to your guilt. You have to—"

"OUT OF THE WAY!" Mike roared, charging as the Key's corruption flared uncontrollably. Blade met blade in a furious duel, their struggle sending tidal waves crashing over the ruined landscape.

"You think you're fighting me?" the doppelgänger hissed amid clashing steel. "You're fighting him." For a split second, a vision flashed—Colonel Hayes, alive in a Cabal ritual chamber, with Mike's memories swirling in a crimson vortex.

A searing pain erupted as the doppelgänger's blade pierced Mike's side. He staggered, the Key screaming in protest. "They're using your past to forge a weapon—a perfect jailer, a replacement."

Elyra's sword found its mark, severing the doppelgänger's arm. "Your past doesn't define you!" she cried.

"Doesn't it?" the doppelgänger countered, lunging once more before dissolving as Mike's rifle delivered its final, decisive strike.

The cathedral's massive doors groaned open, revealing within a glowing chalice—the third key—overflowing with inky black water. Yet, waiting in the threshold was the Cabal leader, clutching a vial filled with swirling fragments of Mike's memories.

"The Old Gods hunger," he sneered. "And you'll feed them."

As the cathedral trembled, the Cabal leader raised the vial high, its violent energy rippling through the chamber. "Your guilt powers the keys—and the keys power the Old Gods. You're not a warrior—you're a battery."

Mike's rifle smoldered in his grip, the Key's corruption now a tangled web across his torso. "Batteries run out," he muttered.

"Do they?" Colonel Hayes' voice boomed from within the vial. Suddenly, the cathedral walls melted into a cascade of visions—his team in the Afghan temple, their faces contorted in agony. "You let them die. You wanted to burn them."

Elyra lunged again, her sword clashing against the Cabal leader's ritual dagger. "Your memories are lies!" she shouted. "They're using your guilt to control you!"

From a high balcony, Arin's enchanted rounds shattered stained-glass depictions of Mike's past. "The chalice!" he yelled. "It's a conduit—the Cabal's draining your life force!"

But Mike's gaze remained fixed on the vial. "You're still in that temple," Hayes taunted, "still burning."

The Key flared, its runes burning ever hotter. In a sudden, brutal clarity, Mike saw the truth: the temple, the Key's violet glow, the insurgents closing in—it was all part of a choice. He had activated the Key intentionally, sacrificing his team to destroy the relic.

"You knew," hissed the Cabal leader. "You've always known."

The revelation struck him like a bullet. Every moment since had been a consequence, not an accident.

"Semper Gumby," he muttered. "Adapt and overcome."

In a burst of defiant fury, Mike fired—not at the Cabal leader, but at the cathedral's ceiling. Stone shattered and seawater cascaded into the chamber. The Cabal leader staggered, the vial slipping from his grasp.

Elyra caught it and hurled it to Mike. "Break it!" she commanded.

Without hesitation, Mike smashed the vial against the floor. His memories burst forth—not as weapons, but as unvarnished truth. The losses of his team, the summoning, the Hollow Crown—all unfolded raw and unfiltered, free of the Key's distortion.

The Cabal leader howled as the memories reversed, the vial's magic consuming him until he dissolved into seawater. "You think this ends here?" he spat. "The Old Gods see you, Ghost. They know what you are."

The chalice pulsed ominously. Mike grasped it tightly as the Key's corruption crept over his face.

"Well done," the Old Gods' disembodied voice rumbled. "Three keys. Three deaths. Three rebirths. But the final test awaits… and you'll need more than bullets to survive it."