Mirror World: Destined Return

The bells signaling an air raid endlessly echoed throughout the Capital, making people feel like they were suffocating from anxiety.

“H-help me!”

“It’s an invasion! A dragon army is setting up camp outside the Walls of Tallinn in the west!”

“Ahhh! Disable the force field already, damn Union dogs! I can’t activate a warp gate!”

“Please stay calm and follow the invasion manual! Head to the nearest evacuation shelter!”

“Hurgh! We’re all gonna die! We’re all dead!”

“Run to the most eastern city!”

“Lee Kang-San! Where the hell is the Tortoise Emperor?!”

Despair, fear, rage, resignation, and various acrimonious emotions filled the streets.

***

Influential humans were gathered at the command center on the seventy-seventh floor of the Empire State Building, the Union headquarters. They included Lee Bong-Seong, the leader of the conservative faction, Gao Weiguang, the leader of the neutral faction, Nino Manfredi, the leader of the freedom faction, and Remy Martin, the representative of the pioneering faction.

High Rankers like Onie Yuki and Gustav von Seyffer, Rankers, and leaders of various clans were also present. Their expressions grew more somber as they continued to receive reports of the current situation.

“A dragon army is flooding out of a giant portal in the west!”

“We estimate their numbers to be over a hundred thousand!”

“They are members of Nivalis, who had been at war against Cadaver in the fourth zone!”

“Biphatogenes has yet to be sighted!”

“However, Clan Argos has witnessed angels!”

Murmurs grew louder as reports continued to come in. As fear encroached on their hearts, Bong-Seong shouted, “Silence! Remy Martin! Where is Lee Kang-San?”

Kang-San’s whereabouts were the most important in this crisis.

Remy answered, “He has his hands tied in Justitia, but I’m sure he’ll find a way out of there somehow.”

“Somehow? Hah! What kind of bullshit is that? How could the number one human turn a blind eye to a crisis in the Capital?!” Nino criticized.

Douglas Montgomery, the spec force captain, said, “Shut your mouth, Italian. Read the goddamn room before you decide to whine.”

“What did you say to me?”

“Stop it! Have the other cities responded, Asmahan?” Bong-Seong cut their bickering and asked Asmahan, a member of the intelligence division.

Asmahan, a middle-aged Israeli woman with a mole on her chin, replied, “Half of them have not responded, and a quarter of those who have sent reinforcements will be late due to the distance they have to travel.”

“What?”

“Those sons of bitches! They reap all the benefits from being part of the Union, and now they wanna back out?!”

“They let the authority get to their heads. That’s why I said decentralization was a bad idea!”

Those in the command center were outraged by the fellow humans’ uncooperative attitude.

“How’s the situation at the Walls of Tallinn?” Bong-Seong asked.

“Ilmar Kilgas, a Ranker of Clan Baltics, is defending it as we speak,” Asmahan responded.

“And the force field?”

“According to Abdul Ahmad, a Ranker of Clan Salat, there are more attempts to break it from the inside than the outside.”

Weiguang slammed his fist on the table and shouted, “Damn cowards! All they’re thinking about is running away!”

“Are the ordinary civilians evacuating as per the manual?” Remy asked.

“Oi, Remy Martin! There is no such thing as an ordinary civilian in the Mirror World! Don’t be stupid. We have to kick the people in the evacuation shelters out and make them fight!”

“Cam down, Gao Weiguang. Most of them are Lambs.”

“So what?! Are you saying they’re not humans or something?”

“They are the future of humanity. If we lose them, the power of humanity will be severely reduced in the future.”

“And I’m saying that’s stupid! The future can only exist if the present does!”

As Weiguang and Remy’s arguments grew louder, Bong-Seong interrupted, “Enough. I thought this matter had already been resolved earlier. Lambs will not be of much help in the battle against dragons. We would be fortunate if they weren’t nuisances. What matters most is to have as many Baptists join the battle as possible.” He looked around the command center and said, “I hope you all will do your best to defend your designated districts.”

“I don’t see a few people. I thought freedom came at a price,” Nino said as he smirked.

Bong-Seong replied, “Dark Humans, such as the members of Clan Loaners, have decided to act independently. Isn’t that right, Onie Yuki?”

“I would appreciate it if you didn’t associate me with those disgusting brutes just because I’m a Dark Human,” said Onie Yuki, a short-haired woman in a black windbreaker. “I’ve taken on the duty of killing those who take advantage of the situation and go on a looting spree. Black Market will focus on distributing supplies and guiding the evacuation.”

“Good. I didn’t expect anything more. Huuu, it would be great if the others could be as cooperative,” Bong-Seong mumbled, recalling Lazarus of Clan Vatican.

He thought, Who knows where that damn cultist is and what he’s doing!

Bong-Seong was partially relieved that Lazarus was not present. If the report about angel sightings from Clan Argos was correct, the humans couldn’t entrust their backs to Clan Vatican.

I’m worried about Killers’ Age and Hard Drug, but... What worries me most is the possibility that the World Ranker Biphatogenes could be among the dragon army!

The external enemies were far too powerful to have any leeway to worry about any internal ones.

There are currently over a hundred thousand... They may be few, but they’re all dragons!

The estimated population of humanity in the Mirror World was over three billion. Roughly thirty percent, about a billion, resided in the Capital and the cities in its vicinity. Assuming all of them joined the battle, it was a hundred thousand versus a billion; one dragon per a thousand humans.

However, many of the billion humans were still inexperienced Lambs, and they were up against elite dragons that had survived in a war against demons. Humanity could defend against them with something like a human wave attack, but it would result in astronomical casualties and leave the future of humankind bleak.

The Baptists must play an active role! We will form a defense line and hold out as long as possible until reinforcements arrive!

Fortunately, they had dependable allies—the dwarves and elves of Underground. The Union had also sent word to Forestis to contact Elementum and requested the Sēmen for immediate arbitration.

But if Echion has pulled some strings, the Sēmen may get involved too late! At the very least, we need Lee Kang-San to return as soon as possible!

“Defend your designated districts the best you can. As long as we systematically assist each other through the Network, we can stop—”

An unsettling explosion echoed from the west, interrupting Bong-Seong.

***

“Maintain the formation! No one has forgotten the clan rule, right? Any babies who need me to teach you the mana pattern?”

“None, sir!”

“We are against dragons, but there is nothing to fear! They are the same as us! Cut off their heads, and they die!”

Tallinn, the Capital’s westernmost city, was originally the capital of Estonia, one of the three Baltic states that also includes Latvia and Lithuania, on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. However, after being copied to the Mirror World, it became known as the Capital’s western shield.

The city itself was the Capital’s western gate, and the Walls of Tallinn physically defended the west from enemy invasions. The Walls of Tallinn had originally been short and thin, but had become tall and durable after a decade of skill enchantments and reinforcement.

Humans had gathered on top of the Walls of Tallinn, preparing for a siege.

“We of Clan Baltics will stop them here!” shouted a man in his thirties from a watchtower with an orange roof.

He had a goatee, light brown hair and eyes, and was wearing full plate armor. He was Ilmar Kilgas, fourteenth in the human ranking, a Ranker of Clan Baltics, and a tank that represented a group of humans known as the Pearlescent Stronghold.

Ilmar grabbed a pearlescent tower shield, roughly fifty percent taller than him, smashed it down on the ground, and shouted, “Connect to the Walls of Tallinn!”

The nearly ten thousand members of Clan Baltics, all equipped with shields of all shapes and sizes, placed them on the Walls of Tallinn and activated a skill by moving their mana in the same pattern.

[Activating Unique Skill: Pearlescent Blessing.]

[Activating Unique Skill: Pearlescent Blessing.]

[Activating Unique Skill: Pearlescent Blessing.]

...

The Walls of Tallinn, which resembled any ordinary medieval wall, suddenly shone with a pearlescent light.

“Ahaha! Break this wall if you can! It is infused with the defense of ten thousand men!”

Pearlescent Blessing was a clan skill that reinforced the defense of the Walls of Tallinn using the powers of every member of Clan Baltics.

We just have to last one day! That’s more than enough time to take the upper hand! Ilmar shouted inwardly, calmly assessing the situation despite his excessive confidence.

They were against dragons, a superior race. Since they couldn’t fend against their attacks forever, Ilmar focused purely on accomplishing his mission.

We must buy as much time as possible for the Lambs to evacuate, for the Union to establish solidarity, and for our defense system to be consolidated!

“I am a Single-S human! I can take on a few lizards!” Ilmar shouted.

His confidence was not unfounded; a few months ago, one of his stats had reached S-rank, a feat preserved for High Rankers. There used to be a massive gap between Rankers and everyone else below, but that gap was becoming significantly smaller over time. The High Rankers remained stagnant, and the Rankers below them were experiencing an extreme growth spurt thanks to the recent population expansion.

“Fight for humanity! There are not as many enemies as you think!” Ilmar shouted as he stared at the dragon army in the distance.

Dragons were coming out of a giant blue portal. They were in human form, but their pupils were vertical like the eyes of a snake. Ilmar knew that they would transform into their true forms once the battle began.

It would be great if there were no royals among them!

He was confident that he could defend against wyverns and drakes, but they would have difficulty against the royal-blood dragons.

However, he did not let his pessimism show and shouted to raise his clansmen’s morale, “Today, we’ll have dragon meat for dinner! A single clan dared to underestimate humans! The entire Echion should have come if they wanted to take us! We could stop even the Dragon King, Regnator—”

“Impertinent creature,” someone said, interrupting Ilmar.

“Who’s there?!” Ilmar shouted as he turned around.

A man was looking down on them from the blue sky, his hands behind his back. His blue tunic with silver embroidery fluttered in the wind. It appeared to be purely decorative with no defensive capabilities whatsoever.

“I knew that inferior races have been letting recent events get to their heads, but to think it was to the point that they would dare mention the name of the honorable Dragon King so lightly,” said a beautiful middle-aged man with sapphire hair and eyes, exuding a freezing rage.

He slowly outstretched one of his arms forward. A bright blue star rose for those who could see it. Ilmar couldn’t see it, but a chilling sensation down his spine told him that something was about to happen.

He quickly shouted, “All clansmen, release your mana—”

“I bestow judgment upon you in the name of Biphatogenes. Consider it your life’s honor that you die at my hands,” Biphatogenes declared with a gentle wave of his hand.

[Activating Skill: Blizzard Storm.]

The clear blue sky was instantly dyed white. A snowstorm engulfed the Walls of Tallinn and everyone on it like an avalanche. Everything that the Blizzard Storm touched was frozen solid. The shouting Ilmar Kilgas had turned into an ice statue. The sky regained its color after about thirty seconds, but the Walls of Tallinn and every human on it remained frozen as if time had stopped.

“That is the rightful place of creatures, worshiping the almighty race,” Biphatogenes mumbled as he stared at his work with satisfaction, placing his arm behind his back again.

The ice started to crack. The Walls of Tallinn, which had become a giant slab of ice, fell apart like a castle made of blocks. Humanity’s first defense line, the Capital’s western shield, had been broken all too easily with roughly ten thousand casualties.

Biphatogenes commanded, “Advance. Destroy everything that you see.”

They did not need captives, trophies, or surrender. The dragons believed they were as benevolent as they could be, teaching the inferior races their place in the Mirror World.

“Now, Lee Kang-San. I will build you a mountain with the corpses of your people. You should be able to have a better view of the world on top of it.”

Biphatogenes planned to teach Kang-San the most important virtue of an inferior race: humility.

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