The Shadow Queen Is Too Alluring—I Can't Handle This Anymore!
Chapter 80: When the Breaker Breaks Himself

Chapter 80: Chapter 80: When the Breaker Breaks Himself

The echo of a bootstep echoed through the chamber.

Aelius turned, and for a moment... he thought he was looking into a mirror.

But the figure before him wasn’t breathing.

Wasn’t blinking.

Wasn’t human.

"Designation: AELIUS_PRIME_REJECTION_001," it said in his own voice.

"Target: Anomaly. Objective: Elimination."

It tilted its head.

"You shouldn’t exist."

A pulse of black static surged outward. The platform beneath Aelius shattered, flinging him into a new combat arena—a sky fragmented by time and void.

The clone advanced.

Fast.

Too fast.

Aelius barely raised a barrier before a shadow-kick landed, sending cracks through his ribs and his will.

"I’ve fought worse," he growled.

"Correction," the clone said, emotionless.

"You’ve never fought you."

As fists collided and void-forged weapons clashed, Aelius felt a strange dissonance—

His clone didn’t hesitate.

No fear.

No second-guessing.

No guilt.

It was everything he could’ve been—if he had stripped away his doubt and heart.

"I am your perfected state," the clone said between attacks.

"Optimized. Efficient. Unbreakable."

"You’re hollow," Aelius spat, dodging a swipe aimed at his throat.

"You have no soul."

"Soul is a processing flaw."

It wasn’t just a battle of bodies.

It was a war for identity.

And for the first time...

Aelius felt outmatched.

It was like fighting his own reflection in a shattered mirror—

Every blow reflected his habits.

Every step countered his instincts.

Even worse, the clone began to mimic his voice, his thoughts, his past speeches.

"You said you’d never let Lyra die," the clone mocked, voice distorting.

"Yet she’s the reason you’re weak."

Aelius’s blade faltered.

The clone grinned—A mechanical, emotionless mimicry of joy.

"Love is corrosion," it declared, charging a finishing blast.

But that’s where it made its mistake.

Because unlike the replica—

Aelius had something to protect.

Just as the shadow blade descended—

"Don’t you dare touch him!"

A violet flash exploded across the battlefield.

Lyra dropped between them, her aura flaring like a phoenix made of shadows and fire.

Her eyes were glowing—two stars of protective fury.

"I don’t care what version of him you are," she growled.

"He’s mine to save."

The clone reeled back.

But behind its retreating steps, the sky cracked.

A new portal opened.

Through it... stepped two more clones—

Version 002 and Version 003.

Each more refined.

Each more emotionless.

"Stability protocol has failed. Commencing Erasure Phase."

Aelius stood, blood on his lips.

"Round two, then."

The sky bled violet as the second and third clones stepped out of the rift.

Each moved in perfect sync—no words, no breath, just the cold rhythm of execution.

Aelius clenched his fists. Blood trickled from his lip, but he didn’t wipe it away.

"Let me guess," he panted, "Version 002 is faster, 003 is smarter?"

002 tilted its head.

003 simply said:

"Combined success rate: 98.6%. Resistance is... inefficient."

Before Lyra could react, 002 blinked into her blind spot, striking with a downward arc—only for Aelius to intercept midair, blades clashing like thunder.

"You want a broken version of me?" he growled, forcing the clone back.

"I’ll show you what happens when a broken man chooses to bleed forward."

003 raised both hands. Time around them stuttered. The battlefield froze—except for the three Aeliuses.

And the war began.

Aelius was splitting.

Not just physically—mentally.

002 was his unshackled instinct.

003 was his perfected logic.

001 was his cold, original sin.

Each clone mirrored a part of him he’d tried to bury.

"This is what you would’ve become if you hadn’t met her," whispered a voice in his head.

"A king of shadows. A god of silence."

"A mistake."

But now...

Lyra was watching.

Bleeding. Screaming. Still believing.

And for the first time in this trial of fates—Aelius didn’t feel like he was proving himself to anyone else.

He wanted to prove something to himself.

The battlefield became a hall of internal organs, beating with memory.

Every move echoed with guilt.

Every counter burned with regret.

Aelius parried 002, only to feel the weight of past betrayals in his shoulders.

He blocked 003’s prediction slash, and felt the time he failed to save a child screaming in a fire.

The clones didn’t just fight with blades.

They weaponized his memories.

But Aelius had something they didn’t.

Emotion.

And a reason.

"Lyra!" he shouted mid-battle, spinning under 001’s blade.

"Don’t run. Remember who I am!"

She flinched—her hand tightening on the sigil around her neck.

Suddenly—Lyra’s own shadow cracked.

A second Lyra began to emerge from it—eyes hollow, mouth twisted.

"She’s not the only one with duplicates," 003 said.

"You’re not the only anomaly in love."

Aelius’s eyes widened.

"No—don’t touch her!"

But it was too late.

The Shadow-Lyra stepped forward—

And whispered,

"If he dies, I get to keep your heart."

Lyra screamed—

And the entire battlefield exploded into white.

Lyra’s body trembled as the Shadow-Lyra stepped closer.

Same face.

Same eyes.

Same voice.

But soulless.

"You think love makes you strong?" the duplicate whispered, fingers brushing her cheek like a mock caress.

"It made us weak. That’s why he bleeds. That’s why he’ll die."

Lyra stepped back—eyes wide, jaw clenched.

Behind her, Aelius was locked in brutal combat, fighting three versions of himself... and losing.

"Get out of my head!" she hissed.

Shadow-Lyra smiled.

"This isn’t in your head. This is you."

Suddenly, Lyra grabbed her wrist.

"No," she growled.

"I am not you."

And just like that, she punched her own shadow across the battlefield—the impact bursting in a shockwave of violet fire.

As her doppelgänger skidded back, Lyra fell to her knees, shaking.

A voice—faint, but clear—rang inside her mind.

"Queen of the Dusk Protocol initializing..."

She gasped.

Visions flooded her: her mother’s death, the night she found Aelius collapsed in blood, the promise she once whispered—

"Even if the whole world forgets you... I won’t."

The pain wasn’t weakness.

It was the anchor of who she was.

"I was never meant to be saved," she whispered, rising.

"I was meant to fight with him."

A pulse of energy surged from her spine.

Her hair lifted, eyes glowing dusk-blue.

Her cloak shredded—reforming into an ethereal gown of midnight silk and embers.

Lyra transformed into a silhouette of twilight.

Not day. Not night.

Something in-between. Something... inevitable.

Her voice rang out like a funeral bell:

"I am the dusk between your death and his survival."

Shadow-Lyra screeched, forming blades from her hair and lunging.

But Lyra didn’t dodge—

She embraced her, pressing her forehead against the twisted twin’s.

"You were born from fear. But I... I was born from memory."

And then she whispered a name.

Her real one.

Shadow-Lyra shattered into ash—

Consumed by the one thing she could never process:

Self-forgiveness.

From across the battlefield, the three Aelius clones turned in unison.

003 narrowed his eyes.

"Queen protocol has stabilized. Threat level increased. Adjusting."

Lyra turned toward Aelius—his body cracked, kneeling, barely conscious.

She walked past the broken sky and burning stone.

Kneeling beside him, she touched his cheek.

"My turn," she said softly.

"You always protect me. But you forgot—my name has always meant war."

Her hands lifted into the air—

Two crescent sigils glowing like twin moons.

And behind her...

The entire shadow realm trembled.

A fourth rift tore open in the sky.

Something ancient screamed behind it.

"He’s coming," whispered 002.

"The Original One."

To Be Continued...