The mirrors did not break with a shatter. They cracked inward, like wounds reopening.
Raen stepped into the basin, the others holding back, as if they knew this was a trial meant for one soul only. Even Hollowfang whimpered and lowered its head. Jester Wyrm spun once, then floated higher, as though unwilling to look into what was coming.
Despair Maw didn't move.
Ember Vow's fire dimmed.
Raen took another step.
The moment his boot touched the black glass scattered around the throne, the air fractured.
He wasn't in the basin anymore.
He was on a battlefield.
Blood painted the soil. Screams echoed from nowhere and everywhere. And at the center of it all—
Himself.
Clad in the crimson command cloak of the Empire, sword raised, voice iron. He was shouting orders to retreat, but the words weren't what mattered.
The eyes of the soldiers watching him were.
Terrified. Betrayed.
Abandoned.
Raen watched as one of the soldiers—barely more than a boy—turned to fight and was cleaved down in one blow.
Another screamed his name.
"Commander Tiberis! Why—?!"
The memory twisted. Flames rose around the edges. The scene shifted—
Now he stood before a council, accused of war crimes he didn't commit but couldn't defend against. Not because he was innocent.
But because the things he *had* done were worse.
Raen sank to his knees.
He'd lived with these ghosts. Locked them away, thinking he could bear them in silence. But the Trial of Black Glass wasn't about guilt.
It was about *truth*.
"You wanted to be a hero," said a voice—his own, but younger. "But you never knew what it would cost. You weren't ready."
"I did what I had to do," Raen whispered.
The younger him smiled. Sadly.
"No. You did what you were *told* to do."
Another version of him stepped forward—this one older, eyes hollow, hands dripping in abyssal fire.
"You were a pawn. And now you want to be a king."
Raen clenched his fists.
"No. I want to *choose* now. Not be used. Not be a weapon. I want to protect."
Silence.
Then the three reflections—young, old, broken—nodded.
The battlefield dissolved.
He stood once more in the basin.
But the mirrors had changed.
Instead of reflecting fears, they reflected *possibilities*.
In one, he saw himself standing beside Ember Vow, leading a vanguard of bound beasts. In another, he stood alone, cloaked in shadow but unafraid. And in the last—
He saw himself smiling.
Not victorious. Not invincible.
Just… whole.
The throne before him pulsed.
[Trial Complete. Black Glass Core Acquired. Soul Stabilization: 82% → 89%]
A new mark etched itself onto his arm—a jagged sigil of obsidian flame, unlike any before.
His beasts approached slowly. One by one, they touched the throne.
And bowed.
They had seen what he'd faced.
And accepted who he was becoming.
Raen turned to the sky. The layer was quiet now. The way forward opened.
But he knew the trials were far from over.
They camped that night beneath a sky that bled silver mist.
Jester Wyrm tried to lift the mood with one of his riddles: "If you stare into the Abyss and it yawns back… does that mean it's sleepy or just bored?"
No one answered.
Ember Vow sat beside the fire, polishing her broken visor. Despair Maw lay curled near the edge of the camp, its shadows drawn tight, almost protective. Hollowfang never strayed far from Raen, eyes alert even in rest.
Raen didn't sleep. Not deeply. Visions of the shattered mirrors haunted the edges of his thoughts.
And yet, something had shifted inside him.
Not clarity.
But conviction.
He rose before dawn. The next layer would open with the rising light, and he intended to meet it on his feet.
As the ground trembled and the seventh seal cracked, Raen glanced at his companions—each scarred, each burdened.
Each still standing.
He smiled faintly.
"Let's see what the Abyss throws at us next