The first thing Brent felt was weightlessness—not of the body, but of memory. As if the pieces of his identity were suspended around him like stars, glowing fragments waiting to be recalled.
Then came the fall.
But it wasn't down. It was inward.
He slammed into himself—memories colliding, timelines bleeding together. Voices, colors, and feelings he had never known—but had always carried—tore through his mind like wildfire.
And then... light.
Blinding. Infinite. Then narrowing.
He stood on stone that glowed like glass, surrounded by a horizon that looped back onto itself. Skyscrapers floated upside down. Oceans spiraled into clouds. Mountains whispered names in languages never spoken aloud.
They had arrived in Originus.
System Alert: Welcome, Resonant Corebearer
Domain: Reality Flux – Tier Prime
New Directive: Locate the Echo-Nodes of Identity
Caution: Your thoughts shape terrain. Stay mindful.
Brent staggered forward, breath caught in his throat.
Rae landed beside him moments later, spinning midair to slow herself. Her eyes had changed—no longer just silver but streaked with fractal light. She clutched her temple and muttered, "I saw... my mother. Not her face. Her feeling. Like fire turned into silk."
Then Lysa descended in a column of healing flame, bracing herself against the fluxing wind. "Something here knows us. Knows everything. It's reading us like pages."
Ashira followed, but differently.
She stepped from light, as if passing from one dream to another. Her gaze was steady. "We are in the Genesis Spiral. The place where Systems are born. And if it recognizes you—truly—you will be tested."
A rumble echoed from beyond the glimmering peaks. Dark smoke curled toward them, forming shapes with purpose.
"I don't like that," Brent said, drawing his blade.
Lysa's voice went tight. "They're not creatures. They're choices."
From the smoke emerged three figures, one for each of them.
Brent faced a version of himself in golden armor, perfect, godlike, smiling cruelly. "You want power? You'll drown in it."
Rae's mirror was a weeping girl in chains, radiating raw Soul energy that cracked the sky.
Lysa's version was twisted and burning, her Emberheart blackened, face half-devoured by her own flames.
Each doppelgänger opened its mouth at once.
"You can't move forward until you kill who you might have been."
Ashira stepped back, solemn. "This is the Trial of Self. There is no help. You fight this alone."
A new System Alert buzzed violently:
[FINAL ARC INITIATED: Trial of the True Core]
• Objective: Defeat Your Reflected Fate
• Constraint: External Powers Disabled. Inner Potential Only.
• Reward: Access to the First Echo-Node
Brent grinned. "Fine. I've hated that smug version of me anyway."
And then the battle began—not of might, but of identity, regret, temptation, and defiance.
The wind fell silent.
Brent stared into golden eyes—his own, set into a face free of scars, glowing with arrogant grace. The doppelgänger tilted his head, the perfect image of what Brent might've been had he chosen glory above sacrifice.
"I'm what you should have become," the golden Brent said, voice velvet and venom. "You carry the pain of others like a curse. But you could've ruled. You could have been worshipped."
Brent raised his blade, but the doppelgänger raised nothing. No weapon needed.
He moved like light breaking through storm clouds—effortless, divine, and fast. Brent parried only barely, the clash of steel ringing with judgment. His own will buckled under the weight of what he might have become: untouchable, adored, immortal.
But Brent was not a god.
He was a scarred human who refused to die.
"You think power is the point," Brent growled. "But real strength is what survives it."
His Unity Core pulsed. Not from System commands. Not from borrowed strength. But from the unrelenting forge of earned pain.
He surged forward, driving the golden reflection back.
Their clash tore the air. Reality fractured. Mountains sank into oceans. Words and doubts Brent had long buried erupted around them.
"You let your friends suffer!" the golden echo roared. "You think your pain earns you forgiveness?"
Brent roared back. "No. I don't fight to be forgiven. I fight so they never have to be like me."
A single blow cracked the false Brent's chest. Light spilled out—not power, but hollow light. The lie of perfection.
He shattered into golden dust.
System Notification:
Brent Has Conquered His Echo
• New Trait Gained: "Warden of the Self"
• Access Granted: First Echo-Node – Heartforge of Memory
Chapter Twenty-Four: Trial of the True Core – Rae
Rae's battlefield was silence.
Her chain-bound self stood in the center of a lake of tears. Silver eyes haunted and hollow, wrists raw where bonds had cut deep.
"You wanted to belong," the chained Rae whispered. "But you never did. Not in your world. Not in this one. They trust you because they don't know you."
A thousand voices echoed in Rae's ears.
Freak.
Ghostborn.
Other.
She stepped onto the water. It rippled but held her.
"I never wanted to be them," Rae said. "But I did want to matter."
The chained reflection trembled. "You're afraid of what you are. That if they ever saw all of you—the rage, the confusion—they'd leave."
"I am afraid," Rae said. Her Soul Core pulsed in soft lunar waves. "But I'm still here."
The chains lashed out, dragging her under.
But Rae didn't flail. She sank.
Deeper.
Deeper.
Until she hit her bottom—and turned it into a launching point.
She rose with wings of fractured moonlight, the chains snapping with every beat of her defiance.
The reflection screamed.
Rae wept.
And then, she embraced her mirrored self.
"You're not my enemy," she whispered. "You're my beginning."
The reflection dissolved.
System Notification:
Rae Has Conquered Her Echo
• New Trait Gained: "Lunar Reconciliation"
• Access Granted: First Echo-Node – Sanctum of Soul woven Truths
Chapter Twenty-Five: Trial of the True Core – Lysa
Fire.
Lysa stood in a field of ash. Her corrupted self burned, leaking black flame from every pore, eyes empty.
"You wanted to heal the world," the burning reflection said. "But it always took from you. And you gave. And gave. Until there was nothing left but ash."
Lysa held her Emberheart. It flickered, struggling.
"I healed because I had to," she whispered. "Because if I didn't, who would?"
The flame-being stepped forward. "And now you're dying. You are a martyr in disguise, hoping someone will save you. But no one will."
Lysa's knees buckled.
So many she couldn't save. So many wounds she failed to close. So many hours wondering if her kindness was just a slow form of suicide.
But she stood.
And smiled.
"Maybe no one will save me. Maybe that's not the point."
Her Emberheart ignited—not in healing flame, but in balancing fire—the kind that burns and soothes, destroys and renews.
The corrupted version shrieked, imploding in a storm of black petals.
Lysa exhaled. "But I'll keep healing anyway."
System Notification:
Lysa Has Conquered Her Echo
• New Trait Gained: "Phoenix Pact"
• Access Granted: First Echo-Node – Garden of the Last Kindness
All three stood once more at the summit of the spiraling world. Their trials overcome. Their truths made whole.
Ahead of them, a massive crystal core hovered—an altar wrapped in time, light, and memory.
Ashira waited at its base.
Her voice echoed across space.
"This was only the first gate."
She raised her hand.
And behind her, the next world began to awaken.