'What happened? You've been silent for so long,' Luna asked.
'I'll explain later. Let's just get out of here first.' The sooner we reached safety, the sooner I could make sense of everything I'd seen.
I stood up, giving my eyes and mind a moment to adjust. The sudden shift in environment hit harder than expected, almost jarring.
The door had returned, as expected, but something about touching the cool handle sent a ripple of unease through me. It felt... different, but the feeling disappeared almost immediately.
'What's wrong?' Luna nudged again.
'I—nothing. It's fine.' I shook my head. Asmund was supposed to be waiting outside. If anything happened, he'd back me up. I drew in a breath and pulled the door open.
The moment I did, a wave of nausea hit like a freight train. My eyes clamped shut as the world spun violently around me. A low hum resonated in my ears, an all-too-familiar feeling creeping in, the one tied to one of my least favorite creations.
Something cut through the disorientation, a voice. Gentle, familiar... and deeply unwelcome. "Congratulations."
It wasn't Asmund. It wasn't anyone I recognized from the sect. But I knew the voice. It had only been about a day, and yet, it felt like so much had happened. It felt real, as if I had truly lived those moments, in that body, in that world.
But it was all a test, an illusion.
"Hmmm? Yes, I suppose you could see it that way," the old man said, stretching with a long sigh. "Ahhhh, that's nice."
"I… I don't understand. How can I be back? There was still so much to do. So much to learn."
He rolled his shoulders, joints popping in a series of cracks. "Maybe. But you accomplished your goal. And much to my surprise—" he turned and gestured toward the others, "—you did it faster than them."
Synthia, Callum, and the Princess sat nearby in pristine silence. No sign of the other guy, though, to be honest, I wasn't eager to go looking for what might be a human pancake at the bottom of a cliff.
I stood, letting my mind catch up to yet another jarring shift in reality as my gaze drifted to the staircase, the final stretch. But... "What about the others?" I asked.
"They're safe from here," the old man replied. "Well... so long as they don't get themselves killed." His gaze remained calm and steady. "All that's left for you is to climb."
I exhaled slowly and gave a quiet nod. I wished the others luck. I truly did, at least to my briefly made friends, but I had my own path now. My own pursuit of power that needed to continue. Still, I hoped we'd meet again someday.
First, though, I had to get back to my friends. Then… well, the whole interplanetary power thing. Probably best to start smaller. Maybe reaching the level of that Starborn girl first, and who knows, maybe I could help Sia reach that kind of literal fire power too with everything I'd learned.
As I passed the old man, I tilted my head toward the sky. "I mean, really why a staircase that goes so high?"
"I like symbolism," he answered with a casual smile, like it should've been obvious. "To pursue the peak of all things, that's the goal for creatures like us."
'Can I reach that?' Luna asked, clearly more moved by the sentiment than I was. Maybe she just liked this softer version of our test proctor.
He answered her, voice echoing gently in my head, uninvited. 'We all can.' Then he faded, a shimmer in the air like a mirage, leaving me alone with the climb.
No pressure. No illusions. No more fights. Just steps. I didn't even grow tired as the mountain shrank below me, but my strength stayed constant.
Memories began to surface, not as part of a trial, but my own. My time in this world, short as it had been, was filled with more purpose, more meaning, than anything I'd known before.
I remembered the video Marcus and I had watched back then. The Monk moving like something beyond human, his body shifting in ways so unnatural it actually disgusted my old friend.
Could any of those league fighters I used to idolize even last a second against me now?
The cafeteria panic. The nauseating, disorienting trip through the cosmos. Meeting that soldier, the first time I truly felt fear in this world. All of it felt like an actual lifetime ago.
I looked up, seeing that there was still no end in sight, so I climbed and let the memories keep rising with me.
Meeting Thea was the turning point. My teacher, my guide… the girl I cared for more than anyone. Our shared experiments and discoveries had grounded me, fueled me, and made surviving in this chaotic world feel possible.
As I climbed higher, the sky began to darken. Strangely, pressure around me began to lift with the change.
Then there was Elric, my closest friend, in some ways more than anyone before. My first impression of his features that resembled a marble statue, delicate and serene, along with his meek behavior contrasted heavily with the reality hidden beneath.
A lethal talent for battle, an inventor's brilliance, and the scheming mind fitting of the upbringing he endured.
The wind thinned the further I went, and my steps grew lighter.
I thought of Lyra and Sia, two I hadn't had enough time with, though that was more due to the fact that the trio stuck together like glue. Sia, fierce and unyielding, always willing to protect the people she cared about, and Lyra… gentle in a world that punished softness. Her empathy must've been a liability where she came from, but she held onto it anyway.
The path around me started to change, warping in quiet subtle ways as my thoughts spilled forward faster and faster.
Above, stars pierced the dark sky. Below, the plateau was so far away I couldn't even make out the others anymore.
There were plenty of horrible times too. The beatings I took, and the ones I felt forced to give. The lives I ended… Most of them barely older than me. Blood stained my hands, whether it was in self-defense or not.
Back then, my only goal was survival. I moved forward without direction, driven by necessity, and I think for a time, that was enough. But my drive for survival had its cost.
The wind picked up, sharp and cold, stinging my eyes as my vision blurred.
My recklessness, born from desperation, had consequences. The destruction. The separation from my friends. It didn't matter that it was necessary to keep living here. The result of my actions causing such horror that I still force myself to bury it deep down.
Still, I met Luna, and together we had grown far stronger, bonded by a shared will to push forward. Everything I did, everything I learned it was all to find my friends again… and to stand before that being once more.
I looked up. A fissure of nearly blinding light split the top of the stairs. I hadn't even noticed how far I'd come. One moment I was climbing, the next, I was here.
'Luna?'
'Yeah?'
"You've been awfully quiet," I teased.
'You were lost in thought. Too much to take in,' she replied with a soft quip.
'You ready to go back?' This felt like the end of the trial, of the climb and man was I was glad for it. I was ready.
'I will reach the peak of grass... no, even humans will bow before me!' she declared, fire in her voice.
'Mm, not sure. Some of my friends are pretty tough. You'll need sharper roots than that if you want to carve through stone. Or win without poison.' She didn't answer. But she tightened around my wrist, full of resolve.
I took a breath and stepped through the rift.
…
It wasn't like stepping through the portals I'd still not gotten used to. It was seamless, like walking through a doorway.
The air on the other side was cool against my skin, unnaturally still. The room was shaped entirely from translucent crystal, the walls catching the light and warping it, bending my reflection in strange, shifting angles. It felt like the place had been carved from ice.
It was disorienting, and as I moved, the reflections moved too, making distorted shadows of me trailing along the facets of the crystal. Every step echoed lightly in the otherwise silent, well-lit chamber.
In the center stood a podium. If there'd been benches or pews, I might have mistaken this place for some kind of temple. I didn't get far before a voice broke the silence.
"Oh? Already? I'm surprised one of you made it so quickly." The voice was flat and neutral, especially with the unnervingly calm tone.
Like some sort of horrific spatial beast, every reflection around me, each wall, each angled crystal face, my image had been replaced. Each surface now bore a pair of glowing golden eyes, watching from every direction.
My spine tensed with that ancient, primal instinctual sense of, 'I am being watched'. Except overloaded to an infinite degree.
'Is this… another version of the old guy?' Luna asked, her voice tight with concern.
I didn't respond. Frozen in place, countless eyes locked on to me.
The voice spoke again, still emotionless and detached, but something about those eyes... they didn't feel as empty . There was something buried in them, though it was impossible to tell what.
"For such an achievement," it said, "you deserve a reward."
My heart started pounding. A cocktail of anticipation, fear, but even more coming from a haunting echo that washed through me
'Peter?'
"First," it said.
From the altar, a pale light shimmered into existence, weaving delicate, intricate lines into the air. The light shimmered across the crystal room, reflecting its brilliance.
The glowing symbol shot straight toward me, aimed at my left hand. I flinched and tried to move out of instinct, but it didn't matter. The light curved midair, adjusting its path effortlessly before pressing into the back of my hand.
It didn't burn or anything, but I felt it settle deep beneath the skin, embedding itself in me. The runic mark shimmered faintly, eerily familiar of the symbols carved into the ancestor statue.
"The Mark of Return," the voice intoned. "If you find another statue, you will have the chance to be remembered… as a true hero."
That...
Before I could react, the voice continued, as emotionless as ever. "Next," it said, like a machine ticking through a checklist.
"The Voidseed."