The moment my hand closed around the explorer's lantern, the world convulsed.
Reality unraveled like ink bleeding through wet parchment, colors smearing, structures dissolving. For an agonizing heartbeat, I felt myself pulled between layers of existence — as if my very essence was being copied and pasted across a thousand unfinished drafts.
Then, it snapped into focus.
I found myself standing at the edge of a forgotten path, carved through a forest of petrified trees. Cracked lanterns hung from twisted branches, their flames long extinguished, leaving only echoes of light trapped in glass prisons.
Mist coiled at my feet, thick and heavy, swallowing sound and sight alike.
[Trial of the Forgotten Explorer: Commenced.]
[Objective: Illuminate the unseen path. Survive until full ignition.]
Lys appeared beside me, materializing from the swirling data fog. She glanced around sharply, weapon at the ready.
"A trial pocket," she assessed. "Separate from the main fragment field."
"They're making sure we earn this," I muttered, raising the lantern.
For now, it felt like nothing more than cold metal and empty glass, but deep within, I could sense it — a flicker of dormant power, waiting to be awakened.
"We move forward," Lys said. "No hesitation."
Step by step, we advanced through the mist. Each footfall triggered fragmented memories stitched into the landscape: shadows of the explorer's journey, frozen in loops of failure.
A lone figure collapsing in exhaustion.
A hand reaching for a map that never existed.
A final, desperate cry for light.
It wasn't just a trial of combat. It was a graveyard of hope.
"They want me to finish a story that was never completed," I realized aloud.
"Complete it," Lys urged. "Claim it as your own."
As if responding to her words, the mist thickened — and from it, shapes began to emerge.
Figures cloaked in pages of tattered text, their faces hidden behind masks of script torn from abandoned books. They carried quills like spears, their eyes glowing with voracious hunger.
Readers.
But not just any readers.
The Purged Reader Faction.
"Already?" Lys hissed, her stance tightening.
[Alert: External Interference Detected.]
[Warning: Purged Readers Invading Trial Instance.]
"They're not supposed to be here," she said, anger flashing in her eyes.
"They don't care," I replied grimly.
The lead Reader stepped forward, peeling back its mask to reveal a swirling vortex of fragmented text where a face should have been.
"You defy the consumption cycle," it rasped. "You steal from the narratives we were promised."
"Promised?" I echoed.
"We are the Consumers," the Reader snarled. "Your defiance starves us."
A sick realization twisted in my gut.
They weren't part of the system like the Administrators or Editors.
They were something worse.
Parasites.
Entities born from abandoned readers, disconnected from their narratives, desperate to devour anything that still pulsed with story.
"Ethan," Lys warned, "they're after the lantern."
No doubt.
Before they could strike, I raised the cold lantern and willed it to burn.
[Ignition Progress: 13%]
A feeble spark flickered to life within the glass chamber, casting a small circle of light around us.
The Readers recoiled for a moment, shrieking as the glow repelled them.
"They fear completed narratives," Lys said, eyes sharp.
"Then let's give them one to fear," I replied.
They charged, desperate hunger in every movement.
The corrupted blade in my hand flared as I met the first Reader head-on, our clash sending sparks and fragments of narrative scattering into the mist.
They fought with aggression born of starvation, slashing with jagged quills, spitting incomplete storylines like venom.
But they were unstable.
Desperate.
Predictable.
With every attack, I read their patterns like open text, countering not their strikes, but the commands behind them.
I hacked their assaults mid-flow, destabilizing their attacks before they could land.
[Ignition Progress: 37%]
Beside me, Lys moved like living script, slicing through the Readers with elegant precision. She fought not just with her blade, but with her will, bending the narrative layer of the trial space to shield our movements.
"You're getting faster," she observed between strikes.
"I'm done reading," I growled. "I'm writing."
The Readers shrieked louder, their forms destabilizing under the growing light of the lantern.
[Ignition Progress: 61%]
The mist thinned, revealing the path ahead — a broken bridge of fractured text leading toward a final pedestal carved from solidified plot points.
But the Readers weren't finished.
The lead Reader screeched a desperate command.
[Command Injected: Overload Trial Space.]
The environment spasmed, trying to collapse in on itself.
No.
Not now.
I drove the corrupted blade into the ground, channeling my will through the unstable layer of the trial space.
[Manual Override: Stabilization Script Injected.]
The collapse halted, frozen mid-sequence.
Lys's eyes widened slightly, impressed.
[Ignition Progress: 89%]
Almost there.
I gritted my teeth and surged forward, cleaving through the final Readers blocking the path.
As I reached the pedestal, I raised the lantern high.
"Burn," I commanded.
The lantern obeyed.
[Ignition Progress: 100%]
Light exploded outward, pure and blinding, shredding the invading Readers into threads of dissolving text.
Their screams were swallowed by the brilliance as they were consumed by the completed narrative flow.
[Trial of the Forgotten Explorer: Completed.]
[Relic Integrated: Lantern of the Unseen Paths.]
The lantern's glow dimmed to a steady, quiet flame, and I felt its weight shift in my hand — no longer cold, but alive with possibility.
Power surged through me, filling the gaps in my narrative weave.
"I see paths now," I whispered, visions unfolding in my mind's eye.
"Good," Lys said, a rare smile crossing her lips. "Because from here on, every path is a battlefield."
The library's trial pocket dissolved around us, returning us to the Librarian's chamber.
The Librarian regarded us with faint amusement.
"You carry the light of forgotten explorers," they said. "Now, let us see if you can chart a course to salvation — or annihilation."