The magical bells rang three times.A clear signal.The second trial had begun.
The Chamber of the Inverse Mirror stood like a sacred prison. Circular, with dark walls and a floor etched with ancient runes that pulsed with each step.At the center, a structure covered by a white veil…The mirror.
— "Why cover it if we're going to look at it anyway?" Elois murmured.— "It's not what you see," Kaen replied. "It's what it awakens."
Vex felt a chill. He knew what this test meant:Activating the rune for the entire experience.If it extinguished, you failed.Because the trial wasn't about withstanding fear…It was about standing firm in front of it.
A gray-robed instructor gave the order:— "One at a time. You will enter alone. Five minutes before the mirror. If your rune fades… you're disqualified."
Kaen went first.The silence grew heavier.Minutes passed.When he emerged, his face showed no emotion…But his eyes carried something new. Contained rage. Guilt.Maybe both.
— "What did you see?" Elois asked in a low voice.Kaen only muttered:— "What I'll become… if I lose control."
Elois swallowed hard.Then it was his turn.He entered with his chest puffed out…And came out sweating, shoulders low, eyes glassy.
— "And you?"— "I saw myself… alone. My name erased. No echo.My fear wasn't failing.It was being forgotten."
Finally, Vex was called.He stepped in.The room was lit only by the mirror.The instructor said simply:— "Activate your rune."
Vex inhaled. Just like Aric taught him.The broken white light flowed down his arm.
— "Proceed."
The veil rose.And the world changed.
The reflection wasn't physical.It was emotional.
He saw himself… as a child.Small, powerless, while the other kids left him behind.Then, his mother. Tired. Sick.Jeremy, underground. A nameless grave.
The scenery shifted again.Now he was alone.Surrounded by darkness.And the rune… flickered.
"Hold on," he thought.The darkness whispered:"You're not enough. You never were. You never will be."The rune trembled.His body shook.
But then he remembered.Altair's words.Aric's voice.The laughter of Kaen and Elois.
And he shouted—not with his voice, but with his will—"I didn't come here to be enough. I came to break the limit of who I am."
The rune flared bright.And the mirror… cracked.Not in a thousand pieces, but a single perfect fracture.As if fear itself had splintered for a moment.
When he stepped out, he was drenched in sweat.Shirt stuck to his skin. Arm trembling.But the rune still shone.
Kaen and Elois looked at him.And for the first time, they didn't ask what he had seen.They just accepted it.Because they understood—He wasn't the same person who had walked in.