Kai floated in the endless void, his transformed body thrumming with contained power. The All-Devouring Clock had nested itself between his ribs, its ancient gears grinding out a rhythm that matched his heartbeat. Each rotation sent waves of dark energy coursing through his veins like liquid midnight. Before him, the remnants of the Eclipse Queen's crown drifted—a broken circlet of twisted spikes that pulsed with dying violet fire.
"They will come for you."
The scholar's ghost materialized from the darkness, his ethereal form wavering like heat shimmer. His spectral eyes held centuries of accumulated wisdom and regret. "The Forgotten King believed himself the first. He was merely the latest fool to think the Void could be tamed."
Kai flexed his fingers experimentally. Reality itself rippled around his touch, the fabric of existence bending to his will. "Then who came before him?"
The ghost's expression grew solemn. "Look beneath your feet."
The void peeled away like torn parchment, revealing what lay hidden in the depths. A corpse in armor of living clockwork sprawled in eternal repose, its hollow eye sockets boring into Kai's soul. Though no sound emerged from its desiccated lips, a voice resonated through the emptiness:
"Welcome home, my heir."
The void convulsed and expelled Kai onto a battlefield locked in temporal stasis. Above, the sky had become a fractured mirror reflecting a thousand dying realms in each shard. Around him rose the ruins of an impossible citadel, its brass walls embedded with the screaming faces of monarchs from forgotten cycles—their souls fused into the very architecture of their prison.
A child's laughter rang out, bright and terrible.
Kai spun toward the sound. A boy of perhaps ten summers sat perched upon a throne constructed entirely of interlocking gears, his small legs swinging carelessly. His left eye blazed with Eclipse violet; his right was the absolute black of the void.
"You certainly took your time," the child said with casual reproach. "I've been waiting for eons."
Kai's war hammer materialized in his grip, its weight familiar and comforting. "Who are you?"
"The true first heir." The boy's grin was sharp as broken glass. "The one who grew tired of the game."
The child snapped his fingers with casual authority. The citadel reconstructed itself around them, stone and metal flowing like water until Kai stood within a grand arena. Recognition struck him—this was the amphitheater depicted in the Sigeur clan's most ancient tapestries.
"Every heir faces their trial," the boy explained, now perched atop a slowly rotating gear that floated at eye level. "You conquered the Devourer. Defeated the Queen. Even bested the King." He leaned forward, his mismatched eyes gleaming. "But I am not your enemy. I am the test itself."
The arena floor split with a thunderous crack, disgorging a tide of half-mechanical warriors. Each bore Kai's face, but twisted by the failures of different timelines—their bodies warped monuments to paths not taken.
The boy tossed Kai a brass key that gleamed with inner fire. "Survive twelve cycles of yourself. Or join the others in the walls."
Kai barely managed to catch the key before the first doppelganger lunged, its hammer aimed directly at his throat.
Cycle after endless cycle, Kai fought against reflections of his own potential damnation.
He battled a version wholly consumed by the Void—a writhing maelstrom of shadow and gnashing teeth that had once been human. Another wore the Eclipse Queen's crown, its thorned spikes driven so deep into his skull that violet ichor wept from his eyes. The most harrowing opponent was the one who had successfully saved Elyse, only to hold her as she crumbled to ash in his arms, her salvation proving temporary.
By the tenth cycle, Kai's body bore more cracks than solid flesh. The mysterious boy observed from his floating perch, absently chewing on a gear as if it were a sweet apple.
"Growing weary already?" he asked with mock concern.
Kai spat a mouthful of void-ichor onto the arena floor. "What purpose does this trial serve?"
The boy's perpetual grin finally faltered. "To discover if you possess what all the others lacked."
"Which is?"
"The wisdom to lose deliberately."
The final reflection emerged from the arena's depths—not a monster or corrupted being, but a man clothed in pristine Sigeur robes. His eyes held clarity and purpose, his war hammer unmarked by battle. This was Kai as he had once dreamed of becoming.
"You were meant to be our salvation," the false Kai said with gentle reproach.
Kai froze, recognizing the weight of expectation in those familiar features. This was him as the clan's pride, his father's worthy successor.
The boy's whisper cut through the silence: "He represents the one who obeys without question."
The pristine Kai raised his hammer with practiced ease. "Surrender. The burden will be lighter."
Kai's grip tightened on his own weapon—then he released it entirely, letting it clatter to the stone floor.
The boy's eyes widened in genuine surprise.
"I refuse to fight myself any longer," Kai declared, turning his back on his idealized reflection.
The arena exploded into fragments of light and shadow.
The boy reappeared beside the throne, his expression petulant. "That was hardly fair."
Kai gazed down at the corpse of the true First King—now revealed as nothing more than ancient bones wrapped in corroded clockwork. "No. I finally comprehended the lesson."
The child sighed dramatically and delivered a kick to the corpse's ribcage. "Very well. Accept your ridiculous prize." He tossed Kai a small silver bell that chimed with otherworldly resonance.
Kai caught it carefully, feeling power thrumming within the metal. "What is this?"
"The actual All-Devouring Clock." The boy began to fade, his voice becoming distant: l"Ring it when you're prepared to end everything that has ever been."
Kai awakened among the ruins of Roza, the silver bell nestled in his palm like a sleeping bird. The sky above seemed fundamentally wrong—too motionless, too devoid of sound, as if the world held its breath.
Then, from the encroaching shadows, a new voice emerged:
"Searching for something?"
A woman stepped into view, cradling Elyse's soul-jar against her chest like a precious infant. Her eyes blazed with the unmistakable violet of Eclipse fire.
The Eclipse Queen drew breath once more.
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