The wind screamed as they stepped into the ruins of the sky-temple.
It was no longer a sanctuary—just bones of a forgotten god-war, suspended between collapsed mountains and floating debris. Lightning licked the edges of broken spires. The horizon shimmered with residual soulfire storms. The air felt stretched, like the realm itself was holding its breath.
Lin Xuanyuan paused at the threshold. His boots crunched against cracked obsidian tiles that once echoed with hymns. Now, only silence remained. Beside him, Kael—the Ash-Born Girl—said nothing. She merely adjusted the boneblade at her hip and stepped through the threshold like she'd done this a thousand times.
The sky-temple's heart was a wide hall open to the heavens, held aloft by twisted gravity pillars and shattered memory-anchors. Runes flickered along the walls, reacting to their presence.
> Alert: Psycho-spiritual anomaly detected.
Dimensional echoes: unstable.
AI Recommendation: Do not proceed.
"Noted," Lin said flatly, ignoring the AI's blinking warnings.
They passed beneath a half-burnt fresco depicting celestial beings falling from the heavens, wings torn, blood like silver raining down. Lin's pulse quickened. He knew this place—though he'd never seen it before. Something in his blood hummed.
As they crossed the threshold into the inner sanctum, the world bent.
Light fractured.
And then he was alone.
Kael vanished. The air grew cold. The AI fell silent.
"Kael?" he called.
No answer.
Then the shadows moved.
A copy of himself stepped from the darkness—taller, cloaked in black soul-armor, eyes glowing like furnace embers. It smiled, and Lin felt the hate before the image even spoke.
"I know what you are," the echo said. "You wear the mask of a savior. But you crave the throne."
"I don't want—"
"You do," the echo snapped. "You will. One day, the cries of the dying will be drowned by the silence of your rule."
Lin's blade was suddenly in his hand, defensive, uncertain. "You're not real."
"I'm the part of you that will win," the echo said softly. "The day you stop hesitating… the day you stop caring…"
It attacked.
They clashed in a storm of soulsteel and fury. Every strike was perfect—because it was him. It knew his feints, his rage, his fear. Lin countered, blocked, parried, but the echo pressed forward with relentless precision.
Then the echo said something that shattered his defense:
"She begged you not to follow this path. And you let her die anyway."
The strike that followed broke Lin's guard, sent him skidding across the temple floor.
He gasped, breath torn from his lungs, chest burning.
"I'm not him," he whispered. "I'm not the Emperor."
The echo knelt beside him, blade against his throat. "No. But you will be."
The blade plunged—then stopped.
A surge of light exploded from Lin's chest—his AI core reacting, releasing a raw pulse of soulforce. The echo disintegrated into ash.
And Lin was back.
He collapsed to his knees, shaking, sweat pouring from his brow.
Across the chamber, Kael stood frozen in a pillar of light, her face twisted in anguish. Her blade trembled as she pointed it at a phantom image of Lin—his current self—smiling with bloodstained hands.
She was being tested too.
He stepped forward. "Kael. It's not real. It's lying to you."
She didn't look at him. Her hands shook violently.
"You betrayed me," she whispered, voice hollow. "I trusted you. I loved you."
"I didn't—"
"YOU CUT ME DOWN!" she screamed—and lunged.
Her blade sliced toward him, fast and brutal. Lin didn't raise his own. He let her strike him.
Blood blossomed across his arm. Pain exploded—but he stood his ground.
"I'm not your vision," he said through clenched teeth. "I don't know what I'll become. But I'd rather die as myself than live as a shadow of someone else."
Her blade hovered at his throat.
Then… her eyes filled with tears.
The phantom faded. The light collapsed. She fell to her knees.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, voice cracking. "It made me see things I buried. I didn't want to remember…"
Lin knelt beside her, silent.
She leaned against him, just slightly. Not weakness—just tiredness.
Above them, the temple shifted again. The runes faded. The trial was over.
> AI Core Report: Emotional resonance spike registered.
Trial completed.
Legacy node unlocked: Mirrored Will.
Dominion Mode Stability: +11%.
Warning: Emotional variables exceed baseline thresholds.
"Shut up," Lin muttered.
Kael glanced at him, a small smile ghosting her lips.
"You talk to it like it's alive."
"Sometimes it is."
She stared up at the broken sky through the shattered ceiling. "That thing it made me see… he wore your face. He was kind. Until the end."
"What happened?"
"I killed him," she said, quietly. "And I don't know if I was right."
The temple shook again—just once. A final sigh.
They rose, slowly. Walked toward the far gate. No words for a while.
Just ash on the wind. The scent of lightning. And two shadows stretched long behind them.
As they passed the final gate, Lin glanced at Kael.
"You said you don't have friends."
She met his gaze. "I still don't."
"But?"
She looked away. "But I think I could die next to you. That's… something."
They walked on.
And far above, unseen by either of them, a pair of crimson eyes blinked awake in the void.
> Surveillance Log: Subject 01 – Lin Xuanyuan.
Trial survived. Emotional anchor identified.
Initiating Phase Two of Collapse Protocol.
The storm was coming.
And this time, it would not test them.
It would break them.
They descended the fractured marble steps into what once must have been the temple's sanctum library—a place of divine architecture now swallowed by vines, mold, and the quiet breath of time.
Kael didn't speak again, but Lin could feel her watching him. Not as a threat. Not as a potential enemy. But as something far more complex: a mirror.
He tried to push past the lingering vision of his darker self—the words it whispered, the fury in its eyes. But it clung to him like smoke. He could still taste the iron of imagined blood in his mouth.
> Internal Scan: Cortical activity spiking. Adrenaline drop detected. Suggesting rest cycle.
"Not now," Lin muttered, blinking sweat from his lashes.
The hall ahead rippled as more memories fought to surface—not his own, but fragments buried within the AI. They fluttered like dying moths behind his eyes: the Emperor's last stand, a child hiding beneath a throne, a woman screaming his name as a blade fell.
Kael stopped beside a shattered relic—an altar fractured in half. Runes flickered dimly along its edge, and something golden pulsed within the cracks.
She reached toward it.
"Wait," Lin said, stepping forward instinctively.
Too late.
The moment her fingers touched the stone, light burst forth—blinding, molten, ancient.
And then—
Voices. Dozens. Screaming. Singing. Praying.
Kael's body lifted off the ground. Her eyes rolled white. Light poured from her chest.
> Alert: Soul-resonance detected. Unknown entity attempting partial synchronization with bonded host.
"Kael!" Lin shouted, grabbing her wrist.
The light hit him like a wave. It wasn't pain—but it wasn't comfort either. It was every truth unspoken, every scream swallowed. Their minds brushed—for a moment, they saw each other entirely.
She saw him as a broken boy grasping for legacy through the fog of grief.
He saw her as a living blade, forged by guilt, shaped by silence.
Then the light died.
She collapsed into his arms, breathing shallow. A strange mark glowed along her collarbone—three interlocked rings, broken at the center.
"What the hell was that?" Lin whispered.
She coughed once, eyes fluttering. "A memory... not mine. Not yours either."
"A warning?"
She shook her head weakly. "A key."
To what, neither could say.
But the AI's voice buzzed again in his mind, sharper this time—almost… anxious?
> Anomaly stabilized. Signature linked to Progenitor Encryption Thread: Ash Protocol. Caution: Subject Kael may be integral to Legacy collapse or restoration.
He looked at her. Really looked.
She was still trembling.
And for the first time, Lin realized—beneath the armor, the certainty, the cold words—she was afraid. Not of him. Not of dying. But of becoming the thing that haunted her trial. Of repeating a cycle she couldn't fully remember but somehow still felt.
He gently helped her up. "We'll figure it out," he said quietly. "Together."
She looked like she wanted to believe that. But her silence was answer enough.
As they made their way out of the temple, something shifted in the skies above.
The clouds parted—not from sun, but from something vast descending.
A titanic construct, veiled in red mist, broke through the stratosphere in silent orbit.
> Surveillance Node Active. Target marked: Lin Xuanyuan. Initiating orbital triangulation for False God Protocol. Estimated Time Until First Descent: 4 days, 11 hours.
And so, the clock began.
Beneath the Forgotten Sky, two broken souls walked on.
Above them, the gods prepared to bleed again.