The air around Titan's Gate twisted and warped, the fabric of reality itself trembling beneath the entity's gaze. The shifting figure before them was neither mortal nor divine—it was something else entirely. A being caught between worlds, trapped in the space where reality fractured and reformed.
"Prove your worth," it had said, its voice echoing from every direction.
Raine tightened his grip on his sword, his knuckles white from the pressure. The last battle had nearly broken him. He wasn't even sure what he was supposed to prove, but one thing was certain—failure wasn't an option.
Seraphis remained still, her silver eyes unreadable as she studied the entity. "This is the Gatekeeper," she murmured. "It exists beyond time, guarding the passage between worlds."
Sylara frowned, her blade already half-drawn. "And what exactly does it want us to prove?"
The Gatekeeper tilted its head, as if considering her words. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, it lifted its hand.
The world shattered.
The Trial Begins
Raine hit the ground hard. The air was gone from his lungs, his ears ringing from the sudden displacement. He pushed himself up, his vision swimming as he tried to make sense of his surroundings.
They were no longer at Titan's Gate.
The ruined fortress was gone. The Rift, the sky, even Sylara and Seraphis—everything had changed.
He stood on an endless field of silver grass, beneath a sky that churned with colors that didn't belong. Stars flickered overhead, but they were too close, too large, as if reality had been stretched and folded in ways it was never meant to be.
"Raine?"
He turned sharply.
Sylara stood a few feet away, her silver hair drifting in the weightless air. Her stance was tense, her hand hovering over her sword.
"Where the hell are we?" she demanded.
Before Raine could answer, the Gatekeeper's voice rang out once more.
"You are within the Veil. A place where truth is stripped bare. If you wish to pass, you must survive the Trial."
The air shifted, and suddenly—
They were no longer alone.
Shadows of the Past
Figures emerged from the mist, their forms flickering like dying candlelight. At first, they were nothing more than silhouettes—featureless, hollow. But then, they changed.
Raine felt his blood go cold.
They took the shape of people he had known.
A man stood at the front of the crowd—tall, broad-shouldered, his expression unreadable. His cloak was tattered, but his armor gleamed like molten gold.
Raine knew him.
He had been Raine.
Or rather, the man he had once been.
The past-life version of himself.
Beside him stood Sylara, or a version of her. But this Sylara looked different—older, colder, a queen without a throne. Her emerald eyes burned with judgment.
Sylara tensed beside him, her fingers curling into fists. "No," she whispered. "This isn't real."
"All things within the Veil are real," the Gatekeeper intoned.
The echoes of the past stared at them with unreadable expressions.
Then, the attack began.
Fighting Their Own Shadows
The past version of Raine was the first to move. He stepped forward, his sword igniting with blue fire, the same way Raine's had when he fought at Varyndor Keep.
Raine barely had time to block before the man slammed into him with the force of a hurricane.
Steel met steel. Sparks flew as Raine staggered backward, his arms screaming under the weight of the blow. His past self was stronger. Faster. Sharper.
He gritted his teeth, adjusting his stance.
This was different from any fight before.
His opponent wasn't a mindless enemy. He was fighting himself—the version of himself that had once ruled, that had once controlled everything.
A version of himself that had never failed.
The past Raine struck again, his sword carving through the air in a deadly arc. Raine barely managed to dodge, rolling to the side.
"You were weak then," the past Raine murmured, his voice like a memory given form. "And you are weak now."
Raine scowled. "Yeah? Well, you're dead. So what does that say about you?"
He countered with a surge of lightning, his power crackling to life around his blade. The past version of himself didn't even flinch. He simply raised his free hand—
And absorbed the lightning.
Raine's stomach twisted. "Oh, hell."
The past Raine smirked. Then he unleashed the energy back at him.
Meanwhile—Sylara's Battle
Sylara was locked in combat with her own past.
The queenly version of herself moved with ruthless precision, every strike meant to kill.
"You hesitated," the past Sylara said coldly as she clashed blades with her present self. "And because of that, everything was lost."
Sylara gritted her teeth, parrying the blow. "No," she spat. "Because of you, everything was lost."
She twisted, slashing upward, forcing her opponent back a step.
The past Sylara regarded her with something almost like pity. "You're still running."
Sylara lunged.
She would not lose to a ghost.
Breaking the Chains
Raine hit the ground hard, rolling just in time to avoid another blast of his own stolen energy.
His past self loomed over him, blade raised.
"You are not ready," the past Raine murmured.
Raine growled. Enough.
His fingers curled, the lightning crackling differently this time. Not wild. Not desperate.
Controlled.
His.
The moment his past self swung down—
Raine vanished.
The past Raine's blade slammed into empty air.
Then—Raine reappeared behind him.
With one swift movement, he drove his sword forward, piercing through the ghostly version of himself.
For the first time, his past self faltered.
The blue fire around him flickered. His expression twisted—not with pain, but with something close to acceptance.
"Finally," the past Raine murmured. "You understand."
Then he vanished.
Raine exhaled, his entire body trembling.
Sylara stood across from him, panting, her own past self gone.
They had won.
The Veil began to dissolve, the silver grass fading, the sky unraveling into darkness.
The Gatekeeper's voice returned.
"You have passed."
Then, just as suddenly as it had begun—
They were back at Titan's Gate.
A New Path Forward
Seraphis stood where she had been, watching them carefully. "You survived."
Raine wiped the sweat from his brow. "Yeah. Barely."
Sylara took a deep breath, shaking out her arms. "Is that it? Are we done?"
The Gatekeeper's form flickered. "The first door has opened. The path to the Rift is before you."
Raine's pulse quickened.
This was it.
The real journey was about to begin.
And the war was only just getting started.