A slow distortion arose that threaded through steel, and slipped into the minds of the spectators. The crowd slowly quieted into a hush, and then into nothingness. The glow of the lamps dimmed into a sickly gold coiling through the arena beneath the illumination of the Sun. And something beneath the ruins of the airship hanger breathed a sigh.

  Sol coughed out the taste of raw iron, and gritted his teeth at the wraith before him. When it spoke, the voice reverberated into his chest as if it was spoken from within him. It preached in the tone of neither man nor woman, but all at once, "You will give everything." And charged at him with a thousand arms at the instant.

  "I—" Sol shot off one tendril like a thread snapping, ripping off another with great force. His eyes burned like the flames of the Sun, and his brows furrowed in rage. There was fire brimming within him.

  "Will—" He aimed at the monster before him; once a man of eyes burning with dreams, who now limped in a shadowed corruption.

  "Give you—" The runes on his gun glittered a bright orange, no longer silent to his plea.

  "Nothing!" The final shot blasted towards the abyssal wraith. The corruption vanished from that spot, as if purified by the searing flames of the bullet. Yet, the monster was stronger, faster and bigger than his will.

  The beast leaped in response, and Sol dodged with a jump back. He shot midair. The bullet sparked off, but the impact made the beast hesitate. Good, Sol grinned. It was afraid of the fire that seemed to purify. After all, abyssal entities despised anything close to flames that cleansed.

  The corrupted voice of Alistair rumbled through the shadows. "So, this is your answer? You will protect nothing? Not even those you hold dear?" It probed.

  Sol's hands shook as he gripped his gun. "No. Not if it makes me like you! If this—" he gestured at the beast, at the corruption that had claimed a man, his example, "—is what giving everything does, then I'll fight for what I can save. Not what I can't."

  The beast lunged again, and this time, caught him in a powerful grip of claws. They raked across his side, tearing cloth and digging skin. It threw him into the arena's ground, and he fell hard, choking on hot blood and grainy dust together. The tendrils begin to wrap around his body, sending his mind into abyssal murmurs once more.

  The creature's mouth stretched open, so surreal like it would consume everything all at once. Energy burst from within, the beam aimed like judgment itself. Sol let his hand escape it's limb, channeling enough power into his gun to shoot it's mouth again. He barely dodged it, seeing the earth of the arena give in to the corruption right beside his head.

  It recoiled when the bullet dug into it’s mouth, grip loosening just for a moment, and Sol took his chance to make distance between them. He scurried away like a fleeing mouse, reloaded his gun, fumbling with it like it was his first time holding it, and in a way, it really was.

  The demons mouth opened again, and this time, in absolute anger. It shot another burst of crimson light. Sol dived sideways behind a shattered column just as the beam vaporized a chunk of the arena wall. The stone melted and shadowy fissures ran through like spider webs. He could feel his skin blistering from the proximity alone.

  Sol peeked out, pistol steady in his grip, to watch. He observed how the creature was slower now. Just slightly.

  The abyss recoiled, as though his refusal burned it like flame itself. "You will pay for your defiance," it hissed, but there was a hint of doubt. A hesitation born from Sol's conviction.

  "I don't care what you are... I fight for myself, for the memories and promises I remember. But I don't fight to lose myself." Sol tightened his stance with his gun raised.

  "So be it, Sol. Then let us see if your light is enough."

  The crowd roared to showcase their fervor, clearly under the daze and among them, Silvanus' gaze sharpened like the edge of a blade. Marguerite stepped forward to reach the boy, but he halted her with a hand on her shoulder. She tried to resist, but her gaze fell on the two figures clad in white watching them, ready to intervene should they attempt to do anything.

  Marguerite pursed her lips, unwillingly choosing to stand instead. Her eyes returned to the battle unraveling before them.

  Within the surging dust was blackened tar, and orange flares against countless tendrils.

  "Give... Everything."

  The voice was inside his skull now, grinding against the bone.

  Heat flared in his side where the tendrils had gripped him. Through the haze, the monster's single remaining human eye fixed on him. The blue of the sky among the dark corruption and almost pleading.

  "Alistair," Sol rasped, unsure if he was accusing or calling out for him. He gripped his forearm, but not letting go of his gun. The beast froze at the call, tendrils twitching with a flicker of hesitation rippling through its frame. For a heartbeat, the abyssal murmurs faltered in Sol's mind.

  His fingers twitched against his gun, ready to take the chance. But it was gone as soon as it was felt. The beast leaped once more. With a roar that shook the arena walls, the tendrils surged forth and Sol lost his ground beneath his feet. He felt the pressure in his ears shift, before pain bloomed over his body. His muscles ached, and bones dug into the ground that had crashed against him.

  Somewhere beyond the ringing in his ears, he thought he heard Marguerite screaming his name. She was still there, his lips curved at that thought.

  "You'll get nothing," he spat blood, grumbling at the demon.

  Sol lay there for a moment, blinking against the pounding in his head, trying to tell where the arena walls ended and the dark mass of tendrils began. His gun had skittered a few feet away. It's runes were still pulsing faintly like a dying ember. It must be calling for him.

  The beast surged forward, jaws splitting wider than his shoulders—it's body.

  Time stopped as Sol tried to flee. A figure blurred at the corner of his eyes, cloaked in dust and sunlight. A sharp sound resounded in the arena like steel slicing steel. The boy with red hair sliced the the beast across the shoulder, forcing it to stagger back but it did not rid the corruption.

  Mattheos.

  "Get up," The boy of the Cathedral commanded in a tone scruff as granite, "I will not let you disrespect me like that! You will kill it just as you defeated me!"

  The gun lay just past the sweep of the creature's limbs, runes still glowing faintly in the dust, calling out to him. His body ached in retaliation. Sol, wincing, forced his legs to move, sprinting low as Mattheos drove the beast back another step with a flurry of strikes. It resisted, curling around Mattheos' arms, corrupting his own body.

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  Mattheos did not relent, eyes flashing with a flaming conviction.

  It's more limbs aimed for Sol, zigzagging across the sand, staying low and unpredictable. He let it anticipate a dodge, then dropped into a slide between openings. Fingers closing around the gun, Sol spun to face the monster. In the chaos of Mattheos' assault, it was distracted. He shot, purifying each limb that targeted his rival.

  The creature turned again tracking him. It roared, but the sound came from deep within its glowing mouth. Behind its jagged teeth was a fragile, gleaming red orb. It was exposed with the opening of it's mouth. The flesh around it was as if flower petals blooming in the sunlight.

  A sour chill radiated from its breath. The reek of ash and rot poured over the two. Sol threw himself back to dodge, boots scraping stone, but the next strike caught him across the chest and hurled him down hard. Darkness closing in at the edges of his vision, and he shut his eyes to brace himself. Sol coughed blood once again, and skidded back to any safety he could find.

  When he looked down, he watched the slice of his skin bleeding. But the red was not pure, nor untainted, threaded with a darker substance. The abyssal slick clung to the wound as if alive. It spread deliberately, crawling across his skin with an invasive intent. It made panic detonate within Sol as the edges of his vision began tunneling towards the wound. His fingers trembled uncontrollably as the pain and confusion narrowed the world to that point of contamination.

  No, no, no! It's spreading. I can't stop it! I can't—

  His stomach twisted as the primal part of him screamed to run. Perhaps, to tear the limb off, or even to escape his own body.

  The abyssal slick pulsed once more in his mind. Sol winced, attempting to fend it off. He attempted to calm his breathe in the midst of the war within his own body, and when he opened his eyes once more, he saw the boy fighting alone.

  Mattheos feinted high, drawing the creature's head back. It sent out a burst of power, throwing him into the arena wall. The opening was perfect. Yet, it was gone.

  Sol's breathe wavered. He sat there heaving, and watched as the arena was covered in black abyssal matter. It's limbs flickered everywhere, leaving no opening to the naked eye. And now he sat to observe the monster.

  I cannot stay here... I need to do something... He had to finish the battle before he was taken captive of his own mind. As he stood, his knees buckled.

  Staying still meant surrender. He pushed again.

  Finish the battle. End this quickly. Before his mind fractured completely.

  Alistair...

  And for the first time in the Trial, the creature turned its full attention elsewhere.

  The air thinned around Sol, as if the creature's gaze drew the oxygen out of the arena. The wraith's flesh once more uncoiled with an unnatural smoothness. The glow inside its throat pulsed once, throwing a red shimmer across the cracked stone and dust that littered the earth.

  It fixed on him.

  Every ragged breath Sol took seemed to pull the creature closer. The abyssal slick on his own flesh rippled as if the it had recognized its source, it's answer.

  "Yield. Surrender. Surrender to the will."

  Before it reached Sol, he let the world tilt to lung to the side instinctively.

  It's slower than I though! He rejoiced in the perfect dodge. But it was too late to celebrate, even if the wraith was slow, it's limbs were not. The tip grazing the edge of his cloak, tearing it with a clean slice. Another blurred from the corner of his eye, aiming for the space he had just occupied. Not good! Sol screamed in his own head.

  The arena compressed slowly into an obscurity, concealing him from the reality around them.

  He had nowhere to run.

  Reality had narrowed to the singularity of survival, and Sol realized that here, in this distorted battlefield, the abyss ruled.

  "Yield!"

  "Never!" Sol spat back.

  "Why?" It groaned in rage, into a thousand voices resonating at once, a threat no doubt. Sol shivered, but forced himself to look up at the thousand gazes.

  "Because—" He breathed heavily, feeling his chest ache grow unbearable, "I fight not to protect... " He was not fighting to protect the world, nor the arena, nor even Marguerite. He was fighting for fragments of himself, for the small, unbroken threads of memory that he clung to. I do not have anything to protect.

  The wraith's pull roared through him, but the memories—the promise, the warmth of the cottage's hearth, the voices of the past, burned brighter like a fire that no abyssal corruption could snuff.

  His resolve burned within the darkness like a blazing sun. The abyssal limbs retreated, even if for a moment—they hesitated to reach him.

  "Alistair, you had protected the people of Solthar. You have done your duty. Now," Sol raised the gun, the runes bursting into fierce orange light that reflected off of Mattheos' fallen blade. "It's time to rest."

  The shot thundered through the arena, and through the openings of each shadowed tendril that tried to stop it. The bullet struck the core dead center, and it shattered like scarlet glass fracturing the entire space beneath the arch. Sol was thrown back by the surge of intense power and he fell into the dust beyond the reach of the thousand limbs.

  Alistair's voice that was once buried under the abyssal roar, now softened to something almost human, "Then... fight, Sol. Fight for yourself. Fight for the light you've remembered." Those words were whispered with the wind caressing Sol's wrist.

  The remains of the wraith dissolved into nothing, and in the lucidity of the aftermath, Sol felt the first flicker of freedom undeniably his.

  The roar of the crowd still rattled through the stone walls as he staggered down the narrow corridor, boots dragging. Every step sent a hot sting through his body where the beast's claws had raked him, and every part of his limb cried in pain.

  The taste of ash, metal and rot remained in his mouth, and on his body.

  Marguerite immediately rushed to his side, gasping at the intensity of his wounds. It didn't take long for the Sun's disciples to reach him either.

  "By order of the Sun, the Trials are concluded. Sol, you are hereby requested for questioning and suspected disruption of the sacred judgment."

  Marguerite shot them a look sharp enough. "Oh, how very convenient. Win a fight, get accused of treason. Do you throw all your champions in the dungeon, or is Sol just special?" She mocked.

  As the Cathedral's guards closed in, Sol's heart hammered. The trial that was supposed to prove his worth had just marked him as a target. But he knew he was always a target, just an entertainment they kept until they would eventually become bored.

  Marguerite immediately summoned a magic circle to take them away, but it was immediately intercepted by imposing robed figure. With a flick of hit hand, it burned away the traces of the witch's magic, surprising her as she gasped seeing embers of violet disperse. Something heavy pressed upon their shoulder when the gaze of the hooded man fell upon them. A surge of power.

  "Going somewhere?" He floated down, eyes gleaming coldly beneath a crown of twisted light. "Why do you intend to run, victor?" That strange man questioned, pressed, walking closer to them, albeit slowly. Akin to a predator sneaking up to it's prey, his pale robes sang a chant of death with each movement.

  "You've fought a glorious battle of Dusk, emerged a victor, and intend to escaping before your prize?" He smirked, watching Sol's uncomfortable posture with satisfaction, and extended a hand. "Come, Sol. Accept a reward before you leave. Accept the honor of the Executioner, and it shall grant you power to shape this world, surely."

  The man's hidden gaze pierced through them as if daring to defy. The cathedral's knights assembled behind him, their armor gleaming, ready to enforce his will.

  Marguerite's eyes flicked to the hand, then back up to his face. "Sorry, but when a man dressed like a funeral pyre offers you 'honor,' it's usually a trap. We'll pass."

  He wanted to refuse but he was cornered and outnumbered. Sol's gaze falls on Marguerite, who stands firmly besides him, ready to strike and turns back to the mysterious man before him.

  "Do you speak for him?" The imposing man commented with uninterested tone, and the air became heavy at his words. "I believe that boy can speak for himself."

  Marguerite and Sol stilled at the sudden shift in the atmosphere. The said boy gulps down the fear lodged in his throat.

  "Fine," He responded with a whisper, "I will accept it." Marguerite's eyes widened in shock, but he simply shakes his head to calm her.

  "You make the right choice." The man clapped with glee. "Let us get you patched up before the ceremony."

  He turned around to walk away, signaling the disciples to follow. As he left, Sol breathed a sigh of relief, toppling over and passing out with the corridor tilting, his vision collapsing into obscurity.

  · ? ·

  Meanwhile, in the sunlit sanctum of the Cathedral the air grew tense upon the news. The man in decorative robes stood alone before the great sun-emblazoned altar when the doors swung open and disciples poured into the hall.

  The stray spark, Sol, had not only survived the trial but had shattered the executor's relic that was meant to enforce the Church's will.

  "A defiant shadow within the sacred order. This insolence cannot be allowed to fester," the voice in the Cathedral hissed.