Aerion’s footsteps slowed as she reached the end of the tunnel.

  Greg had spoken of a light at the end, and she saw the same. But when she emerged, it was not Earth she stepped into, but a city.

  Wooden buildings with black-smoked chimneys. Metal catwalks and railings. Wide roads and steam-driven carts.

  Regulus. The capital of Order’s territory. She recognized it at once, for how could she not? It was the city where she had grown up.

  Yet what foe was she meant to face here? Cataclysm beasts did not attack Order’s lands, and what other enemies could she possibly have? The scum who came after her family? She had never even met them.

  As for the slumlords and petty criminals she’d crossed—she felt nothing but disdain, and perhaps a little pity, now that she knew more of the world and its machinations.

  “Galia!” Aerion cried, suddenly aware of the little phoenix’s absence. She’d been holding her just now. Where had she gone?

  Had the Trial initiated her own ascension?

  But she isn’t ready! Aerion thought in panic, forcing herself to take several breaths to calm down.

  If Galia truly was in the midst of her own Trial, then all the more reason for Aerion to get through this posthaste.

  Aerion began walking, only to notice that her apparel had changed as well. She wore the dirty robe and flimsy sandals of her childhood. Tougher times, though despite all the luxuries she now had access to, her current life put her in far greater danger than she ever was as a child.

  She knew these streets like the back of her hand. Hiding places. Escape routes. Secret corners. Before she realized it, her feet had carried her into a narrow alley. She climbed the jagged stone walls of a two-story building and found herself on a weathered balcony, overlooking the city. Whatever challenge awaited her would no doubt make itself visible from that high vantage.

  Aerion froze as she hoisted herself up on the soot-covered tiles.

  The platform wasn’t empty. A man stood upon it, clothed in white—robes, hair, even a tailored suit.

  “Order,” Aerion breathed.

  “No,” the man dressed in strange white clothing from Earth said, smiling as he turned to face her. His voice sounded in her mind, though his lips did not move. “I haven’t been Order in a very long time.”

  “Call yourself whatever you wish, demon,” Aerion replied, preparing to Reave. “I know your true nature.”

  “Do you?” Order said.

  “I do.” Aerion’s eyes narrowed and she crouched, preparing to lunge.

  “Do you? D-d-do you? Do you? You. You. You. You.”

  Aerion froze. Order’s voice was unnatural. As though possessed. His body repeated motions as he repeated his words.

  “What on Axius…”

  Aerion blinked, and he was gone. No trace of Order remained. The world around her crumbled, like a puzzle coming undone, revealing pure, featureless white behind. The nearby buildings, the rooftop on which she stood, and even the sky, until there was nothing left. Just her and an empty space of white, save for one small detail.

  “Galia?”

  Aerion rushed over to the little phoenix, scooping her up in her arms. “You look about as confused as I do.”

  Acting on instinct, Aerion whirled to behold another figure. The phoenix, it seemed, was not the only surprise awaiting her in this place.

  Before I could make heads or tails of the slew of error messages that filled my Status Screen, I was whisked away to the white room, which didn’t exactly come as a surprise.

  What did surprise me, though, was that I wasn’t alone, and it wasn’t a projection of Dominion that accompanied me this time.

  “Aerion?” I blurted, eyes widening in happiness. “Boy, are you a sight for sore eyes.”

  Aerion frowned in confusion as usual whenever I said something that didn’t make it through Cosmo’s translator.

  But wait. If she was here, then that meant she’d entered the Trial.

  My happiness from earlier vanished without a trace. “You can’t have—” I muttered.

  Aerion frowned and shook her head. “No, it’s not what you think,” she said. “I know how this looks, but I didn’t enter the Trial because I wanted to challenge it.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, getting more confused by the moment. “You were forced into it?”

  “The Reavers,” Aerion said. “They rushed in the moment you left. I think something must have happened outside the temple when you entered the Trial. Something that made them very angry.”

  “Shit,” I muttered. “So they swarmed you, and your only option was to jump in here?”

  I could imagine Aerion being trapped in that chamber, alone and with no out. That could not have been fun.

  Aerion’s jaw clenched. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. But something seems wrong. With all of this. I was about to engage Order in battle when he began acting strangely. Then the world seemed to crumble, and we ended up here.”

  I rubbed my temples. “Yeah, you can say that again.”

  If it wasn’t one fucked-up thing, it was another. I didn’t even want to think about the death sentence that awaited us when we emerged from the trial. How the hell were we supposed to deal with that many Reavers? Even assuming I ranked up—which I hadn’t yet.

  How were two newly ascended C Rankers supposed to fight their way out of a swarm of Reavers? Assuming we even got the ascension, given all the weird shit going on.

  Panic started to rear its all-too-familiar head, but I shoved it down.

  We’d just have to cross that bridge when we got to it. Panicking now would get us all of absolutely nowhere.

  I took a deep breath, falling into the routine I used to clear my thoughts ahead of a meditation session.

  It... sorta worked?

  Who knew? Maybe there was some way to reason with them. Some way we’d overlooked earlier. Or maybe the trial would spit us out somewhere else.

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  There wasn’t a lot we could do about that now.

  “I’m just glad the two of you made it through safely,” I said. “Not that you had any other choice, but things could’ve gone a helluva lot worse than they did.”

  “Did she have to take the Trial, too?” I asked, glancing suspiciously at Galia, who seemed oddly content to be held by Aerion. A pleasant surprise, to be sure.

  “Aerion?” I prompted.

  “No,” Aerion said, frowning. “At least, not that I believe. We were separated for the duration I was in the Trial, though that couldn’t have been for more than a few minutes. I got a series of error messages as well. Do you know what those are about?”

  “Yeah, I got those too,” I replied. “If I had to guess, it’s because—” I hesitated. “Well, probably because of our resident phoenix here. Possibly you, too. The System never could quite figure out whether you were your own person or an extension of me.”

  “And Galia is another Champion,” Aerion said, eyes widening in recognition.

  “Uh huh. From what I can tell, having two Champions in the world at the same time is a no-no.”

  “That’s… quite interesting.” She looked away. “No Champion has ever been sighted in history after a trial finished.”

  “Yep. Which means something caused the prior Champions to leave this world—whether they returned home or if it’s something more sinister, I can’t say. But this is the first time we have proof that something happens to them. Maybe they have their their memories wiped if they want to continue living in the world or swore oaths to live in secrecy or something. Whatever it is, this at least confirms that prior cycle Champions aren’t staying in this world. This Covenant’s nervous breakdown over Galia proves it.”

  It was an interesting tidbit, sure, but it did little for our immediate situation.

  “So, what now?” Aerion asked.

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” I said, trailing off as Aerion’s question was answered. Not in the form of an exit, but a black rift—a void of some kind—that seemed to rip apart the fabric of reality itself.

  And then another appeared, then another, until dozens of spherical voids opened all around us—above, below, and as far off as the eye could see. “Uh, something tells me that shouldn’t have happened,” I said, slowly making my way to the closest one.

  “Be careful!” Aerion snapped, rushing to my side. “We know not whether they are safe.”

  “Yeah…” I said, only half-listening.

  I expected a void of pure black, but there was something in those spheres. Something that seemed to pull me into its depths.

  Upon moving closer, I realized there were images in there. Scenes with blurry figures gesturing at one another. Their voices were all muffled, like they were coming through a wall or two.

  I stepped back and walked over to another one, a bit farther away. This was the same, but I could tell enough to know that it showed a different scene.

  “What do you make of this?” I asked Aerion.

  She shook her head. “I cannot say. Something has gone horribly wrong, that much is for certain. These images were not meant for our eyes.”

  “You’re probably right about that,” I said.

  I reached out hesitantly towards the sphere, only for Aerion to slap my hand away.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “I mean, I don’t see any other exits,” I said. Aerion looked around and shook her head. “But how do we know it’s safe?”

  “We don’t,” I admitted. “Still, the only other option is to stay here.”

  I honestly didn’t know how long this white space would last. Although…

  “Maybe you’re on to something,” I said. “We know an army of Reavers is headed straight for us when we get out. Maybe, if the gods smile on us, we get spit out of a different exit. Or maybe not. In that case, we’ll need every advantage we can get.”

  “What do you propose?”

  A quick check of my status showed my class and stats unchanged. No change from before.

  The Trial hadn’t marked my commencement as complete—and probably wouldn’t until we physically left the space. The same went for Aerion. She’d technically made it through the Trial, but did the System count that?

  In the worst case, if this was all a System glitch, then all the effort I’d spent might be for nothing. I tried not to dwell on that—it was like being locked out of your account on account of some bug. Only, there was no customer service AI for Divine Systems. Cosmo might help, but he wasn’t accessible here. Even if he was, he’d make for a pretty shitty customer service rep.

  “I say we milk this space for all it’s worth,” I said, sitting down and crossing my legs. “Might be a drop in the ocean, but I can at least improve my Order with a few hours of meditation.”

  “I’ll do the same,” Aerion said, mirroring me.

  And so, we closed our eyes and meditated.

  I couldn’t say how many hours passed, but however long it was, my stats ticked steadily up—something that came as a relief, considering how they hadn’t improved at all during the Trial.

  32 points to Order wasn’t a bad haul for a few hours. The gains had slowed the closer I got to my ceiling, but this sort of progress was still nothing to sneeze at. Moreover, the meditation did wonders for my mental state. I could certainly use a calm mind, considering what we might be up against.

  Aerion netted a handful of points as well, but nothing even close to mine. That was definitely worrisome. [Initializer]’s way of gaining stats seemed to be unique. A luxury that Aerion didn’t have. For her, growth meant a slow grind. Which was all the more reason for her to specialize in one or two stats.

  The thought of shooting up stats by the hundreds still made my head spin. All I needed was better armor, which I’d have the moment I returned to the Sylvan Guard. A full mythril set awaited me. If that wasn’t enough motivation to live through whatever came next, I didn’t know what was.

  I stood and stretched and made the call. “I don’t see the point in staying here any longer,” I said.

  Galia, who’d dozed off earlier, was now awake and growing restless with every passing minute. Not a lot of stimulation in here for a chick. We needed to get out for her sanity, if nothing else.

  “Very well,” Aerion said, standing as well. “Which door should we pick?”

  She squinted at the spheres above and below us. The idea of dropping through the floor almost made me laugh. How the hell were we supposed to get to any of those without stairs? The same went for the ones floating high above us. Yet another sign that this space was fundamentally broken.

  I scooped up Galia—she squawked only a little—and took Aerion’s hand. We approached the nearest sphere together, and after a final nod to each other, stepped through.

  The blurry faces became distinct in an instant, and the voices cleared up.

  We found ourselves in the middle of a beautiful garden with an aerial view of Axius, on what I assumed was a floating island of some sort.

  There were four figures present. Two stood, gazing out at the view, while the other two lounged in their luxuriously padded chairs.

  One I recognized immediately, as did Aerion. Hard to miss Dominion, in any form he took. This time, he’d taken to looking something like Conan. Bearded, muscled beyond belief, and wearing only a loincloth and a white shawl draped over his left shoulder.

  Which meant the others were gods, too.

  Passion was missing, but the serene-looking woman with long white hair staring off into the distance did a pretty good impression of looking like she knew everything there was to know. I pegged her as Wisdom.

  The man with slicked-back black hair in the velvet green tuxedo could’ve been Order, but the cold menace in his eyes made me think he wasn’t. Cunning, maybe?

  Which meant the teenage-looking woman seated across from him was Vigor. Figures that she’d embody her youth. Was Cosmo literally the only god who didn’t seem to give two shits about his namesake trait?

  “I simply do not see how we can avoid this, Vigor,” Dominion grumbled. “Every time we come up with a new idea, the Covenant proves itself more than a match. I fail to see how this time is any different.”

  “All true, and yet we must find a way to make it work,” Vigor replied, frowning. “I mean, we know how it works. How hard can it be?”

  “Hard,” Cunning replied. “Need I remind you it was designed precisely to avoid situations like this? The Cataclysms are a costly expense. As are summoning the Champions.”

  “Save one, we all agreed to summon the Champions,” Wisdom said, her voice making her sound like she was a million miles away. “We must ensure they are worth the while.”

  “Quite the risk we’re taking,” Dominion grunted. “If we get the parameters wrong, it could mean the end of us as we know it.”

  The other gods fell silent, stewing in their own thoughts.

  The scene faded away, leaving Aerion, Galia, and me in a featureless space—black, this time, instead of white.

  “You’ve gotta be shitting me,” I muttered.

  That was it? Our one chance to hear what moved the System, and all we got was that the gods were bound by rules—probably the same rules that shackled Cosmo—and that summoning Champions was expensive.

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” I muttered.

  Before my anger had a chance to work itself up, however, the black room around us also dissolved into a darkness so deep I couldn’t even see my own hands.

  My stomach lurched, and I suddenly realized I was falling.

  “Aerion?” I shouted. “You still there?”

  Of course she was. I could feel her hand still holding mine, even if I couldn’t see her.

  “Yes,” she replied. “I’m safe. For now.”

  Galia was still nestled against my chest, too.

  We picked up speed, falling through this abyss, and I did the only thing I could. I pulled Aerion’s hand and wrapped my arms around her, sandwiching Galia between us.

  I braced for the inevitable fall… which never came.

  Either the gods heard me, or the System obliged, because the next thing I knew, I was back on my two feet, in the tunnel I’d used to enter the Trial, and a slew of System Messages scrolled passed my vision.

  Convergence Ascension Trial complete.

  Reviewing Trial performance… Performance graded as [Anomalous].

  Calculating optimal evolution…

  Path confirmed. Highest possible evolution granted.

  Initializer[Epic] has evolved into Soulweaver[Legendary].