Chapter 22: The Candidate's Trial
Kai's world dissolved into a blinding storm of fractured starlight.
Each shard carved through him not as a blade, but as a memory—echoes of a being who had once stood where he now knelt, who had wielded the power of an entire dead constellation. A being who had destroyed worlds without blinking.
He tried to scream, but the sound was swallowed by the void.
Then—silence.
The light faded.
The pressure eased.
Kai's knees struck solid ground. He gasped and opened his eyes.
He was back in a physical space… but not the same twisted metallic landscape from before.
Instead, he stood inside an immense circular chamber, its walls forming a dome of translucent obsidian. Vast constellations drifted just beyond the surface, as though the structure floated in the middle of a broken sky.
The ground beneath his feet was smooth and reflective—like black glass. No dust. No cracks. No sign of life.
Just emptiness.
And in the precise center of the chamber, a massive stone monolith hovered silently. Its surface was etched with unreadable glyphs, glowing with the same violet hue of the Hollow Star above.
A whisper echoed through the space—not from the monolith, but from everywhere at once.
The Trial begins.
Kai took an instinctive step back.
"What trial?" he demanded. "What the hell do you want from me?"
The dome pulsed with faint light.
To ascend is to understand. To understand is to confront. To confront is to choose.
The voice was neither hostile nor welcoming. It was… indifferent. Ancient. Mechanical, but aware.
Kai clenched his jaw.
He wasn't going to let some cosmic echo decide his fate.
But he also wasn't foolish enough to believe he could just walk away.
"Fine," he said through gritted teeth. "Show me."
The monolith cracked open with a deep, grinding roar.
From within, three figures stepped out—shaped from shadows, indistinct but unmistakable in their symbolism.
The first was a man with a crown of thorns made of light, carrying a broken sword. He radiated sorrow.
The second was a monstrous creature with a thousand eyes, its entire body trembling with fear and fury.
The third was a cloaked silhouette holding a scythe—the shape eerily familiar to Kai's own stance.
Three echoes. Three paths.
Three versions of potential—or ruin.
The voice spoke again.
All Hollow Star candidates must undergo the Rite of Selves.
Kai tensed. "What does that mean?"
The shadows turned toward him.
Confront the paths you may walk. Accept or reject what you find. Survive the truth of your nature.
Before he could respond, the shadow with the broken sword stepped forward. Its voice was a quiet whisper, yet it filled the chamber.
"I am the path of Remorse. The one who hesitates. The one who carries every soul he reaps as a wound."
Kai's breath hitched.
The silhouette's face shifted—becoming his own, but older, haunted. Its eyes were hollow. Its expression weary.
"If you ascend," it said, "you may one day regret every life you were forced to take. You may become a king of ashes… who never forgives himself."
The figure stepped closer. Kai felt the weight of it—a suffocating guilt that pressed at his chest, threatening to crush the air out of him.
For a moment, he couldn't move.
Couldn't speak.
Then—he pushed back.
"No," Kai growled. "I won't let myself rot like that. I won't break under regret."
The shadow dissolved.
But the next figure surged forward instantly—the monstrous one with a thousand eyes. It towered over Kai, trembling with primal hunger.
"I am the path of Consumption," it snarled. "I am the hunger that grows with every victory. I am the instinct to devour. The power to unmake."
Its form rippled, shrinking, expanding, shifting between shapes—always monstrous, always predatory.
Kai's stomach twisted.
This one felt too close.
The monster leaned in so that one of its many eyes hovered inches from Kai's face.
"You feel it, don't you?" it hissed. "The rush when the scythe cuts true. The thrill of overwhelming power. The whisper to take more."
Kai stepped back involuntarily.
Its presence was suffocating—tempting.
But he forced himself to stare it down.
"I'm not a monster," he said. "I control my power. Not the other way around."
The creature laughed—a horrible, writhing sound.
Then it burst like a shattered mirror, dissolving into dust.
Only one figure remained.
The cloaked one with the scythe.
Kai braced himself.
The figure lifted its head.
His own face stared back at him.
Not twisted by sorrow or warped by hunger. Just… calm. Focused. Empty-eyed.
"I am the path of Acceptance," the doppelgänger said. "The one who embraces the Hollow Star's nature fully."
Kai swallowed.
"What does that mean?"
The figure walked toward him, steps silent.
"It means you ascend without hesitation. That you reap without regret. That you wield annihilation as effortlessly as breath."
Kai felt a coldness seep into him.
"This path does not break you," the shadow-Kai continued. "It perfects you. You become the Hollow Star incarnate."
Then the figure raised its scythe.
"And the universe trembles."
Kai raised his own.
They stood only a few feet apart—two identical silhouettes, two possible futures.
"Choose," the figure said quietly.
Kai's heartbeat thundered.
He didn't want any of them.
Not the king of regret.
Not the starving monster.
Not the emotionless cosmic executioner.
"I choose my own path," Kai said.
The shadow's eyes narrowed.
"Then prove it."
The chamber trembled.
The shadow lunged.
Kai parried, sparks of void energy exploding across the ground. The figure moved with his exact style, his exact speed, his exact instinct—always matching him perfectly.
Kai swung his scythe.
The shadow mirrored.
They clashed hard enough to crack the chamber wall.
Kai ducked low, sweeping with a burst of raw aura.
The shadow blocked, countering with a strike Kai barely shifted away from.
Every move was a reflection. Every feint, every counter, every spin—mirrored by the shadow.
Kai's breath hitched.
He understood.
He wasn't fighting a future version of himself.
He was fighting himself as he was now.
Flawed.
Conflicted.
Unsteady.
He stepped back and lowered his scythe.
The shadow rushed forward—
Kai raised his free hand.
And exhaled.
A pulse rippled outward—not violent, not destructive. Pure will.
"I don't need to defeat you," Kai said softly. "I need to accept you."
The shadow froze mid-strike.
Then—slowly—it lowered its scythe.
Its face softened.
And it whispered, "Then ascend."
The shadow dissolved into starlight and flowed into Kai's chest like a river merging back into the sea.
The chamber brightened.
The monolith glowed.
The world itself spoke:
"THE TRIAL OF SELVES IS COMPLETE."
Kai staggered, breathing hard.
Then—
"ASCENDANT RECOGNIZED."
A warmth surged into him, filling every corner of his spirit.
"THE NEXT PHASE BEGINS."
The floor cracked.
And Kai fell into blinding light—descending into the heart of the Hollow Star.