For a long moment, no one spoke.Not Ren.Not Mira.Not even the echo—the older Ren Xiang who hovered before them like a memory trapped between ages.
The doorway of swirling mirror-light flickered softly behind him, as if the very fabric that held it together trembled in anticipation of what would come next. Its glow deepened into a pale, haunting silver that cast moving shadows across the polished stone floor, creating the illusion that the hall itself was breathing.
Ren felt a slow, hollow pressure build in his chest.Not pain—no.Something heavier.Something dangerously close to dread.
He had expected tests of strength.He had expected illusions, beasts, echoes, perhaps even a confrontation with the Sage's greatest techniques.
But this?
A trial of loss.
It struck something deep inside him—something he rarely let surface.A raw, unguarded fear that had followed him across two lifetimes.
Mira's hand tightened around his, grounding him in a way no cultivation technique ever could. Her voice was soft when she spoke, low but steady as she turned toward the older echo.
"What exactly does he mean?" Mira asked. "What kind of trial did the Sage create?"
The older Ren exhaled slowly—as if even answering that question required him to pull memories from painful depths.
"The Sage believed," the echo began, "that the greatest source of power is also the greatest wound waiting to happen. He learned it the hardest way possible."
His gaze shifted to the luminous throne in the distant corner of the hall—heavy with decades of silence.
"He built his masterpiece, the Fourth Form, to anchor a heart so it would never shatter. But to test it… he created a trial that forces a cultivator to face the one reality they fear most:"
The echo's voice fell to a near whisper.
"Losing the person they love beyond reason."
Mira froze.
Ren felt the Mirror-Void murmur uneasily inside his meridians, as if the chamber itself pressed against his spirit.
The older Ren continued, "The Sage believed that only someone who could withstand that loss—not avoid it, not deny it, not break beneath it—could master the Fourth Form and the inheritance beyond it."
Ren felt something collapsing inward.Like a hidden floor inside his soul gave way.
"So this trial…" he murmured."…will try to break me."
The older Ren nodded once. "And if you break, the inheritance rejects you."
Mira stepped immediately between Ren and the doorway, her posture fierce, eyes blazing with a refusal so visceral it felt like it shook the chamber.
"No," she said firmly. "I won't let this forest torture him for power."
Ren touched her shoulder gently."Mira…"
She turned, emotion trembling in her voice."You just vowed not to let grief hollow you out. And now the forest wants to throw that vow back at you? It's cruel."
The echo watched them both with an expression that carried three decades of melancholy.
"The trial is cruel," he admitted. "But cruelty was the only language the Sage understood after loss. He believed that if a cultivator could endure the fear of losing what anchors them… then nothing could corrupt them."
Ren's gaze darkened."And how does the trial test that?"
The older Ren lifted a hand toward the swirling doorway.
"When you step inside," he said softly, "you will enter a world shaped by your fears. Not illusions. Not lies. Possibilities. Ones that you cannot simply strike down. Ones that feel real because in countless realities… they are."
Mira's breath hitched.Ren felt her trembling slightly through their interlocked hands.
The echo looked at Mira directly.
"And you, Mira… this trial does not harm you physically. But it does pull from Ren's deepest fear involving you."
Her lips parted faintly. "Which is?"
The echo answered without hesitation.
"Losing you."
Mira closed her eyes—and Ren realized the truth of those words carved through him with painful precision. Even now, even in this moment, some instinct deep in his bones wanted to pull her behind him, shield her with his own body, beg the forest to test anything else, anyone else, instead.
But he said nothing.
And that silence was answer enough.
The echo stepped forward, shimmering more brightly now, as if his form was beginning to lose shape.
"Ren Xiang," he said, "I was created to survive the trial. I am what survives if you fail. But I am a reality you don't want to become."
Ren swallowed hard."I understand."
"No," the echo responded gently."You think you do. But the trial will show you a world where Mira dies—by fate, by battle, by destiny, or by your own hands."
Mira flinched.
"And you must survive that loss without breaking. Without losing your anchor. Without letting despair become your master."
Ren felt the air around him tighten, like the chamber was drawing closer.
Mira stepped to his side and cupped his cheek with both hands.
"Ren Xiang," she whispered, "listen to me. Whatever you see in there… is not me. It's not us. It's not real."
Ren's breath trembled."It will feel real."
"I will still be here," she said, her voice trembling now, "on this side of the trial. Waiting for you."
The world softened around her words—not the forest, not the chamber,but Ren's pulse.
Karyon and Ilvara stepped forward from the edge of the hall, their silhouettes blurred by the faint light. Karyon's voice was warm but grave.
"You cannot shield yourself from this trial. You can only face it."
Ilvara added, "And you must not try to suppress the pain. The more you deny it, the more the trial will twist."
Mira pressed her forehead gently against Ren's."You were strong enough to survive alone for so long," she whispered. "But now, your strength is also mine. That's what our vow means."
The echo stepped back into the light, positioning himself directly before the swirling doorway.
"The trial begins when you walk through," he said quietly.
Ren squeezed Mira's hands.
Her voice broke on the last words she managed to speak:
"Come back to me."
He leaned in and pressed his forehead to hers one last time—an anchor, a promise, a silent vow stronger than breath.
And with a slow, steady exhale, he turned toward the doorway of mirrored light.
One step.
Two.
The doorway brightened.
Ren Xiang whispered:
"I will."
And he stepped through—
as the world dissolved into a blinding storm of silver and memory and fear.