There were no torches.
Only darkness so thick it felt alive.
The Pale Reapers led Li Shen blindfolded, his feet bare, walking across shattered bones and dried blood that whispered prayers in forgotten tongues.
He had not slept since the last trial.
Sleep didn't come in the Reaper's sanctum. Not naturally. You had to kill it before it took you. And even then, sleep clawed its way back in through your wounds, humming lullabies in the shape of your worst memories.
The priestess from before — the one with the stitched eyes — knelt at the center of a dead garden. Stone flowers. Ash trees. Crows with no beaks crying soundlessly overhead.
She raised a shard of obsidian toward Li Shen.
> "In the first trial, you shed the skin of men. Now you will burn the soul of mortals."
> "Trial Two," she whispered, "is to survive yourself."
> [Trial of the Soul Initiated.]
You have entered the Mirror of the Drowned God.
Rules: Do not die inside your soul.
Duration: Unknown.
Escape is impossible until completion.
Reward: Soul Mutation, Forbidden Insight, and Resonance Unlock.
The obsidian shard stabbed into his chest.
Not physically — it skewered his spirit.
And he fell.
Not through air.
Not into stone.
But inward — collapsing into a space where reality screamed and memory bled.
He landed in a chamber filled with water. Not over his feet.
Over his thoughts.
This was the Mirror.
And it had already begun to reflect him.
The chamber twisted.
Walls turned to reflections.
And in every pane of glass — a version of Li Shen stared back at him.
Some were warriors. Some were corpses. One of them wore the face of his father, mouth sewn shut with threads of gold.
Another smiled with Yue Ling's voice.
> "You'll never be strong enough," it said. "You keep losing. Losing. Losing."
Another Li Shen appeared — a monstrous one, covered in black scales, fangs of shadow, a smile carved into his face like a slit throat.
> "Kill them," it whispered.
> "Kill everyone."
> "Let the Abyss in."
They leapt at him — every version of himself.
The humble. The arrogant. The broken. The dead. The godlike. The murderous. The hollow.
Each one had his weapons. His voice. His rage.
It was a massacre.
Li Shen didn't just fight them.
He tore through them.
His hands split one's jaw.
His feet shattered another's spine.
He screamed and used the Forbidden Art — Reaper's Hunger — to devour their strength.
He absorbed memories he never lived.
Pain he never earned.
> [New Skill: Echostep – Blink 5 meters into memory-space to evade or counter.]
[Resonance Level +1]
[Soul Thread Unlocked – You can bind your will into the next kill.]
Still, they kept coming.
And then the worst one appeared.
The one who had kill Yui Ling
This version of him stood calmly.
Eyes glowing void-blue.
The sword in his hand wept black ichor that sizzled on the water.
> "I did what you couldn't," he said. "I sacrificed everything for power. And I won."
> "You're here to burn. I'm here to evolve."
They fought.
And the Mirror screamed.
Each blow between them shattered parts of the chamber, sending ghost fragments of memories flooding around them.
Yue Ling's laughter.
The scent of fire in the rain.
The moment his master died.
The Warden's cleaver.
He clashed with the Shadow-Lord — and was losing.
Until he let go of control.
And became something else.
Not a man. Not a shadow.
A curse.
He took the Shadow-Lord's blade through the chest — and didn't flinch.
He grabbed his other self by the jaw and tore off his face.
> [Skill Acquired: Vile Sovereignty – Take on aspects of defeated enemies within your soul.]
Then he reached into his own wound, and yanked out the shard the priestess had driven in.
It melted in his hand — and formed a new weapon.
A curved blade made from his soul-thread, dripping with his past sins.
He struck once.
The chamber shattered.
Li Shen rose, gasping.
The priestess was kneeling.
Not to him — but to the thing he had become.
His body was leaner.
His eyes darker.
His shadow had grown horns.
And the crows above… bowed.
> [Trial Two Complete: Soul Mirror Cleansed.]
[You have gained the title: Drowned Soul.]
[New Forbidden Art: Soulmourne Immortal Sutra (Fragment I) unlocked.]
[Stat +2: Willpower, +2 Perception]
[System Re-Synchronizing: Compatibility 18%]
The priestess leaned in.
> "Two more trials, and you will qualify for the Baptism."
> "And if I don't survive them?" Li Shen asked.
> "Then your soul will become a mirror for others," she said.
> "Forever screaming.