The cold should have comforted Kaelen.
Kaelen stood at the edge of a bridge of shattered ice, staring into the hollow where floor met void. The world had warped the moment the Rootspire split the group apart. One blink, and they were gone. Another, and this place had formed, not from stone or magic, but memory.
The sky was colorless, a dome of frozen glass above a wasteland of frostbitten spires. Somewhere in the distance, the wind carried the sound of a boy crying.
Not a boy.
Etris.
Kaelen's hand trembled at one side, quickly hidden in a sleeve.
A System flare blinked across the horizon, brief and sharp like lightning caught in ice. Then came the voice, neutral, clinical, and deafening.
SYSTEM TRIAL: Floor Two – Subject: Kaelen
Designation: Mentor of the Fallen
Trial Type: Regret Sequence
Objective: Witness, Accept, Endure
Reward: Skill Unlock (Passive), Class Synergy Increase, Evolutionary Thread Extension
Warning: Failure will result in Core Instability and Collapse
Kaelen exhaled slowly. Steam curled from parted lips. The trial had begun.
The bridge creaked beneath each step, cracking frozen memories with every footfall. Ice shifted into familiar shapes: corridors, echoing voices, stone halls lined with training circles. The sanctum. The place where Etris had been shaped. Where the storm had once been taught to obey.
And where it had failed.
The doors yawned open on their own.
Inside stood Etris. Not as remembered, but as he had been found. Pale. Storm-charged veins glowing sickly through translucent skin. Eyes blank and spiraling with the System's imprint.
"Why didn't you come sooner?" the thing that wore Etris's face asked.
Kaelen's throat locked. "You were lost. You fell."
"You left," the echo said. "You taught me to fight and then turned your back when I needed you."
Frost crawled up Kaelen's boots, locking their stance in place. Mana stirred, but the System responded first.
RESISTANCE FLAGGED. IMMOBILIZATION ENFORCED.
Kaelen's feet froze to the ground. A sheath of frost climbed the calves, thin and sharp as glass. Breath quickened, but Kaelen remained still.
"I didn't turn away," came the quiet reply. "I just didn't know how to save you."
Etris blinked. The ghost flickered. His jaw hung too long, like a puppet off its string.
"That's not what I needed. You taught me how to wield the storm. But not how to bear it."
The sanctum shattered. The battlefield rose.
Charred bodies. Lightning-scarred earth. Etris knelt at the center, choking on his own power, eyes wide with terror. Just like before.
SYSTEM DIALOGUE NODE: CRITICAL REGRET
Reconstructing Core Event:
Etris – Stormborn (Fourth)
Class Instability Detected. Core Collapse Sequence Failed
The storm still pulsed inside Kaelen, distant but present. It was the same storm, once twisted through Etris. Stable now. Barely.
"I failed you."
The illusion flickered. Etris's echo snarled.
"Then prove it. Show me you've learned."
The battlefield dissolved. The chamber reformed. Across the room stood a reflection: Kaelen, younger, sharper, cloaked in frost like a mantle of pride.
"I did everything right," the reflection said. "He was too weak."
"You broke him."
"I honed him."
"You silenced him when he screamed."
"I taught him silence was survival."
They circled one another. Storm gathered in the echo's palm.
Kaelen didn't move.
SYSTEM DIRECTIVE: OVERCOME SELF-DENIAL
Trial Progress: 74%
"What will you do?" the reflection asked. "Freeze again? Flinch like before?"
No weapon. No staff. No defense.
"I am not who I was."
And then Kaelen let go.
The frost surged outward, no longer restrained. It shattered the illusion and swallowed the sanctum. Etris. The reflection. Everything.
Only silence remained.
Then the System spoke.
TRIAL COMPLETE
Core Synchronization Increased: 6% → 19%
Passive Skill Unlocked: Fractured Grace
Class Synergy Node Activated: Mentor of the Lost
Emotion Modifier Registered: Atonement
Kaelen dropped to the floor. Not from exhaustion. From release.
The storm stayed quiet, deep within.
But the cold was theirs again.
Far from the tower, the molten pool stirred.
Its surface danced with frostlight and echoes. Kaelen's trial flickered across the vision: ice-shattered corridors, the storm-warped apprentice, the silent release. The cold lingered even in flame.
The watcher stood still. Fire dimmed between gloved fingers.
"He let go," the voice murmured.
The companion crouched beside the pool. Its expression was unreadable behind layers of bone and linen.
"They weren't supposed to," it said.
The fire around the watcher's hand coiled in quiet rhythm.
"Regret should have sealed them. But they melted through it."
The companion leaned forward slightly.
"Not strength," it said. "Atonement."
The pool dimmed. Kaelen was gone. The next floor coiled in silence.
"Off to the next," said the watcher.
The Rootspire pulsed.
And the pool waited.