Hine sat in the cold chamber, her knees drawn to her chest. The quiet was heavy, but it was no longer suffocating. The silence, once a harbinger of dread, had become familiar. She traced the pattern of cracks along the obsidian floor, counting them in her head. One. Two. Three. A hundred and seven. Her hands did not tremble as they once did.
The loops had changed her.
The first time she died in Ronova's realm, she had screamed until her throat was raw. She had clawed at the void, cursed the Rulers, begged for it to end. The hundredth time, she had stopped screaming. Now, after what felt like countless loops, her fear was a quiet hum instead of an overwhelming roar. It had been beaten down, shaped into something she could hold in her hands, something she could use.
Ronova watched her from the far side of the chamber, arms crossed. The Ruler of Ruin did not speak, her sharp eyes glinting with a rare note of approval. She had tested Hine relentlessly, burned her with flames that melted flesh, frozen her to shards, drowned her in endless darkness. Every death had stripped away another layer of hesitation. Every rebirth had forged her sharper.
Hine lifted her head and met Ronova's gaze. She did not flinch.
"You adapt faster than most," Ronova said at last, her voice like steel dragged across stone. "Fear is useful. But only if you are the one controlling it."
"I know," Hine answered, her voice steady. "Fear keeps you alive. Panic gets you killed."
Ronova tilted her head, as though appraising a weapon still being tempered. "Then prove it."
The chamber shifted without warning. The obsidian dissolved into the jagged cliffs of the Abyss, the air thick with the metallic tang of blood and fire. Shadows writhed below, clawing up the rock face like starving beasts. Hine did not hesitate. She drew in a deep breath, feeling the weight of the training spear in her hand, and stepped forward.
The first beast lunged. Its maw gaped wide, black teeth dripping with acid. In her earlier loops, she would have frozen. She would have screamed. This time, she moved.
Pivot. Breathe. Strike.
The spear sliced through the creature's throat in a clean arc. Dark ichor sprayed, hot and sticky, but her grip did not falter. She ducked low as another beast leaped from behind, spinning her weapon with practiced precision, and drove the point through its skull. Its body collapsed at her feet, twitching once before stilling.
From the cliffs above, Ronova observed silently. There was no praise, no command, only the unspoken acknowledgment that the child had begun to understand.
The battle stretched on, relentless. Hine's body ached, her lungs burned, and her arms screamed with every swing, but her mind was sharp. Every motion was calculated. Every fear was caged. Even when a beast clipped her side, tearing through flesh, she only gritted her teeth and pressed forward. Pain was temporary. Fear was temporary. Purpose was not.
By the time the shadows retreated, the abyss was littered with broken bodies. Hine stood in the center of it all, chest heaving, her clothes soaked in dark stains. She looked down at her trembling hands. They were no longer trembling from terror. They shook with the raw aftermath of adrenaline, with exhaustion, but not with fear.
Ronova descended from the cliff, her boots silent against the jagged stone. She circled Hine once, like a predator sizing up prey, before finally speaking.
"You are learning," Ronova said. "But do not mistake progress for mastery. Fear will never leave you. The trick is to let it follow without letting it lead."
Hine nodded. She understood. Fear was not something to be eradicated. It was something to command.
That night, when the chamber reset and the world around her fell quiet again, Hine sat cross-legged on the cold floor. She closed her eyes and breathed, just as Naberius had taught her in the rare moments of reprieve. Inhale. Exhale. Let the fear surface, acknowledge it, and let it sink back into the depths where it belonged.
Time lost meaning. Days, weeks, months—she could not tell how long it had been. The loops blurred into one long stretch of battle and death, but with each cycle, she grew steadier. Her strikes became cleaner. Her reactions faster. Her mind sharper.
And her emotions harder.
Once, she had cried after every loop. Quiet sobs into her knees until exhaustion claimed her. Now, her tears had dried. She had no time for despair. She carried only resolve, sharp and unyielding.
During one loop, she faced the frozen wastelands again. The wind howled like a beast, ice biting into her skin, but she moved with precision through the blizzard. When the ground shattered beneath her feet and the icy void swallowed her whole, she did not scream. She let the cold consume her, her last thought steady and clear: I will survive this.
The next time she awoke, Ronova was there, standing in the corner of the chamber with her arms folded. The faintest curve of a smirk touched her lips.
"You are ready," Ronova said.
Hine did not reply. She only tightened her grip around her training weapon and rose to her feet, ready for the next trial.
Later, when the chamber dissolved into the quiet expanse of the Realm of Eternity, she sat alone beneath the faint glow of the eternal stars. The air here was softer, calmer, and for a moment, she allowed herself to rest. She tilted her head back and gazed at the shimmering constellations above, each one a fragment of a story older than her world.
Silent Soul's words from their last encounter whispered in her memory, quiet and steady. Strength is born in stillness. Fear bows to purpose.
Hine breathed in the stillness and let it settle deep within her bones.
She was no longer the girl who had stumbled into the loops, terrified and broken. She was something sharper now. Something harder. She did not know what the Rulers saw when they looked at her, but she knew what she saw in herself.
Resolve.
And the unshakable promise that no matter how many loops it took, she would find her sister.