The gate sealed behind me with a thunderous boom, plunging the corridor ahead into a suffocating darkness. Only the faint glow of runes along the walls guided my steps, their flickering light painting shadows across my face.
I could feel it. The air here was different. Heavier. Hungrier. Each breath burned faintly in my chest, as if the very atmosphere wanted to peel my skin and gnaw at my bones.
So this is it. The heart of the trial ground. The place where the protagonist clawed out his destiny.
I tightened my grip on the knife at my side and glanced behind me. Lira walked silently, every step measured, her presence calm but alert. She didn't ask questions, didn't give reassurances. She didn't need to. Just having her behind me steadied something in my chest.
The corridor widened. And then, suddenly, we emerged into a vast chamber.
The ceiling arched so high above it vanished into shadow. Obsidian pillars ringed the room, etched with runes that pulsed like the slow heartbeat of some ancient beast. In the center stood an altar, cracked and scarred with age, its surface engraved with patterns I couldn't begin to understand. Hovering above it was a fragment of light—tiny, but impossibly dense.
The legacy.
My breath caught. Even from this distance, I could feel it. Power. Ancient, raw, unyielding. The kind of presence that could topple mountains and silence armies.
But of course, it wasn't just sitting there waiting for me.
The chamber trembled. Shadows spilled from the walls, coalescing into a massive figure—a guardian. Its form was vaguely humanoid, but twisted, its body made of shifting darkness, its face hidden behind a jagged mask. Red light burned in its eyes like twin furnaces.
It spoke, voice reverberating like thunder through stone.
"Unworthy blood. You seek what does not belong to you. Prove yourself… or perish."
I exhaled slowly. Of course there's a guardian. Why wouldn't there be? Heaven forbid an ancient inheritance be left undefended.
The figure raised its arm, and the air itself screamed. A blade of shadow longer than a house formed in its grip, cleaving downward with enough force to split mountains.
I didn't think. "Lira!"
In a blink, she was in front of me, her hand raised. Though her power sealed, her mere gesture tore apart the shadow blade before it could land. The backlash shook the hall, dust raining from the pillars.
The guardian roared.
I smirked. "Yeah, buddy, about that whole 'prove yourself' thing? I outsource."
But even as I joked, my chest tightened. Because deep down, I knew this wasn't a fight I could just hand off. Not completely.
The guardian's voice boomed again. "Strength borrowed is not strength owned. Prove your will—or fade into nothingness."
The altar blazed. A torrent of aura crashed into me, not against my body, but against my very soul.
I staggered, clutching my head. Memories surged. My parents' faces, blurred by time and grief. Lilia's laughter. Serenya's worried eyes. My uncle's calculating smile. They all twisted, warped into nightmares, accusing me, abandoning me, breaking me.
Damn it… it's another illusion. No—it's worse. This one is striking at the core.
The guardian's voice slithered through the storm. "You are weak. You steal what is not yours. You will never surpass destiny."
I bit down on my lip until I tasted blood. "Shut… up."
"You are nothing without your protector."
"Maybe." My vision blurred, black and red swallowing the world. "But I'm still standing."
"You are a coward who hides from pain."
My knees buckled. My hands shook.
Am I? Maybe I am. Maybe I've been running from everything since the day I woke up in this body. From grief. From fear. From truth.
My heart clenched. But if that's cowardice, then fine. I'll be a coward who walks forward anyway.
I forced my body upright, step by trembling step.
"I don't care if I'm weak. I don't care if I'm a thief. I don't care if I have to cheat, lie, and crawl my way forward."
The pressure mounted. My vision dimmed. My chest felt like it would explode.
"But I—" I gasped, teeth bared. "—will not stop."
The storm shattered.
The pressure dissolved like mist in the sun, and the guardian froze. Slowly, its massive form cracked, fragments of shadow falling away, until it collapsed into dust.
Silence returned.
The altar's glow brightened, the fragment of light pulsing with a steady rhythm. Waiting.
I stumbled toward it, each step heavy. Lira's hand twitched, but she didn't move to steady me. She understood. This was mine to claim.
I understood one thing from this trial that the creator of the legacy was powerful enough to peer through fate and destiny but it could not peer through my original soul
I passed through the illusions because they were never mine, they were based on original Rishi's memories. This concludes two things either someone who has sent me here is more powerful than even the sage of ancient times or it is just power trials has dimmed because of passing of eons.
I don't know and I don't even want to know because one answer will raise many more questions to me.
When I reached the altar, I raised my hand. The light flared, wrapping around me, searing into my veins like molten fire.
Agony tore through me. My body screamed, my aura rioting, reshaping.
But beneath the pain was something else—clarity. Power. A resonance that felt older than time itself.
The legacy accepted me.
My knees finally gave out, and I collapsed against the altar, chest heaving, skin slick with sweat. But I was grinning.
"I did it," I whispered, voice hoarse. "Not the MC. Not fate. Me."
But then another fragment sank into my chest, its light dimming as it fused with me completely.
Oh! what the hell was that !?
It wasn't mentioned in the novel or was it. I didn't remember much as this trial was on earliest plot of the novel.
Ah! whatever, everything which is free is willingly accepted here, except for pain and death.
And in that moment, as the chamber fell silent once more, I knew: the path ahead had changed.
This was no longer the protagonist's story.
It was mine.