(Content Warning: This chapter contains graphic violence, gore, and psychological trauma tied to Charles Ziglar's Trialmind descent. Read with discretion. Some storms are not gentle.)
The obsidian door of the private training chamber slammed shut with a crack like divine judgment hurled from the heavens. As it echoed, Charles's heart clenched in a grip of frustration and despair, the door resonating with the turmoil within him.
BOOM!
A note shimmered into view—an illusion-tag affixed above the door in radiant scarlet ink:
DO NOT DISTURB. OR ELSE.
Private Combat Trial in Progress.
—C.Z.
Inside, the silence was shattered.
"DAMN IT!" Charles roared.
His fist shot forward and collided with the mana-reinforced wall, an alloy of obsidian crystal and qi-dampening ore. The impact reverberated through his bones like a bell tolling, a sharp, jarring sound that echoed in the chamber and pierced through the haze of his frustration.
CRACK.
The blow split his knuckles open. Blood streamed down his wrist, warm and real.
"I lost it," he muttered, voice thick with fury and regret. "I actually fucking lost it."
Behind him, the calm, artificial chime of his companion broke the tension with mechanical detachment.
[SIGMA: Micah Sorelle's Infatuation Index has increased to 83%.]
Charles didn't answer.
He stared at the blood pooling at his feet, at the fist that refused to stop shaking. Memories surged in his mind—her voice, her eyes, her name. Elena.
"She just had to pry... and she had the talent to slip past my guard… just had to dig right where it fucking hurts."
He exhaled slowly. "This isn't good."
His eyes hardened. He flicked his ring with a pulse of qi, and an object materialized mid-air—a floating orb wrapped in glowing etched runes and pulsing with cold azure light.
The Epoch Sphere: Trialmind Core.
It hovered before him like a heart forged of obsidian.
Hardcore mode. Ten levels of the damned. Foundation Rank 10 up to Core Rank 5. Time dilation 1:10. Enable bloodbound feedback. No mercy. The pain could shatter bones or fracture his mind—each choice a step closer to losing himself.
[Warning: Current cultivation Foundation Realm Rank 10. Engaging Core Rank enemies will induce severe trauma and backlash. Proceed?]
"Full sensory feedback. Bring it!"
He stepped forward, eyes alight with unspoken grief.
The sphere's light enveloped him.
Level 1: Crimson Hollow
A dungeon of damp stone and coiling red mist unfolded around him. The air was thick with the stench of rusted iron and something darker—like the breath of corpses left to rot beneath forgotten altars.
From the shadows came the first growl—low, guttural, inhuman.
Then another.
Then a dozen more.
Foundation Realm Rank 10 Bloodhounds advanced. Their skeletal jaws snapping and tongues splitting like snakes. Black ichor dripped from their jagged teeth. Their eyes were full of voidfire.
Every step seemed to echo Charles's heartbeat, making the distance seem more dangerous.
Charles let out a slow breath. "Let's dance."
Raijin's Emberfang materialized in a single pulse of qi, its crackling flame casting sharp shadows on the blood-slicked walls. Lightning ran along the length of the blade, and its core glowed like a tiny sun stuck in storm clouds.
One hound lunged—snarling like a broken hornet hive.
SPLASH.
A single horizontal slash met it mid-leap. Flame erupted, and the beast vanished in mid-air, reduced to ash and flickers of charred bone.
Three more charged in formation from the flanks—fast, coordinated, savage.
Charles pivoted sharply, stepping into his Phantom Veil Steps—a blur of momentum, footwork infused with raw qi. He flowed like wind between them, Raijin's Emberfang trailing arcs of stormfire with every motion.
The first beast lost a leg before it even blinked. The second tried to adjust mid-air—but Charles vaulted off its spine, spinning in midair with a cry of fury.
"You little shits want pain? Take it!"
His blade sang.
The third hound's head flew into the wall, followed by its body collapsing into flame and gore. The remaining bloodhounds whimpered—but Charles didn't give them the chance to retreat.
He moved like thunder given form.
A savage upswing split the fourth in two.
He caught the fifth by its jaw with a reverse grip, lightning surging into its skull until it burst like a ripe melon.
Then, a final, pirouetting spin—one foot planted in blood, one hand trailing flame—and the last beast was cleaved from jaw to spine in a single, sweeping arc.
Silence fell. Red mist curled at his feet.
Charles stood in the center of the carnage, shoulders heaving, eyes cold.
Level cleared.
Level 2: Garden of Lacerated Dreams
He blinked, and the bloodshed in the hollow faded.
He stood in a glowing, dreamlike, and deceptive red meadow.
Petals drifted down from the sky at dusk, moving through the air like memories trying to land. The smell was sweet, too sweet, the kind that made your teeth hurt.
A distant bird song broke the silence, which was strangely peaceful, a note of calm in the strange calm. Charles squinted.
The flowers all swayed in a suspicious rhythm. Each stem had a faint pulse of life. Their colors shifted between blood-red and ghost-pink, like veins hidden beneath white skin.
Then they bloomed devilishly. Rows of teeth snarled between petals. Their claws unfurled like vines from their roots.
Suddenly, he heard a muffled melody...slowly getting clearer and louder.
"That's...Elena's lullaby," Charles whispered, voice cracking. His limbs froze.
The eerie music rose from nowhere, a haunting violin hum, so painfully familiar it stopped time.
"I shouldn't have let you out to work unguarded that day," he confessed to the garden, each word heavy with tender guilt beneath his rage.
"Elena..." he gasped. "Come home, my love... cook for me again... let me play you to sleep just one more time..."
The vines wrapped around his wrists and ankles, tightening like regret.
His chest heaved. The smell of her perfume. The feeling of her arms. Her timeless, charming smile.
Her fucking smile.
"No," he growled, trembling. "I cooked your last lunch. I planned the goddamn candlelit dinner. The wine. The fucking playlist..."
His eyes flared with stormfire.
"YOU NEVER MADE IT TO DINNER ALIVE!"
Charles unleashed an irrational scream that shattered the illusion. As Raijin wielded his Emberfang, lightning bolts ripped through the sky.
Nerves screamed in protest, his eyesight faded at the edges, and the air around him crackled dangerously from the raw force that was seeping out. Still, he accepted the agony as a necessary evil for controlling such terrible power.
"Stormfire Severance!"
A crescent of white-hot storm and flame exploded outward from the blade's tip, devouring the entire cursed garden in an inferno of divine retribution.
The vines shrieked as they burned. The flowers wailed as their fangs withered. The entire field became a hellscape of melting crimson, steam, and shattered illusions.
The lullaby distorted.
In that moment, the battlefield was no longer just a scene of survival. Charles stood in the center of the scorched earth, shoulders heaving, sword hissing.
He didn't wipe the tears that ran down his cheek.
Instead, the resolve within him shifted—where there had been only survival, now there was purpose. He realized he was no longer fighting just to endure but to release the burden he carried, to let go of the past that haunted him.
The scorch marks etched across the ground mirrored the blaze within him, a new determination to change what this trial meant to him.
Level cleared.
Level 3: Hall of Mirrors
The seared petals and scorched earth of the garden faded into a blinding shimmer—then silence.
Charles opened his eyes and found himself surrounded by polished obsidian mirrors stretching infinitely in every direction.
The floor mirrored the sky. The sky mirrored the floor.
There were no walls or ceilings. Only broken and endless mirrors of himself, locked in varying expressions: anger, sadness, remorse, pride, guilt, and betrayal.
He knew he had to break them all before they could talk again. Each reflection reminded him of past failures.
Four reflections stepped forward. Garrick. Amelia. Marcus. Then...Elena.
"No!" The voice of Charles quivered. Retching, he limped back.
"Not her. Anyone but her! Please..."
Elena's radiant figure emerged, adorned in the violet silk ballgown he had made for their twelfth wedding anniversary. Love and unending serenity glimmered in her eyes.
"Remember how you used to lull me to sleep?" Her soft murmur resounded through the icy expanse, resonating with a melodic quality.
Charles collapsed to his knees, clutching Raijin's Emberfang, chest heaving.
"Stop… please… don't do this to me."
Marcus's face twisted into a sneer, and his illusion smiled in a twisted way. "You should have known it was coming, Charles. You had faith in us. You were blind."
Next came Amelia, whose cold, perfect beauty was a sign of planned seduction. "I loved the power of House Ziglar. Not you."
She got close. "And yet... You still trusted me."
Garrick laughed in a dark way. "Little brother. Always looking for shadows. You were never meant to be a ruler."
The room tilted. Mirrors shifted and spun like a kaleidoscope of regret.
The reflections repeated the betrayal again and again in endless loops. Elena smiled, then died. Marcus shook his hand, then struck his head with the hilt of his sword. Amelia kissing him… then whispering into Garrick's ear.
"STOP!"
Charles surged to his feet, aura exploding outward in a burst of electric stormfire.
His scream was no longer human.
"Don't you fucking use her against me!"
Lightning tore from his body in wild, chaotic surges. The glass cracked. Dozens of mirror-Elena illusions flickered. Each one smiling with painful warmth before shattering into dust.
He swung Raijin's Emberfang with savage precision, each strike fueled by unbearable fury.
He slashed at Marcus's image. "LIAR!"—and the illusion burst apart in a haze of smoke and grief.
He drove the blade through Garrick's chest. "You were my brother!"—shards of glass piercing his skin with every swing.
He impaled Amelia's image with a roar, stormfire coursing through her illusory form until nothing but ash remained.
And then Elena stood alone, untouched, hands gently folded, eyes full of mourning.
Charles approached slowly, bleeding from half a dozen wounds from broken glass and overexerted meridians. He raised his blade.
She did not move.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
He stepped forward, shaking, and pressed a hand to her illusion's cheek.
"I still hear your song. Every time I close my eyes."
Elena smiled. "Then let me go."
Charles clenched his jaw… then plunged Raijin's Emberfang through her heart.
The mirror shattered.
The entire hall collapsed in a storm of screaming glass and lightning. Charles roared, spinning wildly, cutting down every last reflection of his torment, his voice ragged, his eyes streaming silent tears he no longer tried to wipe away.
When it ended, the world was silent.
Only shards remained.
And blood.
His.
Level Cleared.
Level 4: Swamp of Echoes
The glass storm of the mirror realm faded. Now came the stink.
Rot. Mire. Fog.
The ground squelched underfoot—black mud sucking greedily at his boots as if the swamp itself wanted to swallow him whole. Moss-draped trees loomed like withered giants, and the mist whispered with tongues of the dead.
He felt an automatic release of qi. But there was something wrong. Instead of merely dampening qi, the air here corrupted it, as if life force had turned anti-self.
The odor of mildew and memories permeated every breath, making it taste sour and rancid like moldy bread. Like regret that gnawed at the marrow.
A murmur emerged from the haze.
As he whispered the name of Elena, he almost choked.
And she appeared again.
No longer radiant and lovely. This specter was different. Fragile. Pale. Eyes as hollow as the night sky. Her hair was drenched in blood. Her ragged garment clung to her like a death cloak as she stood barefoot in the stinking swampwater.
Her voice was fragile and spectral as she whispered, "You promised a violin piece. You said there would be wine and candlelight."
Charles stumbling. His hand quivered as he held the sword.
"I planned everything," he whispered, knees giving out, splashing into the muck. "That day… that boardroom… it was all snakes in suits. I made you lunch before going…"
The fog thickened. The air chilled.
Steam rose from his skin as qi surged defensively, reacting to his spiraling emotions.
He still remembered; he choked, eyes wide and wet. Violin solo in G minor, seared steak with saffron glaze, candlelight, the bottle of Emberkiss Wine we saved for our fifteenth anniversary.
His voice cracked. His vision blurred.
"But you never made it back to me!"
He screamed those words to the dead sky.
"They took everything."
The fog shifted again. Dozens of hands—Elena's hands—emerged from the swamp. Pale. Cold. Reaching.
One touched his cheek. His eyes snapped open. Rage. Pain. Love. All blending into madness.
"No more lies," he snarled.
Her phantom face was inches from his, whispering, "I forgive you."
He roared, his aura flaring like a wildfire in a storm.
"You don't get to forgive me! You're not fucking real!"
Raijin's Emberfang lit up with lightning and fire. He cut right through her ghostly body with the blade, screaming like a man who was tearing his own soul in half.
The illusion broke like glass. But the swamp remained.
More ghosts appeared. Elena again. And once more. One hundred of her.
Each one crying, whispering, and reaching.
"Charles..."
"ENOUGH!"
He exploded with qi, spinning in a cyclone of rage, like a living storm. His sword was more than just a weapon. It was the torch he used to burn his memories to ash.
One ghost burned. Followed by ten. Then everything.
But as the last whispers faded into the dark, Charles stood there. His heart racing and breath uneven. In that quiet void, he saw a choice take shape: to seek revenge, to accept forgiveness, or to give up completely.
His eyes lifted, fierce determination overtaking exhaustion. "This isn't the end," he vowed, gripping his sword tighter.
And in the silence that followed, he dropped to his knees again.
His armor steamed. His hands shook.
He whispered into the mud, "Elena… I'm sorry. I'm so, so fucking sorry."
Level Cleared.