- Level 4: Swamp of Echoes
Fog choked the air, coiling around her neck like a noose. Every breath tasted like mildew and rot. The ground wasn't solid. It dragged, sucking at her boots like it wanted her buried.
Then—
Elena appeared.
She was just standing there.
Her long dark hair was neatly braided as if she hadn't been torn apart by time. Her smile was soft and sweet. Eyes too kind. She looked like a memory dressed in a lie.
Home. Comfort. Love.
All fake.
"Charles...You promised violin… wine… candlelight…"
Micah's throat clenched. But it wasn't her voice that broke. It was his.
"I cooked your last lunch," Charles sobbed, knees giving out beneath him.
His voice cracked open, raw and messy. The kind of grief that didn't just hurt. It gutted.
"You never made it to dinner alive!"
The words hit like a blade under the ribs.
Micah could hardly breathe. Her chest was tight, drowning under the weight of his memory.
Her face was wet, but her eyes were dry. It wasn't her crying. It was him.
No. They both were crying.
His pain. Her body. There were no boundaries. Just wreckage.
And then—
The scream tore her throat.
"ENOUGH!"
It didn't echo. It shattered.
Stormfire Severance exploded from his grip like fury incarnate, a divine blade made of stormlight and vengeance.
The world didn't just react. It screamed back.
The illusion cracked. Elena's face twisted, fading into smoke and fragments. Her smile burned away, replaced by fire and ruin. Petals turned to ash in midair. The swamp ignited in a wall of blinding flame.
The fog, the lies, the sorrow...everything caught fire in a land blazing inferno.
And Micah burned with it.
Skin blistering, nerves screaming, vision warping..
But she didn't stop. Because it wasn't just fire anymore.
It was grief turned weapon. It was the price of survival.
-Level 6: Hall of Mirrors
Reflections twisted in the light, flickering like ghosts caught in glass.
Garrick. Amelia. Marcus. Elena.
And then—herself.
Not just images. Not memories. People he had loved, people he had lost, people who betrayed him. Faces that once meant everything, now turned into weapons.
She saw it through his eyes, felt the raw spike of grief in his throat. In the Hall of Mirrors, there was nowhere to run, no truth to hold onto. Just an illusion. Just pain.
She was him as he screamed.
"ELENA!"
The name tore from his mouth like it was being ripped out of him.
"Don't use her face!" he cried. "No... Please... not her..."
Desperation cracked through every word. His fists trembled. His sword lowered an inch. Just an inch—but it was enough for the pain to pour in.
"DON'T USE HER!"
The scream wasn't just rage. It was terror. A helpless kind that cut deeper than steel.
The glass shattered.
A thousand shards exploded outward, raining down like knives. And something in Micah's chest snapped with it. A sharp, sudden twist. Pain, too real to be a metaphor. Too cruel to ignore.
He was breaking. No—he was already broken. She could feel it.
Splintered down to the soul. Carved hollow by loss. Every step forward felt like walking on the bones of the people he couldn't save.
But he didn't stop. He kept going, through the blood, through the glass, through the lies.
Still, he fought.
Still, he screamed.
Still, he carved his path through hell, one breath, one cut at a time.
Not because he believed he could win.
But because stopping would mean letting her die all over again.
- Level 7: Execution Grounds
Core Rank 3 berserkers advanced together like animals let loose in a killing pit.
They didn't need a strategy because they were built like siege engines. They didn't need to adhere to formations. They were born for one purpose: destruction.
They surrounded him, growling, with their fists clenched like iron slabs.
Then the first one attacked.
Micah felt it hit her ribs. A horrible crack echoed through his body. His lungs stopped working. He had blood coming out of his mouth.
The second hit knocked his shoulder out of place. It made a loud, wet, unnatural noise that made her flinch.
Then came another. This one blurred his vision. Everything tilted. Gravity bent sideways. The ground spun beneath his feet.
And still, he didn't fall. Still, he fought.
"Fuck all of you!"
The words came out of him like a war cry, twisted by anger and something deeper. Something broken.
Grief had taken away everything soft. What was left was a man with nothing to lose and a sword that answered to pain.
Every time Raijin Emberfang struck, it screamed through the air and left lightning in its wake. It didn't cut. It tore. Through the muscle. Through the bone. Through anything that got in his way.
This wasn't a technique. It wasn't training. It was survival carved out of vengeance.
Micah felt every impact. Heard every scream. Saw the red haze thickening around him like a storm.
She clutched at her chest, praying for it to stop. But no god was listening.
"PLEASE…STOP IT!"
She screamed into a void that didn't care.
There was no pause. No mercy. No way out.
There was no escape.
Only blood. Only hate. Only forward.
- Level 8: The Spiral Gauntlet
Golems. Poison assassins. Clones of Amelia with dead eyes and smiling mouths.
They didn't come to fight. They came to punish.
One after another. No pause. No relief. Like the world had written him a sentence he never got to appeal. One battle for every sin he never confessed.
Micah dropped to her knees. Her breath caught. Her vision swam.
But he didn't fall.
He vomited blood. Thick, black-red. Chunks.
Then the snap came. Not some quiet pop, but a crack. His left femur broke clean through. Splinters drove up into muscle. The pain wasn't sharp. It was suffocating.
He roared, grabbed the leg with trembling hands, and shoved the bone back into place. Lightning arced up his arms as Raijin answered with raw voltage, searing muscle just to keep him standing.
His scream could have split stone.
"Still breathing, motherfuckers."
His voice was a growl laced with agony. He wasn't speaking to them. He was speaking to death itself.
His eyes didn't look human anymore. They didn't hold fear, or hope, or even anger. Just cracked glass reflecting stormlight and violence.
Micah was crying and didn't know when it started. The line between her and him had vanished. All she could feel was pain—so much of it she couldn't tell if it was his body or her soul falling apart.
Then came the memory.
It didn't ask permission.
Marcus. Smiling. Like he hadn't betrayed everything.
Amelia. Beautiful. Cold. The kind of cold that didn't freeze—it cut.
The moment played in full. The sword crashed into his skull. The hand on his chest, glowing with betrayal. The surge of power that shattered his dantian like glass under the boot.
The betrayal didn't just kill a man.
It erased him.
"You bitch!"
"CHARLEMAGNE ZIGLAR IS DEAD!"
"You killed him, remember?!"
The pain didn't fade…it compounded.
Level by level.
She could feel her bones breaking. Flesh tears. Rage rises. Despair devours.
Micah held her chest and tried to breathe as his pain and her fear mixed. It wasn't just feelings; it was real pain.
This shared pain was more than a test; it made her face who she was.
His skull throbbed with betrayal, reminding her of the sacrifices made to reclaim oneself. Surviving meant more than just enduring. It meant facing every scar, every choice, and every loss.
His ribs ground together.
His skull rang with the echo of betrayal.
Charlemagne Ziglar died screaming in hopelessness and despair…alone..
The cold-blooded embodiment of vengeance and genius, they now called Lord Charles, resurrected in that same scream.
- Level 10: Obsidian Warlord
The last level of the trial led to the overlord of abomination. He looked like a boss in a dungeon. A ten-foot high monstrosity. Equal to a Core Rank 5 warrior. He held a halberd made of hellfire and pure, unfiltered hate.
The Warlord looked like judgment incarnate. His armor was blackened and cracked, and the embers pulsed under the plates like a heart made of fire.
Charles walked with a limp, unafraid.
Alone.
No allies. No backup. Just the sound of his boots dragging across the scorched earth.
His breath rattled like broken machinery. One eye swollen shut, the other locked on death. Blood clung to his face in dried layers, some of it fresh, some of it old, all of it his.
Lightning still sparked weakly at his fingertips. Not power—refusal. The body was failing, but the will refused to quit.
"Come at me, you overgrown shit."
The words didn't roar. They bled. He wasn't taunting. He was daring the Warlord to end it.
Then the halberd struck.
Micah felt it.
Not metaphor. Not emotion.
Her chest tore open.
The halberd punched through as if cleaving meat from bone. She felt the squelch of shredded muscle, the pop of joints being pulled from sockets, the ring of steel slamming into ribs like a church bell of agony.
She couldn't breathe. Her lungs seized. Her mouth opened, but no sound came.
"For Elena!" he bellowed.
That scream didn't come from his throat. It came from somewhere deeper. Older. It was every ounce of pain given purpose.
Raijin's Emberfang tore into the Warlord's chest in a clean, brutal thrust.
Then the world detonated. Fire. Sound. Wind. Pressure.
Everything turned white.
And then—
Silence.
Micah's body convulsed.
The vision ended.
She was back in the chamber, back in her own skin, but it didn't feel like it. Her chest heaved, muscles seizing. She was on her knees before she even realized it.
The scream came from deep in her gut and tore out through her throat like glass and gravel.
She screamed again.
Then again.
And again, like a mad person.
There was no rhythm. No control. Just a raw, endless scream, broken and feral, like something in her had snapped and wasn't coming back.
She couldn't stop.
She didn't even know if she wanted to
The Epoch Sphere slipped from Micah's hands, clattering to the floor in a dull, glowing roll.
She didn't even notice.
The light dimmed. The vision collapsed like a sandcastle under a tidal wave, everything crumbling at once.
It was over.
But not really.
She couldn't breathe—couldn't think. Her body rebelled, lungs seizing as if trying to push out what didn't belong. But what was hers and what was his anymore? She couldn't tell. It was all tangled, twisted. Too much.
Her knees buckled.
She hit the ground hard, still screaming. Her voice cracked, fingers spasming like lightning shot through her veins. Her chest convulsed, sobs breaking free in ragged, uneven bursts.
"GET IT OUT... GET IT OUT OF ME!"
"Micah!"
She was pulled in by warm arms. Strong. Grounding. Feminine.
Wendy.
"Lady Micah!" Her voice called out again, urgent but calm.
Micah fell into her without resistance. Her body was shaking as if it had been left in a storm for too long. Her nails dug into Wendy's coat, looking for something real, something that wouldn't hurt her again.
It felt like being stuck in a nightmare for days.
But outside the Sphere? It had been a few minutes.
Micah couldn't stop shaking. Couldn't stop feeling.
"I saw it. I saw all of it. Gods, Wendy—he... he's been carrying all this alone..."
Her voice broke mid-sentence, throat raw, words struggling through a flood of tears. She clung to Wendy like the ground would vanish if she let go.
Wendy tightened her hold. "Micah, breathe. You're safe. It's over."
But it wasn't.
Not for him.
Not for her.
Charles was still lying there, unmoving. A shattered body wrapped around a soul that had been through hell and left with nothing but silence. Blood painted the floor beneath him. Qi scars cracked across his back like lightning strikes carved into flesh. He hadn't fought a battle. He'd survived a war.
Alone.
Until now.
Micah pressed a hand to her chest, still shaking, voice hoarse from screaming.
"He screamed that name… over and over. He fought with no one left to fight for but ghosts."
Wendy's voice softened. "But now… he's not alone."
Micah turned, her eyes red but clear. Her gaze landed on Charles—unconscious, barely breathing—but alive.
And she understood now.
This wasn't just about healing. It was about coming back from the grave.
"No," she said, her voice low but sure. "He's not."
She let go of Wendy. She moved forward one step.
She had seen what no one else had. She had felt it.
And what happened when Charles woke up?
The world would have no idea what it had unleashed.