The leyline tunnel spat them out like broken arrows.
One moment, Caelum, Seraphine, and Lirien were suspended in a rushing stream of light—shapeless, soundless—and the next they were thrown onto cold stone, gasping as reality settled back around them.
But the world they emerged into was wrong.
The air was dense. Gray. Heavy with the metallic scent of storms long dead.
Above them stretched a ceiling of colossal stone ribs, curving like the inside of some buried leviathan. Each rib was carved with runes so ancient even the Runesong in Caelum's head fell silent in awe.
A forgotten place.
A sealed place.
The only light source came from a cluster of floating crystal spheres, pulsing faintly like the last heartbeats of a dying titan.
Seraphine rose to her feet first, brushing dust from her hands.
"Where… are we?"
Caelum steadied himself on a cracked column.
"A subterranean archive, maybe. Or a vault. The leyline forced us off-path."
"No." Lirien's voice was soft but firm. Her serpentine eyes narrowed with instinctual fear.
"This is a Tomb-Coliseum… a place where the Primordial Sovereigns tested their Ascendants. These structures were erased from history."
Caelum exhaled slowly.
"Great. Exactly where I wanted to be today—inside a myth."
Before they could gather themselves, a tremor rippled beneath their feet.
Then came the voices.
Not spoken—remembered.
A thousand whispers slithering across the floor, brushing their boots like cold fingers.
He arrives…
A thread-echo…
The Weaver summons him…
Seraphine froze.
"Those aren't… alive, right?"
"Correct," Lirien said quietly. "These are after-images of minds. Echoes burned into the stone."
Caelum's heartbeat quickened.
Because the voices weren't whispering to all three of them.
They were whispering to him.
The Heir of the Empty Seat returns…
The Unbound Thread wakes…
The Pattern recoils…
Caelum barely breathed.
There it was again—this feeling he had felt ever since stepping foot into Althoryn Realm:
As if something ancient knew his name long before he was born.
Seraphine touched his shoulder gently.
"Caelum. Look at me. You're spacing out."
He blinked and the whispers retreated.
"…I'm fine."
He wasn't.
Because when the echoes spoke, something inside him—something vast and half-awake—stirred like a chained beast being reminded of blood.
---
The Hall of Trials
They advanced deeper into the Tomb-Coliseum.
Every step triggered more illusions:
Ghostly silhouettes replaying duels from forgotten ages—Ascendants hurling storms, splitting mountains, bending reality like molten glass. Their faces were blurred, but their power was unmistakable.
Seraphine watched in awe.
"They fought like gods…"
Lirien crossed her arms.
"Because they were. The Primordials forged their servants here."
Caelum said nothing.
Because among the illusions, one figure stood out.
A tall silhouette wrapped in shadows—not monstrous, but regal.
A crown of threads floated above his head, constantly weaving and unweaving.
Every time Caelum blinked, the crown's shape changed…
and oddly, instinctively, he knew how it worked.
Not from watching.
From remembering.
He tore his eyes away.
"Let's keep moving."
But Seraphine noticed.
Her expression softened, though she said nothing.
---
The Mirror of Unwritten Paths
At the end of a massive corridor lay a circular chamber.
In its center floated a mirror of glass so black it reflected nothing—even the light around it seemed swallowed whole.
A plaque beneath it read:
"THE MIRROR OF WHAT-COULD-BE."
Seraphine stepped forward before the others could stop her.
"Caelum… if this place tests Ascendants, this must be part of it."
Lirien hissed. "Be careful. These relics twist the soul."
"Yeah," Caelum muttered. "Which is why we're not touching—"
But the mirror awakened before he finished.
A pulse—soft, thunderous, inevitable—echoed through the hall.
Black glass rippled like liquid.
And then it showed something.
A version of Caelum.
Older. Hardened. Wearing armor carved with spiraling runes, his eyes glowing a deep, dangerous gold. Behind him rose a throne of woven light and shadow—an impossible thing, shifting between creation and ruin.
Seraphine trembled.
"That's… you?"
Caelum's throat tightened.
"No. Or maybe it is. Or maybe it's what this place wants me to see."
Then the mirror changed.
Now it showed the same Caelum—
but kneeling in a wasteland of ash.
Holding Seraphine's lifeless body.
His scream was silent, but Caelum felt it in his bones.
Seraphine gasped and staggered back, cold horror draining her face.
"Why—why would it show that?"
Lirien answered quietly,
"Because the Mirror reveals the strongest path your fate might take. And also the darkest."
Caelum clenched his fists.
"Enough."
He approached the mirror, gaze burning.
"If this is about fate… then show me everything."
The black glass cracked—
—and the chamber shook violently.
---
The Tomb Awakens
Runes flared along every wall.
Ancient mechanisms groaned awake for the first time in millennia.
The mirror shattered into a thousand floating shards, each reflecting a different version of Caelum—some crowned, some broken, some monstrous, some godlike.
A deep voice rumbled through the Coliseum:
"THE UNBOUND THREAD HAS ENTERED THE LOOM."
Seraphine grabbed Caelum's arm.
"What does that mean?!"
Lirien's eyes widened in disbelief.
"It means this place recognizes you. It means—Caelum—you were never supposed to be here. Or worse… you were always meant to."
The ground split open as pillars rose, forming a colossal ring around them.
A trial.
A summoning.
A reckoning.
From the cracks emerged a guardian—
a towering construct of stone, metal, and ancient runes burning blue-hot.
A Primordial Warden.
It turned its faceless head toward Caelum.
Everything fell silent.
Then:
"ASCENDANT CANDIDATE DETECTED."
"COMMENCING TRIAL."
Seraphine readied her blade.
"Caelum… we're fighting that thing, right?"
Caelum inhaled.
Slow. Steady.
The fragmented versions of himself still hovered in the air like a constellation of possible futures.
And for the first time…
he didn't look away.
"Yes," he said.
"We're fighting."
His eyes glowed faintly with thread-like light.
"And this time… I'll choose my own path."