The first step into the void did not end in a fall.
It ended in a beginning.
Solus Onelight found himself standing — somehow — on a bridge of broken light, suspended over a depthless abyss. Each fragment of the bridge floated apart from the others, tethered only by thin veins of humming gold. Every step he took threatened to undo him, each pulse of his heart threatening to scatter him into dust.
The hooded figure had vanished. Only its voice remained, threading itself through the emptiness like a forgotten song.
"Trial by Reflection. Trial by Fracture. Trial by Binding."
Three trials. No explanations. No choices.
The shard tied to Solus' side vibrated — not in warning, but in anticipation. It was hungry, in a way he did not yet understand.
The bridge stretched endlessly ahead, splitting at points into trails that veered sharply into the void. Some led upward into folds of starlight; others twisted downward into shadow.
Solus chose forward.
Not because he trusted the way — but because stopping here meant surrender, and surrender was death.
The first step was easy. The second is heavier.
By the third step, the world began to change.
The darkness below him rippled. Something massive shifted beneath the surface of the abyss, too deep and distant to see fully — a leviathan made of lost time and discarded futures.
And then, ahead of him, the bridge split.
Two paths.
One shone with the purest light, golden and inviting. The other was cracked and blackened, bleeding a mist that reeked of old sorrow.
Instinct tugged at him.
The golden path whispered comfort: rest, relief, an end to suffering.
The broken path said nothing. It simply waited.
Solus paused.
He was tired. Bone-tired.
His body ached from the ash, from the endless running, from the memories that clawed at him in the spaces between breaths.
The golden road shimmered brighter.
You could stop. You could sleep. You could forget.
He almost stepped forward.
Almost.
But something deeper than thought — deeper than instinct — froze him in place.
A memory not of words, but of feeling:
Pain. Struggle. Victory was bought at an unbearable cost.
Nothing worth having was given. Nothing true came without scars.
Solus turned away from the golden road.
He stepped onto the broken one.
The bridge shuddered beneath his feet, the gold veins dimming.
From the shadows ahead, a figure began to form — not the cloaked guide, but something else.
A mirror.
A mirror made of living glass.
And inside it, Solus saw—
Himself.
Not as he was.
But as he could have been.
Weak. Complacent. Small.
The mirror Solus smiled — and it was a terrible thing, hollow and rotting.
The first trial had begun.
The mirror Solus stepped forward.
It didn't breathe. It didn't blink. It simply moved, its body fluid and sharp all at once, a grotesque echo of his shape.
Every motion mocked him — heavy where he was light, careless where he was precise. The reflection bore no scars, no weight behind its steps. It was the Solus that had given in to weakness and allowed comfort to erode strength.
And worse: it was smiling.
Solus steadied himself, his heart pounding out a rough rhythm in his ears. He could feel the shard at his side thrumming again, hotter now as if urging him toward violence.
The mirror Solus raised its hand.
In its palm formed a blade — not metal, not fire, but something else. It was forged from smooth oblivion, a blade that shimmered between being real and not.
The figure rushed forward without a sound.
Solus ducked instinctively — the blade slicing the air where his throat had been a breath ago. He stumbled back onto the fractured bridge, feeling the cracks widen beneath his feet.
This is a trial, he reminded himself. Not a battle.
But his body didn't care.
The mirror attacked again — this time more vicious, relentless, like a predator that smelled blood. Each swing of the blade carried the weight of false promises, the bitterness of paths never taken.
Solus gritted his teeth, sidestepping another lunge.
He had no weapon. No armor. No certainty.
Only the shard.
Almost without thinking, he ripped the shard free from his belt.
It burned cold against his palm — a contradiction, a promise. Shapes shimmered along its surface, runes he didn't recognize, etching themselves into the air.
The mirror hesitated — only for an instant — sensing the change.
It was enough.
Solus drove the shard into the ground between them.
A pulse exploded outward — invisible, but undeniable. The mirror Solus recoiled, its blade flickering, its form shivering as if struggling to hold together.
The bridge beneath them groaned.
Cracks spiderwebbed outward from the point where the shard had struck. The whole world seemed ready to collapse — or evolve.
Solus staggered to his feet, the shard now floating loosely in the air beside him, tethered to his heartbeat.
He faced his reflection.
"No," he said, voice raw but steady. "I'm not you."
The mirror snarled — the first real emotion it had shown — and lunged again, more desperate now, more frenzied.
But Solus didn't step back.
This time, he moved forward.
He let the shard answer his will.
It blazed — a streak of sunlight across the broken air — and met the false blade head-on.
The clash made no noise.
Only consequences.
The collision of the shard and blade sent ripples through the fractured bridge.
For a heartbeat, neither Solus nor his reflection moved — locked together at the point of impact, the world around them trembling.
Then the mirror broke first.
A fine crack split its weapon, zigzagging up its arm, across its chest, and through its face.
Its smile faltered and collapsed.
The reflection tried to pull away, but Solus pressed forward, teeth bared, every ounce of himself poured into the shard.
"I am more," Solus whispered.
The mirror screamed.
No — not screamed.
It unraveled.
The sound was less a cry of pain and more the tearing of something false, something never meant to exist.
Piece by piece, it disintegrated into mist, each fragment drifting upward into the bleeding sky above.
Solus staggered back, chest heaving, his entire body trembling from the inside out.
The bridge shuddered under him, and for a moment, he thought it might collapse.
But instead, it began to heal.
The fractures sealed.
The light returned — dim and strange, but steadier.
The Rift's oppressive pressure lessened, just a fraction.
He was still standing.
The shard floated before him, changed — no longer a raw fragment, but something slightly...more.
Its surface was smoother now, the shifting runes more deliberate, almost forming a language he half-recognized.
Solus reached out.
The shard sank into his palm without resistance, vanishing beneath his skin, leaving behind a faint, cool burn across his bones.
His breathing slowed.
A voice — not spoken aloud, but imprinted directly into his mind — echoed through him:
The first trial is complete. Resonance awakened: 1%. Progression authorized.
Solus closed his eyes, absorbing the words.
Resonance.
Awakening.
It felt right.
It felt inevitable.
And yet...he knew this was only the beginning.
A single step into a storm that would tear countless lives apart.
Above, the cracks in the sky pulsed again — faint, distant.
More trials waited.
More worlds would fall.
Solus Onelight opened his eyes.
And he smiled — not out of joy, but out of grim, sharpened determination.
If the Rift wanted a war...
It had chosen the wrong soul to test.