The fractured realm stretched endlessly before them, a shifting, broken land where time itself had no meaning. Eren and Jace walked in silence, their footsteps echoing against the cracked stone beneath them. The ruins of an ancient battlefield lay scattered around them—shattered weapons, rusted armor, and skeletal remains frozen in the poses of warriors who had fought their last battle centuries ago.
The sky above flickered between twilight and darkness, as if struggling to decide whether it was night or day. Strange whispers curled through the air, distant echoes of a war long forgotten. It was a graveyard of memories, a place where time refused to let go of the past.
Jace finally broke the silence. "You remember anything yet?"
Eren exhaled slowly. "I remember the Crucible. I remember fighting. Dying. And waking up to do it all over again. But it's fragments, nothing solid."
Jace nodded, his gaze distant. "That's how it works. The Crucible erases us, over and over. We fight. We die. We forget. But some memories slip through."
Eren turned to face him. "What about you? What do you remember?"
Jace hesitated. "More than I should."
A gust of wind carried the scent of decay through the air. Jace ran a hand through his hair, his usual confidence dimmed by the weight of something heavier—something unspoken.
"The gods didn't create the Crucible," Jace continued. "They took it. Twisted it. Before them, these worlds were whole. The warriors who fought here weren't just pawns—they were kings, champions, heroes. When the gods lost their power, they built the Crucible from the ruins of these fallen realms, turning their wars into an endless cycle."
Eren frowned. "Then that means—"
"We're fighting in the remains of history," Jace finished. "Every warrior the Crucible calls was already tied to one of these lost realms. Maybe they were born here. Maybe their ancestors fought in these wars. Maybe they're just echoes of something that refuses to die."
Eren clenched his fists. The realization hit like a warhammer to the gut. He had thought of the Crucible as a prison, but it was worse. It was a graveyard, a place where the past and present collided, where warriors were forced to fight not for survival, but because history demanded it.
"That means you and I… we were part of this too," Eren muttered.
Jace smirked, but there was no humor in it. "Yeah. And we weren't just any contestants. We were supposed to break the cycle."
Eren narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"
Jace turned away, his expression unreadable. "I mean… this isn't our first time trying. You and I—we've done this before. We fought. We lost. We forgot. And now, here we are again."
Eren felt a cold chill run through him. The thought of reliving the same battles, the same struggles, over and over without knowing it—it made his skin crawl. "Then how do we stop it?"
Jace chuckled, shaking his head. "That's the question, isn't it? Maybe this time, we figure it out before the gods erase us again."
Eren looked out over the shattered battlefield. The remnants of war, the whispers of lost warriors, the fractured world itself—it all told the same story. A cycle that refused to end. But something was different this time. He could feel it.
He wasn't just another contestant in the Crucible.
He was going to break it.