The sky above the Hollow Realm twisted as the storm loomed nearer. The vortex raged with silent thunder, time and space folding into each other like fragments of broken glass. Jin Long, Yue Lan, Kael, and Valen stood before a bridge of crystallized moments—each step across it a gamble against reality.
"This is it," Kael murmured. "The threshold to the Citadel."
Jin's eyes narrowed as he stepped forward. Time shifted around him. His feet moved once, but the world trembled thrice. The bridge beneath him sparked with echoes of the past—memories, doubts, failures—all trying to claw back into his mind.
He saw himself as a boy, crying in a burned-down village. Then as a man, alone in a dark void. Then as a corpse beneath Zhan Wuhen's foot.
But he pushed forward.
Yue Lan followed close behind, her aura blazing with defiance. "These aren't just illusions," she said. "They're tests."
Kael nodded. "The Citadel was built to guard the Echoblade. It repels unworthy minds with regret and fear. Hold your truth, or it will consume you."
As they crossed the final step, the storm vanished.
They stood inside an impossible structure.
The Citadel of Shattered Time.
Its halls stretched in infinite directions. Doors blinked in and out of existence. Statues of long-dead warriors moved when no one looked at them. Hourglasses floated midair, dripping starlight instead of sand.
Valen muttered, "This place is wrong."
Kael's gaze was locked ahead. "It's designed that way. Time here is... opinion."
Suddenly, the corridor split. A dozen pathways opened simultaneously, each one tugging at a different soul.
Jin stepped toward one—drawn by a whisper that sounded like his mother's voice.
"Jin!" Yue Lan grabbed his arm. "It's trying to separate us."
Too late.
The Citadel shifted.
Each of them was pulled into a different reality.
---
Jin's Trial
He opened his eyes inside a throne room made of starlight and bone. Before him sat himself—older, colder, robed in darkness.
"You let them die," the older Jin said.
Jin Long gritted his teeth. "That wasn't me."
"But it could be," the figure said. "All it takes is one moment of weakness. One choice to abandon the fight."
"I won't," Jin growled.
"Then prove it."
The older Jin drew a mirror-blade and lunged.
Jin parried, their swords colliding with a sound like screaming galaxies.
---
Yue Lan's Trial
She found herself in a garden where the moon never rose. Her father stood before her—alive, smiling, unchanged.
"You don't have to fight anymore," he said. "Stay. Be happy. Let the world burn."
Tears welled in Yue Lan's eyes.
But she clenched her fists. "No. I swore to fight for those who can't. I love Jin. I choose the future."
The garden dissolved in a flare of light.
---
Kael's Trial
He faced a mirror that showed him as human—free of the Mirrorborn curse.
"No fate," the reflection whispered. "No burdens. Just peace."
Kael reached out... then shattered the mirror.
"I am who I am. And I will shape fate—not hide from it."
---
Valen's Trial
He was offered wealth, women, safety—everything he ever wanted.
He laughed. "Too easy. If I wanted comfort, I'd have stayed home."
He burned the illusion with a flame from his palm.
---
The Citadel groaned.
Reality twisted, and the four warriors were pulled back into the central chamber.
A single pedestal stood before them.
Floating above it: The Echoblade.
Forged of pure temporal light, it shimmered with a thousand reflections of possible futures. It hummed in tune with Jin Long's heartbeat.
He stepped forward.
The blade flew into his hand.
At that moment, the Genesis Core blazed inside him—and the Echoblade fused with its light.
A vision struck him:
Zhan Wuhen—laughing—towering over a battlefield filled with corpses.
The war had begun.
Jin clenched the Echoblade.
"Then let the war come."