"Somewhere out there is the person who can hold it. All I have to do is survive long enough to hand them the key."
There was no trial.
Ren didn't fall. He didn't fight. He didn't bleed.
Trial Five opened like a door that never wanted to be found — wide, quiet, and ready.
Inside: nothing.
Just wind.
Old wind. Cosmic wind. The kind that carries pieces of timelines like dust, whispering things your skin remembers before your head does.
He stepped forward. One step.
Then the voices came.
CORE (softly):
"Override code unstable. Memory link: fractured. Universal pulse: degrading."
"A new vessel is required."
"You are not that vessel."
REN (quiet):
"Yeah. I got that part."
The world around him pulsed once.
A surge of memory poured through his glyphs — not his own, not Kaelreth's either.
This was deeper.
Older.
A life.
A presence.
Not born to war or trial. Not broken by Drift. Just... stable.
Calm.
FROST (somewhere behind him):
"That's it. That's the soul."
TIME (barely restrained excitement):
"Ohh, I like this one. It's not shaking. It's... grounded."
REN (eyes closed):
"Where?"
SPACE (grim now):
"You won't like it."
GRAVITY (without emotion):
"Ninth planet. Yxtrielle."
Everything in Ren stopped.
Even his heartbeat.
Yxtrielle.
The Silent Orbit.
A planet wrapped in death and myth and memory denial.
No Drift anchors. No exit points. No confirmed returns.
Ships that enter go silent.
Even the Core doesn't remember what went in.
REN:
"...So naturally, that's where I have to go…..AGAIN"
He stepped back from the nothing.
The Trial faded like a sigh — as if it knew this wasn't the ending.
Not for him.
📍 Outside – Ka'rath'Mar, Present Time
The temple cracked as he exited.
The goat was gone. The table broken. The air heavy.
Outside, the sky burned red.
Sirens howled in the distance.
Driftfire clouds rolled across the skyline.
Second Space War.
Already begun.
Snarksteel slammed into his hand.
SNARKSTEEL:
"You missed the fun. The sky's on fire, and you owe me one god-killing duel."
REN (tired):
"No duels. No blades. We're leaving."
ARIX (emerging from shadow, hair windblown, boots blood-stained):
"Leaving to where?"
Ren turned his head toward the stars.
REN:
"Ninth planet. There's someone there. Someone who can end this.
Someone who won't break."
A pause.
VA'THERAN (appearing beside them, looking… proud?):
"Then go, Riftborn. Find them. Before this universe forgets how to breathe."