When the Trial Gate closed behind them, the world blurred.
Colors folded like paper. Time became syrup. Sound vanished.
Jin opened his eyes to the scent of scorched petals.
He was standing alone—on a narrow stone path stretched across a vast field of golden windflowers swaying in a silent storm.
The sky was cracked. Fractures of starlight bled through twilight clouds.
"...Where is this?"
His voice echoed, then vanished.
He recognized the place. This path—he ran on it every day as a child. That small shrine to the right—he used to leave offerings for a god he never knew.
But something was… off.
The shrine's bell was shattered. The windflowers were burning silently at the edges. And the village—gone. A void where it should've been.
A figure waited beneath the broken tree ahead.
Tall. Robed in flowing divine silk, trimmed in dusk gold.
A fox-shaped porcelain mask covered his face.
"…Who are you?" Jin called, one hand reaching behind to grip Laughing Blade. The weapon hummed softly like a heartbeat.
The masked man didn't move.
Instead, his voice floated across the dead air, low and calm.
> "Do you really want to meet the man behind your blood?
Or are you chasing shadows to avoid looking within?"
Jin froze.
His mother's crying face flashed in his mind—her quiet prayers each night, always ending with, "He left for a reason. That's enough."
"…You're not him," Jin muttered, eyes narrowing.
The masked figure finally moved—drawing a sleek blade, its edge glinting with trickster light.
> "Then prove you deserve the truth."
Clang!
Their swords collided mid-air—Laughing Blade sparking with divine will, responding to Jin's rising fury and pain.
But in that instant, the Trial Realm cracked again—
A ripple flowed outward.
In another part of the realm, Yooha walked silently through a snowfall… toward a younger version of herself, curled in a corner with nothing but a broken wooden blade.
And in a completely different corner of chaos…
Bo screamed.
"WHY IS THIS MARSHMALLOW TRYING TO EAT ME?!"
End of Episode 25( continue)