Kade sat beside Marei as she lay against the cold wall, still reeling from the memory sync. Her skin was clammy. A vein near her temple pulsed in strange intervals—matching the distant hum of the Catalyst system.
He didn't know if she was even fully conscious.
But the room was already shifting.
The air grew dense. The walls cracked and rearranged—exposing a wide chamber ahead that hadn't been there moments ago. A dome of obsidian steel and flickering blue glyphs, humming with low, magnetic pressure.
Trial Initialized. Subject: Kade.
Memory Integrity: Incomplete. Risk Level: High.
"Risk?" Kade muttered. "Since when do you care?"
He stepped inside.
The moment he crossed the threshold, the world blurred.
The lab vanished. The weight of gravity shifted.
Kade found himself standing not on metal, but on glass.
Below him stretched an endless void—stars, storms, forgotten timelines.
Above him, the silhouette of a throne floated midair—fractured, splintered, bleeding light from its core.
"Where the hell—?"
Welcome to the Sovereign Trial.
A voice, not the system's usual cold tone. This one sounded like his own, but distorted. Older. Broken. Regal.
Then came the first vision.
The glass platform rippled, and a battlefield unfolded in the dark—ancient soldiers in Sovereign armor, fighting off hordes of twisted forms. Kade recognized the sigil on the soldiers' cloaks. His sigil. Or… someone who once bore his name.
The trial wasn't a test of strength.
It was memory.
A forgotten war. A forgotten betrayal.
One of the armored figures turned—helmet off—and looked straight at him.
It was Kade. Or a version of him.
Eyes gold. Scarred. Wearing a crown of fractured iron.
"You abandoned us," the image said, voice trembling with fury. "You reset the world and left us to rot."
Kade's fists clenched. "I didn't. I didn't even know—"
"No one forgets by accident."
"You chose silence. You sealed the system. You buried the Catalyst. And now you come crawling back, wanting power?"
The platform cracked.
Lightning split the void. Kade staggered, caught himself—but a burning pain seared across his chest.
He looked down.
A mark had appeared on his sternum, glowing in the same sigil as the throne above.
A brand.
Trial Phase II: Engage Hostile Remnant.
Suddenly the version of him—King Kade—drew a sword of light and charged.
Kade barely dodged. The strike carved fire through the air. A second swing followed, then a third. He ducked, rolled, and finally countered with his own blade, summoned by instinct alone.
Metal clashed. Sparks danced.
But this wasn't just a fight.
Every time their blades met, memories leaked—visions of decisions Kade didn't remember making. Orders he gave. Cities he burned. Friends he erased from time.
The Catalyst hadn't just saved the world. It had wiped pieces of him clean.
And now the system wanted to know—
Would he accept what he had been?
Or destroy it all again?