The world stood still in anticipation.
Emiren stood before three doors, feeling reality waver around him, as if trying to decide what should become truth and what should vanish into oblivion.
Flamen and the Hollow stood beside him, each sensing the same pressure.
— This is a trial, — the Hollow whispered.
— We’ve already faced trials, — Flamen replied through clenched teeth. — But this feels different.
Emiren reached his hand forward.
The doors were not simply standing before them—they were shifting. The symbols on the black gates changed shape, rewriting themselves as they pulsed. The white light of another passage flickered, at times revealing shadows that should not exist. And the third door… it was absent. Yet he knew it was there.
The choice was both obvious and impossible.
— If we open the wrong one, what will happen? — Flamen asked.
— Perhaps we’ll never find out, — Emiren answered and pressed his hand against the black doors.
The Gates That Should Not Open
The moment his fingers touched the stone, he felt something unexpected.
Not cold. Not warmth.
But the absence of everything.
The black material was not just lifeless—it was a void, longing to consume everything that entered its reach.
The doors opened without a sound.
Beyond them, there was no light.
— This is a bad idea, — Flamen muttered, but Emiren had already stepped forward.
The World Beyond Time’s Edge
A step.
And the world changed.
They found themselves in a place that could not exist.
The sky was torn like an old parchment, through which something… something that had no form but had presence, seeped through.
The ground was made of shifting shadows, constantly forming patterns that resembled fragments of memories that did not belong to them.
Ahead stood a towering structure—an endless spire, its peak lost in the chaos consuming the sky.
— Where are we? — the Hollow whispered.
— This is not a place, — Emiren answered. — It’s a possibility.
But a possibility for what?
A Voice That Belongs to Neither the Living Nor the Dead
The spire was closer than it appeared. They had taken only a few steps before they were already standing at its base.
The doors of the tower were open.
From within, a voice called out.
— You have come.
It was not a single voice. It was a chorus, boundless, infinite—a symphony of thousands of voices, overlapping, merging, speaking as one.
Emiren stepped forward.
— Who are you?
— I am He Who Has Yet to Be Created.
The words made them freeze.
— What does that mean? — Flamen asked.
— It means that someone—perhaps us—has yet to make the choice that will lead to his creation, — the Hollow answered.
The voice spoke again.
— You shape time. But do you understand what you create?
The Path Upward
The doorway before them began to change.
It was no longer just the archway of the spire—it was a gateway to something greater.
— We must go forward, — Emiren said.
— But what if we create something we cannot control? — Flamen countered.
— What if it is already created? — the Hollow said quietly.
They stepped through.
And the world shifted once more.