The darkness beyond the gate was not merely the absence of light. It felt like something more—a deep void that consumed the very essence of reality.
Emiren took a step forward, sensing how the space around him shifted. The wind that had once stirred the silver leaves of the Eternal Garden had vanished. The air was now still, heavy, filled with memories that did not belong to him.
Flamen and the Hollow followed, their silhouettes blurred in the unstable light emanating from the gate.
“We can still turn back,” the Hollow whispered.
“No,” Emiren replied without looking back. “We’ve already made our choice.”
A World Without Time
As soon as they stepped through the gate, an unfamiliar world unfolded before them.
It was an endless plain, covered in glowing lines stretching in all directions, intersecting at impossible angles. The sky above them had no color—it shimmered with all shades at once, changing depending on how one looked at it.
In the distance, something grand loomed.
“Is that…?” Flamen halted, searching for the right words. “The heart of time?”
Emiren felt it too. A silent pulse, vibrating through space itself, organizing chaos and forming patterns.
“We are closer to the truth than anyone has ever been,” he murmured.
But with each step, the tension grew.
The Guardians of the Boundary
They were not alone.
The moment their feet touched one of the glowing lines on the ground, the air before them trembled. The space seemed to crack open, and from the rupture, figures emerged.
There were three of them.
Tall, motionless, cloaked in long, dark robes, they stood as if they were part of this place. Their faces had no features, only eyes burning with a cold blue fire.
“You do not belong here,” one of them spoke, his voice echoing from nowhere.
“We seek an answer,” Emiren responded.
“The answer exists only for those who are willing to pay the price,” said the second.
Flamen raised his hand, black fire swirling between his fingers.
“We have already paid enough.”
“Not everything,” the third guardian declared.
And then the ground beneath them split open.
The Trial of Variants
They fell.
But not into darkness, not into emptiness. They fell through the fabric of reality itself, and around them unfolded the versions of their lives that had never been.
Emiren saw himself not as a Creator, but as a simple wanderer who had never discovered his power.
Flamen—a mortal who had never known the fire in his veins.
The Hollow—someone who had a name, someone who had never become hollow.
“This is a test,” Emiren realized as the fall slowed.
“A trial of choice,” Flamen added.
“What must we do?” the Hollow asked.
“Accept who we are,” Emiren answered.
He reached out and touched his alternate self. Light erupted, and he found himself once again standing on the same plain where he had begun.
Flamen and the Hollow had also returned.
Before them stood the three guardians.
“You have passed,” said the first.
“Go forward,” said the second.
“But remember: not every truth brings relief,” warned the third.
And the gate before them opened.
Beyond it, the answer awaited.