By now, Clayton already realized one thing... Trial III was vastly different from Trial I. It was more of a ntal trial, a psychological quest.
The core thes of mories, resolving conflict all pointed to the truth. Instead of Trial I’s fighting for survival thes, growing his domain, and pushing his body to the limit, this ti the Trial was pushing his mind to the limit.
And if he was being sincere, this was unfamiliar territory for him, and the prospects of facing it was gnawing at his sanity.
During his preparations for Trial III back in his Rootsite, he accounted for and prepared for so many different trials, to fighting titanic Behemorphs to being embroiled in earth-shaking civil wars, but not this.
Not this mysterious, psychological betrayal-thed trial.
He felt scamd. ’Dammit!’
Before Trial I, he was just a slumrat who scavenged to survive. Spite was the core of his existence, and all he knew how to do was survive.
This was why despite being thrown into the brutal world of Echoterra in Trial I, he managed to survive despite all odds that were against him, as a plant!
Since then, from a spike-fueled survivor, he had evolved.
From just surviving, he beca a predator, and then a Sovereign, a Verdant Lord. He now had responsibility. He had a Rootsite, and a population of thousands under his domain.
To protect them, he embraced his role as a warrior, a predator.
He’d learn to kill Behemorphs with brutal efficiency, he had even killed fellow humans like him, Verdant Lords and rcenaries just to achieve his goal.
He was a killer. But a psychologist? That was where he drew the line.
But Trial III didn’t give him the luxury of choosing though. The Trial was already set, and all he had to do was complete it, or fail trying.
Clayton gritted his teeth.
The battlefield of thorns and shadow dissolved.
The corpses of the Phase I Behemorphs scattered into drifting motes of light, fading into the stone beneath their boots. For a heartbeat, silence stretched, broken only by the ragged breaths of Clayton’s group.
Then, the system’s voice spoke, cold and clear as steel.
DING!
~----~
[Phase I Complete.]
[Phase II Initiated: Interpret the Wound.]
[Choose the truth that closes it.]
~----~
The floor rumbled as glyphs etched themselves across the walls of the chamber, glowing faint green, then red, then a sickly gray.
Shapes took form in the glyphs, forming armored figures, vast roots tearing cities apart, and towers of steel rising from plains. It was a story told without words, and yet each of them understood.
The glyphs showed the old civil war, the core of this Trial.
It was not just Behemorphs and cities, but Verdant Lords locked in hatred.
Clayton’s pulse quickened as he paid keen attention. The images wrapped around them like a snare, dragging them deeper. When the glow finally flared, the chamber itself bent and broke.
BZZZ!
When they regained consciousness, they stood on a new battlefield.
The sky above was a torn canvas of green and crimson. Roots towered like skyscrapers, bleeding sap that stead against black alloy spires.
Two armies faced each other across a ruined plain, one draped in living vines, their bodies extensions of Echoterra’s wild growth, and the other clad in biochanical fras, veins of molten alloy coursing through their flesh.
At the head of one side stood a Verdant Lord in robes of woven bark, his crown radiant with raw, untad life.
His voice echoed through the plain, calm but sharp.
"Echoterra must remain pure. The Genesis Protocols are gifts of the gods, not tools for desecration".
"To fuse with machine is to betray everything we are."
On the other side stood a towering figure of steel and vine, half flesh and half machine. His chest glowed with a chanical heart, and his voice reverberated like thunder on steel.
"Purity is death," he said coldly.
"Echoterra thrives on survival, not stagnation. To reject evolution is to invite extinction. If flesh cannot withstand the storm, let steel carry us through!"
That simple conversation was the beginning and the end; it dood them into a never-ending civil war.
BOOM!
The war started.
The armies roared, voices of beasts and n alike shaking the air.
Clayton’s chest tightened. This wasn’t just a reenactnt of the past. They could feel it pressing into their bones; this was a wound, a mory. A choice.
The system’s voice whispered again.
DING!
~----~
[Resolution required.]
[Division weakens; Unity strengthens.]
~----~
The pressure ca almost imdiately.
Bzzz!
It wasn’t just sound.
They felt it in their bones, and deep in their Aspects. Each of them felt pulled by the story that they just witnessed, bent toward a side.
The reaction was imdiate.
Torren gritted his teeth, stepping slightly toward the Preserver’s army. "This isn’t hard," he muttered. "Nature is balance. Everything I’ve fought for, everything my Aspect is, screams against fusing root and machine".
"It’s wrong."
Veyra’s eyes narrowed, but her voice was cold and practical. "Wrong, maybe. But do you want to talk about survival, Torren?" She asked.
"Korrath nearly broke us because of his biochanical heart, he almost won. If the enemy is growing that way, are we supposed to stay weak and pure just to feel righteous?"
Kaelin scoffed, but there was unease in his laugh. "You two sound like recruits already. One wants to worship purity, the other wants to bow to power".
He shrugged. "To , both sides are poison. I don’t buy either."
Soren shifted restlessly, his hand tightening on the hilt of his Emberblade.
His young eyes burned. "I don’t care if it’s poison. Which side gets stronger? That’s the side that survives. If becoming more ans winning, I’ll take it."
"Of course you would," Kaelin muttered.
"Enough," Harrick snapped, his voice low but sharp. He looked between them, his scarred face hard. "Don’t let this place twist us, that’s exactly what it’s trying to do."
Mirra nodded, silver hair glinting in the fractured light.
They could tell that all of them were not quiet themselves since the Trial started, it was almost like an influence was subtly affecting their thoughts.
Mirra’s voice was softer, but firm. "Unity," she said.
"Rember the first rule. If we fracture here, we fail. The trial doesn’t care about their history, it cares about us."
"The history is just a ans to an end".
Clayton stood silent in the middle, his heart pounding.
The pull was real; he could tell how the influence of whatever was in play in this Trial affected him. His Aspect resonated with both sides.
The Preserver’s purity matched the roots in his veins, the way Echoterra had remade him as a Verdant Lord.
But the Ascendant’s logic dug just as deep. Hadn’t he already fought biochanical horrors, stolen their strength, and turned it into his own power? Didn’t Regalia itself blur the line between living root and artifact?
He felt the trial’s eyes pressing hardest on him.
The battlefield shifted, and then whispers began cutting into their ears from familiar voices, yet twisted.
Torren heard his father’s voice. "Don’t betray the fla. Nature is sacred, to twist it is to betray ."
Veyra heard her sister’s dying breath: "If only we’d been stronger... If only..."
Kaelin heard the laughter of rcenaries who once sold him out. "You’ll always be a pawn, boy. You’ll never stand for yourself".
Soren heard his brother’s cry. "Protect , Soren! Don’t let them..."
Each whisper dug knives into old wounds.
Clayton clenched his fists tightly.
He heard Korrath’s voice, the one that had haunted him through every battle. "This world belongs to those willing to change, those willing to change the world. Those who refuse will be left as bones."
The ground shook as the story continued.
The two armies began to march toward each other with the atmosphere thick with tension. The trial demanded a choice.
Clayton gritted his teeth as he grabbed his head.
But then, stepping forward, his voice rose like thunder. "Stop!"
His team turned, their eyes straining against the pressure pulling at them. Clayton’s voice cut clean.
"This isn’t about choosing sides".
"Look around you, both of these paths are broken. Both led to war, and both tore Echoterra apart."
Torren’s jaw tightened. "So what, we stand for nothing?"
"No," Clayton said firmly.
His green eyes burned. "We stand for us, for the Rootsite, for the people waiting back ho. That’s what this trial is testing. Not if we can parrot the dead, but if we can resist being broken like them."
As soon as Clayton said that, a reaction happened as the armies froze mid-charge. In response, the trial pressed harder and the whispers scread.
"Torren," Clayton said, locking eyes with him. "You’re right, nature matters. Without it, we’re lost. But so does survival, Veyra. You’re right too".
"Soren, you want strength? Here’s strength... holding together when everything tries to tear us apart is strength".
"Kaelin, don’t trust either side. Trust , trust us."
At first, it felt like Clayton was saying gibberish but once they understood, the weight on their chests shifted.
And then, the armies began to blur.
The Preserver’s bark cracked, revealing rust. The Ascendant’s steel split, revealing roots. Both were one and the sa wound.
The system’s voice whispered again, quieter this ti.
DING!
~----~
[Partial resolution detected. Unity thread sustained.]
~----~
The battlefield flickered as the armies dissolved into streams of light. But instead of peace, the glyphs on the walls burned brighter.
[Phase II: Incomplete.]
[Deeper imrsion required.]
The floor trembled as the chamber began to collapse, pulling them down, deeper into the mory of the ancient civil war.
Clayton clenched his teeth as the world fell apart around them.
His last thought before the plunge was. ’So this isn’t about choosing a truth, it’s about making one of our own’.
And then the trial swallowed them whole.
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