"Year three... finally, sothing that feels real. But I don't trust it."
I had spent two years getting torn apart, remade, and tested beyond anything I could have imagined. But nothing prepared for this year. Not the cold of Evermont Peak. Not the endless illusions. Not even the Trickster's relentless mockery.
This was different.
This was the year I started to understand—and that scared .
____
By now, I knew what I could do with my body. My limits—if there were any—felt more like suggestions than boundaries. My hybrid heritage was no longer sothing I feared; it was sothing I could embrace.
Control didn't co overnight. But when I learned to connect with the energy around , I began to see it all: the wind, the trees, the ground. Every living thing was just a version of in a different form, just like the illusions that the Trickster threw at . I wasn't just learning to fight—I was learning to beco part of everything.
____
The Trickster didn't make fight myself this year. Instead, he forced to look inward.
"What's the point of all this power if you don't know who's using it?" he asked one day as I stared at my reflection in the ice-covered peak of Evermont.
"I'm not afraid of myself anymore," I told him. "I know my limits."
"No. You think you know them," he replied, his voice dripping with the usual sarcasm. "You haven't even begun to scratch the surface."
That day, he sent into an illusion more twisted than any I had faced before. I was forced to fight every single version of myself—every choice I had ever made, every side of my personality, my desires, my flaws.
But this ti, I didn't fight back. Instead, I talked to them. I accepted them, one by one. I recognized my past mistakes and accepted my darker sides. And, for the first ti, I didn't try to bury my past. I took ownership of it.
____
As my connection to the world deepened, I started to understand how to manipulate the life energy around . But there was more. I could tap into emotions, distort them, amplify them, and even affect the flow of ti in brief monts. The Trickster called it "clashing frequencies."
"Ti isn't linear," the Trickster explained. "It's fluid, like a song. But even the best song can be slowed down or sped up if you know the rhythm."
I began to see ti distort around when I focused hard enough. Short bursts of speed or freezing monts for fractions of a second beca easy.
The Trickster watched closely, but his expression was harder to read now. It wasn't praise or ridicule in his eyes. It was sothing else. Sothing I couldn't define.
The Trickster finally decided it was ti for a real test. He took to an ancient arena hidden beneath the peak, surrounded by massive, glowing runes. "This," he said, "is where gods test those who are worthy. The Trial of Clarity."
The arena wasn't filled with enemies. Instead, it was filled with choices—so of which were good, so of which were dangerous. And the Trickster forced to make decisions under extre pressure, where every decision had consequences that rippled across my world.
In one trial, I had to choose between saving soone I loved and sacrificing a powerful artifact. In another, I had to pick whether to push soone to their death to save hundreds of others.
Each ti I made a decision, I had to live with the consequences—and those consequences weighed on more than anything else I'd experienced.
___
But nothing prepared for the final test.
"Now," the Trickster said with a cold smile, "we'll see if you can handle the ultimate choice. Your power isn't just in your hands, Dante. It's in your soul."
He had set a trap—an illusion, just like before. Only this ti, I couldn't see through it. It wasn't about fighting my reflection or mastering my powers. It was about facing my deepest fear: losing control of myself.
I had to confront a version of that wasn't just a copy—it was the darkest side of , the side that enjoyed causing chaos and destruction. I thought I'd defeated that part of , but this version was more powerful, and more terrifying, than anything I could have imagined.
For months, I fought the darkness inside . But instead of attacking, I finally did sothing I'd never done before: I surrendered. I accepted that I wasn't perfect. That sotis, the darkness was just as much a part of as the light.
And for the first ti, it didn't win.
_____
The Trickster stood behind as I collapsed to my knees, exhausted but sohow at peace.
"Not bad, kid," he said. "I always knew you had it in you."
"Yeah, well," I muttered, looking at the ground, "you've really got a weird way of teaching."
"Teaching's not my job," he said. "Surviving is. You've made it this far. Now, let's see if you can really survive what's coming next."
The way he said it made uneasy.
And I knew—sothing worse was about to begin.
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