Trial I: The Realm of Memory
The portal slammed shut behind him with a thunderclap of light and silence.
Matt stood alone.
There was no battlefield here. No enemies. No screaming gods or blazing constructs. Just… dust.
The air shimmered around him, thick with silver mist that shifted like smoke made from memory. The sky overhead pulsed with bruised gold and sorrow-colored blue. Beneath his boots stretched a floor made of crystallized time—each step a prism, each echo rippling across forgotten days.
He instinctively tightened his grip on the Shadowsidian Blade, but the weapon felt muted here. Not powerless—just... observing.
> "Trial One: The Realm of Memory."
The words weren't spoken aloud. They echoed from the air itself. Or perhaps from inside him.
Matt exhaled. "Where... am I?"
The mist stirred.
Images formed in the haze—fragmented, flickering. A child's laugh. A scorched cradle. A hand reaching out—then catching fire. The crack of stone as a home collapsed. A lullaby, severed halfway through.
His fists clenched. "These aren't dreams."
"Correct," said a voice.
His voice.
Matt turned.
A figure emerged from the mist. Small. Barefoot. Dressed in torn robes stained with soot and ash. Eyes wide, afraid, glowing faintly with dormant power.
Himself. Ten years old.
Young Matt.
"You left me," the child whispered.
Matt blinked. "What?"
"You left me behind. You grew up. You forgot what it was like. The fear. The silence. The cold. You fight for tomorrow," the boy said, stepping closer, voice rising, "but what about the child who wanted to be saved?!"
The mist burned away around them.
Now they stood inside the ruin of Nyuga.
Flames crawled along cracked stone walls. Ash fell like snow. In the distance, a scream echoed—the exact pitch of his mother's voice.
Matt reached out. "I didn't forget—"
The child lunged.
> Combat Initiated: Matt vs. Matt
Young Matt struck first—wild, frantic, precise in the way only pain could teach. Every blow carried desperation, shaped by sleepless nights and sobbing into nothing. He fought like a memory trying not to fade.
Matt blocked, stepped back, parried—but every impact rattled more than his bones. The guilt cut deeper than the fists.
"You never came back for me!" the boy screamed.
"I didn't know how—!"
"You left me to die alone!"
Matt slipped. A punch to the ribs. A slam to the jaw. He fell to one knee, coughing.
Blood tasted like ash here.
"You became a warrior," the child spat. "A god. A killer. But what did that save?!"
Matt looked up—and saw not a child, but himself… crying in the dark under the floorboards of a burning house.
> I remember now.
Nyuga's fire. His father's final roar. His mother's incantation, muffled by collapsing stone. The air running out. The silence growing teeth.
"I didn't forget you," Matt whispered.
The boy froze.
"I buried you. Because I had to survive."
The younger version trembled. "I was scared."
"I still am."
Matt dropped the sword.
He stepped forward, arms open.
The boy didn't run.
He collapsed into him, sobbing into his chest like the world had waited years for this moment.
"I'm sorry," Matt said. "But I'm not leaving you again."
The mist shuddered. The flames blinked out. Light flooded the realm.
Young Matt's body glowed and dissolved into starlight, curling into Matt's chest like a returning heartbeat. A burning symbol formed across his sternum—an ancient sigil etched in light and grief.
> You have bound the Forgotten Self.
Seal of Memory: Acquired.
Your soul is now whole.
Outside the realm, an orb suspended in the Void burst into brilliant flame.
> 1 of 5 Trials: Complete.
---
Matt opened his eyes.
He stood once again on the obsidian pathway between realms. The mist was gone. The silence remained—but it no longer felt empty.
A new portal shimmered open ahead, flickering orange and crimson, the scent of cinders drifting from within.
> Next Trial: The Realm of Flame.
Matt touched the sigil on his chest. It was warm—not with fire, but with something closer to sorrow. Or hope.
He exhaled, brushing blood from his lip.
"One down," he muttered, stepping forward.
His shadow moved slightly behind him, delayed by a heartbeat.
"Four gods to disappoint."
And with that, he entered the flame.