The silence inside the Mirror World was no ordinary quiet.
It was the absence of vibration itself — the place where even thoughts could not echo.
Hetu stood on what seemed like a plain of liquid silver, stretching infinitely in all directions. Above him, there was no sky, only a calm, reflective dome showing infinite copies of himself walking beneath.
He breathed, and even that breath seemed heavy, like pushing against the resistance of an unseen force.
This must be the core of the Horizon Gate, he thought. The place where resonance either dissolves or transforms.
The first reflection had tested his conviction.
Now, the second one emerged.
It stepped out of the mirrored floor, smooth and silent — this time clothed in the robe of a monk, its hands joined in a gesture of serenity. But its face… it was Hetu's face, peaceful and cold.
"Why do you struggle?" the monk reflection asked. "To struggle is to disturb the balance. You have already seen the truth — that all striving is illusion."
Hetu stared at it for a long moment. The echo of the voice made his heartbeat slow, dangerously calm.
He had met zealots and sages before, but never one wearing his own expression.
"You speak like a man who has seen peace," Hetu said quietly. "But peace is just another side of stagnation."
The monk's smile didn't waver. "Then you haven't let go. True cultivation is surrender."
"No," Hetu replied, his tone a steady hum. "True cultivation is understanding."
The monk raised a hand, and the world darkened.
All around, reflections bent inward — mirrors turning into eyes of glass, watching him.
The calm tone turned oppressive; every movement Hetu made sent ripples across the floor, distorting the mirrors. The pressure pressed on his lungs, his veins, his very soul.
"Let go," the reflection whispered. "End the noise."
Hetu fell to his knees. His vision flickered between light and void.
Every thought he'd ever held — ambition, curiosity, compassion — was being stripped away. He saw them scatter into shards, dissolving into the mirrored sky.
And then he realized what the test truly was.
"It's not silence they want," he muttered, half to himself. "It's erasure."
The monk knelt beside him, serene. "Yes. Become nothing. That is the highest harmony."
Hetu looked up — eyes cold, clear.
"Harmony isn't the end of vibration. It's its perfection."
He drove his palm forward.
The sound that followed was not a strike, but a tone — pure, resonant, piercing through the false silence like lightning through glass. The mirrors cracked, the reflection screamed without a voice, and the world's equilibrium shattered into countless notes.
Every shard of reality sang.
When it was over, Hetu stood alone again — chest heaving, but unbroken. The world around him began to glow, the silver melting into blue light. The Horizon Gate trembled.
A deep voice — the same voice from the Axis — spoke from beyond the rippling veil.
"Two reflections faced. Two frequencies aligned. Proceed, cultivator of resonance."
Hetu looked upward, the light reflecting in his irises like molten gold.
"There's no turning back now."
As he stepped forward, the ground vanished, and he fell — not downward, but through memory.
He saw the city where he was born, the orphanage walls, the glass instruments of his first experiment. He saw his teacher, his mother, his enemies, his friends. Every life intertwined, vibrating across the centuries like a great chord.
Then came the final memory — not of his past, but of something that could be:
A city of floating towers, powered by light that pulsed like his own heartbeat. A civilization built not on conquest, but on resonance — harmony between matter and mind.
"A glimpse," said the voice, "of what your path could create… or destroy."
Hetu landed upon a stone platform — a circle suspended in starlight, surrounded by nine crystalline monoliths. Each one emitted a faint sound, and together they formed a haunting melody — the Song of the Gate.
At its center stood a single figure — this reflection neither calm nor cruel, but tired.
It was him again — older, scarred, with eyes like burnt gold.
"You've come far," the elder Hetu said, voice rough with countless lifetimes. "But tell me… what will you do when every sound turns against you?"
Hetu said nothing.
He only raised his gaze — the hum of energy beneath his skin growing louder.
"Then we find out," he said.
The air cracked, and the next resonance trial began — a duel of generations, of self against destiny.