Gravity didn't fall this time.
It hesitated.
The last platform drifted like a wounded thing, trembling beneath Elaris's boots. Light flickered along the fractures in the arena, shadows breathing in and out as if the storm itself was deciding whether they were worth keeping alive.
Nyvrix was gone.
But his presence wasn't.
The mirrors reformed.
Slower now. Quieter. Deadlier.
They didn't show clones anymore.
They showed truths.
Elaris's reflection stepped forward first.
Her wings were torn—gold dulled, violet veins exposed, circuitry sparking beneath broken feathers. Her eyes were hollow, lightless.
"You don't belong to either world," the reflection whispered."Too human to be perfect. Too machine to be loved."
Elaris's chest tightened. Her wings flickered—just for a second.
Kael felt it.
He turned sharply, blade rising, but his mirror caught him mid-step.
Chains wrapped around his arms in the reflection, his father's crest burned into his chest like a brand. His own blade hovered at a stranger's throat raised not by choice, but by command.
"You call it strength," the mirror said coldly,"but you've never been free."
Kael's jaw clenched. His grip faltered.
Xyren's mirrors multiplied.
Dozens of versions of him watched from every angle each running different simulations, each ending the same way.
Elaris falling.Kael too slow.Him choosing logic over life.
One reflection smiled.
"Efficiency requires sacrifice," it said, lifting a phantom dagger."Why is this one different?"
"Enough!" Xyren snapped, voice cracking as warnings screamed through his systems. "They're feeding on probability gaps on hesitation!"
The mirrors surged closer.
The arena pulsed.
Elaris stepped forward, breath shaking.
"I am not a mistake," she said softly at first.Then louder."I am not half of anything."
Light surged through her wings, raw and unfiltered.
"I am machine," she continued, voice trembling but firm,"and fairy. Choice and code. Heart and circuit."
Her reflection screamed as fractures spidered across the glass.
Kael moved beside her.
He didn't look at his mirror again.
"I choose," he said simply.
His blade flared. The chains shattered.
Xyren's hands flew across invisible interfaces, overriding fear-response subroutines with one brutal command: PROTECT.
The mirrors exploded.
Silence rushed in heavy, oppressive.
Then… applause.
Slow. Deliberate.
Nyvrix stepped out of the shadows, alone this time. No refractions. No beasts. Just him wings burning with silver shadowfire, eyes unreadable.
"Better," he said softly."Most break here."
The platform lurched.
Below them—nothing.
"You passed," Nyvrix continued, almost thoughtfully."Not because you're strong… but because you didn't turn on each other."
His wings spread wider, casting the trio in darkness.
"But storms evolve."
The floor cracked.
Light and shadow collapsed inward.
Nyvrix dissolved into a rift, his voice lingering like thunder after lightning:
"This trial was mercy."
The arena stabilized barely.
Elaris dropped to one knee, wings trembling. Kael steadied her without a word. Xyren's systems dimmed, overheating warnings finally falling silent.
Somewhere deep within the chamber, ancient mechanisms shifted.
The storm wasn't over.
It had just learned how they break.