The air grew heavy as I left the realm of Therion behind. Each step I took was measured, deliberate—every muscle in my body screamed with exhaustion, every heartbeat thrummed with the weight of the fragments. They pulsed with life, with power, with whispers I could barely ignore. But for the first time, I felt something else: a sharp, gnawing fatigue that was more than physical.
I glanced down at my hands. The fragments glimmered, beautiful and dangerous, but faint fissures ran across the black crystal of shadow, tiny cracks in what I had once thought unbreakable. The Shattered Sky thrummed uneasily around me, almost like a heartbeat warning of impending consequence.
Lysara's light trailed beside me, dimmer than usual. "The fragments are beginning to take their toll," she said quietly. "Not only on your body… but on your mind, your spirit, and the choices you will soon face. The more you wield, the more they test you."
I frowned. I had endured fire, water, labyrinth, shadow, mercy, and the crucible of a god. I had resisted temptation in the mirror realm. And yet now, I felt vulnerability I had never known before—a creeping doubt that whispered, "What if you are not enough?"
A ripple of light cut across the horizon. I instinctively raised the fragments, and the glow revealed the next fractured realm: a valley of shattered glass, reflecting impossible skies, fractured mountains, and distorted versions of myself and every ally or foe I had met. The air shimmered with energy, and I felt the presence of something old, powerful… and predatory.
From the reflections emerged a figure: half-mortal, half-divine, clad in tattered robes and jagged armor. His eyes burned like molten gold, and his aura radiated both pain and hunger. He moved with a predatory grace, yet there was sorrow in his posture.
"You carry the Shattered Sky," he said, voice raspy, like stone grinding against stone. "Do you know what that means? Power beyond your comprehension… and a debt that will consume you if you falter."
I took a careful step forward. "Who are you?"
He laughed, a sound like cracking glass. "I was like you, once. A mortal who reached too far, claimed too much. I sought fragments… I wielded them without restraint… and I fell. Now I am Kaelith's shadow, a memory of ambition corrupted, a warning to all who bear fragments."
My chest tightened. Kaelith—the corrupted mortal I had contained in the mirror realm. This was… another reflection, a remnant left behind, a fragment of his own lingering corruption. I felt the fragments in my hands pulse violently, as if sensing a kinship with him.
"You've seen my future," the figure said, stepping closer. "Do you see it now? The toll fragments take on mortals. Power tempts, fragments whisper… and the soul frays like glass under heat. Every choice, every mercy, every refusal to seize strength… it all weighs on you. And soon, even restraint may not save you."
I tightened my grip on the fragments. Flame flared hot, water shimmered with clarity, shadow quivered with warning, and the crystal pulsed with truth. I had survived countless trials, but now I felt the real cost of holding them all at once: fatigue, doubt, temptation, and the creeping corruption of ambition.
"Then I will endure," I said, voice firm despite the exhaustion gnawing at my mind. "I will not fall as you did. I will not let the fragments control me."
The figure tilted his head, molten eyes gleaming. "We shall see, bearer of the Shattered Sky. Survive this realm, and you may yet remain unbroken… but know this: every fragment exacts a price, and every test grows harder. The Age of Gods does not forgive weakness."
With that, he dissolved into the fractured reflections, leaving me alone amidst the shattered valley. I felt my body tremble, my mind strain, my spirit sag—yet within me burned the unyielding light of endurance.
I was Eryndor. Bearer of the Shattered Sky. Mortal, bridge, and now aware of the first true cost of fragments—the slow fracture of self.
Ahead, the next trial waited. And I knew, with every pulse of the fragments, that the real danger was not the gods I had faced, but the one I carried inside myself.