A red mist gathered in the Supreme Leader's hand as Ashar stared back at him blankly.
Where is the Fourth Trial? Ashar thought. Why haven't I found it yet?
He had to act quickly.
"It doesn't seem as if you've thought this through," Ashar said.
"Oh?"
"Your plan is to kill me and take Shenric's Eye from my body. But surely there is a better solution to the problem between us."
"Are you bargaining with me?"
"I have a proposition. Take the Eye from me, and then restore me to my original form as the Eastern Leader."
"It is too late for that."
"You said it yourself," Ashar continued. "I was the finest warrior you had. There is no reason that cannot continue. You gain the Eye and you regain a warrior. That is the best possible outcome for you."
"I did not know an apocalyptic demon could be so concerned with outcomes and calculations."
"Do you think I enjoy this life?" Ashar replied. "Every day I wish I could return to what I once was. All that remains now is confusion and misery. There is nothing I would not sacrifice to reclaim my former self."
"What about her?"
The Supreme Leader gestured toward Bethryl.
"I have a different proposition," he said. "Her Eye appears to be infinitely more powerful than yours. Why shouldn't I simply kill you and take hers instead?"
"Then you would lose me as a warrior."
"How naïve," the Leader said quietly. "Do you truly believe you have not already been replaced?"
From the corner of his eye, the Supreme Leader noticed a faint flicker of flame.
Few would have perceived it, but in that instant someone materialized and rushed toward Ashar, Bethryl, and the Leader.
"Hand of God!"
It was Raizo of the Shadow Clan.
Caught off guard, the Supreme Leader had no time to activate his toxin defenses. He stepped aside and retreated as the attack passed.
"Bethryl, take my hand now!" Raizo shouted.
In the next moment both Raizo and Bethryl vanished in a burst of flame.
To follow their movement, Ashar activated the Eye of Sophia and watched their passage through the other Realm.
And in that instant, he understood something.
"He was the one the Western Leader failed to capture?" the Supreme Leader murmured. "A troublesome opponent."
"It seems that changes your bargaining position," Ashar said.
"There are no positions."
"You truly see no benefit in restoring me?"
The Supreme Leader hesitated.
And in that brief hesitation, Ashar understood the truth of the Fourth Trial.
Using the Eye of Sophia, he altered his perception, and instead of seeing the Abandoned Kingdom in its material form, he viewed it through its underlying energy. And there he found it; where the Fourth Trial began, the underground city vanished.
Ashar stood within a vast white hall without walls, stretching endlessly into the distance. Four colossal pillars rose from the floor, each engraved with the same words that had appeared throughout the temple:
The Art
The Way
The Logos
The Faith
At the center stood a stone throne which was empty, yet Ashar understood that to progress he must sit upon it, for the trial declared:
"To seek the truth of the Kingdom is to become its judge."
Ashar sat upon the throne, and immediately his instincts awakened. Before him appeared every person he had ever killed, both in his new life and in his time as the Eastern Leader. They were not illusions, they were perfect recreations of their lives. They stood before him alive again, and they could speak, and they remembered everything.
"Who will you save?"
The puzzle lay within the throne itself. Ashar felt that as long as he sat upon it, he must judge them one by one.
For each soul he had to decide:
Would they live again? Or would they be erased forever?
Ashar began the task.
Again and again he chose to erase them, and from the reactions of the gathered crowd he understood the dilemma.
If he revived too many people, the world would collapse into chaos, but if he erased too many, the temple would condemn him as a tyrant.
Either extreme would fail the trial, yet the true difficulty lay deeper.
Every soul he judged revealed the lives he had destroyed, the families he had shattered, the futures that might have been. From the throne he could see every possible future those people might have lived.
"I want to save them all," Ashar said quietly. "But is the world better with them alive… or saved? Do I even have the right to make such a decision?"
There was no correct answer.
Eventually another realization came.
The final soul brought before him was—
Himself.
The voice asked:
"Does the world improve if you never existed?"
At that moment Ashar understood.
The final trial was not a battle; it was a judgment of existence itself.
He returned briefly to the material realm.
"I have considered your proposal," the Supreme Leader said. "And I reject it."
"Then tell me something," Ashar replied. "Tell me about the Lords."
"What do you mean?"
"How did they arise? Who are they? What do they believe? I have spent my entire life either serving them or opposing them, and yet I know nothing about them."
"The path of the Lords is simple," the Supreme Leader said. "First they served Axios, believing that living according to the Universal Laws was enough. Then those laws were left to their subjects, while the Lords began to believe they could perform the work of Axios themselves. Then they decided they no longer needed Axios at all. And finally they realized that if they eliminated all traces of Axios, especially the one that lives within people, then they themselves could take that place. It has always followed the same four steps."
Ashar smiled.
The four steps of the Lords.
He had solved the puzzle.
As the Supreme Leader prepared to strike him down, Ashar returned once more to the spiritual realm of the trial.
Now he understood what others had missed.
The dilemma had been an illusion from the beginning.
"I have to save this world," Ashar said. "I do not have time to question whether I have the right. If I am burdened by such doubts, I will never accomplish the mission before me."
Faces passed before him, pleading. Ashar felt as though chains had fallen from his body.
"If I must oppose the gods, the maker, the universal laws, then I will do so without hesitation. I do not have time for their deceptions."
He rose from the throne.
"Now is the time for the Revolution of the Realms!"
Ashar raised his hand.
The gathered souls turned toward the pillars and began to tear them down.
First The Way.
Then The Logos.
Then The Faith.
The hall collapsed as the foundations of the Kingdom shattered, flames and ruins rising while the people shouted in defiance.
At last Ashar stood before the final pillar:
The Art.
The memories, histories, and identities of countless civilizations.
The voice spoke one final time.
"If all is destroyed, what will remain?"
Ashar answered:
"The purity of all that came before."
He pointed, and the final pillar fell.
As soon as it happened, the light of new knowledge and ability began to glow inside of him. He could feel himself changing and returning to the material world. Before it happened, he saw the figure of an old man with a straw hat approaching him.
Ashar smiled.
In the material world, the Supreme Leader lowered his hand.
And then—
"Serpent's Wisdom!" Ashar cried.
In the same instant Ashar, Issen, and Maereth vanished from reality.
The Supreme Leader stepped back and looked around.
"What…?"
He searched the empty space.
"Have I been defeated?" he asked quietly. "But… how?"
Then he turned and saw a figure standing nearby.
"You!"
The figure smiled faintly before fading into the distance. And he knew then that it was the creator of the Abandoned Kingdom.
Only then did the Supreme Leader understand.
He had not been defeated by Ashar.
He had been defeated by the Old Man of the Noctis Mountains.