In Damon's path, the air was thinner now.
Damon erged from the mist into a hallway lined with obsidian mirrors—hundreds of them. Each reflected not only his appearance but variations of himself. So grinned manically. Others bled from the eyes. One had no face at all.
They whispered.
"Why did you live and not ?"
"I would've done better."
"They'll never follow you, Damon."
He tuned them out.
But the air ahead shimred—different from the rest of the illusion. It wasn't trying to deceive him anymore.
It was waiting.
He stepped forward—and the mirrors shattered.
From the debris, a creature ford. Humanoid. Silver-haired. Identical to him. But this one pulsed with real magic essence. As though it was entirely crafted from magic essence itself.
Damon's eyes narrowed. "You again. Stop trying to be !"
But this ti, it didn't speak.
It attacked.
The clone was stronger now. Real. Solid. It fought with a blend of his martial style and his worst instincts—reckless aggression laced with lethal efficiency. It wasn't a mory.
It was a mirror magic construct.
This was the midpoint challenge. A replica built from his essence signature, locked into a body with just one mission—stop him.
Clang!
Their blades clashed again, but this ti Damon bled.
Slash!
The replica's weapon was slightly faster than his and left a cut on his cheek.
Damon's reaction was fast though.
Clang!
Sparks flew and steel rang.
Bang!!
He took a blow to the ribs and frowned. It was heavy.
He twisted, and stabbed the clone's leg—but it didn't flinch.
He smiled through clenched teeth.
"Alright," he muttered. "Let's see which of us breaks first."
Anaya's path wasn't any different.
The jungle gave way to a sudden glade—perfectly round, disturbingly quiet.
Anaya's instincts flared. She dropped into a crouch just as vines erupted from the earth.
She spun and cut two cleanly, but the rest didn't stop. They wrapped around her limbs, hissing with magic. Above, in the branches, a figure erged—a woman clothed in moss and bark, with glowing green eyes and a crown of antlers.
"Flesh out of place," the forest spirit hissed. "You have trespassed far enough."
Anaya's mind raced. This isn't just another beast. This is a Warden. Spirits born of nature. Anaya had never seen one but she knew about their existence.
Nature spirits were rare and one of this level of strength was rarer—used only with intent to break pride or in true cases, to defend important things.
"I didn't co to fight your forest," Anaya said carefully, her dagger crackling with defensive sigils. "I ca to finish a trial."
"You intruded," the Warden corrected. "Now you must prove yourself."
The vines surged again. Anaya leapt, twisted midair, and threw a essence-imbued smoke bomb into the canopy. It exploded in a burst of pollen and spores, blinding the spirit temporarily.
She didn't fight back directly.
She ran.
But even as she darted through the dense jungle beyond the glade, the Warden followed—moving through trees, calling beasts, commanding the forest itself to close.
This wasn't a trial anymore.
This was a hunt. And Anaya had beco the target.
~~~~~
As for Celeste, magic essence now flooded back into her limbs.
The mont she passed into the next chamber, her connection to essence was restored—so suddenly that it nearly knocked her off balance.
A good sign?
No.
Ahead stood an arena of stone pillars and shifting walls. At the center: a magic essence siphon, glowing with unstable light.
Around it—three more constructs. But these weren't like the earlier ones.
These had absorbed her style. Their weapons were glaive-like, their movents almost mocking.
Celeste frowned. "Copycat bastards."
Then they moved.
This ti, it wasn't about brute strength. The arena shifted under her feet—pillars rose and fell, walls turned, and the floor sotis tilted. Her magic was dampened every ti she stepped too close to the siphon.
It was a puzzle.
She couldn't just win with force.
She had to outmaneuver enemies built from her own strategies while navigating terrain that actively weakened her.
"You think this is funny?" she growled, parrying one construct's strike, vaulting over another, then sliding down a collapsing ramp.
Another construct followed—and she tricked it into falling into the siphon's energy drain.
One down.
But the others adapted imdiately.
Celeste gritted her teeth.
"Alright then," she said, spinning her glaive in a wide arc. "Let's dance harder.
Daveon was also faced with a similar threat.
The fire had beco sentient.
The mont he stepped into the midpoint chamber—a do of obsidian glass—the heat stopped behaving naturally. It began to whisper, to shape into claws and tendrils.
Then ca the figure in the center.
A molten armor suit, ten feet tall, with a fla-forged axe and no visible face. A guardian.
It roared once and charged.
Daveon caught the first swing on a barrier of fla—but it absorbed his fire. Turned it against him and attacked again.
Boooom!!
The resulting explosion knocked him into the do wall hard enough to crack it.
"Okay," he coughed. "Lesson learned. Don't feed the thing."
It wasn't just a fire construct.
It was a counter-elental.
The more fire he used, the stronger it beca.
He had to be clever now—conservative. Every blast of heat had to serve a purpose. Every movent had to buy ti or create an opening.
He dropped into stance, letting his core cool slightly. Then he launched a feint left—only to redirect fla through his boots, skimming along the floor in a zigzag before landing a punch charged with cold fla to the guardian's leg.
It stumbled.
Daveon grinned, wiping a sar of blood from his lip.
"Let's see how you handle creativity, you walking furnace."
Above the arena, the audience was no longer just watching.
They were leaning in.
The floating screens split to show four separate views at once—each following one of ElderGlow's Year Three champions. Comntators murmured over the scenes, exchanging praises and predictions.
"Celeste is outnumbered and outpaced, but still holding ground."
"Damon's clone fight has lasted almost five minutes. The construct's adapting—this isn't supposed to happen."
"Anaya's being chased by a Warden. That shouldn't even be in the trial!"
"And Daveon's battle... that's not just fire. Was the trial was altered?"
The ElderGlow instructors exchanged glances in their private balcony.
Miss Leana simply smirked.
"They'll live," she said. "Or they'll learn sothing more valuable than living."
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