The Seventh Gate – Lytharia
Adam stepped onto the long passage, the sixth gate closing silently behind him.Every step was heavy… as though something around his ankles resisted him, or as if the ground itself did not want to let him pass.
The light here was pale white, leaning toward gray.With each step, faint vibrations pierced his chest, synchronized with the pulse of the silver heart that Norma had planted within him only moments ago.
(Lytharia… the name tells me nothing.)(But there's no time for questions.)
No sooner had the thought formed than the void ahead split open like a curtain of transparent threads.He saw what resembled a vast hall, roofless, its walls invisible yet distinctly present.And in the center of the hall… something awaited.
A massive skeleton stood there,nearly three meters tall, clutching the ground with sharp black claws.Its head was like a square metal helmet—no eyes, only a long straight slit across the face, glowing with a red line.
As Adam stepped inside, the skeleton quivered and began to move slowly, as though waking from centuries of slumber.With each motion, sparks of silver dust spread through the air.
Inside Adam's chest, the pulses trembled…The being here was unlike anything he had faced in the earlier gates.It was… alive.
A faint voice in his head whispered:
(In Lytharia… the trial is not choice or fixation.It is endurance.)
Without warning, the creature lifted its massive hand, extending its palm toward him.From the red slit in its head, a thin thread of light emerged—it struck Adam directly in the chest.
Something seeped into his heart.A crushing weight.As though a tide of liquid clay was flooding his lungs.As though, for a moment, he could no longer breathe.
(This… isn't an ordinary attack.)(It's… a test of endurance… a draining of energy?)
He clenched his teeth.Tried to summon that "temporary identity" Norma had branded into him…the distorted face… the black-wrapped hands… the silver heart.
As he focused, he felt the red line no longer pierced him with the same ease.Something within him began to absorb the assault, transmuting it into a cold aura that surrounded his body.
But the threat wasn't over.The skeletal being lowered its hand, then interlaced its claws in a strange gesture.The red slit split into three beams, stabbing into his chest, his head, and his pelvis.
This time his very consciousness wavered.It felt as though he was unraveling.
(Endure… until the end…)
He couldn't think anymore.All he did was brace his feet upon the gray floor, close his eyes, and forbid himself from collapsing.
Every second became an eternity.Every heartbeat, a battle.Every breath, a decision not to fall.
He had no sense of how much time passed.A minute? An hour?All he knew was that when he finally opened his eyes, the three beams were gone, and the skeletal entity bowed, as if acknowledging the rite complete.
It dissolved slowly, leaving behind a faint circle of light pulsing in the center of the hall.
Another inner voice whispered:
(You have passed Lytharia… but what remains is greater.)
Adam drew in a long breath.His limbs trembled.But he stood.He stepped into the circle of light.
The eighth gate awaited.
The Eighth Gate – Meredith
When Adam touched the circle of light, a coldness shook his very bones.The gray world vanished in an instant, as though his senses had been torn from his head.
He opened his eyes to find himself standing in a long corridor, its floor like polished black glass.It was narrow at first, then widened gradually, ending at a great arched door glowing with faint waves of pale blue.
(Meredith…)The name was unfamiliar.But as he took his first step, words echoed in his mind, like a will being read to him:
(In Meredith… the inner core is tested.Not the body… but the resilience of the soul.)
He walked slowly.With every meter, his reflection on the black glass shifted.
At first, he saw himself as he was—Adam, with calm features and a cold face.
But step by step, the reflection fractured.His face splintered into hundreds of shining shards.His eyes became bottomless pits.Then…
He saw strange visions in the reflection:
— He saw Mary.Standing there, her gentle smile wrapped in sorrow.He lifted a hand to touch her face… and she vanished.
— He saw the Masked One.Standing at his shoulder, whispering something inaudible.Gone before he could understand.
— He saw himself.But not as he knew.Smiling with madness, his eyes dripping black tar, a wide slit carving his face lengthwise.
He stopped.This reflection did not vanish.It remained, staring directly at him.
(What is this?)(A test of soul's strength…?)
He reached out to touch the glass.For a moment, his fingers passed through it.Then a freezing current wrapped his wrist, dragging him in.A flood of chaotic images swarmed his mind:
— Gray hills beneath a black sky— Children's screams echoing from afar— A bloodied hand clutching a beating heart
He recoiled, breaking contact, and the images vanished.A cold sweat trickled down his back.
But the blue door at the end of the corridor began to open—silently.Without warning.Without mercy.
He felt air rushing from within.Colder than ice, yet carrying a strange serenity.
(If this is the test of the soul… then it must be crossed.)
Exhaling slowly, he braced himself, then advanced.
He crossed the threshold.
For an instant he was falling into weightless void.Then his feet found solid ground he could not yet see.
Opening his eyes, he beheld a vast spherical hall.Its walls seemed forged of transparent blue metal, glowing from within.At the center… a column of light ascending toward a ceiling unseen.
And above the column…something incomprehensible.A vortex of symbols and shifting faces, transforming every second with no pattern, no meaning.
A faint sound inside him, like nails scratching glass, whispered:
(In Meredith… whoever enters the column of light faces their final shadow.If defeated… the soul is lost.If endured… the ninth gate opens.)
Adam clenched his fists.He no longer knew whether what he felt was fear… or simply emptiness.
He stepped toward the column of light.When his hand touched it, it felt as though he was reaching into his own chest.Everything he knew, everything he feared, was bared in a single instant.
But he did not retreat.He entered.
And the trial began.
The moment he sank into the light, his senses dissolved.
No hearing.No sight.Not even the feeling of his body.
Only bare awareness, surrounded by colors beyond the visible spectrum, and vibrations that touched his mind, not his ears.
And suddenly…an "identity" emerged from the void.
Not a ghost, not a creature… but Adam Ethan himself.Yet this version was darker, colder, sharper.His hair streaked with white, his eyes pits of black, devoid of light.
"So… you've arrived?"
His shadow spoke with his voice, emptied of life.
Adam gave no reply.He analyzed, watched, waited.
"You thought you understood… but you don't even know who you are.You excel at silence, at hatred, at indifference… but you are a coward before one idea: to be free.That is why I am here."
The surrounding light flared hot.The void between them ignited with cascading images:
— His mother Mary dying— Neil surpassing him— Krista looking at him as though broken— The Masked One vanishing into the dark
Adam studied them.He did not flinch.He did not speak.
The shadow roared:
"You are not strong. You are made of wounds that never healed!I am the strength that does not regret. I am complete detachment. I am what must be!"
And it attacked.
It was not a physical battle, but purely of mind.Every strike was an idea, every defense an understanding.
⟡ His shadow thrust at him with visions of a monstrous future.⟡ Adam countered with the image of Krista smiling at him in trust.⟡ His shadow screamed: "No one loves you. No one needs you!"⟡ Adam replied in a whisper: "Perhaps. But no one understands me either… and that is an advantage."
The more Adam embraced his chaos rather than deny it, the weaker the shadow became.It shrank.It cracked.And with one final rasp:
"I am… not your enemy… but… you."
It vanished.
Adam was pulled slowly out of the light.He returned to the blue hall, and this time, the ninth door was open.
Pure radiance streaming from within.
He entered, wordless.
The Ninth Gate – The First Reflection
When Adam Ethan crossed the threshold, there was no light this time.
There was… absolute stillness.
The void.
The ground was a black mirror, the sky erased, as though existence itself had been deleted.No sounds. No pulse. No illusion.
But he was not alone.
Before him, far yet visible, sat a small child.No older than six.
The child looked like Adam.
He sat crouched, staring at the ground, head unraised, as though waiting.
Adam approached in silence.
With every step, a memory returned:
— The first time he felt alone— The first time he saw his mother's blood— The first time he hated himself— The first time he thought nothing in this world was worth surviving for
When he was only two meters away, the child lifted his head.
His eyes were full of tears… but he did not cry.
The boy said softly:
"Where were you all this time?"
Adam did not answer.
The child spoke again:
"I was always here. You just refused to see me.Every time you tried to forget me… I grew weaker.Every time you hated the world, you killed a piece of me.I am not your past. I am your beginning.If you want to pass… you must accept me. Not destroy me."
A long silence.
Adam sat beside him.He did not touch him. He did not deny his words.
Instead, he said quietly:
"I'm sorry."
The child gave no reply.But he stood, then melted into Adam's body… as though he returned inside him.
At that moment, the mirrored floor began to crack beneath Adam's feet.The unseen sky began to glow.
And before him appeared a tenth door.
Not a door of matter… but living. Breathing. Beating.
And a voice deep within him said:
"This is not the end… but the beginning of all that cannot be undone."