The fourth gate was already open.
Kai approached slowly. Unlike the others, there was no pressure. No heat. No illusion—yet.
Just silence.
The runes around the arch pulsed not red, but golden. Ancient. Almost divine.
As he stepped through, the world blinked—
And Kai stood at the summit of a mountain made of white flame.
Above him was no sky—just stars.
A million stars, each pulsing like a heartbeat.
He turned slowly.
Behind him were paths—countless, spiraling away into nothingness. Each glowed a different color. Some blue. Some green. Others black.
And then, a voice.
"Why do you burn?"
It wasn't hostile.
It was curious. Soft. Like a child asking why the sun rises.
Kai tried to answer—but his voice wouldn't work.
"Do you seek power… to punish those who wronged you?" the voice asked.
"To protect what's left?"
"To prove you were never weak?"
Flames flickered around his feet, rising up in tendrils.
He heard cries—the voice of his sister, the crack of a belt, the sobs of a village boy too poor to eat. Visions swirled around him: every moment of failure, every second of shame.
And then—every time he fought anyway.
He fell to his knees.
The voice softened again.
"You must name your fire, Kai. Not its form… but its purpose."
"Flame without purpose is wildfire. Uncontrolled. Dangerous."
Kai's fists clenched.
His memories twisted together—his journey, his pain, his survival.
Then—his voice returned.
Low. Hoarse. But clear.
"I burn… to build what no one gave me."
"A future."
"For myself. For those like me. For anyone who crawled through fire and wants to rise."
The flames surged.
But this time, they didn't burn him.
They lifted him.
The white mountain shuddered. The stars pulsed faster. The flames at his feet turned gold.
A path appeared before him—one single trail through the void.
The voice spoke one final time.
"Purpose… accepted."
"Trial of Purpose… passed."
Outside the trial chamber, the fourth ring blazed bright.
Elder Su dropped her cup of tea.
"He passed the Fourth," she whispered. "That… that should be impossible."
Linya turned to Xuan. "If he survives the fifth…"
Xuan said nothing.
But deep in his gut, he knew something no one else did:
There was no fifth trial.
At least, not originally.
But the flames… had changed.
And Kai was awakening something ancient.
In the Matron's hidden temple, the child survivor of Red Vale stood before a black mirror.
The pendant glowed on her chest.
The mirror cracked.
Inside it, for just a breath, a silhouette appeared—
Kai, surrounded by golden fire.
The Matron's eyes narrowed.
"The boy doesn't just carry the flame."
"He is the flame."