The final staircase spiraled down into nothingness. Darkness swallowed sound, light, and even thought itself. Plamen's ribs screamed, lungs burned with every breath, but there was no turning back. Kamen's wet, ragged breaths echoed behind him, Alex's shadow coiled around his feet, restless and watchful.
"This… this is it," Alex said, his voice low, almost reverent. "The Heart. Whatever Kronoshpan wants to show us, it will not be merciful."
Plamen could feel it before he saw it: a presence vast and intimate, like something that knew every memory, every longing, every scar in his soul. The shadows ahead shimmered, and then the final guardian emerged—a towering figure made of shifting darkness, impossible angles, and faces that slid across its form like water over glass. Kronoshpan's ultimate trial.
"I know you," it said, its voice layered, every syllable a chord of memory and fear. "I know everything you have ever wanted… everything you have ever lost."
Kamen's skeletal hands rose instinctively, summoning spikes and chains of bone. "We… we can't fight this with strength alone."
"No," Plamen said, forcing his breath steady. "But we survive. We—"
A heartbeat echoed. Soft at first, then louder. Plamen froze.
"Ivet?" His voice broke.
From the darkness, she stepped forward. Hair like he remembered, eyes glimmering with warmth, a smile that reached his chest. The hollow pit of his longing surged into a tidal wave.
"Plamen," she said. "I've been waiting for you."
His knees gave way. "I… I thought… I thought you—"
"I never left," she whispered. "I love you."
Every instinct screamed—this was Kronoshpan, nothing was real—but longing drowned fear. He ran.
Alex shouted, Kamen reached, but Plamen collided with her, arms wrapping around her. Relief, ecstasy, years of grief compressed into one heartbeat.
Then the pain.
Hot, sharp, precise—it pierced through his stomach. He fell to his knees, gripping the wound. Ivet's form remained, serene, her smile unchanged.
"I told you I loved you," she said softly. "And yet you were so easy to find."
The shadow shifted, revealing the guardian's true form. Kronoshpan's voice layered with every memory, every fear: "Love, loyalty, trust… all mine to break."
Plamen gasped, blood pooling at his hands. Kamen and Alex fought phantom illusions, keeping Plamen alive as the guardian pressed its assault. Shadows twisted into doppelgängers, scenes of grief, visions of failure—but he gritted his teeth, clutching the obsidian Leviathan scale. Cold. Real. Solid.
The chamber shuddered. Kronoshpan's guardian exploded into motion, shadows stretching into spiked tendrils, screeching like tortured metal. Each strike warped reality around them, the floor undulating, walls bending as if alive.
Alex became a blur of shadows, darting between attacks, striking at joints and seams, his blades cutting into the folds of darkness. Kamen's skeletal chains erupted, anchoring tendrils before they could crush Plamen, buying fractions of seconds.
Plamen forced himself upright, ignoring the agony in his gut. Every strike from the guardian was a mental assault—visions of fallen friends, whispers of doubt, flashes of Ivet's smiling betrayal—but he breathed through it, grounding himself in the Leviathan scale's cold weight.
The guardian lashed outward, creating dozens of Ivet doppelgängers simultaneously. Each one called his name, whispered promises, begged for love, cried for help. Plamen staggered, almost falling again—but Alex and Kamen's voices cut through the illusions.
"Focus on reality!" Alex shouted, dodging another strike.
"Anchor yourself to him!" Kamen added, summoning a wall of bones around Plamen to deflect psychic strikes.
Plamen clenched his fists, the Bone Breaker aura flaring in resonance with the Leviathan scale. He struck, fists and kicks a single, coiling pattern. Each blow shattered not only shadow but the psychic anchors Kronoshpan used to manipulate him.
The guardian roared, warping space as it tried to twist them into hallucinations of despair. The floor split; the walls folded inward. Tendrils of shadow lashed from every angle. Plamen's vision blurred—but he could hear the coordinated rhythm of Alex's strikes, Kamen's bone constructs, the pulse of his own resolve.
Then he remembered the promise: not to leave each other. Every strike, every anchor, every step forward became a single chain of purpose.
He drove his fist into the guardian's chest, and the Leviathan scale burned cold against his palm, amplifying the strike. The shadow convulsed, shrieking as reality itself cracked around it. Kamen and Alex followed, assaulting weak points, tearing open gaps in the armor of darkness.
The guardian's screams became fragmented, multiple voices overlapping, the illusions collapsing. Tendrils shredded into smoke, doppelgängers dissolved into nothingness. Plamen's fists became a storm, Bone Breaker exploding outward, each strike a hammer on the psychic core of Kronoshpan.
Finally, with a scream that shattered the chamber, the guardian tore itself apart, collapsing into a whirlwind of smoke and shadows. Silence followed.
A voice, divine and resonant, spoke through the emptiness:
"Congratulations! You all have beaten the Ultimate Kronoshpan trials. Now you will be rewarded with divine-like abilities, to help you fight even against the darkest enemies in this world."
Three golden doors appeared. Alex stepped first; the door closed behind him. Kamen followed, same ritual. Outside, they stood healed, the Sensei waiting.
Plamen approached the last door. It closed behind him—but he did not emerge outside. Instead, he entered a dark chamber.
"You are one of the Four Children of the Borderline, right?" a voice slithered from the shadows. "Then you will be tested one last time."
Everything exploded. Fire consumed the room; Kronoshpan itself roared in death throes. Outside, Alex and Kamen watched the inferno.
"It's not over," Alex gasped.
Minutes passed. Then, through the smoke and flame, a black figure emerged. Wounds healed, aura radiating.
The Sensei smiled knowingly. "I knew it."
Plamen stood tall. The final trial had forged him anew.
"I… am stronger than ever," he said.