Kael stepped forward.
The Gate of the Body loomed before him—stone forged from something older than time, veins of crimson light pulsing faintly in its surface. As his palm touched the archway, a warmth spread through his limbs, like blood awakening after frost.
The gate accepted him.
With a soft grinding sound, the arch flared and pulled him inward.
For a moment, there was nothing. Then pain.
Not sharp, but deep—like every bone and muscle was being deconstructed and reshaped. He fell through darkness, weightless, yet aware of every tendon, every sinew, every flaw in his form.
Then came the voice—not the relic's, but something deeper. Ancient.
"Your flesh is untempered. Your frame, incomplete. To walk the path of the First Body, you must forge yourself anew."
Kael's surroundings snapped into shape.
He stood at the edge of a colossal arena carved into the side of a black mountain. The sky above was turbulent with crimson clouds, and the ground beneath him was cracked obsidian. Statues lined the walls—giants with scarred bodies, eyes hollow, weapons buried in the earth beside them.
This was no illusion. This was a trial realm—a fragment of the legacy itself. A space forged by the Monarch of Syncretic Ascension to refine the first step: the Path of the Body.
"Only through strife will the flesh remember," the voice boomed again.
A shadow dropped from the sky.
It landed with a roar—hulking, spiked, primal. A creature of bone and blood, formed from Kael's own flaws and limitations. The First Trial: Confront the Weakness in Flesh.
Kael moved instinctively, his senses enhanced. His blood pumped hotter than ever. He wasn't just human anymore—he was being sculpted, second by second, into something more.
The fight began.
He ducked a blow, spun behind the beast, and struck. His fists connected with a dull thud. It didn't bleed—it absorbed. It grew.
He was battling his own limits made flesh.
For hours, maybe days, he fought. The beast broke him again and again, but each time he rose. Muscles strained and tore, then healed stronger. Bones cracked, then realigned. Every loss was fuel. Every failure, a lesson.
Finally, Kael caught the beast's throat and drove it into the ground. The roar it gave was not pain—but acceptance.
The Trial ended.
The beast dissolved into radiant particles, sinking into his skin. Kael stood taller now—broader, denser, but not bloated. Every muscle was honed. His breathing was slow and silent, his heart steady, his movements natural. He had passed the First Gate of the Body.
Then came the mark.
A faint sigil formed on his back—three overlapping circles, one of them now lit with red.
"One aspect awakened," the relic whispered weakly in his mind. "Your first body has begun."
Kael exhaled.
This was only the beginning. His path would be long—each gate, each trial, a step toward the impossible Tier 10.
He would walk the path. All of it. Even if he had to rebuild the relic. Even if it meant reaching realms far beyond this one. Even if the Devourers came.
Especially then.