The chamber was circular.
No doors. No windows. Just a vast ring of obsidian stone etched with silver glyphs that pulsed dimly like the rhythm of a dying star. The air shimmered with heatless light, and at the center stood a single thing:
A mirror.
Lucifer Valtros stepped forward, his boots echoing against the stone floor. His cloak fluttered behind him, heavy with dust and dried blood. The previous trials had tested his body, his reflexes, his tactics. This one... felt different.
This one felt personal.
He stopped a few feet away. The mirror was tall — nearly twice his height — and framed in some kind of bone-white metal that pulsed with a heartbeat not his own. The surface was perfectly still.
"No tricks this time?" he muttered.
The mirror shimmered.
And then he saw himself.
But it wasn't him.
Not truly.
The figure in the reflection wore a crown. A black crown of twisted metal that bled shadows. His armor was regal — flawless — etched with the symbol of the Valtros lineage at its peak, untouched by ruin. And his eyes...
Cold.
Emotionless.
Empty.
Lucifer's jaw tensed. "Is this supposed to be what I could've been?"
The reflection didn't answer. It stepped forward.
And so did Lucifer.
A pulse of energy rippled through the chamber. The glyphs in the stone brightened. The mirror cracked — not outward, but inward, as if the illusion inside was breaking free.
A voice whispered from nowhere and everywhere at once:
> "Judgment begins."
Then the mirror exploded — not into shards, but into particles of light.
And standing where the reflection had been was a man. Identical to Lucifer in form. Identical in voice. But his presence was something else entirely. He radiated power, confidence, cruelty.
"You disappoint me," the Crowned Lucifer said, unsheathing a blade that glowed red with coiled runes. "You had everything. Legacy. Power. Bloodline. And you chose to play savior to peasants."
Lucifer drew his own blade.
"And you chose to become a tyrant."
They clashed.
Steel met steel. Magic lit the air. Each swing of the Crowned version's sword carried brutal precision — decades of training untainted by mercy. Lucifer countered with fluid, unpredictable strikes, forged in real pain, real losses.
The fight was more than physical.
It was a war of ideology.
Each strike from the Crowned version whispered promises: "You could have ruled." "You could have crushed them." "You could have bent the world to your will."
But Lucifer fought back with silence.
With every block, every sidestep, every brutal counterattack, he answered without words: I never wanted a world like yours.
The chamber groaned. The glyphs cracked.
Lucifer was bleeding — cuts along his arms, a bruise blooming across his ribs — but he stood tall.
The Crowned figure growled. "You fight like a man who believes in hope."
"No," Lucifer said, panting. "I fight like a man who has nothing left to lose."
He disarmed the reflection with a final strike — blade to the wrist, a twist, and then a stab through the illusion's chest.
The Crowned Lucifer staggered, dropping his weapon.
He looked up.
"You're not ready," he whispered. "They will eat you alive."
Lucifer stared down at him, blade still buried in mirrored flesh.
"Let them try."
The illusion shattered into smoke.
The chamber darkened.
The glyphs faded.
And the voice returned:
> "Judgment complete. Protocol sync at 47%."
Lucifer dropped to one knee, catching his breath. Sweat clung to his brow. His sword was heavy now — not from weight, but from everything it had just endured.
Another trial survived.
Another crack in the lie they'd built around him.
He rose.
The wall before him dissolved, revealing a staircase of light.
No words. No signs. Just the next step.
He took it.
And the chamber sealed behind him.