Lunaris opened his eyes and found himself standing in the endless, desolate [Endless Gallery]. The air was cold, heavy, and still. Around him stretched row after row of towering walls lined with frames, millions of them, each one empty, their glass surfaces reflecting only a faint shimmer of light.
"So far… just as I know," he muttered, his voice sounding far too loud in the suffocating silence.
He took a cautious step forward. The sound of his footsteps echoed unnaturally, as though the [Endless Gallery] itself was listening. He glanced around randomly, looking at the creepy [Endless Gallery].
He walked. Each step forward stretched on endlessly, and yet the clarity of this strange world gnawed at him. His eyes darted to the floor: smooth marble, so pristine that if even a desert appeared, he was certain he could count every grain of sand. Every detail here was too sharp, as though the dream wanted to remind him it wasn't a dream.
After what felt like an eternity, half an hour by his reckoning, he finally saw it.
A frame unlike the rest: massive, looming, and filled.
Inside its glass surface was not an empty shimmer, but himself.
Lunaris froze. And then, slowly, deliberately, he smiled, the expression dazzling, almost radiant in this suffocating world.
The reflection in the frame smiled too, but it was wrong.
Its golden eyes, identical to his own, burned too brightly, like molten suns boiling with madness. Its grin stretched wider than his, more crazed, more desperate, as if mocking him with a version of himself he could never hope to tame.
The air thickened until it felt like breathing tar.
And then it began.
The instant their gazes locked, the [Endless Gallery] shuddered. The countless empty frames along the endless walls filled all at once, glass flashing with blinding light before erupting into motion.
They poured out.
Faceless beings, countless in number, crawling, stumbling, and slithering from the frames, their eyeless sockets fixed on him with a hunger more primal than starvation. Their formless mouths stretched and whispered as they closed in, and gradually, sickeningly, they shifted, changing into him.
One by one, they became his hopes and fears, given flesh.
A version of him crowned in gold, worshiped as a hero.
A version of him choking on shadows, nameless and forgotten.
A version of him holding Caelrisu's broken body, sobbing endlessly.
A version of him adored, envied, and cheered by thousands.
A version of him hunted, despised, and beaten into the mud.
The canvas of his "true self" warped further, as though mocking the very idea of stillness. The glass rippled into a stage, and on that stage unfolded plays of his despairs and his dreams. His failures replayed with agonizing detail, each wound carved deeper than memory. His triumphs shone brighter than possible, dazzling him with a life he never lived but desperately wanted.
The faceless things pressed closer, their whispers slithering into his ears.
"Say yes, and it is yours."
"Say yes, and you will never be alone again."
"Say yes, and no one will ever die because of you."
"Say yes, and you will be everything you wished to be."
Their voices were like honey and venom, beautiful and unbearable.
Lunaris's chest tightened. He remembered Vermas's words, "Never say yes. If you speak, you are lost."
But he ignored the advice.
Because unlike Vermas, unlike anyone else, he had something no one could understand.
Slowly, he reached into his robes and withdrew a small, battered book. Its cover was plain, its pages ancient, the same Old Book that he always carried.
The book. His father's book.
It had always been with him. And yet no one else ever noticed it, never questioned its presence, as though reality itself bent to make it seem ordinary. The text inside was unreadable to others, words dissolving into meaningless shapes, but to Lunaris, each letter was clear.
It also provided him with a natural protection against the [Partial [Endless Gallery]]. Keeping his sanity safe from its eventual madness.
Its title was burned across the cover in letters only he could see:
Steps to Hero Awakening, Sovereign.
He remembered their mother's word, Caelivisa's words, that Hero Awakenings were random, threads woven by fate. But she was wrong. So very wrong.
Fate had nothing to do with it.
The [Endless Gallery] was the crucible. The actions you took here determined everything.
And for the Sovereign… the first step was clear.
Step One: Destroy.
Lunaris rose to his feet before the vast stage of his own dreams and nightmares. His golden eyes burned with a clarity that wasn't hope but defiance.
And then, he struck.
His fist slammed into the canvas, the image of his perfect life rippling for a heartbeat before snapping back to stillness. Pain screamed up his arm, a shockwave of agony that rattled his ribs. Blood spattered from split knuckles.
But he wasn't done.
He punched again.
And again.
And again.
Each blow was weaker than the last, but each was fiercer, heavier with intent.
Punched and
Punched and
Punched and
Punched and
Punched and
Punched and
Punched and
Punched…
…until it felt like his body itself was fracturing along with the world around him. His fists were torn open, raw flesh hanging, bones crunching with every desperate strike. His vision blurred, dark spots swimming across his gaze. Saliva dripped down his chin, his breath reduced to ragged gasps.
The [Endless Gallery] watched.
The stage flickered with his broken dreams: his sister smiling in safety, his clan united under his leadership, and the weightless joy of being free from destiny. With every strike, they brightened, mocking him, taunting him with beauty that could never be his.
And still, he hit them.
The faceless beings kept on tempting him. From a million, their numbers dwindled, shattering into dust after every ignorance of their words, until the ground was littered with their fragments. Still, still, more pressed in, endless whispers of temptation clawing at his mind. But he refused to yield.
One hundred thousand remained. Their howls drowned everything, the sound of ten thousand lives he could have lived tearing at his ears. His heart thundered, his breath was gone, and his body was broken.
But his will, his will was not.
Gathering every last shred of strength, Lunaris pulled back his bloodied fist. His body screamed at him to collapse, to stop, to say yes.
Instead, he let out a guttural cry that wasn't human and drove his fist forward with everything he had left.
The canvas shrieked.
The surface cracked, hairline fractures splitting outward like lightning bolts across glass. The false dreams and nightmares inside convulsed, twisting into grotesque shapes.
And then,
SHATTER!
The canvas exploded in a storm of fractured light and broken dreams. Shards of illusions spun through the air like razors, dissolving before they could cut.
Lunaris stood amid the ruin, his body shaking, every breath ragged, blood dripping in rivulets from his torn knuckles. His golden eyes burned fever-bright, wide with hunger and defiance.
All around him, the faceless entities swarmed, whispering, pleading, and cajoling:
"Choose me."
"Choose happiness."
"Choose safety."
"Choose love."
Every voice was a dagger dipped in honey, every promise a noose of silk. They pushed closer, desperate, knowing that if he stayed silent, they would die with the collapse of the [Endless Gallery].
And then, finally, their prayer was answered.
Lunaris's cracked lips parted. His voice was hoarse, but the word fell like a blade, quiet, certain, and final:
"Yes. I choose all of you."
The [Endless Gallery] convulsed as if struck by lightning. The frames groaned. The air thickened with whispers, no longer temptations but shocked hymns of hope.
Step Two: Acceptance.
But instead of triumph, a paralysis spread through the faceless. Their bodies stiffened, heads twitching violently, as if their nonexistent eyes widened in disbelief.
Their whispers stuttered. They did not understand.
For all their endless tempting, none of them had expected this. None had ever conceived of a mortal choosing them all at once. Because they knew they could not all escape. They were fragments, splinters, masks of one truth. Without the Giant Canvas, their "leader," the anchor of this false [Endless Gallery], they had no unity, no way out.
Hope and despair knotted in their throats. For the first time, the tempters looked…afraid. Afraid of their own confusion.
And Lunaris smiled.
It was not the smile of a child, nor the smile of one who surrendered to illusion. It was the grin of a beast who had found prey.
Then, he moved.
Lunaris leapt into their swarm like a beast unleashed. His teeth bared, his mouth open in a feral grin. The first faceless horror screamed soundlessly as he bit into it.
It dissolved like wet parchment in his jaws, its taste nothing, no blood, no flesh, only the acrid emptiness of hollow promises. Yet as it crumbled on his tongue, something entered him. Something hot, as though he had swallowed a burning coal.
Step Three: Usurp.
He roared and tore into another, then another. The faceless entities tried to recoil, but they were nothing more than paper horrors, phantoms given shape. Their limbs folded under his grip like brittle reeds, their resistance weaker than that of a newborn child.
And each time he devoured one, something new forced its way inside him, cold like glacial water, coarse like sand grinding down his veins, heavy like splinters of wood driven under his skin, and sharp as a sword made of wind howling in his lungs.
The essences swarmed into him, one after another.
There were thousands. But they were prey.
And he—he was a starving god in the shape of a boy.
He ripped them apart with his hands, devoured them with his teeth, and swallowed their whispers whole. Their faceless heads cracked like porcelain. Their screams turned into the ink of broken dreams, sliding down his throat. Each one gave him fragments: voices, fears, hopes, and power.
The [Endless Gallery] quaked violently now, no longer able to contain what he was becoming.
And in the great frame, his reflection, the "true self" with the golden, frenzied eyes, smiled. Its mouth split wider, stretching across its face like a wound in the world.
Then it laughed.
Not in mockery.
But in recognition.
For what felt like days, Lunaris rampaged through the endless hall. His hands were caked in dried blood, yet all his wounds had long since closed. When at last the last faceless fell, he staggered forward and stood before the Great Frame.
The reflection no longer moved. It sat there, waiting, smiling. And then, with no resistance, it dissolved into him.
Step Four: Assimilation.
Lunaris's eyes snapped open in the Mirror Lake, only for his body to burst apart.