Trial V: The Realm of Gods
There were no enemies here.
No sky. No stars. No wind.
Only silence.
And a single stone path, suspended in endless white.
Matt walked alone.
Each step echoed across eternity—like time itself held its breath.
The four seals shimmered around him:
Memory. Flame. Time. Beast.
All pulsing with purpose.
All pulling him forward, like gravity made of fate.
At the end of the path: a gate.
Black and ancient.
It opened—
without sound.
---
Inside:
A throne.
Black marble. Etched with dead language.
Empty.
And then—
A whisper.
Soft as ash.
Heavy as godhood.
> "Sit."
Matt froze.
His instincts screamed. His soul curled tight.
His voice came out low. Guarded. Mortal.
> "Who are you?"
The silence stirred.
Not broken—bent.
> "I am who you become...
If you accept what they tried to erase."
---
The light twisted.
Reflected.
Revealed.
And in the throne's obsidian reflection—
he saw himself.
Not broken.
Not divine.
Not devoured by flame or void.
But whole.
Complete.
Matt stepped forward.
One heartbeat. Then another.
And sat.
---
The world paused.
Then—
everything returned.
Visions surged like floodwater through shattered dam walls.
Every timeline.
Every future.
Every path he'd nearly walked—and almost lost himself in.
Gods whispering in fear.
Stars rearranging.
The divine fabric rejecting his existence.
And yet he remained.
Amiya, crying.
Mailane, smiling.
Grey, bleeding.
Sam, laughing.
His parents—screaming.
His enemies—burning.
His friends—hoping.
Every memory.
Every soul.
Every choice.
All of him—scattered across time—now burned back into place.
---
He looked out across the void.
It stretched on forever.
Endless. Quiet. Sacred.
And he said:
> "I'm not their weapon.
Not their mistake.
Not their prophecy."
He stood.
Eyes blazing.
Heart quiet.
Voice final.
> "I'm the one they couldn't kill."
---
From the heavens—
golden chains fell.
They wrapped around him.
Arms. Legs. Chest. Heart.
They pulsed with ancient judgment.
The will of old gods.
And then—
they shattered.
A burst of light erupted from within him.
Ravenous. Cleansing. Eternal.
The four seals lifted from his skin—
spiraled into the air—
and fused.
Carved in fire into the air before him:
> Sigil of the Voidflame Ascendant.
The mark of one who had faced memory, fire, fate, instinct—
and endured.
---
Matt's body pulsed.
Not with stolen strength.
Not with divine inheritance.
Not with borrowed power.
But with power earned.
The Trial Gates behind him shattered like glass.
The silence screamed.
The Throne cracked.
Matt Salurga stood.
No longer rising.
Now ascended.
---
All Five Trials Complete.
The Ascension is over.
The war begins anew.
---
Somewhere far beyond the mortal veil—
beyond stars, beyond realms, beyond cause and consequence—
a dozen thrones of light pulsed in rigid stillness.
They were called many names.
The First Choir.
The Architects.
The Nameless Kings.
And they watched.
Above time. Above fear.
Until now.
---
One throne—fractured—began to bleed light.
An elder voice, crystalline and layered, broke the silence:
> "He sat."
A second voice, colder:
> "That cannot be. The Throne of Silence was sealed."
A third, bitter with memory:
> "It was never meant for him. He was a variable. A shadow."
"He was mortal."
A fourth voice—the oldest—shook the realm itself.
> "He is no longer mortal."
---
Visions shimmered through the Aether.
The boy once called Matt Salurga.
Now—a name the universe would remember in silence and fire.
They saw him rise.
Chains shattered.
Sigils rewoven.
The Voidflame Ascendant.
> "This breaks the Accord," one god rasped.
> "No prophecy held this path," another cried.
> "What have we unleashed?"
---
The elder voice spoke again.
And this time, there was fear in it.
> "We did not bury him deep enough."
A pause.
Then—whispers, trembling with dread:
> "Begin the Divine Excision Protocol."
"Call the Warden-Kings. Seal the Spiral of Skies."
"If he reaches the Apex Seat, all of us fall."
---
But from beyond their veil—
a voice echoed back.
A voice that should not have reached them.
A voice that carried fire, memory, and defiance.
> "Too late."
> "I remember you."
> "And I'm coming."
---
The thrones dimmed.
The stars held their breath.
The gods began to prepare for war.