In the Gauntlet of Timless Echoes, some of the greatest enemies… wears your face.
Above the Trial
Takagi let out a low whistle, arms folded, his white hair shifting gently in the divine wind.
"Now that was exciting."
His voice was light—but the weight behind it could crush mountains.
Eres scoffed, arms crossed tightly, his eyes locked on the trial floor below.
"It's only the first stage. Don't let two minor sparks fool you. They're still—"
Takagi turned.
His smile vanished like the sun behind a stormcloud.
A pulse of pressure rolled across the observation platform, and in that instant, the entire realm seemed to tighten—like existence itself was holding its breath.
Takagi's aura flickered to life—subtle, but vast. A tide of divine pressure that made the air hum like a drawn blade. He didn't raise his voice.
"You've always been a loudmouth, Eres. How about we have a quick spar? Let you cough up the rest of that condescension with your teeth."
Eres's jaw tightened. His own aura flared in defense—cold, sharp, composed. But beneath the stillness, his fingers twitched. A microsecond of hesitation. Barely perceptible. But Takagi saw it.
He tilted his head, smiling again—but this time, it didn't reach his eyes.
"What's the matter? You're not scared, are you?"
Eres's eyes narrowed, his voice low.
"You mistake restraint for fear. I don't waste effort where it's not needed."
Takagi took one step forward. The platform cracked beneath his boot.
"No, no—you mistake me for someone you can measure."
Unagi moved.
He didn't walk—he appeared, standing between them in a blur of motion, his presence slicing the tension like a blade through ice.
"Enough. The both of you."
His voice wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. It carried the weight of history.
Takagi looked at him for a moment… then shrugged with mock innocence, stepping back.
"Fine, fine. Don't want the Creator getting nervous."
Suzuro's voice echoed through the air, calm but iron-willed.
"Unagi is right. Your squabbles serve nothing. Focus on the trial. The real challenges have yet to begin."
Eres's aura faded—reluctantly, as if dragged down by unseen hands. But his stare lingered on Takagi, and his voice came quieter this time.
"One day… you'll overreach."
Takagi's smirk sharpened, more wolf than man.
"One day… maybe. But not today. And definitely not against you."
Eres said nothing. But his shoulders remained tense. His eyes never left Takagi—not in challenge… but calculation.
The air didn't relax. It simply paused—like something terrible had brushed too close… and kept moving.
Below, the Crucible shifted again, and Suzuro's gaze turned to it, the gleam in his eyes unreadable.
The storm hadn't passed. It had only changed direction.
—THE GAUNTLET OF TIMLESS ECHOES—
Xenos and Union stepped through the shimmering doorway, the chaotic Hall of Shifting Gravity dissolving into oblivion behind them.
The instant they crossed over, the air changed. It wasn't just still—it was wrong.
Heavy. Thick. Predatory. Every breath tasted like memory soaked in metal.
They stood within a realm that defied understanding. The floor was glass—mirror-like, but not reflective. It watched. Above and below, there was no sky, no ground. Just endless repetitions of themselves—standing, moving, waiting—fractured across infinite dimensions. Each reflection moved a second too early or too late, a kaleidoscope of broken timelines.
The horizon folded in on itself, as if reality had been warped into a spiral.
Union slowed her pace, her breath shallow.
"This place… time isn't flowing right."
Xenos' flames ignited instinctively—but even they faltered, flickering like broken frames in a corrupted film reel. One flame moved forward, another paused, a third reversed.
"Feels like this could be a trap."
"No," Union murmured, her voice hollow, eyes darting across the mirrored field.
"This is something else. It's not just messing with time. It's observing us."
Then the light shifted.
From the mirrored abyss ahead, figures began to rise—liquid shadows peeling themselves from the distorted reflections. At first, they were formless. Smears of existence. But step by step, they began to harden—coalesce—taking shape with a precision that made Union's breath hitch.
Xenos stepped back instinctively.
"Are those…"
They were.
Perfect doppelgängers.
But not mere illusions.
Their skin shimmered with unnatural polish. Their eyes gleamed with dark intelligence. The flames on shadow-Xenos's body burned black—a voidfire that hissed like it was alive. The space around shadow-Union shimmered with impossible sharpness—every distortion was calculated, curved with surgical cruelty.
"They're us," Union whispered. "But not as we are."
Xenos narrowed his eyes, shoulders rising, muscles tensing.
"What, stronger?"
Union nodded, cold.
"Stronger. Faster. Emotionless. Optimized."
The dark-Xenos grinned. It looked just like him—but colder. The smirk held no soul.
It was him without mercy.
The shadow-Union raised her hand, bending the space beneath their feet. Reality twisted and spiraled upward in a vortex that tore nearby reflections apart. Her precision was terrifying—inhuman. It was as if she already knew the moves Union would make.
"This isn't just a fight," Union said slowly. "It's a confrontation."
"With what?" Xenos asked.
"With who we'd be if we abandoned everything—pain, fear. These aren't just doppelgängers. These are who we could've become."
Then the platform beneath them cracked—mirrors shattering outward as gravity flipped and light folded in on itself.
A massive obsidian ring of mirrored energy materialized overhead, spinning like a wheel of judgment. A new pressure dropped on their shoulders—suffocating, divine, final.
The air sang with tension. The world didn't just want a fight—it wanted a verdict.
Shadow-Xenos spoke first.
"Let's see if survival made you strong. Or just desperate."
Shadow-Union floated above the mirrored floor, her eyes dim stars void of warmth.
"Begin."
The sound wasn't a word—it was a judgment passed by reality itself.
Union's aura flared.
Xenos clenched his fists, blood pumping like war drums in his ears.
And in that moment, they knew:
This wasn't a trial. This was an execution.
Before Union could reply, the dark version of her was already in range—her first a breath away from Union. Then, something inside her—similar to what happened in the hall with Eres—took over for just a second…
Union dodged in the Knick of time and countered with a palm strike. The dark Union side stepped, wrapped her arm around, Unions and swung her to the side. She then appeared mid air to the side of Union and landed a ferocious kick that sent her rag dolling across the ground.
From above, Takagi's body slightly got tense and for a moment—he felt the need to jump in and save her.
Xenos shouted.
"UNION!"
But the dark Xenos struck without warning. Its black flames erupted in a wave, the heat searing and suffocating, forcing Xenos to dive out of the way. He retaliated instantly, hurling a torrent of his own flames, but the shadow dodged with impossible precision. In a blur of motion, it closed the gap and delivered a blazing kick across Xenos's jaw, sending him tumbling across the mirrored ground.
Union's doppelgänger wasted no time falling up on her assault. She began to warp the space around them, the mirrored landscape rippling violently. Barriers and portals appeared out of thin air, cutting off Union and Xenos' attempts to regroup.
Union quickly realized her opponent wasn't just mimicking her—it was anticipating her every move.
"It's evolving…" Union said.
Her voice was steady, but there was an edge to it.
Xenos spat blood as he pushed himself upright, glaring at his shadow.
"Great. A smarter version of me. As if you weren't enough."
Xenos' doppelgänger dashed towards him in a string of flame and reappeared. They both clashed fist causing the glass realm to shatter under the force before repairing itself.
They began to trade blows. The dark Xenos easily evaded Xenos' blows and countered at will. After a few more failed combos, the dark Xenos parried a punch and sent a devastating one of its own—engulfed in black flames heading straight for his face. However, just before it could land, the doppelgänger was knocked away by Union with a punch that dissipated the shadows head.
Xenos fell to the ground.
"Union… I-"
"Now's not the time. Don't get discouraged. We can win this."
The dark Xenos stood up as the dark Union appeared beside it, also repairing a part of it.
"Watch out for the spatial one. She's quite impressive in hand to hand." Said the dark union to the doppelgänger of Xenos.
Union gripped her fist tighter as the dark twins approached.
—FLASHBACK - THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONTROL—
Union remembered his voice—not loud, not forceful, but unshakable.
They stood in the center of a training hall where time felt still. Takagi circled slowly around them both, hands behind his back, his tone instructive but heavy with truth.
"You're both powerful. That's the easy part. Power is given."
He suddenly turned, sweeping Union's leg with a motion she never saw coming. She fell—hard—but he didn't follow up. He simply stared.
"But control? That's earned."
Union rose slowly, brushing dust from her arm.
Takagi gestured them forward again.
"The body is a vessel. Martial arts teaches you how to use that vessel against others. Every punch they throw carries weight. And weight means momentum. Learn to feel that momentum—then turn it against them."
He moved again.
Xenos launched a punch—but he stepped inside it, turned, and suddenly he was flying across the room without even understanding how.
"Don't stop their power.
Don't resist their strength.
Accept it. Redirect it.
Martial arts isn't about domination—it's about translation.
Make their language your weapon."
He held up a hand, fingers relaxed in a flowing stance.
"The moment you stop trying to overpower them—
You'll start controlling them."
—BACK TO THE BATTLE—
Union's eyes snapped open.
The words echoed like scripture in her soul.
The Doppelgängers lunged together—shadow Xenos a blur of black flame, while dark Union warped space with jagged, twitching lashes of compressed gravity.
Union didn't just move.
She stepped through the chaos.
Dark Xenos struck first—his fist engulfed in shadowfire. Union twisted her body sideways, brushing the blow past her shoulder with the back of her hand. He overextended.
"Momentum…"
She hooked her heel behind his ankle and pivoted her hip—not pushing, but guiding.
Dark Xenos crashed to the ground, stunned.
Before dark Union could react, a spatial punch shot toward Union's midsection. She stepped in close, grabbed the wrist, and turned her own body into a lever. Her foot locked the dark twin's stance—and with a seamless turn of the hips, Union redirected the full force of the punch into the air, flipping her doppelgänger off the ground.
"Translation…"
She let go, and dark Union hit the earth beside her counterpart.
For a moment, neither shadow moved.
Union stood between them—unshaken. Her hair fluttered in the aftermath. Her fists lowered slowly.
Xenos blinked from across the battlefield, stunned.
"You… didn't even get touched."
Union exhaled, her breath steady now.
"I stopped fighting them."
She looked down at her open hand.
"And started using them."
The shadow-Xenos rose slowly, steam curling from his body, black flames spiraling along his arms like living armor. His eyes pulsed with unnatural fury. Next to him, the dark Union hovered just above the ground, wrapped in threads of unstable gravity that hissed and cracked like chains ready to snap.
The battlefield warped with tension.
Suddenly, black flame ignited in the doppelgänger's hand, not wild and uncontrolled—but shaped. Sharpened. A flaming arrow the size of a spear formed in his grasp, swirling with condensed heat and shadow.
With a low snarl, he hurled it.
The air split in half. The arrow howled through the sky like a meteor, striking the ground where Xenos had stood with devastating force. The platform detonated in a burst of black fire, shards flying like shrapnel through the air.
Xenos barely dodged, his boots skidding across the edge of a tilting platform.
"Weapons…?" he muttered, wide-eyed. "That's new."
At the same time, Union's twin became faster—smarter. Her strikes no longer came with brute force but calculated folds in space. Every attack Union launched was pulled into miniature voids, warped, redirected, or even turned back toward her. Her own attacks betrayed her. Union grunted, flipping backward, barely dodging a spatial shiv of distorted gravity that grazed her side.
"She's mimicking me. But better."
Xenos landed beside her, breathing heavy as his flames flickered across his skin.
"They're adapting," Union growled, eyes darting between the two evolving shadows. "They're turning our powers into refined weapons."
"Plan?" Xenos asked between breaths.
"Yeah. We need one." Union replied.
He wiped a trickle of blood from his lip, smirking despite the tension.
"Okay—how about we hit 'em harder?"
Union shot him a glare that could've sliced stone.
"This is serious."
But Xenos didn't flinch. He nodded toward the twins, who had begun walking slowly toward them again—only this time, they weren't matching their movements.
They were leading them.
The battlefield darkened. The shadow versions' auras began to spiral upward—like twin storms, condensed and focused. A second black arrow formed in the hand of shadow-Xenos—but this one was shaped like a scythe, spinning in slow orbit around him.
Beside him, dark Union summoned a floating ring of spatial blades, each one rotating at different time intervals, creating impossible trajectories.
"They're not reflections anymore…" Union said softly.
"No," Xenos replied, eyes narrowing.
"They're predators."
—FLASHBACK —WEAPONS OF GODS—
It was night inside the Eternal Crucible. The stars above had quieted. The training grounds were dim, lit only by the faint glow of celestial runes. Xenos and Union stood side by side, breathing hard after another brutal session. Takagi stood across from them, holding his signature shadowy katana. The one he used the day he saved Xenos and Union. But then—it shifted into a shape like a spear, then every few seconds into different style of swords, a whip, a shield, then back again.
He twirled the katana effortlessly before tossing it into the air. It dissolved into shadowy particles.
"Every god learns to turn their power into a weapon. It's natural. It's instinct."
He walked toward them, eyes serious now, voice slower.
"But here's what most never understand."
He held up his hand, forming a sphere of compressed energy in his palm. It pulsed with enough force to vaporize a planet.
"Power is raw. A weapon is shaped. But both can be read."
The sphere launched toward them—but stopped inches from Union's chest, frozen midair.
"You don't block a weapon like this."
"You dissect it."
He stepped forward and tapped the sphere, causing it to unravel in streams of harmless light.
"You read its shape. Its trajectory. You learn the intent behind it. A scythe wants to sever. A spear wants to pierce. A flame wants to consume."
Takagi walked in a slow circle around them, his presence heavy, instructive.
"Every weapon, no matter how divine, has a pattern. A purpose. A path. Learn to read the path… and you'll always move before it lands."
He stopped.
"And if it's too fast?"
He raised a brow, eyes glinting.
"Then don't move faster—move smarter."
He snapped his fingers.
The ground beneath them shifted—runes forming a spiral of patterns and movement lines.
"Redirection. Angles. Displacement. Control the field, not just yourself."
Takagi stepped back and turned away.
"Let everyone else worship power. You? Learn to dismantle it."
—BACK TO THE PRESENT—
The words struck like lightning across both minds.
Union's gaze sharpened. Xenos' breath slowed. The heat of the moment narrowed to focus. The black weapons swirling in front of their doubles were no longer just threats.
They were patterns.
Intent.
Purpose.
And purpose could be dismantled.
The two stood back-to-back, the doppelgängers circling them like predators. Xenos's flames burned brighter, his defiance tangible. Union's hands glowed with spatial energy, the air around her rippling in response.
"What are the odds Takagi drops down here and saves us?"
Union studied the shadows carefully.
"Distract yours. Keep it busy. I'll take mine down and come help."
Xenos raised an eyebrow.
"That's it? No fancy tricks?"
Union smirked, her focus sharp.
"Just don't screw up."
Xenos laughed, flames igniting around him as he launched himself at his shadow.
"Screwing up's not in my vocabulary!"
Xenos hurled a barrage of fiery punches at his double, each strike now a disciplined blend of power and restraint. Flames coiled around his fists, snapping like dragons. The shadow-Xenos met him with terrifying efficiency, swinging a black flame scythe that carved the air with every arc. The weapon sang through the air, trailing trails of fire so cold it hissed.
Each collision was thunder—fire against shadowfire—explosions that cracked the mirrored landscape and sent shards of burning glass into the sky.
Xenos narrowed his eyes, watching.
There. A delay. Just for a blink—every time it absorbs my flames.
A slow grin touched his lips.
"Gotcha, you cheap knockoff."
Meanwhile, Union's battle was a battle of perfect control. Her shadow-self floated above the broken arena, encircled by six rotating rings of spatial blades, each one warping time and reality with a scream of bending dimensions.
Every time Union struck, the blades intercepted—folding space to reroute her blows harmlessly away. The dark Union never moved recklessly. She didn't need to. She let the battlefield fight for her.
But Union had learned. She adapted with precision.
Don't overpower. Dismantle.
With a quick breath, Union snapped her fingers, and a gravitational well erupted beneath her doppelgänger, pulling it off balance. One ring faltered in its orbit. Union twisted reality again, sending a decoy strike toward her twin's center.
Predictably, the shadow warped space to counter—but Union was already moving. She bent around the distortion, guiding it backward into its own origin point, collapsing the warped space onto itself.
The dark Union shrieked as the feedback disrupted her control.
"You can't keep up," Union said coldly.
She dashed forward in a blur, striking the shadow's pressure points with surgical precision—shoulder, rib, elbow, throat. The doppelgänger stumbled backward, but with desperate spite, summoned all her blades inward for a killing strike.
Union's eyes narrowed.
"Takagi… now I understand."
Pivoting through the onslaught with grace—Union entered the doppelgängers range and trapped her arm, twisted, and unleashed a perfect Harai Goshi.
Time slowed.
Union's doppelgänger arched over her hip, crashing downward into a collapsing dimensional loop Union had opened beneath them mid-throw. The loop bent around the dark twin's body, swallowing her movements in recursive space.
The shadow thrashed—but Union's hand was already raised.
"End of the line."
She crushed the loop—and the doppelgänger disintegrated, atomized into warping dust and fractured light.
From above, Takagi smirked.
"Control. Not domination. She remembered"
Across the field, Xenos roared.
The scythe of shadowfire slashed toward him again—but this time, he didn't dodge. He welcomed it.
He raised his flames, unleashed a massive firewave, and hurled it directly into the shadow's core. The doppelgänger did exactly what he expected—it absorbed the attack. But in that heartbeat of delay, Xenos moved.
He blitzed forward, slipping beneath the swing of the scythe, and struck low—driving his fist into the clone's ribs. Then two more into the core. The shadow staggered.
"How's that for outsmarting you?"
Xenos unleashed a ferocious combo—punches laced with controlled detonations, fire bursting only after contact, cracking the mirror being's form at its fault lines. The black scythe flickered, its form unraveling.
With one final roar, Xenos delivered a burning uppercut straight into the doppelgänger's chest, igniting it from the inside out.
The black fire screamed—and then disintegrated, leaving nothing but embered air.
Xenos landed hard, breathing heavy. He wiped his mouth and let out a laugh—not cocky, but victorious.
"That's two for two."
Union stepped up beside him, her aura shimmering like cooled steel.
"Not bad, Xenos."
He opened his mouth to answer—but the words never came.
The mirrored ground beneath them began to tremble. Not a distant quake—but a living shudder, like the realm itself was choking on something it couldn't contain. The reflections twisted, bent inward, and then screamed silently—shapes writhing within the glass as if trying to claw their way free.
A deep, resonant voice echoed around them—older than the Crucible, colder than any flame Xenos could conjure.
"You've passed the first test of this stage…"
It wasn't a voice. It was a verdict.
Then came the laughter—low, rumbling, like stone grinding against bone.
"…But the Gauntlet… is far from over."
The glass exploded upward.
From the shattered reflection rose towering amalgamations—heaving, twisted bodies of countless fallen warriors, melted into forms that should not exist. Their limbs were fused weapons. Their eyes, flickering voids. Chained torsos with screaming mouths twisted across their shoulders. They were made of agony. Of legacy. Of failure.
The Chorus of the Fallen.
Union took a step back instinctively.
"…Oh no."
Each of them radiated a dark, pulsing aura—not shadow, but remnant divinity. Fractured echoes of dead gods, grafted together into brute monstrosities. Their presence made the Crucible groan, as if even this sacred battleground regretted summoning them.
One of them dragged a hammer made of starlight and bone, its handle composed of spine-like vertebrae. Another carried a shield that throbbed with black blood—the sigil of a forgotten pantheon etched in fire across its surface.
"They're not just monsters," Union whispered.
"They're echoes… fragments of gods who fell here."
Xenos's flames sparked out of control for a second before stabilizing. He grinned, but his eyes weren't smiling.
"And here I thought it couldn't get worse."
The amalgamations moved as one, the ground cracking under their mass—not fast, but certain, like walking extinction. Their breathing came in unison. Slow. Mechanical. Purposeful.
Union inhaled sharply, her fists clenching around bent space.
"Brace yourself…"
Her aura shimmered with a new resolve—a righteous fury, born from the knowledge that these were the graves of gods turned into weapons.
"This isn't the beginning of the trial anymore…"
Her eyes locked on the nearest behemoth.
"This is somewhere between life or death."
High above, Suzuro's gaze narrowed—yet he said nothing. His silence was not approval. It was calculation. For even he knew—this was only the start of their rise.
To Be Continued…