Eirian shook himself from his thoughts, his fingers brushing the two treasures at his belt—the Tear of the Saint, cold as a widow's grief, and the Soulless Flame, restless as a caged beast.
The Trial of Memory nearly broke me, he mused, his ribs aching with phantom pain. And the Trial of Flesh… that was no test. It was a burial. The way the temple had reshaped itself around his fears, the whispers that slithered into his mind like serpents—none of it felt random. Someone designed this.
But the voice that had guided him was gone now. Only the wind answered as he gritted his teeth and scaled the temple's carcass, his boots scattering pebbles into the abyss below. Cold air lashed his face as he emerged, the sky a gaping maw of nothingness. Behind him, the temple stood like a tombstone.
"Thank you," he called toward the temple, voice rough with gratitude and unspoken questions. "For the inheritance. For the fire."
Silence answered.
Gritting his teeth, he scaled the crumbling walls, fingers digging into stone until he hauled himself through the fissure. Behind him, the temple stood sentinel, its secrets still veiled.
When I'm stronger, he vowed, I'll return. I'll unravel the truth of the Trial, and why it chose me.
Shadow swallowed his figure as he vanished into the wastes.
---
Time bled into eternity within the temple's hollow core. Not even dust stirred.
Then—
"Master." A husky voice shattered the stillness.
A battle-scarred general knelt on one knee, armor glinting like frozen blood. His head bowed not to a throne, but to her.
It was the owner of that ancient voice who guided Eirian about the trail.
The woman from Eirian's visions.
She stood atop the stone platform, a paradox of shadow and radiance. Midnight robes clung to her like liquid darkness, yet her skin glowed as if moonlight lived beneath it. Chestnut hair spilled over her shoulders, each strand threaded with starlight.
And her eyes, obsidian and endless, held the weight of epochs.
If Eirian had seen her now, he'd would have recognized her instantly—the same ethereal figure from his visions, though now her beauty held an edge like a honed blade.
The resemblance to little Iris was unmistakable: the same arch of brows, the same faint scar curling like a question mark beneath her left ear.
But because this woman smiled.
"You performed well," she murmured, her fingertips brushing against her hairs. "He never suspected the trial was a design."
The man trembled, equal parts honored and bewildered. Who is Eirian? Why does the Master weave fate itself for him?
She turned away, her laughter a silver chime. "Oh, dear Eirian…"
For a heartbeat, something raw flickered in her gaze—longing? Grief? Before vanishing beneath cosmic calm.
The general opened his mouth—
"Peace", Her hand lifted—not with a gesture, but a command, fingers curling as if plucking the strings of reality itself. The air between her fingertips shimmered, not with light, but with the absence of it, as though she'd torn a seam in the world's fabric and let the void peer through.
'This place has served its purpose.'
The words weren't spoken—they unfolded, slow and inevitable, like a prophecy finally clicking into place. Not a declaration. A verdict.
And the temple, as if hearing its death sentence, began to forget it had ever existed at all.
As their forms dissolved into the dark, the final collapse began. Not with a roar, but with a sigh—the sound of a world forgetting itself.
The temple collapsed inward, its purpose fulfilled. Only dust remained, swirling where gods and ghosts had once tread.
Somewhere in the wastes, Two days later.
Two days of trudging through the crimson wasteland, the trees looming like skeletal hands. His throat burned with thirst, his muscles screamed—but it was the emptiness that gnawed at him.
No wind. No birds. Just the endless road, taunting him with its silence.
Is this another trial? Eirian's nails bit into his palms. Or am I already dead?
Then—
You're really an idiot~
The voice dripped into his mind like honey laced with venom. Eirian whirled, blade drawn, his pulse roaring.
"Oh, put that away," the Soulless Flame sighed, its voice oscillating between a child's giggle and an old man's rasp. "If I wanted you dead, I'd have let my fire chew your other arm off during the process of the calming the inheritance"
Eirian didn't lower his blade. "Y-You..you can speak?"
And you can not find exits, apparently. The flame's laughter curled around his skull. "Honestly, watching you march in circles for 48 hours was almost entertaining, hehehe~"
A vein throbbed in Eirian's temple. This thing is worse than Dris. "If you're so clever," he snarled, "why not speak sooner?"
"Where's the fun in that?" The flame pulsed, smug. "But fine. Since you're adorably hopeless—close your eyes and say, I'm the successor of the Soulless Flame. Open the path~
Eirian stared at the sky his face darked, blue veins pop out in his forehead in anger and annoyance. "Are you mocking me?"
"Would I do that?" A beat. "Yes. But this time, I'm serious. Mostly."
Eirian exhaled through his nose. Gods help me, I'm taking orders from a sentient campfire. Still, he slammed his palm skyward, Soulspark energy erupting in a column of violet fire.
For a heartbeat—nothing.
Then the world shrieked.
The ground buckled. The mist tore apart like rotten fabric, revealing a jagged portal swirling with dead stars. Beyond it, the skeletal outlines of mountains. The real world.
"Told you," the flame chirped.
Eirian didn't thank it.
But as he stepped through the portal, the flame's whisper followed, "Oh, Eirian… you still don't realize, do you? That temple didn't choose you. She did..."
But the words dissolved into the roar of displaced air—too faint, he couldn't heard. His vision blurred, the world twisting like wet ink, and suddenly - Heat.
The acrid stench of burning sulfur assaulted his nostrils. Eirian staggered, boots scraping against familiar blackened stone. His head snapped up.
The lake of fire.
His pulse spiked. Instinctively, his hand flew to his blade—reforged and hungry—as his eyes scanned the cliffs for those cursed statues.
Let them come, he thought, the Soulbrand in his chest flaring. I'll reduce them to gravel!!
But the cliffs stood empty. No stone sentinels. No hollow-eyed watchers. Just the lake's molten glow painting the cavern in feverish light.
"Looking for your playthings?" The Soulless Flame's voice dripped with amusement. "They disappeared, their mission was completed, Smart of them~"
Eirian ignored the jab, his gaze lifting to the cavern's sky—and froze.
That's... impossible.
The same jagged crack webbed across the stone. The same slow drip of liquid fire. As if no time had passed at all.
"Ten minutes," the Flame said, gleeful. "That's all that's bled by in this world while you danced in the Nether Ark."
Eirian's fingers twitched. Ten days. I lived ten days in that hell. His stomach turned. The Trial of Memory's phantom wounds ached in sympathy.
"You're gaping like a fish," the Flame observed in amusement. "Didn't your mother teach you about temporal rifts?"
"Enough!" Eirian's voice cracked like a whip across his consciousness. The Soulless Flame's laughter curled through his mind like smoke, infuriatingly amused by his confusion.
"What you experienced," the Flame purred, its voice oscillating between childish glee and ancient knowing, was a 'Nether Ark'.
Eirian's fingers twitched at his sides. He could still feel the phantom weight of ten lost days in his muscles, the scars on his soul from trials that had apparently happened outside of time itself.
"What in the hell is a Nether Ark?" he demanded, his voice rough with exhaustion and simmering anger.
The Flame seemed to revel in his frustration, its presence swirling lazily in his mind. "Ohhhh," it drawled, drawing out the syllable with theatrical delight. "Now he asks the interesting questions."
"Stop playing games," Eirian growled, his Soulbrand pulsing hot against his ribs. If you know something—
If..? The Flame's voice sharpened, suddenly less playful. "You stood in the belly of a forgotten god, boy. Walked its halls. Fought its guardians. And you dare say if?
A chill ran down Eirian's spine despite the lake's heat. The temple's impossible architecture, the way it had seemed to breathe around him—had that all been...?
A pause. The Flame's presence shifted, less taunting, almost... wistful.
"A relic," it murmured. "Nether Ark was born when gods were worshipped, and before the stars knew names, the Void whispered its secrets to flame."
In the Age of First Flame, when the cosmos was still molten and wild, there were beings not of flesh or bone, but of pure Concept primordial laws that shaped reality with thought and dream."
Eirian's breath caught. Neither Arks? Are there other arks in the Dust Realm?
His mind raced—what secrets might they hold? What power?
"Don't get excited," the Flame sing-songed, yanking him back. "They're buried deeper than your common sense. And I don't remember where."
Eirian scowled. Convenient !
"Yeah, that's all I know," the Flame said casually. "Right now I haven't yet regained my full memory, so I only remember little things."
Eirian frowned. "What do you mean, your lost memory? Did something happen to you?"
The Flame giggled like a child. "Ahh... To be honest, I don't remember! It burst into laughter after saying this.
Eirian became annoyed and fell into deep thought after hearing this revelation. After a moment, he asked curiously, "Are there more Nether Arks in the Dust Realm?"
Yes, the Flame answered, "maybe hidden somewhere in this world. But I don't know their locations, so don't get your hopes up." It giggled again within Eirian's consciousness, amused by the hopeful look that had flashed across his face.
Author's Note:
The "Nether Ark" refers to a hidden realm or secret dungeon an ancient structure outside the normal flow of time and space, often filled with trials, relics, and forgotten gods.