"Voss," Kale whispered.

"What?" Rika asked, turning toward him.

He raised a hand, silencing her, and took a cautious step closer to the shard. The figure in the reflection tilted its head slightly, almost as if it had noticed him. Kale's fingers instinctively moved to the hilt of Aeloria's Promise.

"Is he behind us?" Namara asked, her tone losing its usual levity.

Kale spun around, blade half-drawn—but the path behind them was empty. The shimmering shards and twisted reflections were all that surrounded them.

"Kale?" Liliana's voice was steady but edged with concern. "What did you see?"

He turned back to the shard, but the dark reflection had vanished. Now it showed only his own distorted features, fragmented by the shard's natural imperfections. The unease in his chest deepened as he tried to make sense of it.

"It was him," Kale said. "I saw him… in the shard. Watching."

"Was it real? Or just… this place messing with you?" Rika asked.

Liliana stepped closer, her gaze scanning the shard's surface. "The shards hold more than light—they hold echoes. Reflections of intent, fragments of what was and what could be. If you saw him, it wasn't just your imagination."

Namara's smile flickered back. "Well, that's just charming. A haunted maze of crystal shards, and now shadowy warlords popping up like bad memories."

"If he's close, we'll deal with him. Stay sharp." Sadek said.

Kale exhaled, his chest tight as he fought to clear his mind. "Let's keep moving. If he's watching us, he already knows we're here. We can't let him stay one step ahead."

The group pressed on, but the memory of those hollow eyes lingered in Kale's mind, like a silent warning carved into the shards around them.

***

Kale hesitated, glancing at Rika as they walked. "Rika," he said carefully, "can you… use it? The diamond, I mean. To see if there's anything ahead?"

Rika's hand instinctively went to her eyepatch. She paused, frowning. "You want me to try?"

Kale nodded. "If it can help us figure out what's going on here, it's worth it."

Rika sighed, her fingers brushing the edge of the leather strap. "Alright. Just… give me a second." Slowly, she slid the eyepatch aside, revealing the smooth, glinting diamond embedded in her empty socket.

The moment the diamond caught the light of the shards, Rika stiffened. Her breath hitched as her single golden eye widened in shock. The diamond seemed to shimmer unnaturally, refracting the light into countless patterns.

"I—" Rika's voice faltered. She clutched her head, staggering back a step.

"Rika!" Kale reached for her, but she held up a trembling hand.

"I'm fine!" she snapped, her voice tight. "It's… overwhelming."

She gasped, her gaze darting as if trying to follow invisible threads weaving through the air. "It's like… I'm seeing everything. At once. The past, the present, the future. Hundreds of versions of it. Thousands. It's too much."

Liliana moved closer. "Can you focus? Narrow it down somehow?"

"I don't know!" Rika snapped again, clutching at the diamond as she struggled to ground herself. "There's movement… ahead. But it's everywhere. Shadows. Choices. Echoes of things that haven't even happened yet."

Kale placed a steadying hand on her shoulder. "That's enough. Don't push it."

With a sharp, shuddering breath, Rika yanked the eyepatch back into place. The diamond's light dimmed, and she sagged slightly, leaning on her warhammer for support. "That thing's no joke," she muttered. "It's not just a sight—it's a damn storm."

"You alright?" Kale asked.

"Yeah," Rika said, though her voice was tight. "It's… a lot to take in. But I saw something. Movement. We're not alone in here."

Liliana raised an eyebrow. "Voss?"

Rika shook her head. "I couldn't tell. Everything's tangled. But we need to be careful."

Namara folded her arms. "Careful? Where's the fun in that?"

Kale ignored her. "We keep moving. Stay sharp, all of you."

He looked at the reflections shifting in the crystal surfaces, half-expecting another dark image like before.

A ripple passed through one of the walls, catching his attention. A figure emerged from it—a fractured.

This one moved differently from the first, its elongated limbs and faintly crystalline features shimmering. It drifted forward, its feet barely touching the ground.

"Another one," he said.

The fractured, however, paid them no mind. It floated past them as though they didn't exist, its movements smooth, like a wisp of smoke caught in an unseen current. There was no hostility, no recognition, just silence as it passed.

"What the hell?" Rika whispered.

The fractured reached the opposite wall and merged into the crystalline surface. The light warped around it as it disappeared, leaving nothing but a faint shimmer in its wake.

"That… was unsettling," Namara said. "Does it even know we're here?"

Liliana narrowed her eyes, staring at the wall where it vanished. "It knows. They all do. But it didn't care."

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Kale hesitated before stepping closer to the spot where the fractured had disappeared. The crystalline wall before him gleamed faintly, its reflective surface almost unnervingly perfect.

He leaned in, his breath fogging the shard. At first, all he saw was his own reflection staring back. No, it wasn't quite his reflection. The figure mirrored him in stance, but the details were wrong.

This version of him was older, wearier. The edges of his armor were chipped and scarred, his hair streaked with silver. His expression was harder, his gaze distant and burdened. He held Aeloria's Promise in one hand, but its blade flickered faintly, as though struggling to hold its shape, or perhaps struggling to exist at all.

Kale blinked. The figure didn't blink back.

"What…?"

The mirrored version tilted its head slightly, just enough to make Kale's heart skip a beat. Its lips moved, shaping silent words he couldn't hear, and then the image wavered like ripples across water.

Behind him, Rika's voice broke the tension. "Kale? What are you doing?"

He stepped back quickly, his pulse pounding. The reflection returned to normal, just his own face staring back wide-eyed. He shook his head, forcing himself to speak.

"Nothing," he said, though his voice lacked conviction. "It's just… the wall."

But as they moved on, he couldn't shake the image from his mind. Was it the future? Another version of himself? Or just this place, playing tricks on him?

The group pressed on, the shimmering walls around them casting fragmented reflections that seemed to shift with every step. Kale's mind was still churning over what he'd seen in the crystal wall, but he forced himself to focus. The chasm's oppressive silence was only broken by their footsteps and the faint, almost melodic hum of the shards.

They rounded a corner, and there were two fractured standing motionless in the middle. The fractured didn't move, didn't step toward them. They just stood there, unnervingly still.

And then, as one, they turned their heads—slowly, unnaturally—to face the group. Their diamond-like eyes locked onto them, reflecting the light like prisms. The sight was enough to send a shiver down Kale's spine.

They spoke, their voices resonating together. "He is waiting for you."

Kale's hand froze on the hilt of his blade. The way they spoke—it wasn't a threat. It wasn't even a warning. It was a statement, flat and undeniable.

"Who's 'he'?" Namara asked, her voice sharper than usual, a nervous edge creeping in.

The fractured didn't answer. They didn't move. They just stood there, their crystalline gazes fixed on the group, unblinking.

Liliana took a step forward, her expression wary but calm. "We don't have time for games. If you know something, tell us."

But the fractured remained silent, their heads still slightly tilted in unison, as though waiting for something.

"Alright, this is creepy," Rika muttered.

Kale took a cautious step forward, his grip tightening on the blade. "If you're talking about Voss, then tell us where he is."

The fractured didn't reply. Instead, they slowly turned their heads away, looking down the path ahead. Their bodies began to shimmer faintly, and slowly disappeared into the floor.

"They just… disappeared," Rika said, her tone hushed, almost disbelieving.

"Yeah," Kale muttered. "But not before making it very clear that he's waiting." He glanced at the others. "Let's go. If Voss is ahead, we can't waste time."

The group pressed onward. Light from the shards danced across their path, refracting into patterns Kale couldn't begin to understand. Each step felt heavier, charged with energy that prickled at his skin.

As they moved deeper, the walls themselves began to change. At first, they reflected the group—a strange, distorted mirror that caught flickers of their movement. But then the reflections shifted. Kale caught sight of himself in one shard, but it wasn't quite him. The version of him looking back seemed older, his face harder, scarred. Aeloria's Promise was still in his hand, but the blade was blackened, its surface cracked.

Kale froze, staring at the image. His heart skipped a beat as the reflection moved—not mirroring him, but acting independently. The other him turned his head, staring back with an expression so cold it felt like a blade pressed to his throat.

"Kale?" Rika's voice pulled him back, and the reflection vanished, replaced by the empty wall.

"I'm fine," he said quickly, shaking his head as if to dispel the lingering unease. He wasn't fine, but there was no time to dwell on it.

As they moved further, the walls continued their silent show. Kale saw glimpses of the others—Rika standing triumphantly on a battlefield, Guts raised high as fractured figures kneeled before her. Namara, draped in shadows, her expression distant as she extended her hand toward an unrecognizable figure cloaked in flames. Liliana, surrounded by books and shards, her hands glowing as arcane symbols spiraled into the air around her.

"What… what is this?" Rika whispered.

Liliana stepped closer to a shard, her hand hovering near its surface but not quite touching it. "Possibilities," she murmured. "Or fragments of them. Past, future, paths untaken… maybe all of them at once."

Kale's gaze drifted to another shard. This time, it showed Sadek, kneeling in the ruins of a city, his massive frame bowed under the weight of a shattered spear in his hands. The image flickered, and Sadek was gone, replaced by the group standing together—but older, weary, their eyes shadowed by losses that hadn't yet come to pass.

Namara laughed softly, the sound hollow. "I don't know if this is supposed to scare us or inspire us."

"Maybe both," Liliana replied. Her voice was steady, but her eyes betrayed a hint of unease as they flicked to a shard that seemed to show her alone.

No, not alone.

She wasn't with the group, she was in a tent, surrounded by people she didn't recognize. Soldiers maybe? Commanders? They seemed to be listening to her intently. Her expression was cold. Focused. Dangerous. She barely recognized herself. She was pointing at a map on the table… was that Nyridia?

The walls began to hum louder, the sound low and resonant, vibrating in their chests. The visions in the shards grew more vivid, more chaotic, as if the chasm itself was forcing them to see, forcing them to feel. Kale tried not to look, but his eyes were drawn to every flicker, every fragment of something that might be or might have been.

He saw himself again, standing on a mountain of corpses. The blade in his hand was not Aeloria's Promise. It was something else. Sleek. Simple. Radiating power. It glowed gold. So did his eyes. The longer he stared, the more the image pulled back, zooming out, revealing the scale. At the base of the mountain of corpses, he saw them: Liliana, Rika, Sadek, Namara. They were looking up at him. There was no fear in their eyes. Only relief.

"Don't stop," Sadek said. "The more you stare, the more it'll pull you in."

Kale nodded, though his legs felt like lead as he pushed forward. The path twisted and turned, the walls closing in until it felt like they were walking through a corridor of shattered futures. Every surface reflected something different. A life lived. A life lost. A life that hadn't happened yet.

Rika stopped suddenly, her gaze fixed on a shard to her right. She removed her eyepatch, the diamond in her eye socket catching the fractured light. She gasped as the visions multiplied, splitting into dozens, then hundreds, all overlapping. Then they all converged into one. She was on a battlefield. She saw herself, bloodied, holding back a screaming Liliana reaching for Kale. Kale charged at Xeroth. A flash. Voss. Rika staggered, one hand bracing against the wall to keep from falling.

"Rika?" Kale asked, stepping toward her.

She shook her head. "I'm fine. It's just… overwhelming." She slid the eyepatch back on, the visions disappearing instantly. "Let's keep going."

Ahead, the corridor widened into an open chamber, the walls lined with shards that pulsed faintly, their light synchronized. Standing in the center, barely illuminated by the faint glow, was another fractured. Its elongated limbs were motionless, its crystalline eyes fixed on the group as they approached.

The fractured stood there, silent, its posture strangely expectant.

"What's it doing?" Namara whispered.

The fractured raised one arm. It pointed to the side, indicating what appeared to be a doorway.

Liliana frowned. "You think it's leading us somewhere?"

"Maybe it's signalling Voss," Rika muttered.

Kale stepped closer, his eyes narrowing as he studied the fractured. It didn't react, its arm remaining outstretched, pointing unwaveringly toward the doorway.

"Only one way to find out," Kale said.

Sadek stepped up beside him, tense but ready. "I'll go first."

Kale shook his head. "No. We go together." He glanced back at the others. "Stay close, and remember the plan."

The group moved cautiously toward the doorway, the fractured lowering its arm as they passed. It didn't follow them, it remained still, watching until they disappeared into the light beyond the threshold.

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