||The Shard's Trial||
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The moment Code Seven's fingers brushed the shard, reality shattered.
Not metaphorically.
Time ceased. Space twisted into unrecognizable fractals. The very air turned into a field of silent screams. Seven's hand recoiled, but not fast enough. The shard bit him.
A thousand spires of light pierced his palm, drilling into nerves that shouldn't exist. He tried to pull away—his legs no longer obeyed. Muscles spasmed, twisted, locked.
[Unrecognized Entity.]
[Access Denied.]
The room wasn't a room anymore. It had inverted. Above was below. Blackstone bled crimson. The walls sang in backward voices. The Echo—the girl—was gone.
In her place was a mirror.
It showed not his reflection, but every version of him that had ever existed. Lab-born failures. Screaming test subjects. Code Zero to Code Six—all dead. Except him.
Seven.
The shard glowed brighter.
[Legacy Shard Authentication: FAILED.]
[Error: Unverified Consciousness Signature.]
[Emergency Trial Protocols Engaged.]
A wall of light erupted behind him, forming a circular seal. Symbols of empires long extinct flickered around its edges. The shard had judged him unworthy.
And it was going to break him for it.
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He was dragged in.
Not physically—his soul was pulled. It snapped from his body and was hurled across a burning horizon.
He landed in the middle of a battlefield.
Swords clashed. Beasts roared. And above it all… stood the First Seeker.
A figure cloaked in silver and ash, eyes like moons. The Seeker moved like a phantom, severing a warlord's head with a single twist of their blade.
The shard implanted a voice into Seven's skull.
"This is what you are not."
The First Seeker turned to him. No words. Just judgment. Then a blade appeared in their hand—and Seven had none.
He was unarmed.
But the duel began.
He lost.
Again and again.
The Seeker struck him down twenty-one times. Each time, the shard reset his body, forced him to stand again. It was not letting him out.
He bled in that place. Screamed. Crawled.
After the forty-third death, he stopped fighting.
But the shard forced him to.
"Fight or die for real," it whispered.
His mind frayed. Memory bled. He forgot the lab. Ezreth. His name.
Only pain remained.
-------
Seventy-two deaths later, something changed.
He didn't dodge the blade.
He grabbed it—barehanded—and stabbed himself through the stomach to get close enough to punch the Seeker across the jaw.
And the trial cracked.
The battlefield shattered.
He fell.
Not onto stone, but into cold, black water.
And there, floating in the dark, was the shard.
Quieter. Dimmer.
Respectful.
-------
[System Notification – Infinite Planes]
[Seeker-Class Trial: Incomplete.]
[Provisional Recognition Granted.]
[Code-Seven may carry the shard. Access to legacy systems: Locked.]
[Continue proving worth.]
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When he awoke, he was alone again in the vault.
His hand trembled.
The shard was embedded in his forearm like a fracture of glass under the skin. It didn't glow. It pulsed—faintly.
Ezreth's voice cut through static.
"You're late."
He blinked. He didn't even remember activating the comm.
"I'm above. You've got company. Three suits—imperial. You good?"
Seven stood on shaking legs.
"Just bought myself a war," he said hoarsely.
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Aboveground – Kaarn's Smogline
The three suits weren't scouts.
They were extermination units—Psi-Stalkers bred from Amalthea's black genome pool. Half human. Half ghost. No eyes, no mouths, just sensor helmets stitched to their faces. Each carried compressed bolt-lances.
Ezreth watched them from the shadows of a twisted turbine shaft.
"They're tracking you," she whispered.
Seven stepped out beside her, dragging air into his lungs like it hurt.
"They found out about the shard," he said.
"How? You didn't leave a trace."
"No," he said grimly. "But the Planes sent a global pulse. Someone felt it."
Ezreth swore.
"We need to vanish."
But Seven was staring ahead. At the suits. At the one in front—a head taller than the others. Its sensors flared when they landed on him.
And then it spoke.
"Seeker."
Ezreth froze.
"No," Seven muttered.
He moved before she could react.
A flick of his fingers sent a blade of pressure slamming into the stalker's throat. It collapsed.
He was on the second before the third turned.
Too slow.
By the time the third one screamed the word "Seeker," Seven's hand was already on its skull.
"No one says that name."
He crushed the head with his bare palm.
Blood splashed across the steel wall.
Ezreth stared.
"You didn't have to kill him like that."
He didn't answer.
"Seven," she said quietly, "you're changing."
He finally turned.
"No. I'm remembering."
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Far Away – Watching Eyes
Old beings stirred.
The Planes had spoken. A trial had been invoked.
And somewhere, in the Shifting Crypts of Vanlire, an ancient voice rasped:
"Another Seeker rises. Should we strike?"
"No," whispered a hooded figure with skin made of constellations. "Not yet. Let him bleed first."