The invitation was very simple. Only a single flicker of red in the corner of Hollow's vision without sound, without system ping. Just a glowing glyph on the edge of his console, a symbol he hadn't seen since the Blackout Protocol.
[Ghost Ledger: Request Pending – Sender: Dead Silence]
He stared at it for a long quiet moment. Then, with a single breathless motion he accepted the invitation.
Sear received hers during a match.
She was in the middle of a fire-ring wager, a tight circle of flame curling around her as the heat climbed toward an unbearable zenith.
Her opponent's trait, something called 'Ash Coil,' turned every breath into a burning calculation.
But then came the symbol, burning through the haze.
[Ghost Ledger: Request Pending]
For the first time in years, a thin smile touched her lips mid-fight.
She accepted. The flame flared, a white-hot pillar of power. She let it consume the match, an unspoken act of defiance.
Lucen never saw a screen.
But she knew.
As she sat in her garden chamber, surrounded by a world of sound waves and deep silence, her fingers traced invisible paths in the dirt.
"Three of us," she whispered to the empty air. "And the fourth walks between echoes."
She stood, her distant eyes fixed on an unseen point, and stepped into the sync corridor without needing instruction.
Her fingertips trembled, just once, before the noise of the world settled back into a perfect, internal symmetry.
Jack Bernard, Dead Silence, watched as three new icons flickered to life on his deck.
[Ghost Ledger: Online]
[Members: 4/4]
[Mission Type Unlocked: First Collective Trial – Tier I Psychological Maze]
He let the faint glow reflect off his palm. This was more than a team. It was a message. A refusal. A rebellion against the fragmentation the House enforced.
And yet, he hesitated.
Not because he doubted them. But because leading wasn't about commanding, it was about carrying and he'd carried ghosts long enough now.
"Don't break them," he muttered to no one but himself. "Just bring them back."
The trial began without ceremony.
Each of them was pulled into the maze simultaneously. A psychic network built from shared fears, hidden regrets, and conflicting timelines. There were no maps without interfaces. Just the House's latest experiment.
[Trial Name: The Mirror Labyrinth]
[Win Condition: Exit as a group. No single escapes.]
[Risk: Minor Trait Fusion or Corruption]
Jack opened his eyes to a long hallway of mirrors. Not reflections, a projection.
Each mirror showed him a version of himself: weaker, crueler, empty. In one, he saw himself still in bed at the hospital. In another, laughing as he crushed a faceless opponent.
A voice, calm and steady, echoed beside him. "Do we all start in the same room?"
It was Hollow. Somehow, their minds had synced spatially, creating a shared psychic space.
"No," Lucen said calmly, her voice a soft presence in the back of their minds. "We're not meant to start together. We're meant to find each other."
"Or fail trying," Sear added, a dry, humorless chuckle.
The maze twisted with every step they took. Memory-based walls rewrote themselves with every decision. Jack made the mistake of confronting one memory head-on—the death of his father, a choice, not an accident. The System twisted it into a challenge.
[Confrontation Risk: Memory Fragmentation – 18%]
He breathed through it, walked away, and felt the memory recede without claiming him.
Hollow appeared moments later, his eyes wide with a residual terror.
"Wasn't real," Jack said, though the words felt hollow even to him.
"Didn't feel that way," Hollow muttered, shaking his head.
Sear's trial was all flame. Not metaphorical. Her corridor pulsed with suffocating heat every time she hesitated.
The walls caught fire when her will wavered.
She powered through by choosing to forget who she used to be, letting the past burn behind her.
Lucen's corridor was silent. Too silent. Every step she took unraveled the world around her unless she maintained a perfect internal rhythm.
She walked with her hands in front of her, sculpting soundwaves into a path.
Her pulse slowed, syncing to unheard vibrations. For a moment, she sensed Jack before she saw him.
Eventually, Hollow's corridor intersected with Sear's, and Lucen phased in seconds later.
Jack, bleeding faint light from his temple after facing three mirrors in succession, reached them last.
The room at the maze's heart wasn't dramatic.
It was quiet.
A singular gate stood before them. No prompts from the System. Just four seats in a circle and a single question etched in red across the floor:
"Who decides what's real?"
Sear sat first. "The one who risks something." Hollow followed. "The one who walks back anyway." Lucen: "The one who remembers."
Jack stared at the question.
He felt it resonate deep within him but not logically, more like emotionally.
A memory flickered: Mia's voice, sharp and warm, saying, 'You only get lost when no one else is looking.'
He answered last. "The one who makes it real for someone else."
The gate opened.
[Trial Complete – Collective Exit Achieved]
[No Trait Corruption Detected]
[XP Gained: +80 per Player]
[Group Synergy: Unstable – Potential Growth]
[Ghost Ledger Reputation: Whisper-Level Established]
They woke together, the psychic link slowly unraveling.
Lucen sat cross-legged, her fingers resting against her deck as if listening to fading harmonics.
Sear stood, exhaling a plume of smoke.
Hollow paced, the memory of his fear still a tangible thing.
Jack stared at his interface, which now glowed with a subtle silver shimmer. No one spoke for a while.
Then Hollow said it aloud: "We did it."
Jack nodded. "The win doesn't matter."
"Then what does?" Sear asked.
"That we stayed."
Lucen closed her eyes. "That we found each other."
[Ghost Ledger: Team Format Confirmed – Collective Identity Pending Finalization]
[New Pathway Unlocked: Echo-Level Trials | Access: Restricted]
The House didn't comment. But the System noted them now. As one.
[System Glitch Detected – Emotional Sync Outside Forecast]
[Audit In Progress – Flag: Nonstandard Outcome, Pending Review]
[Chapter End – First Group Trial Completed. Ghost Ledger Verified. Deeper Layers Now Accessible. Identity Solidifying.]