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Chapter 9 - Chapter 9: Blood, Mirrors, and Cosmic Horrors

The crystalline forest wanted me dead.

I knew this the moment the first wolf attacked – not the cautious, testing lunge I'd expected, but a full-force assault that would have torn my throat out if I hadn't thrown myself sideways at the last second.

The creature's jaws snapped shut inches from my face. I hit the ground hard, crystal shards cutting through my clothes and into my skin. Blood welled up, hot and immediate.

MOVE! Sharanga screamed in my mind.

I rolled just as the wolf's claws raked the ground where my head had been, leaving gouges in solid crystal. The Raksha Kavach seal on my back flared hot, absorbing an impact I hadn't even registered.

Three wolves. All made of living glass filled with swirling galaxies. All trying to kill me.

And they were just the beginning.

I scrambled to my feet, nocking an arrow with shaking hands. The lead wolf charged again, impossibly fast. I aimed, released—

The arrow passed straight through it.

"What the hell?"

The wolf wasn't where it appeared to be. The crystal surfaces everywhere were reflecting false images, creating dozens of phantom wolves. By the time I understood, the real one was already on top of me.

Teeth like diamond blades closed on my arm. Pain exploded, white-hot and terrible. I felt the Raksha Kavach seal shatter on my forearm, breaking before my actual bones did. The protective magic scattered like glass dust, absorbing the damage.

That seal had cost me ten gold. It just saved my arm from being ripped off.

I screamed and slammed Sharanga's lower limb into the wolf's head. The impact jarred my entire body, but the wolf released me, stumbling back. My arm was a mess of blood and torn flesh where the seal hadn't fully protected me.

Healing potion, NOW! Kala hissed.

I fumbled for the vial with my good hand, nearly dropping it twice before getting it to my lips. The liquid tasted like copper and flowers. Warmth spread through my arm as the wounds began closing – not fully healed, but enough to use.

The second wolf leaped at me from behind. I didn't see it. Kala did.

She exploded from my wrist, growing from bracelet-size to fifteen feet of scaled fury in half a second. Her wings spread wide, those translucent membranes suddenly edged with what looked like frozen starlight. She intercepted the wolf mid-air, her fangs sinking into its neck.

The creature exploded into shards of light. Kala crashed to the ground, shrinking back immediately. That... exhausted me. Can't do that again for a while.

Two wolves left. Both circling, more cautious now.

My arm throbbed. My cultivation energy was already depleted from the healing potion's integration. And I had no idea how much further I had to go in this trial.

Focus, Sharanga commanded. The reflections lag slightly. Watch the patterns.

I forced myself to breathe, to observe. The wolves moved, and their reflections in the crystal surfaces followed a split-second behind. Not much, but enough. If I aimed not at what I saw, but where the lag suggested they actually were...

The third wolf lunged. I fired at empty air three feet to the left of where it appeared.

The arrow found flesh. The wolf dissolved into light-shards.

The final wolf snarled – a sound like breaking glass mixed with windchimes – and charged head-on. No tricks this time. Just raw speed and violence.

I activated Phantom Step. Energy flooded into my legs as the technique finally clicked. The world blurred. I was suddenly five feet to the right, and the wolf's momentum carried it past me.

I nocked, aimed at its real position, and fired.

Direct hit. The wolf shattered.

I collapsed against a crystal tree, gasping. Blood still seeped from my arm despite the healing. My energy reserves were dangerously low. And according to the trial notification still floating in my vision, this was just the entrance.

"I'm going to die here," I whispered.

Not if I have anything to say about it, Sharanga replied firmly. Rest. Two minutes. Then we move.

Those two minutes felt like seconds. When I forced myself to stand, my legs shook. But stopping wasn't an option. The trial didn't have a time limit, but my supplies did. Three healing potions. Two energy recovery draughts. And a growing certainty that I'd need every single one.

The forest shifted as I walked, paths appearing and disappearing. The crystal surfaces showed increasingly disturbing reflections – not just false positions, but alternate versions of reality.

In one reflection, I saw myself already dead, throat torn out, eyes glassy.

In another, I saw myself older, covered in scars, standing over mountains of corpses with dead eyes.

In a third, I saw myself from my old life – Aria Sharma in her Oxford apartment, alive, safe, working on her thesis. That one hurt worse than the death visions.

Don't look, Kala warned. These are fear projections. The labyrinth feeds on doubt.

"Easier said than done."

But I forced myself to focus on the path, not the reflections. Left turn. Right turn. Straight ahead. Following an instinct I couldn't explain.

The howling started after what felt like an hour.

Not wolves this time. Something worse.

The sound came from everywhere and nowhere, a chorus of voices that shouldn't exist. Screaming in languages I didn't know, whispering secrets that made my skin crawl. And underneath it all, a rhythmic pounding like a massive heartbeat.

The crystal walls around me began to pulse in time with that heartbeat. Red light bled through the transparent surfaces, as if the entire labyrinth was alive and I was walking through its veins.

Then I saw it.

At the end of the corridor, a figure stood. Human-shaped but wrong. Its body was made of black crystal that seemed to absorb light. Where its face should be, there was only a mirror – and in that mirror, I saw my own reflection screaming.

Guardian Wraith, Kala breathed in horror. Ancestral memories say these were created by the ancient sect to kill unworthy challengers. They're nearly impossible to defeat.

"Nearly isn't never."

They match your cultivation level but have infinite energy and feel no pain. And they can copy any technique you use.

"So how do I win?"

You don't. You survive.

The wraith moved. Not walked – moved. One moment at the corridor's end, the next right in front of me. Its mirrored face reflected my terrified expression as it raised a hand that ended in blades of black crystal.

I didn't think. I just reacted. Phantom Step. Dodge left. The blades missed by inches, carving through the crystal wall behind me like it was paper.

I fired an arrow at its back. The wraith's free hand moved in a blur, catching the arrow mid-flight. Then it turned and fired the arrow back at me using my own technique.

I barely dodged. The arrow – my own arrow – embedded itself in the wall next to my head.

It copies everything! Sharanga yelled. Don't show it anything you're not prepared to have used against you!

The wraith attacked again, faster now. I activated Phantom Step to dodge, but the wraith activated the same technique, matching my speed perfectly. We blurred around the corridor in a deadly dance, neither able to land a hit.

My energy was draining rapidly. Phantom Step wasn't cheap. At this rate, I'd run out of cultivation energy before I could escape.

The Codex, Kala said suddenly. The knowledge from the soul crystal earlier. You learned spatial awareness. USE IT.

Right. The reward from the first wisdom test. I'd absorbed knowledge about seeing through illusions and understanding spatial distortions. I hadn't tried applying it in combat yet.

I stopped moving and closed my eyes.

The wraith blurred toward me, blades raised for a killing strike. In my mind's eye, I could See the space around me – not with my eyes, but with that new spatial sense. I felt the wraith's position, its momentum, the angle of its strike.

I stepped aside without looking. The blades passed through where I'd been standing.

The wraith was off-balance for a split second. That's all I needed.

I drove Sharanga's sharpened lower limb into the wraith's chest like a spear, channeling every drop of remaining energy into the blow. The impact sent shockwaves through the corridor. The wraith's mirrored face shattered, revealing nothing underneath – just emptiness.

It collapsed, dissolving into black smoke that tasted like ash and forgotten nightmares.

I fell to my knees, completely drained. My energy reserves were gone. My arm ached. My entire body felt like one massive bruise.

Energy recovery draught, Sharanga reminded me weakly. Even the divine weapon sounded tired.

I drank one of my two remaining draughts. Energy flooded back, not enough to fully restore me, but enough to continue.

"How much further?" I asked the empty air.

As if in answer, the corridor ahead split open, revealing a staircase leading down. At the bottom, I could see light – not the harsh crystal reflections, but soft golden illumination.

That's the Heart of the Labyrinth, Kala said. We're close.

I descended the stairs on shaking legs. Each step felt like it might be my last. But I kept going. Because stopping meant dying. And I hadn't survived this long just to give up now.

The chamber at the bottom was circular, with walls made of crystal that showed not reflections, but visions. I saw battles from ancient times – cultivators fighting creatures that looked like nightmares given form. I saw cities burning. I saw the sky itself cracking open.

And in every vision, I saw a figure in dark armor, crowned with what looked like solidified darkness. His face was obscured, but his presence radiated power that made my bones ache even through the vision.

The figure raised his hand, and entire armies disintegrated. He spoke a word, and mountains crumbled. He existed, and reality bent around him.

Underneath the vision, text appeared in Sanskrit:

"Kaalsena, the Immortal Demon Emperor. He who defied the Celestials. He who broke the chains of Heaven. He who drowned the world in crimson rain."

Another vision replaced it. A different figure, this one easier to see. A young man with silver hair and eyes that seemed to contain entire universes. He stood in a field of corpses, his hands covered in blood, his expression one of absolute despair.

The vision rewound. The same man, but younger, happier. Then it played forward, and I watched him die – cut down by betrayal. Then the vision reset, and he lived again, but differently. Death. Reset. Life. Death. Reset. Over and over, the same figure living and dying in endless variations.

Text appeared:

"The Time Walker. He who has lived 247 lives trying to prevent the apocalypse. He who has loved and lost across countless cycles. He who refuses to let the world end, even if it costs him his sanity."

247 lives. The same number Sharanga mentioned about failed wielders. The same number from the soul crystal knowledge. This wasn't coincidence.

The visions faded, and a new text appeared, this one directed at me:

"Two great powers shape this age. One seeks to destroy. One seeks to preserve. Both will burn the world in their attempt to save it. And you, small challenger, have been noticed by forces beyond your comprehension."

A pedestal rose from the chamber floor. On it sat a book bound in leather that shifted colors like Kala's scales.

I approached cautiously, expecting another attack. But nothing came. Just the book, waiting.

I opened it. The pages were blank for a moment. Then words began writing themselves:

"You ask why you are here. Why you remember a world called Earth. Why you carry memories that don't belong in this realm."

"The answer is simple: You were Called."

"When the world senses extinction approaching, it reaches across the void between dimensions. It finds souls with the strength to change fate – souls from realms where cultivation doesn't exist, where people must rely on ingenuity and knowledge rather than power. Souls like yours."

"You are not the first. You will not be the last. The Time Walker was Called 247 lifetimes ago and has been trying to save this world ever since, living and dying and living again. Others were Called and failed. Some died. Some went mad. Some joined the very forces they were meant to oppose."

"The Demon Emperor was Called six centuries ago. He tried to save the world by destroying the Celestial Realm that oppresses it. His methods brought only death. Now he is the very calamity he once sought to prevent."

The weight of those words settled on me like a physical burden. The Demon Emperor – the figure in the visions who could destroy mountains with a word – had been like me. A transmigrator. Someone Called to save the world who instead became its greatest threat.

And the Time Walker, living the same life 247 times, trying and failing over and over to prevent whatever catastrophe was coming.

"What will you become?" the book asked. "Savior? Destroyer? Or just another footnote in history, forgotten like so many others?"

"Choose wisely. The world is watching."

The book dissolved, transforming into a small pendant shaped like a mirror. Knowledge flooded my mind – not painful, but overwhelming. Techniques. History. Secrets about cultivation that the modern world had forgotten.

And most importantly: a warning.

"The Celestial Realm grows unstable. Their war is coming to the mortal world. When it does, no one will be safe. Not the weak. Not the strong. Not the innocent. Prepare yourself. Gather allies. Grow strong. And when the time comes to choose – choose wisely."

A notification appeared:

UNKNOWN TRIAL COMPLETERewards:- Mirror Soul Technique (Clone Creation)- Codex Pendant (Ancient Knowledge Repository)

- Spatial Attunement (Passive Ability)- Title: Truth Seeker- WARNING: You have been Marked by destiny. Great powers now know you exist.

That last line made my blood run cold.

The chamber dissolved. Reality reasserted itself. I was back in the original trial room beneath the Underground Arena, gasping, covered in blood and crystal dust, barely standing.

Lady Yamini stood before me, her eyes wide. "Impossible. You actually survived the Unknown Trial."

The other four cultivators were there, looking exhausted. But when they saw me – saw the blood, the torn clothes, the wild look in my eyes – they took a step back.

"What did you face?" one of them whispered.

I didn't answer. Couldn't answer. Because how do you explain that you just learned you're part of a cosmic game between beings who can destroy cities? That the Demon Emperor everyone fears was once like you? That somewhere out there, someone has lived and died 247 times trying to save a world that keeps ending?

"Here." Lady Yamini handed me a jade token engraved with the Gupta Sect symbol. "You've earned this. Outer disciple admission, no questions asked." She studied me with unnerving intensity. "But tell me – what did the trial show you? What truth did you learn?"

"That I'm in way over my head," I said honestly. "And that the world is more dangerous than I ever imagined."

She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Welcome to cultivation, child. That's when you know you're truly beginning to understand."

I stumbled out of the arena as dawn was breaking. My body ached everywhere. My cultivation was depleted. And my mind was reeling with revelations I wasn't ready for.

That was intense, Kala said weakly. She was still recovering from her earlier battle. Are you okay?

"No. Not even a little bit."

The Demon Emperor was Called like you, Sharanga said quietly. That's... concerning.

"Concerning? It's terrifying! What if I end up like him? What if trying to save the world turns me into the thing that destroys it?"

Then we'll stop you, Kala said firmly. That's what bonds are for. You're not alone, Aanya. You have us. You have Priya. You have people who care whether you become a savior or a monster.

She's right, Sharanga added. The Demon Emperor failed because he was alone. But you're not. That makes all the difference.

I wanted to believe them. But the visions of that dark figure destroying armies with a gesture, of the Time Walker's 247 failures, kept replaying in my mind.

I was Called. Specifically summoned to fight cosmic threats. And I was only at Body Foundation Level 4. How was I supposed to save a world when I could barely save myself?

When I finally reached my room, Priya was waiting. She took one look at me and went pale.

"What happened? You look like you fought a war!"

I collapsed onto my bed. "Worse. I learned the truth about why we're here."

I told her everything. The trial. The battles. The visions of the Demon Emperor and the Time Walker. The revelation that we were Called, summoned by the world itself to fight forces that could end civilization.

When I finished, Priya was silent for a long moment.

"So we're... what, chosen heroes?" Her voice was small. "Expected to save the world?"

"Apparently. Or die trying. Or go insane. Or become the very thing we're supposed to fight." I laughed, slightly hysterical. "No pressure, right?"

"This is insane. This is absolutely insane." Priya ran her hands through her hair. "I thought transmigrating was the craziest thing that would happen to me. But no. Apparently, we're cosmic chess pieces in a war between dimensions."

"I don't think we have a choice about being pieces. But maybe we can choose which side of the board we're on."

"And what about the Time Walker? Someone who's lived 247 lives trying to save the world and keeps failing?" Priya's voice shook. "If he can't do it after two centuries of trying, how are we supposed to?"

"I don't know. But we have something he might not have had – each other. We know we're Called now. Maybe that changes things."

Priya was quiet for a moment, then nodded slowly. "Okay. Okay. So we're chosen ones trying to prevent cosmic apocalypse. We can work with that." She looked at me with determination cutting through her fear. "But first, you need to rest. You look like death."

"I feel like death."

"Rest. Heal. Get your strength back. The apocalypse can wait a few days." She stood to leave, then paused. "Aanya? Whatever happens – whatever you become – I'm with you. We're in this together."

"Together," I agreed.

After she left, I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. The mirror pendant felt heavy around my neck. The knowledge from the Codex swirled in my mind. And the visions of the Demon Emperor and the Time Walker haunted my thoughts.

Sleep, Sharanga urged gently. You can't save the world if you die of exhaustion first.

Tomorrow, we train harder, Kala added. If cosmic horrors are coming, we need to be ready.

"We're so screwed," I muttered.

Probably, both companions agreed cheerfully.

Despite everything, I smiled. At least I had good company for the apocalypse.

I fell asleep thinking about dark emperors and time travelers, about cosmic wars and destiny's call. About how five weeks ago, I'd been a grad student worried about her thesis.

Now I was a chosen champion who'd just learned that the world might end and I was somehow supposed to stop it.

My life really was the worst isekai ever.

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