“Dominion damn it! Why now? Why here?”

  The clamor of boots drifting down the stairs grew louder with each passing moment. Footsteps that promised brutal death.

  Galia squawked, but Aerion pushed her aside. “Stay back. It’s not safe for you.”

  The little phoenix clucked again, raising her wings as if to say she could fight too.

  Aerion ignored her.

  Those were Reavers storming down the stairs. Why they had suddenly decided to attack, she had no clue. Perhaps they were waiting for enough of their kind to arrive. Perhaps they had to perform some kind of ritual before entering this sacred place.

  The timing, however, gave Aerion pause. They had arrived mere minutes after Greg entered the Trial. But how had they known?

  The storm of questions mattered little at this point. She would have to defend the hallway without Greg. And without her greatest advantage.

  Before, when she activated [Reave], she’d dropped Galia, losing herself in a single-minded fervor to destroy any and all foes around her.

  She couldn’t protect anyone in that state. No, Aerion needed to keep her wits about her, which meant she’d be at a severe disadvantage.

  Nevermind the gap in strength and speed—how on Axius was she to defend against a whole horde of them? There were hundreds, perhaps even thousands.

  An unwinnable situation, and she knew it.

  The first Reaver burst from the hallway, cold elven eyes locking onto Aerion before rushing her.

  She blocked and parried as best she could, grimacing as each vibration traveled up her sword and numbed her arm.

  Another appeared. Aerion struck back, driving her fist into its chest and activating [Shock].

  The peak Emergence ability fired tendrils of lightning that rippled through the berserking elf, freezing him long enough to allow Aerion to dodge another blow.

  Then came a third. And a fourth and a fifth.

  Aerion was overwhelmed in seconds.

  Attacks rained down upon her from every direction, each with the power to kill. Her every thought was consumed with blocking.

  This was no longer a fight. It was a desperate battle for survival.

  A squawk split the air, followed by a ball of fire rolling across the ground. A sword strike descended upon the tiny creature.

  “No!” she shrieked, diving for Galia. Forgetting her own battle, Aerion grabbed the little phoenix and rolled, taking the full brunt of the blow herself.

  Aerion screamed as pain erupted within her body, steel carving through the fabric of her light armor, tracing a line of red across her back.

  Aerion refused to let go. Cradling the baby phoenix in one arm, she fought on with Aurora in the other, intentionally taking cuts across her legs and arms in order to shield her chest and protect the terrified creature.

  And then, the inevitable finally happened. Rather, Aerion wondered what had taken so long.

  With a sickening crunch, her blade snapped in two. A message flashed before her eyes:

  Aurora [Rare] has been destroyed.

  Aerion barely had time to register the shock before a kick sent her sprawling. She looked up to find more than a dozen Reavers crowding into the chamber, with more piling in by the second. If she stayed, she’d be dead in moments.

  Screaming through the pain, Aerion forced herself to her feet. She didn’t even bother to look at the entrance—clogged as it was with an endless tide of Reavers.

  Instead, she sprinted toward the other passage, the same small archway Greg had disappeared into moments earlier.

  Aerion dodged and weaved between Reavers who sought to stop her, even physically pummeling one to the ground, trampling over his head to make it.

  She could only pray to the gods that she wasn’t making a terrible mistake.

  Charging through the dark tunnel, Aerion didn’t dare look behind her as she sped to the white light.

  If she had, she would have noticed that not a single Reaver dared step beyond its entrance.

  I wasn’t sure what to expect when I stepped into the dark tunnel for a second time. Probably another fight, though I honestly didn’t know if I could deal with anything stronger than what I’d just fought.

  When I emerged into the bright light, however, a lower-middle-class suburban neighborhood was the last thing I expected.

  My neighborhood. Where I’d grown up.

  Only everything was gray. Not just the sky—the world itself seemed drained of color. The people walking and driving by looked half-dead, shambling through their daily routines like zombies.

  I turned to look for the tunnel entrance, but like last time, it was gone, replaced by cracked asphalt and endless rows of mass-produced cookie-cutter houses.

  “Okay, that’s a problem,” I muttered when my inventory failed to open. My clothes had changed too, and I now wore jeans, a t-shirt, and sneakers. The same stuff I used to wear back on Earth. My status screen wouldn’t activate either.

  It was like I was normal again.

  Except I didn’t feel the weakness I always did when I took off my gear. I felt the same as ever. Was my real body still armored somewhere else, and was this only a hallucination? I honestly didn’t know, but the Trial had proven it could pull all sorts of weird shit already. I’d died in the previous phase.

  Clearly, this was part of the test, too.

  So I walked on, past trash-filled yards, each overgrown with different amounts of weeds based on how much their owners cared.

  In this neighborhood? Nobody cared very much, which gave the whole place a rundown, unsafe vibe that was fully earned.

  I finally reached our house, paused at the rusted chain-link gate to stare at the door.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  Did I really want to go in? There was nothing there for me. Nothing but the pain of scabbed-over memories. So I kept walking, toward the park. At least I had some happy memories there, waiting for Dad to get over his tantrums.

  I froze the moment I stepped into that nostalgic dump of dirt, half-decomposed trash, and broken swings.

  A woman my age sat on the only working one, holding the rusty chains that held it up.

  “About time you showed up,” she said.

  Amelia. My elder sister.

  Her glare was sharp enough to send chills down my spine. The same exact glare that made me cower in terror as a kid.

  Old reflexes took over, and I shirked back as she stood up and walked over.

  “Look at you,” she sneered. “Still as pathetic as ever. I can see the fear in your eyes.”

  Every instinct screamed at me to run, but I put a lid on them. This wasn’t some superpowered monster, after all.

  Amelia might have terrified me as a child, and sure, that trauma was still definitely there, but I was an adult now. To say nothing of all the shit I’d seen recently.

  “Still the spineless little brat, aren’t you?”

  “Not quite, sis,” I said, giving her a sad smile. “Besides, I think I know what this is. You’re not really here. You’re just a memory. That much is obvious. I’m guessing this Trial wants me to beat you up or something to prove I’ve overcome my fear. But I won’t.”

  She laughed, eyes filled with condescension. “Won’t? That’s a laugh. More like you can’t, dipshit. You’ve never had it in you. You couldn’t ever stand up to me. Or to Dad. You cowered in a corner while I took the hits. For you. Or did you forget that I was the one who stood up to him? That I suffered so much more than you could ever know. And what did you do? Nothing.”

  “I know,” I said quietly.

  “You know nothing of what I went through. That’s why I broke you, you know?” she spat. “I kept thinking you’d change. Grow some spine. But I came to realize that was a stupid hope. I saw you for what you really are. You disgust me, Greg. Too scared to fight. To do anything that upset the boat. So I gave you what you needed. I toughened you the fuck up.”

  “Uh, no? You just gave me what Dad gave you. All the pain and the anger he shoved on you—you needed to vent, and I happened to be an awfully convenient target.”

  “So what if you were?”

  “I don’t blame you, you know,” I said, looking away. “I never really did.”

  Her lips curled up into a sneer. “Don’t you dare pretend to understand me. I hated you. I meant every blow, every word. I wanted you to suffer.”

  I shook my head. “Nah. Dad chose to be an alcoholic. He chose to abuse us. You were a victim, just like me. Hurting me was the only way you could feel in control. The only way you stayed sane. And… I understand that now.”

  Her eyes burned. “If you understood, then why didn’t you stop him? Why didn’t you save me?”

  Her words cut deep. Not the least of which because I’d asked myself that a hundred thousand times. Why didn’t I help? Why couldn’t I have struck him when he wasn’t looking? Or called Child Protection? Surely, they’d have given us a better life?

  My throat tightened. “Because you’re right. I was scared. Terrified, actually. It hurt so much I stopped coming home. I’d sneak out before Dad woke up. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

  “Oh, yes, I know. That was when he really started going after me.”

  I cringed at the thought. “I was a stupid little shit. You got me there. But what the hell could we have done? We were just kids, Am.”

  Even though I knew all of this was a simulation, purpose-built to push my buttons, I found my temper rising regardless.

  “And you still are,” she said, looking at me with the same look she gave the trash that littered the park. “That’s why you’ll never escape me. You’ll never beat him.”

  I forced myself to meet her eyes. “I somehow doubt that. But you know? What I said earlier about not hating you? It’s true. I never did. Not once. I think I understood, even back then. And as bad as you had it, it didn’t hold a candle to me. He went easier on you because you reminded him of Mom, you know? I think he saw himself in me, and that made him angrier. But you know all that. You saw what he did. Hell, you even helped me treat the wounds afterward. That’s not something someone who hates me would do. You felt guilty. I bet you still do.”

  Amelia’s expression faltered, her mask of anger cracking for just a second.

  “That man was scum,” she whispered.

  “On that, I wholeheartedly agree,” I said. “But you’re not him. No matter how much you try to convince me otherwise.”

  Her glare hardened again, but there was something else this time. Sadness, mixed in with everything else.

  “I kept telling myself he’d come to his senses eventually,” I muttered, walking closer to her. “But the only person who could have reined him in died in that car crash. Looking back, it’s a miracle we didn’t end up worse.”

  Amelia’s shoulders sagged. “You really don’t hate me?” she asked in a voice far gentler than before.

  “Nope,” I said with a grin. “You’re probably too scared to ask, so I’ll just come out and say it. I forgive you, Am. And I hope you can forgive me for everything I didn’t do back then. I guarantee you, If anything like that were to happen now, I’d beat the shit out of him.”

  Her eyes hardened. “That’s not enough. Would you kill him?”

  “Yes,” I answered without thinking.

  She pointed into the distance, her hand steady as a rifle barrel. “Then prove it.”

  I followed her outstretched finger—toward the house.

  “He’s inside?” I asked.

  Amelia nodded. “Go. End him.”

  I hesitated, but not because I questioned my resolve.

  Something didn’t feel right. Was this the trial trying to accomplish here? Was this its real goal? For me to trash my sister and forgive the assfuck who screwed us over?

  Well, too bad. Amelia was a victim. She’d done bad things, sure, but she hadn’t chosen it.

  He had.

  My father hadn’t just drowned himself in alcohol. He’d used it as an excuse to vent his anger on us. I understood the need to numb yourself—hell, I was trying to do just that when I walked into Cosmo’s bar that first time.

  But for a father to traumatize his children, to screw over their entire future just because he couldn’t handle losing Mom? That was more than failure. That was unforgivable.

  “Alright,” I said. “Fuck the Trial. Real or not, I’m not compromising myself just to rank up.”

  It wasn’t far to the overgrown yard, past the shitty fence we’d cut ourselves on more times than I could count, tearing our skin on the rusted metal.

  Every step closer to the door felt like stepping back in time. To a darker place. A place I wanted to forget about.

  The door was locked, but the flimsy latch broke with only a little pressure. As a kid, I would’ve gone through the window, sneaking past Dad to avoid whatever it was he was pissed about that night. But as I’d told Amelia, I wasn’t that kid anymore.

  He looked the same as I remembered him—which made sense, considering he was a construct the Trial pulled from my memory. Bags under his dead eyes, skin sagging.

  “About time you showed up, you little shit,” he rasped, same as always. “Go get me a smoke. Don’t come back without it, or I’ll give it to you.”

  Ah, yes. His favorite pastime.

  I didn’t bother dignifying his words with a response. Instead, I moved to the kitchen and grabbed the thinnest knife I could find. The blade was dull. Worthless for most cutting tasks, but it would be enough.

  “The fuck you think you’re doing?”

  He clenched a fist, and despite all the monsters I’d fought, all the crises I’d lived through—that fist nearly froze me in place.

  How many times had it knocked out my teeth or shattered my nose? My body remembered all that old trauma.

  Not enough to prevent me from batting his arm aside, though. Not enough to stop me from driving the kitchen knife into his gut.

  The dull thing resisted, but I gave it all I had, sinking it deep into him.

  He screamed in a way I had never heard from him.

  “You thought you were invincible,” I whispered, twisting the blade. “You thought you were God. Turns out you’re nothing. Less than nothing.”

  Blood bubbled from his mouth as he fell to his knees. For the first time in my life, I was in control.

  And then he smiled. Full and genuine, without a trace of anger.

  “Thank you,” he whispered, before collapsing into a pool of his own blood.

  I staggered back. What the fuck was that?

  That wasn’t real. That wasn’t him! He’d never say that.

  No, that was me. That was me trying to hope. That maybe he wasn’t that bad, after all. That he wanted to be saved.

  Rationalizing his existence, like most people did.

  Or maybe… maybe it was exactly what he wanted all along. Had he wanted this? Had he treated us like that to get one of us to blow our top and end his suffering?

  Ridiculous. I shook off the thought.

  The blood spread across the floor. I stared at it, and all I felt was emptiness. Closure, maybe, but not a shred of regret. That was probably wrong. People weren’t supposed to feel this way after killing someone. Let alone their own parents.

  But some people didn’t deserve a second chance. Family or not.

  I turned away, and the house dissolved behind me. The world began to disintegrate until I was left in that same empty white space from before.

  I waited… and waited, but no tunnel materialized, showing me the way out.

  Just when I was beginning to wonder if I’d failed the Trial, a system message popped up.

  Congratulations! You have successfully passed the Convergence Trial. Calculating Blessing Evolution…

  ERROR.

  ERROR.

  ERROR.

  Anomaly detected. Multiple Champions are not allowed.

  Calculating… Attempting reconciliation.

  Reconciliation Failed. Contacting Covenant Core…

  ERROR. Cascading Failure detected. Purging Anomalies…

  Purge Failed. Error is fatal.