"Year three... finally, something that feels real. But I don't trust it."
I had spent two years getting torn apart, remade, and tested beyond anything I could have imagined. But nothing prepared me for this year. Not the cold of Evermont Peak. Not the endless illusions. Not even the Trickster's relentless mockery.
This was different.
This was the year I started to understand—and that scared me.
____
By now, I knew what I could do with my body. My limits—if there were any—felt more like suggestions than boundaries. My hybrid heritage was no longer something I feared; it was something I could embrace.
Control didn't come overnight. But when I learned to connect with the energy around me, I began to see it all: the wind, the trees, the ground. Every living thing was just a version of me in a different form, just like the illusions that the Trickster threw at me. I wasn't just learning to fight—I was learning to become part of everything.
____
The Trickster didn't make me fight myself this year. Instead, he forced me to look inward.
"What's the point of all this power if you don't know who's using it?" he asked one day as I stared at my reflection in the ice-covered peak of Evermont.
"I'm not afraid of myself anymore," I told him. "I know my limits."
"No. You think you know them," he replied, his voice dripping with the usual sarcasm. "You haven't even begun to scratch the surface."
That day, he sent me into an illusion more twisted than any I had faced before. I was forced to fight every single version of myself—every choice I had ever made, every side of my personality, my desires, my flaws.
But this time, I didn't fight back. Instead, I talked to them. I accepted them, one by one. I recognized my past mistakes and accepted my darker sides. And, for the first time, I didn't try to bury my past. I took ownership of it.
____
As my connection to the world deepened, I started to understand how to manipulate the life energy around me. But there was more. I could tap into emotions, distort them, amplify them, and even affect the flow of time in brief moments. The Trickster called it "clashing frequencies."
"Time isn't linear," the Trickster explained. "It's fluid, like a song. But even the best song can be slowed down or sped up if you know the rhythm."
I began to see time distort around me when I focused hard enough. Short bursts of speed or freezing moments for fractions of a second became easy.
The Trickster watched me closely, but his expression was harder to read now. It wasn't praise or ridicule in his eyes. It was something else. Something I couldn't define.
The Trickster finally decided it was time for a real test. He took me to an ancient arena hidden beneath the peak, surrounded by massive, glowing runes. "This," he said, "is where gods test those who are worthy. The Trial of Clarity."
The arena wasn't filled with enemies. Instead, it was filled with choices—some of which were good, some of which were dangerous. And the Trickster forced me to make decisions under extreme pressure, where every decision had consequences that rippled across my world.
In one trial, I had to choose between saving someone I loved and sacrificing a powerful artifact. In another, I had to pick whether to push someone to their death to save hundreds of others.
Each time I made a decision, I had to live with the consequences—and those consequences weighed on me more than anything else I'd experienced.
___
But nothing prepared me for the final test.
"Now," the Trickster said with a cold smile, "we'll see if you can handle the ultimate choice. Your power isn't just in your hands, Dante. It's in your soul."
He had set a trap—an illusion, just like before. Only this time, I couldn't see through it. It wasn't about fighting my reflection or mastering my powers. It was about facing my deepest fear: losing control of myself.
I had to confront a version of me that wasn't just a copy—it was the darkest side of me, the side that enjoyed causing chaos and destruction. I thought I'd defeated that part of me, but this version was more powerful, and more terrifying, than anything I could have imagined.
For months, I fought the darkness inside me. But instead of attacking, I finally did something I'd never done before: I surrendered. I accepted that I wasn't perfect. That sometimes, the darkness was just as much a part of me as the light.
And for the first time, it didn't win.
_____
The Trickster stood behind me as I collapsed to my knees, exhausted but somehow at peace.
"Not bad, kid," he said. "I always knew you had it in you."
"Yeah, well," I muttered, looking at the ground, "you've really got a weird way of teaching."
"Teaching's not my job," he said. "Surviving is. You've made it this far. Now, let's see if you can really survive what's coming next."
The way he said it made me uneasy.
And I knew—something worse was about to begin.