The 7 trails before transmigration

**Ashen Hollow — Trial II: The Feast of Flesh and Memory**

The door sealed behind Elias with a hollow thud, and the silence that followed felt thick enough to chew. A scent drifted through the dark—clove oil, rotting sugar, and singed meat. The scent of memory. The lights flickered on, one by one, revealing a grotesque banquet hall draped in tattered velvet and vines of dried sinew. The ceiling loomed high, warped and pulsing like the inside of a beast.

A long table stretched forward, its surface set with gold-rimmed porcelain and steaming dishes. Chairs were already filled—ghostly figures, half-transparent, half-decayed, faces flickering with sorrow. He knew them.

His sister sat at the head, eyes glassy, lips sewn shut. Ji-hwan, the childhood friend he abandoned. A motherly NPC from Ashen Hollow who once gave him shelter. A classmate who had jumped. So many. Too many.

His feet moved on their own. The chair scraped as he sat. The utensils were already in his hands.

The first dish was placed before him. A ceramic bowl of black broth, swimming with fragments of glass and letters from a suicide note—Ji-hwan's last words. The spoon trembled in his grip.

"You have to eat," whispered a voice behind his ear. It wasn't real. It couldn't be.

The broth was bitter, metallic. As it slid down his throat, the warmth turned to fire. His hand jerked—his fingers stretched too long, skin translucent. His reflection in the polished bowl was weeping ink.

Each dish brought a new taste, a new weight. Burnt rice soaked in apology. Overcooked pork belly marinated in screams. A tart, citrus-glazed guilt from his sister's eyes the day he left.

When the plate holding the memory of her abandonment arrived—a single white egg resting in crimson jelly—he froze.

"You eat this," said the voice again, "and you live. But she will forget what she felt. She will lose her voice. Forever."

The jelly shimmered like blood caught in candlelight. The egg pulsed.

Around him, the ghosts stared with hollow hunger. Silent. Waiting.

His mouth was dry. He could taste the salt of his own tears. Hear the cracking of his knuckles as his body continued to fracture—bone exposed at the wrists, skin sloughing into lace.

If he refused, he would starve here. A poetic punishment.

If he ate, she would lose her memory of pain. But would that be mercy—or theft?

He brought the fork to his lips.

And stopped.

His voice broke the silence. "No more."

The room groaned. Plates shattered. The egg screamed.

"I carry them," Elias said. "I carry every one of them. But I won't consume them to forget. I won't desecrate what they gave me."

The banquet rotted in an instant. Flesh turned to dust. The ghosts, one by one, looked at him—and nodded.

His sister, lips still sewn, smiled.

Then the door opened.

"TRIAL COMPLETE: GUILT INTEGRATED."

**Memory Score: 82%**

**Corruption: 14%**

**Body Integrity: 61%**

Elias limped into the next corridor, ink still weeping from his eyes. His mouth was full of ashes. But his soul was his own.

For now.**Chapter 12: Trial III - The Clockwork Heart**

It began with a sound.

Not a voice. Not a scream. But a tick.

Slow. Unyielding. Like a heartbeat forged in brass.

Tick.

Elias opened his eyes.

He was lying on a cold, metallic floor, the texture rough against his skin like rusted chainmail. The air smelled of copper and burnt oil, thick and warm, coating his tongue with an acrid bitterness. His lungs fought each breath as if the air itself didn't want to be breathed.

Overhead, gears the size of buildings turned in impossible loops, grinding against each other with a mechanical groan that vibrated his bones. Sparks rained like ash from unseen heights. The chamber was vast—cathedral-sized—with walls that moved with a sluggish breath, as if the whole place were alive and tired of waking.

He stood. The motion made his joints creak.

In the center of the room stood the heart.

A colossal, shattered clock suspended by chains of ivory bone and braided hair. Its core was hollow, its gears misaligned, leaking golden ichor that hissed when it touched the ground. A single dial spun counterclockwise, frantically. The time read: **00:00**.

A whisper scrolled across the inner rim of the clock, etched in burning red:

> **[TRIAL III: THE CLOCKWORK HEART]**

> **Repair the Heart. Feed it your memory. Or break with time itself.**

Elias stepped forward.

A table appeared before him, elegant in design—obsidian black, trimmed with golden veins like tree roots. Resting atop it: six glass gears, each glowing with a different hue.

He didn't need to be told. He *knew* what they were.

Memories.

One flickered with his mother's laughter on a spring day, chasing bubbles in a sunlit park. Another pulsed with the dim glow of his first true victory in *Ashen Hollow*, surrounded by friends who no longer existed. A third churned with sorrow—the night his father left.

His fingers hovered over them. The glass was warm. Too warm. It burned just to touch.

He chose.

The first gear slipped into his palm, lighter than air. He approached the Heart and pressed it into place.

It screamed.

Not sound—but *feeling*. Like being pulled inside out. The moment the gear slid into its groove, a flood of memories poured from him like blood from a wound. He gasped. His knees buckled. The memory was gone.

Not faded.

*Erased.*

He stood. Again. Inserted another.

And another.

Each one hollowed him. He could feel himself unraveling. His breath grew ragged. His teeth clenched. His body trembled, veins bulging with unfamiliar pressure.

His arms cracked with golden lines.

He fell to his knees before the final gear.

It was the brightest.

The happiest.

His mother—again. A rainy afternoon. Her hands in his hair, singing that lullaby. The one he hadn't heard since her funeral.

He held the gear to his chest.

He couldn't.

Could he?

The clock ticked faster.

> **00:30. 00:15. 00:05.**

His vision blurred. Time was breaking. The walls shuddered. The chains groaned. The sparks turned to flame.

The trial was ending.

He had a choice:

Feed the final gear—and lose that day forever.

Or let time collapse, forcing him to begin again. Trapped in recursion.

Tears slid down his cheeks. Ink-black. He whispered, "I'm sorry."

He inserted the final gear.

Time stopped.

The Heart pulsed.

Whole.

Complete.

Elias collapsed.

> **[TRIAL COMPLETE.]**

> **[REALITY RESTORED: 36%]**

> **[MEMORY RECONCILIATION: DEGRADED.]**

He couldn't remember what he had lost. Only the ache.

He stood, alone, beneath the silent Heart. And somewhere far above, a clock tower chimed for the first time in centuries.

The door ahead split open like an eye awakening.

> **[NEXT: TRIAL IV — THE MIRROR OF UNMADE FACES]**