Chapter 339

CH338

Ren

The sharp scent of scallions and simmering broth filled the air as I wiped down the last table. Haruka had gone into the back to prep the next batch of noodles, humming to herself. It felt normal. My arm still ached in certain positions, but I could move. I could breathe. Then, there was a stirring in the air telling me that something was wrong.

Then the front window shattered.

I dropped the rag, heart slamming into my throat. Shouts erupted, the door flew open, and masked men flooded in. One of them had a bat. Another knife. And on their sleeves were embroidered patches. I recognized the symbol as Hotaru’s, but the real Ren was skeptical. Something about the way they moved wasn’t right. I agreed. These men weren’t tigers.

They were shouting something I couldn’t catch over the chaos. Haruka screamed from the back. Someone overturned a table, and soup splashed onto the floor. I turned to run, but a hand closed around my uninjured arm like a vice.

“You’re coming with us,” a voice growled, low and sharp.

I twisted, kicked, landing a solid blow. I fought, swinging my casted hand like a cub. Another man came at me from the side and I braced for impact. Then, just as suddenly, the air shifted.

Gunfire cracked, but it wasn’t from the men who had come in first.

Another group stormed in black-clad, unmarked, and efficient. They weren’t here to protect me. I knew that instantly. One of them barked an order in a language I didn’t understand. The man holding me was shoved aside, and I was yanked into the arms of someone else with rough gloves and no patch.

They weren’t with Hotaru or playing at being with Hotaru either. They were something else entirely. I struggled, kicked again, but this new group didn’t bother to subdue me gently. One of them jammed something sharp into the side of my neck. The world swayed. My limbs went soft. Panic filled me.

I felt my feet leave the ground, my head lolling to the side as they carried me out into the alley. The cold air slapped my face. Tires screeched. Metal doors slammed.

I was tossed into the back of a van.

And the last thing I heard before the darkness took me was someone saying, “We’ve got her.”

The van swerved sharply, and I lurched against the metal wall, groggy and sick from whatever they’d stuck me with. I felt it wearing off the longer they drove. I clawed at the handle, but there was nothing to grab onto in the back of the van. It was all just smooth steel and the weight of something ancient pressing against my ribs. My mind felt hot. Glowing. It was trying to stretch my mind. The vehicle slowed, then stopped.

My stomach turned. I couldn’t feel the real Ren, whether the drug had done something or she had simply vanished, I couldn’t say. The doors flung open, and two of them grabbed me by the arms, dragging me out. I didn’t fight this time. I couldn’t, my limbs were still too heavy.

“Quick!”

I looked up through the rolling clouds to the tip of the mountain, which seemed to stretch into forever but flickered as if it were only half real.

I knew this mountain, though. I had dreamed of it, but I could barely remember it. The trees parted ahead, revealing a jagged maw in the rock.

The cave.

“No,” I whispered, knowing this place to the depths of my soul. My chestis tightening. The wind shifted, and the scent of ash filled my nose. My feet dragged across stone. Every step toward that mouth made something deeper stir in me. A long-locked vault was unsealed in my mind. I knew each of these steps. The walls had become weathered with time, but I knew this place.

My captors didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. The air around us was already vibrating with power, humming like an unseen choir. I could see the glow before we reached it—flickering amber and molten gold. Firelight. Sacred. Hungry.

And waiting.

The gate.

They hauled me to the center of the cave where the floor fell away into a pit of flame.

The Trial.

I opened my mouth to say something, maybe to scream, but one of them shoved me forward with a grunt.

I didn’t fall through it, nor stumble as the ground beneath me crumbled away. The flames took me, swallowing me whole.

But there was no pain.

Heat licked up my sides and twisted into my mind. My nameRen shattered like glass. In its place rose another name, spoken in reverence and fury across lifetimes.

Morgan.

Pyra.

Phoenix.

The fire wrapped around me, burning away the last restraints on the lives I had lived before.

I saw Tsuneo’s face, fierce and laughing, reaching for me. I remembered Tarofu's deep voice, low and calm as a storm, promising Pyra forever. And I remembered the end.

The fight, the rush and desperation. The ceremony crashing down around us and flinging me out into nowhere. The scream that left my throat as the world split and fire poured over everything.

I hit stone hard and weathered beneath my palms.

I gasped.

The fire was gone. My body was whole. The cast had burned away. I lay on cracked stone, staring up at a fractured ceiling. The Celestial Compass was splintered, pieces missing. The constellation lines were dim. Around me, the Dragon Palace stood in eerie silence. Its gold was tarnished. The stone blackened. The place was more ruined than not.

Then, I turned as the gate behind me fizzled, the fire receded and closed.

Trapping me there.

I scoffed, standing and looking around. As if I could be trapped in my own palace. In my own realm?

I turned, taking to the air to fly through the empty corridors down to the lower levels where the pool of void, the other gateway between worlds, the universe, and all that existed, was. The corridors bent and reshaped, sending me on the fastest path to where I was headed. When I reached the chamber, it was a room of pure darkness. It welcomed me with a warm sigh, and I dove into it, peering through the darkness, searching the seemingly endless darkness for a hint of direction.

In the distance, a brilliant blue light snaked through the air, like a giant river parting around a large marble, barely coating it, barely containing it.

This was the truth of the world as Ren had existed. No wonder her presence, her mind seemed so hollow.

No wonder my life and memories as Morgan had begun to poke through and fill in the empty spaces of Ren’s life. A father who had died, an accident, Adele being my mother again. I charged at the flowing river of light, slamming into it. It rippled, barely resisting me, pushing back, but I hissed and darted through it, setting the river ablaze with my light as I broke through.

I had a turtle to butcher.

Morgan

I gasped, jerking in place. I looked up at the sky, noting the ripple of golden light that seemed to change the sky from night to day in a moment and back to night a breath later. The shudder of the whole universe resonated through me.

That bitch was here, alive. Awakened. That meant I didn’t have a lot of time.

I snarled. “Drive me to where my father is. Now!”