The ten arrows crossed the battlefield.
Aviana was still on her knees.
Her essence was completely drained.
Her body was exhausted.
Her vision was blurry.
She barely had enough strength to lift her head.
The arrows were already upon her.
Then—
Something moved.
A figure suddenly appeared between Aviana and the incoming arrows.
Her eyes widened.
Her heart stopped.
Her teenage son.
He had rushed forward without hesitation.
"Mom!"
WHOOSH!
The ten arrows pierced his body.
One after another.
His chest.
His abdomen.
His shoulder.
His side.
The final arrow struck directly through his heart.
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Aviana's eyes widened.
Her son's body remained standing for a brief moment.
Blood slowly flowed from his wounds.
His eyes remained open.
Then...
His body collapsed.
THUD.
He hit the ground.
Aviana stared.
She couldn't breathe.
She couldn't move.
She couldn't think.
Something inside her chest suddenly cracked.
It felt as though her own heart had been pierced.
A strange pain spread through her entire body.
"No..."
Her voice trembled.
"No..."
She crawled forward.
Her hands shook violently.
She reached toward her son.
But before she could touch him—
Memories flooded through her mind.
Two months.
Two entire months.
The memories came rushing back.
Her son laughing beside her.
Her husband training with her.
The three of them eating together.
Training together.
Fighting together.
Resting together.
There had been moments when they had simply forgotten about the war.
Moments when Aviana had laughed.
Moments when her son had complained about training.
Moments when she had corrected his stance.
Moments when her husband had teased them both.
They had been together.
A family.
For the first time in what felt like forever...
Aviana had experienced something close to peace.
She remembered teaching her son how to fight.
She remembered him failing.
Again.
And again.
And again.
She remembered laughing when he fell.
She remembered helping him stand.
She remembered telling him—
"Again."
She remembered his smile.
His determination.
His childish complaints.
His excitement whenever he learned something new.
All of those memories flashed through her mind in an instant.
Then—
She looked at his body.
Blood covered the ground.
The smile was gone.
The warmth was gone.
Aviana's hands slowly clenched.
Something inside her changed.
Her sadness remained.
But beneath it...
Something else appeared.
Anger.
Pure anger.
A terrifying surge of energy erupted from her body.
BOOM!
The ground beneath her shattered.
Golden and crimson essence exploded outward.
The air trembled.
The Ocean King stopped.
For the first time...
He looked directly at Aviana.
Her head slowly rose.
Her golden eyes had changed.
There was no hesitation in them anymore.
No fear.
No exhaustion.
Only rage.
Aviana slowly stood.
Blood covered her body.
Her hair moved violently in the pressure surrounding her.
She looked directly at the Ocean King.
Then she spoke.
"I am..."
Her voice shook the battlefield.
"...Princess of the Sky."
The pressure intensified.
"You dared..."
Her fists tightened.
"...to hurt my blood."
The air screamed.
"You will pay."
Every word carried enormous pressure.
Every syllable seemed to strike the battlefield itself.
The Ocean Nation warriors felt shivers run through their bodies.
The Sky Nation felt their blood respond.
Then—
Aviana raised her hand.
"SKY NATION!"
Her voice exploded across the battlefield.
"ATTACK!"
The Sky Nation warriors turned.
Thousands of them.
They charged.
At the same time—
The Ocean Nation moved.
But this time...
Something was different.
They weren't attacking the Sky Nation.
They weren't attacking Aviana.
They weren't fighting one another.
They had a single target.
Their king.
The Ocean King.
The battlefield erupted.
Sky Nation warriors rushed forward.
Ocean Nation warriors rushed forward.
They surrounded the Ocean King from every direction.
Some attacked with water.
Others attacked with weapons.
Others used their awakened abilities.
The Ocean King roared.
"You dare?!"
His sword swept across the battlefield.
Several warriors were cut apart.
But there were too many.
They continued advancing.
More.
And more.
And more.
The Ocean King fought desperately.
But the situation had changed completely.
The people who had once followed him...
Were now the ones attacking him.
The Sky Nation joined them.
The Ocean King was surrounded.
He struck down another warrior.
Then another.
But eventually...
The attacks overwhelmed him.
A blade pierced his chest.
Another struck his shoulder.
A powerful water technique crushed his defenses.
Then—
A final attack struck him.
The Ocean King staggered.
His body slowly collapsed.
The battlefield became silent.
The Ocean King...
Was dead.
Aviana stood motionless.
Her chest rose and fell.
Her son remained lying behind her.
She didn't look away.
Then—
The familiar voice of the System echoed throughout the world.
"Congratulations, Aviana."
"Your Trial is over."
The moment the words finished...
Everything disappeared.
The battlefield.
The Ocean Nation.
The Sky Nation.
Her son.
Her husband.
The moon.
The rain.
Everything.
The world became black.
Aviana stood alone.
She slowly closed her eyes.
Then opened them again.
She found herself somewhere familiar.
Her Soul Sea.
The vast inner world stretched around her.
Yet something was different.
The surrounding darkness seemed endless.
Aviana looked around.
Her expression became confused.
She could see Jade Soul Sea...
Yet at the same time...
She was standing outside it.
A strange void surrounded her.
There was no ground.
No sky.
No horizon.
But somehow...
Jade Soul Sea remained visible.
As though she were standing outside her own existence...
Looking inward.
Aviana stared silently.
Then tears slowly rolled down her cheeks.
She didn't wipe them away.
A faint smile appeared instead.
The trial had been fake.
She knew that.
The Ocean Nation hadn't truly killed it's King.
Yet...
The emotions had been real.
The pain had been real.
For two months...
She had lived through those moments.
She had trained with them.
Laughed with them.
Fought beside them.
Protected them.
And then...
She had watched her son die.
Even knowing it wasn't real...
It still hurt.
Aviana lowered her head.
A tear fell into the darkness.
Then another.
She quietly smiled through her tears.
"So..."
"That was the Trial."
She slowly looked toward her Soul Sea.
"It wasn't simply testing my strength."
"It was testing my heart."
Her thoughts returned to the moment the moon had appeared.
After she planted the shard...
The sky had changed.
The sealing symbol had appeared.
Then it had shattered.
Rain had fallen.
And something else had happened.
Aviana remembered seeing something strange.
Something connected to the Sorcery .
Something she still didn't completely understand.
From the information she had gathered...
The same Sorcery that had been neutralized by Blood Sorcery...
or perhaps something the Ocean God had created...
had existed somewhere beyond the knowledge of the Sky God.
A Sorcery the Sky God knew nothing about.
Aviana frowned.
She still couldn't see the entire picture.
There were too many missing pieces.
Too many contradictions.
Too many secrets hidden behind the history of the gods.
But one thing had become clear.
The trial had shown her something.
Something she couldn't ignore.
She wiped the tears from her cheeks.
Her expression became serious.
"There was another problem."
During the climax of the battle...
She had felt something.
A mysterious surge of energy.
Something powerful.
Something fueled by her anger.
When she had looked at the Ocean King...
She had wanted to kill him.
She had truly wanted to.
And that strange energy had appeared.
It felt powerful enough to cause serious damage.
Perhaps enough to change the battle completely.
Yet...
She couldn't use it.
She had tried.
She had attempted to move.
She had attempted to attack.
She had even tried throwing a simple punch.
Nothing happened.
Her body refused to obey.
It was as though the trial itself prevented her from doing something.
Aviana slowly frowned.
"So that wasn't really my choice..."
She looked toward the endless darkness.
"It wasn't simply what I was thinking."
Something had been controlling the circumstances.
Something had been forcing the events to unfold in a certain way.
Then her thoughts returned to the shard.
She remembered why she had issued the command.
Why she had forced the Ocean Nation to attack their own king.
It hadn't simply been revenge.
It had been a distraction.
A necessary distraction.
She needed the Ocean Nation away from her.
She needed time to plant the shard.
And more importantly...
She didn't believe she could survive much longer.
Two months of constant fighting had pushed her beyond her limits.
She had fought the Ocean King again and again.
She had fought Elite-rank creatures.
She had trained.
She had been injured.
She had recovered.
Then been injured again.
She remembered one particular battle.
The back of her body had been torn open.
Blood had poured across the battlefield.
Some of her organs had even become visible through the wound.
She had nearly collapsed.
She remembered the pain.
The helplessness.
The exhaustion.
She couldn't bear going through that again.
So...
Finishing the Trial early had been the best choice.
Plant the shard.
Create the moon.
Restore the Sky Nation's power.
End the war.
Survive.
That had been her goal.
And in the end...
She believed she had succeeded.
The two nations had finally stopped fighting.
The Ocean Nation had felt peace.
The Sky Nation had regained its inheritance.
The moon had returned.
The sealing sorcery had shattered.
For a moment...
It had felt like the beginning of a new era.
But there was another problem.
Aviana's expression became complicated.
"The Blood Nation..."
"And the Earth Nation..."
She remembered the war she had indirectly helped create.
The conflict between Blood and Earth.
The battle had only grown stronger.
She couldn't say what would happen in the future.
But if she followed the events she had seen...
The Blood Nation would eventually win.
At least...
That was what the trial had shown her.
But Aviana knew better than to trust everything she had seen.
That entire world had been a trial.
A recreation.
A reflection of history.
Perhaps it had shown her what happened in the past.
Perhaps it had changed certain events.
Perhaps it had even created possibilities that never truly happened.
She didn't know.
"I don't know what the real Princess of the Sky did."
Aviana slowly clenched her fists.
"The trial only showed me one possibility."
"And maybe..."
"...it showed me fragments of the past."
She couldn't be certain.
The same was true for the battle itself.
She had fought an Elite-rank creature.
Perhaps the real battle had involved much higher ranks.
Maybe the original Princess of the Sky had fought beings far beyond what Aviana had experienced.
Maybe...
The System had deliberately reduced the ranks of the enemies.
After all...
She was only an Initiate.
The trial couldn't simply throw the full power of ancient gods at her.
Aviana slowly exhaled.
"So even the ranks..."
"...might not have been accurate."
She looked toward the darkness.
Her expression became thoughtful.
There were too many questions.
Too many unknowns.
But she had learned something valuable.
She had experienced the war.
She had understood the pain.
She had learned the Ocean King's techniques.
She had learned about the gods.
She had learned about the anchors.
The shards.
The Sealing Sorcery.
The moon.
And perhaps most importantly...
She had learned what she was willing to sacrifice for her people.
Aviana's tears had finally stopped.
She wiped the last trace from her face.
Then she smiled.
The trial was over.
The memories were not real.
But the lessons were.
She slowly raised her head.
Then—
The familiar voice of the System echoed throughout the void.
"Prepare for your Soul Sea to form..."
Aviana's eyes widened.
The System continued.
"...and merge with your Master."