Stini and Li huddled by the fire, a ring of embers breathing like tiny red mouths.

She couldn’t fathom why a grand circular hall sat at the gallery’s end, why an undying ghost-blue flame coiled there like a cold spring, or why a warrior in golden armor stood watch before the opposite door like a statue come alive.

So she sank into her own thoughts first, emotions like ripples in a still pond, asking why, and what these things meant inside a Divine Being’s trial.

“If you get tired of thinking, you can ask me anytime,” Li said, voice a lazy breeze over warm coals. He still wore Andor’s visage, sat before the fire, then pulled a slim twig from behind him and poked the blaze as if stirring a sleepy cat.

Where did he pull that twig from?!

Stini stared, mind snagging on that splinter. Since she arrived, neither the gallery nor this hall had anything movable; the floor was ancient brick and stone, but not a single loose chip.

She was still bare to the air, skin like porcelain under moonlight, with nothing to cover herself. She knew the thing across from her wasn’t human, yet it carried Andor’s likeness, and shame prickled on her like cold rain.

“Hey, hey, I told you, just ask. Don’t be shy. You don’t want to starve here, right?”

When they first stepped into the hall, Stini had clapped a hand over his mouth, heat flashing through her cheeks like dawn. “Let me think. Don’t talk.”

Later proved one good thing: Li’s role seemed only help and explanation, a wind that obeyed the sail. Another bad thing: her own mind kept spiraling like a spinning top; the riddle wouldn’t crack.

The twig went to ash in the ghost-blue flame, swallowed like sugar in water, and Stini’s stomach growled louder, a caged wolf pacing ribs. Li got more anxious, like a kettle about to whistle.

“Trials are made to be passed,” he muttered, words tapping like rain on stone. “Sure, the High God sometimes sets death traps, but not here. If you fail because you refuse the guide and dig into a horn’s tip, I’ll feel awful—might even get my bonus docked. Kidding.”

That baffling, overblown teasing felt so much like Andor, a breeze with hidden thorns. She knew this wasn’t Andor, yet her temper tossed a pebble at the real one in her heart.

Her favor dipped by a notch.

She tried different ways of sitting, a dancer folding like water, hoping to hide what must be hidden. But the human frame wasn’t built to cover all three points at rest; force it, and shame spreads like spilled ink. She ended up pressed tightly beside Li, like a sprig near a tree, forbidding him to turn his head.

“I feel everything here carries weight: that ghost-blue flame, that golden gatekeeper, this gladiator-like hall, and a chatty guy calling himself ‘Li.’ But what do they point toward?”

Her gut tugged on a thread of insight, but the weave stayed misty. She wasn’t good at thinking; daily life and battle usually flowed by instinct like a river; anything that needed grinding she would toss to Andor like a stone to a mill.

“Andor… if only he were really here.” She buried her face in her arms, hunger pressing down like winter fog.

“I shouldn’t give the Hero direct instructions,” Li murmured, words drifting like smoke. “I only offer hints. I’d scold you like Andor, but whoever made this did it so clean there’s nothing to criticize.”

He reached to pat Stini’s head like a warm palm over spring grass. She slapped his face, sharp as a fan snap, and forced his gaze away.

“Don’t turn around! Face the other way!”

“Ah, right. Sorry. Deeply sorry.”

“No sincerity!” Her voice puffed like a cat’s tail.

“I’m the Andor in your impression! This is your impression!”

“Really? Then why does it feel off, like a painting with swapped colors?”

“That shows your headcanon’s not your impression, eh.”

Li dusted his clothes, grit falling like sand, and sat back without complaint. Silence pooled again, a moonlit lake.

Stini lifted her eyes to the golden-armored warrior at the hall’s center. He didn’t move, a shield-and-sword figure like a gilded relic.

He seemed bound to the opposite half-circle; if Stini tried to cross, he’d hit her back like a hammer on a nail, and the farther she went, the heavier the blow. She’d reached one-third of the way to the far door; then he shifted from slapping blade-flat to a proper grip, steel humming like a wasp. She didn’t dare step.

The hall stretched vast and lavish, its high vault holding an unspent great light, a sun-eye watching like the wise pupil of a Divine Being.

Twelve giant arches opened around the sides, once a splendor like cliffs of ivory. Now ten were sealed tight as tombs, leaving only two facing each other: one the way in, one the way forward.

Chairs with high backs ringed the round hall like a forest of thrones. The tallest, most ornate, a black throne sat like a midnight crown; when she rubbed a corner, a golden sheen peeped out like dawn under soot.

It was black-gold, thrice heavier than mountain copper, thrice tougher than mithril, worth three times cold-jade—legendary, never wearing down, its exposed skin turning black as its nature, a shadow that didn’t mar its power.

Stini figured if she couldn’t pry any off by hand, she might as well sit and test the seat. Just as she readied, a gaze like ice slid from behind, the golden gatekeeper’s eyes under the visor fixed on her like nails.

He never reacted if she stayed this side of the midline. And yet instinct whispered like wind through bamboo: don’t touch that throne.

“Lovely armor,” Stini said, loosening the air like a laugh in rain.

“May I explain him? The gatekeeper…”

“No.”

“Oh. Okay.” Li’s tone sagged like a damp rope.

“Can you take off your clothes and lend me something?”

“Looks like formal wear, but it’s a part of me, like bark to a tree. It won’t come off.”

“Mm…”

“But you can make your own,” Li perked up, turning his head like a curious bird—and got pushed back again with a palm like a fan’s slap.

“No turning. No talking.”

“At least hear the ground rules! Heroes through the ages begged me for more hints. How are you the one swimming upstream?!”

“Because… I’ve got a partner who wants me to think for myself,” Stini said, warmth breaking like sunlight between leaves. “He wants me to see, to think, to reach my own answers.” She chuckled at herself, hand over lips, cute as a sprig of plum blossom. “Alright, talk. I give up. Just the most basic rules. The most. Ba. Sic.”

“I don’t think that guy’s a good partner… Fine. Rules, the ones I should’ve said at the start. There’s only one: from here, go through the door across. That’s the rule. No matter how—just pass it.”

“I don’t think I can beat the gatekeeper. I’ve got no gear. You want me to go barehanded against that thing?”

“Mm… Do you still want to listen?”

“Of course! With only that, I can’t win. Also, how do I get clothes?”

“Gear can be imagined and made present,” Li said, voice soft as silk so it wouldn’t jab her. He instantly raised both hands, as if shielding from lightning. “You refused to listen! You have no reason to hit me!”

Stini scowled, eyes shut like doors, and in a breath a familiar light armor wrapped her frame, snug as a second skin.

Then came the Holy Lance, Qianchi, gifted by Augustus. She swung twice; the weight and balance landed true, like a swallow’s flight she knew by heart.

“Mm. That’s the kid.”

She tried to call the Holy Sword, Galewind. It didn’t answer her hand; her palm felt only air, an empty bird perch.

“Why won’t Galewind appear…” The question slipped out like a fish. She clamped her lips, but too late.

“Because you believe the Holy Sword is broken,” Li said, calm as a mirror. “So you can’t bring it forth—rather, you think you shouldn’t be able to. This place is a mirage yet not false. It houses soul yet isn’t hollow. Hero, don’t imagine the trial as simple foam.”

“Stop talking…”

“The most important thing—the only thing needed—is your idea, your thought, and resolve that cuts to the end like a blade.”

Stini leveled the blunt end of the lance at his throat, a warning like winter’s breath. Li put both hands up high, voice ringing like a bell:

“These are the basic rules! They’re meant to be told to any Hero who comes! It’s the setup! Even without me, they’d be on a plank on the wall!”

“…Fine. But nothing more. Let me think.”

Teeth clenched, Stini spun and charged the golden gatekeeper, feet like sparks across stone.

“If it were Andor, he’d taunt now,” Li sighed, shoulders a shrug under smoke. “Me, I can only say what most would say.”

He knew she’d be driven back, ragged as wind-blown grass.

From gold’s curtain falling to silver’s flare rising, no Hero ever beat that golden-armored gatekeeper head-on.

No one has ever defeated the one called Righteousness.