Accidentally Became the Most Wanted Entity in the Multiverse

The Crucible did not wait for them.

The moment the last student stepped into the arena, the entrance vanished behind them . gone like a memory scrubbed too hard.

No door. No wall. Just void.

Rea floated instinctively.

Kio cracked his knuckles and muttered, "Okay. So… trial. Sounds fun."

Dae didn't speak.

His eyes were fixed on the center of the arena.. a flat platform suspended over a pool of shifting, silver liquid. The platform itself seemed to breathe. It expanded and contracted with a slow, subtle rhythm. Like a living thing holding its breath.

All around them, towering walls of translucent stone rose high twisting with runes that pulsed a faint violet. The chamber wasn't just a room. It was a mechanism.

A crucible.

...…

Instructor Sera appeared again, perched high on a floating ledge far above, as though gravity was optional for her.

She didn't smile.

"The Crucible is not for performance. This is not a show," she said. "It is a diagnostic. A filter."

Her voice echoed, not through sound, but thought.

"You are not here to impress me. You are here to survive me."

That sent a ripple through the students.

Zane elbowed Kai. "Did she say 'survive'? Or was that a metaphor for emotional growth?"

Kai whispered, "If this is emotional growth, I vote death."

A spark of laughter passed between a few students… nervous, forced.

Sera raised one hand. The laughter died immediately.

"Those who die in the Crucible will not die permanently."

A sigh of relief.

"But you'll wish you had," she added.

The sigh froze halfway out of their throats.

Sera gestured with a flick of her fingers.

The floor split open.

....

From below, the silver liquid surged like quicksilver summoned by ancient magic. It formed shapes. no, shadows. People?

Figures formed from mercury and smoke. Faceless. Weightless. Perfectly human in size and shape… but utterly wrong.

Each figure locked eyes.. hollow, blank sockets with one of the students.

Rea drifted higher.

Kio took a battle stance.

Dae didn't move. But Kairoth, the ring on his finger, pulsed once..lightless.

The figures attacked.

...

The Crucible had no rules.

That was rule number one.

Zane moved fast too fast. Electricity crackled as he zipped past two shadows, striking one with a jolt so powerful it exploded into silver mist.

"Woo! Okay! Speed is my love language!"

Kai followed with a palm to the floor, sending vibrations in controlled shockwaves. One shadow staggered, then shattered as the floor beneath it pulsed like a speaker in a nightclub.

Kio roared. literally. and hurled one into a pillar.

An, on the other hand, didn't fight.

He watched.

Every movement. Every twitch.

He muttered under his breath, "It's matching our emotions… mimicking fear…"

He wrote something invisible in the air, and the shadow before him hesitated. Glitched.

And then shattered.

Dae caught that.

The Crucible wasn't about power. It was about control.

About self.

...

Others struggled.

Lune screamed… then turned that scream into a sonic pulse so loud the shadows cracked.

Selene vanished into black mist, then reappeared behind her shadow and drove a spike of pure darkness through it.

Riven laughed.. his touch poisoned anything that came too close. "Oh, you don't want this kind of intimacy, darling."

Ash simply touched the shadow near him. It withered. Rotted. Crumbled to dust.

"Dying is an art," he whispered. "And I'm a museum."

"Bro," Kio muttered, "that guy needs therapy."

"No," An said quietly. "He needs a time machine. Therapy isn't enough."

Rea floated through the battlefield like a ghost. She didn't speak, didn't blink. She barely moved. Gravity bent around her, and the shadows that got too close were hurled into the ceiling or crushed beneath a silent field of force.

"Remind me never to piss her off," Zane muttered.

"No need," Dae said. "You already did."

Zane blanched. "When?!"

"She just hasn't cashed it in yet."

...…..

And then..

It changed.

A new figure emerged from the pool.

Bigger. Taller. Human-shaped… but not human.

It wore armor that shimmered like glass. Its face was a mirror.

Literally.

Dae looked into it… and saw himself.

But not now-Dae.

A future Dae.

Older. Harder. Smiling in a way that didn't reach his eyes.

The mirror-Dae raised a hand.

Light pulsed.

The arena went white.

...…..

When the light cleared, half the students were down. alive, groaning, twitching, but not fighting.

Kio's nose was bleeding.

Rea had descended, floating low, visibly shaken.

Even An looked… different. Like he'd seen something he hadn't expected to see again.

Only Dae stood tall.

His ring was pulsing rapidly now like a heartbeat rising with panic.

Mirror-Dae stepped forward.

It didn't speak.

It simply pointed at the real Dae.

And charged.

...….

The impact was instant.

Dae was hurled backward, crashing through two students and landing against a rune-wall.

Kairoth reacted… flaring for a split second.

But no light came.

The mirror-being was faster than him. Stronger.

And it knew every move he made.

Because it was him.

Or rather, what he might become.

And it was winning.

....

Pix's voice suddenly crackled through the dome, cheerful as ever:

"Hey, uh, just so we're all clear. this was not in my original programming. The Crucible was supposed to simulate internal fears, not… y'know, time paradox doppelgängers."

"You think?!" Vera yelled as she deflected another shadow with a blast of crystal shards.

"Oh, and good luck, everyone!" Pix added. "I'll just be hiding in the archives, crying in binary!"

...…

Dae gasped as the mirror-version pinned him.

Its hand closed around his throat.

Kairoth pulsed. Once. Twice. Still no light.

"You're not real," Dae growled.

The mirror-being tilted its head.

You made me.

The words weren't spoken but Dae felt them.

Not in his ears. In his bones.

"You're not me," he whispered.

You will be.

It raised its hand, light forming into a blade.

And then…

A scream.

Not from Dae.

From Rea.

A shadow had slipped past her gravity field and slashed her across the back.

She fell.

Something in Dae snapped.

...….

Light erupted.

But not from Kairoth.

From Dae.

Pure. Primal. Untouched.

A column of origin-light burst from his chest, flinging the mirror-being across the arena. Shadows recoiled. The walls glowed white-hot.

Every rune in the Crucible lit up at once.

Pix screamed through the speakers: "OH NO. HE BROKE IT. HE BROKE THE ROOM. EVERYBODY PANIC… WAIT NO DON'T PANIC….. AHH–"

Sera appeared instantly.

She landed beside Dae, her eyes wide. Not with anger.

With recognition.

She grabbed him by the wrist.

The light stopped.

The mirror-being melted back into the pool.

Rea sat up, groaning.

Kio helped her.

Dae collapsed.

Sera didn't let him fall.

"You," she whispered. "You touched the Source."

Dae's eyes rolled back.

He passed out.

....

They woke up one by one in the recovery chamber.

Beds of soft moss. A low humming sound, like a song being sung by the walls.

Pix hovered over Dae's cot, projecting a cartoon version of himself crying beside a fake tombstone: Here Lies Dae: Died of Glowing Too Hard.

Kio laughed. "Man, I like you, robot."

Pix beamed. "Finally! I'm part of the group!"

"Don't push it," Rea said, sitting up.

Pix's hologram immediately adjusted to show him tiptoeing away.

Dae stirred.

"Did I…?" he croaked.

"You did," An said simply.

Dae sat up slowly. "I saw… myself."

Rea looked away. "We all did."

Pix hovered closer. "It was a psychological imprint of your future selves based on the worst possible timelines combined with hidden emotional triggers, enhanced through the Crucible's resonance core. You know…normal school stuff."

Kio nodded. "I had a gym teacher like that."

...….

Later, Instructor Sera entered.

She did not yell.

She did not speak for a full minute.

She just stared at them.

Then she said one word.

"Survivors."

Her voice held something new.

Pride?

"No one usually gets past the mirror stage," she said. "Not without… consequences."

She looked at Dae.

"Especially not with raw origin light."

Dae frowned. "What does that mean?"

Sera didn't answer.

She looked around the room. "The Crucible was step one."

A groan from Zane: "You mean there's more?"

"Yes," she said. "Now that you're all awake."

The room stilled.

"Awake?" Vera echoed.

"Emotionally. Energetically. Cosmically. Doesn't matter. Something in you opened."

She pointed at the group.

"And now the world will notice."

That silence again.

Selene stepped forward from the shadows. Her voice low.

"Do we still exist… in the world above?"

Sera tilted her head.

"Define 'exist.'"

Selene didn't flinch.

"Can we ever go back?"

This time, Sera looked almost… sad.

"Some of you never left," she said. "Others were erased. And a few… never had anything to go back to."

She left.

Just like that.

No goodbyes.

...…..

The students sat in silence for a while.

Then An broke it, calmly, as he always did.

"Statistically speaking," he said, "our survival rate just dropped for whatever trial is next."

Zane nodded. "Cool, cool. I volunteer to cry in the corner while the rest of you save the universe."

Kio clapped him on the back. "You are the corner."

Rea floated an inch above her seat again. "We need to train. Learn each other. Fast."

Dae looked around the room.

At Rea.

At An.

At Kio.

At Selene, who still hadn't blinked.

And then at the ring.

Kairoth pulsed.

Slow. Steady.

Like it was just getting started.

...…..

[To Be Continued in Chapter 13]