I pocketed the tokens and stepped out of the alley, standing my ground as the nightmare people surrounded me. But now, instead of fear, I felt certainty. A strange calm washed over me, clearing my head, steadying my hands.
When the first attacked, I moved with Luna's speed while remaining human, sidestepping its grasp with fluid grace. Not by shifting or calling on separate powers, but by accessing aspects of myself that had always been there, just waiting to be integrated.
"You're not real," I told it, my voice steady and strong, no longer thinned by fear. "You're constructs of the trial, meant to test me."
It paused, head tilting at an unnatural angle, as if confused by my lack of fear. The others hesitated too, their jerky movements momentarily stilled.
I reached out—not with my phy
