The massive door loomed before Jax like the boundary of a forgotten god's tomb. Each of its seven locks shimmered with a distinct hue—deep crimson, obsidian black, shimmering gold, and others that defied color altogether. Symbols etched into its surface rearranged themselves when he looked away, whispering in languages that had never been spoken.
His brother stepped back. "Only you can open it now."
Jax reached out, and the three fragments pulsed within his chest. The first lock cracked open with a sound like a dying star. The second flared, then vanished. The third dissolved into sand and was swept away by an invisible wind.
The fourth… resisted.
It glowed with a dark blue shimmer—then lashed out.
Jax was flung backward across the atrium, crashing into the obsidian floor hard enough to crack it. Pain flared through him.
"That one remembers," his brother said, grimly.
Jax rose, clutching his ribs. "Remembers what?"
"The sin committed when the Supremes made us."
Before Jax could ask more, the lock shuddered. It opened on its own.
The door groaned open with the sound of a thousand weeping voices. A cold wind rushed out—not the chill of temperature, but of memory. Ancient, heavy, personal.
They stepped inside.
It was not a chamber. It was a memory so vast it had become a place.
Jax stood atop a vast platform suspended in space. Below, galaxies spun in slow agony. Above, a singularity pulsed with consciousness—watching.
The platform shifted, and others appeared: six more, arranged in a great wheel. On each stood a figure cloaked in shadow, throned in elements like those in the Atrium.
And at the center… a final throne, larger than the rest.
Empty.
A voice boomed—not from the air, but from within Jax's mind.
"The judgment begins."
The figures stood.
Jax's brother dropped to one knee.
"Who are they?" Jax whispered.
"The Judges. The original Supremes. They have awoken to weigh your worth… and mine."
The figure cloaked in light stepped forward, its voice soft and terrible.
"You bear three fragments. You sit upon the Throne of Flux. You walk paths not meant for mortals. And yet you are incomplete."
Jax squared his shoulders. "I never claimed to be complete."
"Then we shall test what remains."
The world shifted. Jax blinked—and found himself alone in a cathedral made of mirrors.
In every mirror: himself.
Not twisted variants, but honest reflections—moments he had forgotten or refused to face.
He saw his first failure. The village that burned when he hesitated. The friend he left behind for power. The time he almost gave up and begged the void to take him.
"Why show me this?" he asked.
A mirror stepped forward.
His reflection spoke. "Because you carry power forged from regret, but wield it without understanding. To hold all fragments is to become a Supreme… but not all Supremes were wise."
Another mirror cracked, revealing not Jax—but a woman, regal and radiant, eyes aflame with sorrow.
"You know me not," she said, "but I was your mother."
Jax's breath caught. "That's impossible. She died before I—"
"Before you were born, yes. But time bends around you now. I am the echo left in your blood."
She raised a hand—and the mirrors shattered, revealing a battlefield that spanned eternity.
There, he saw the truth:
The Supremes had not created him and his brother to protect reality.
They had created them as weapons. To destroy what they feared.
To unmake the First Judge.
A being sealed in the folds of time, whose heart beat once every thousand years—each beat capable of rewriting existence.
Jax stepped back, the weight of it crashing down.
"You said we were created for balance," he said to his brother.
"We were. But balance, to the Supremes, meant annihilating anything that threatened their dominion."
Jax turned toward the central throne.
It was glowing now.
Waiting.
A test.
No, a choice.
"Take your place, Jax," the voices intoned. "Or walk away, and let another rise."
"If I sit there… what happens to the First Judge?" Jax asked.
His brother looked away.
"He wakes."
The stars around the platform began to flicker. One by one, galaxies blinked out like candles snuffed by a breath.
The Supremes were afraid.
And in their fear, they had made Jax—crafted from potential, regret, defiance.
He looked at the throne.
And he sat.
The void trembled.
The throne accepted him—but not with light. With silence. A silence so vast it felt like the pause before a scream.
The central throne cracked.
A heartbeat echoed across the cosmos.
Ba-dum.
The stars recoiled.
From the core of the throne, something stirred.
Not light. Not shadow. Something older.
The First Judge had felt the fragments unite.
And now… he was waking.
Jax stood, his body aglow with power and dread.
"Did I just doom us?" he asked.
"No," his brother said, stepping forward, a grim smile tugging at his lips.
"You just gave us a chance."
Behind them, the final lock on the great door shattered.
The way forward opened.
Not to another realm.
But to the Court of the First Judge.
And Jax knew—this was no longer about fragments.
This was about who had the right to define reality.
And whether he… could be more than a weapon.