With the next steps confirmed, Raphael exhaled. The Hunting Ground's presence in his system gave him an intuition he couldn't quite articulate, that whatever a trial looked like for an ordinary person, it would likely look different for him.
He went back to the room and recalled the translucent parchment contract. He wrote his name in the last blank space.
The parchment caught a sourceless flame and burned. In the same instant his consciousness dropped, not a fall, more like sliding into sleep, and the room was gone.
---
Darkness, complete and total, with scattered points of light suspended inside it. Like stars against a night sky, each one isolated and quiet.
Alp's Shadow had returned to his true form here, a horned shadow Demon, silhouette clear and angular. He turned slowly and looked at what the trial had assembled around him.
