When Kai opened his eyes, the world was water.
There was no sky, no land, no horizon. Only a vast, endless ocean stretching into eternity clear, still, and silent. He lay upon a wooden shaft barely large enough to hold him, floating gently as the current shifted beneath.
For a long moment, he simply breathed. The air was cold, almost sharp, filling his lungs with the taste of salt and silence.
He slowly pushed himself up, the wood creaking faintly under his weight. All around him, the sea shone like a mirror. It reflected everything his face, his clothes, even the faint ripples his movements made—but when he tried to peer deeper, the reflection seemed to resist.
It was too clear. Too perfect.
He stared down into that mirrored surface, frowning slightly. "Sea or ocean…" he muttered under his breath. "What's even the difference anymore?"
The sound of his own voice felt wrong here. Too loud. It didn't echo it simply dissolved into the air, as if the world didn't want to remember it.
Kai looked around again, searching for anything a shadow of land, a speck of cloud but there was nothing. Only the boundless blue, stretching so far that the horizon seemed to curve back into itself.
After a while, he sighed and sat back down.
The trial of the gods. That was what it was called. He had expected monsters, illusions, maybe even pain or madness but this? This quiet nothingness? It was worse.
The longer he stared, the more the stillness began to press against him, heavy and suffocating. He could feel something beneath the surface something vast, ancient, waiting. His body stiffened without knowing why. Every instinct screamed at him not to touch the water.
His right hand hovered above the surface for a moment, trembling slightly. The water was so clear, so tempting, but his chest tightened with a silent warning.
Don't.
He didn't know where the voice came from—his mind or the world itself but he obeyed.
Kai leaned back, resting his elbows on the shaft. "So this is the trial, huh?" he muttered. "A sea that doesn't move… and a silence that doesn't end."
Time slipped away quietly. There was no sun to tell its passing. The light remained the same soft, gray, dreamlike.
His thoughts began to drift.
He remembered the faces of his companions the woman with her cold green eyes, the quiet boy with the katana, and the older man who talked too much. Companions. The word felt wrong in his mouth.
He had forced one of them to come. The woman hadn't agreed; she'd simply followed after realizing resistance was pointless. The younger one… he had just appeared, silent and watching, as if bound by something deeper than choice.
The older man, though he was different. Talkative, reckless, curious. The kind of person who would die first. Kai didn't hate him, but thinking about the three together made his head ache.
He rubbed his temples and looked down again.
The reflection stared back at him.
But this time… it smiled.
Kai froze.
The image beneath the water hadn't moved with him it had grinned, slow and deliberate, as though the sea itself was mocking his confusion.
Then it stilled again, perfect and innocent, as if nothing had happened.
Kai's breath caught. A drop of cold sweat slid down his temple.
"What the hell…" he whispered.
He leaned forward, eyes narrowing. The water reflected him perfectly again no grin, no distortion. Just his own pale face and faintly glowing eyes staring back.
He exhaled slowly and looked up at the horizon.
That was when he noticed it the sky.
It wasn't blue.
He had assumed it was, but now, looking closely, he realized it was something else entirely. There was movement in it subtle, shifting, wrong. His pulse quickened as he tilted his head back, his eyes widening.
And then he saw it.
His body went rigid. His breath left him.
What he saw in that sky if it could even be called a sky froze his heart and sent every thought scattering into silence.
The world around him seemed to bend, the reflection breaking apart beneath his feet, and for the first time, Kai felt the true weight of the trial pressing down upon him.
The shaft trembled. The sea rippled faintly.
And then everything stilled again.
Meanwhile, far outside the labyrinth, the night continued its quiet vigil.
The campfire still burned, its light trembling through the mist. The three figures remained where they were unchanged, silent, and thoughtful.
The woman sighed softly, setting down the last piece of wood into the fire. The flames flared weakly, then steadied.
Finally, she spoke.
"Fine," she said, her tone calm but edged with weariness. "You've been asking since dusk. You want to know why we're really looking for one of the Shards of Blasphemy?"
The older man looked up immediately, his interest sharp. The younger one remained silent, but his single visible eye shifted toward her.
She exhaled, her gaze fixed on the fire. "Then listen carefully. It all started years ago, in the kingdom of Valeria."
The name alone seemed to weigh on the air. Even the mist trembled faintly as she continued.
"The King and Queen of Valeria were not ordinary rulers. They carried within them a bloodline said to be blessed by the gods themselves a gift passed down from the first conjurers, who could shape the unseen and command creation. But…" she paused, her lips curling slightly, "not every gift is meant to be received."
The man frowned. "A cursed blessing?"
The woman nodded. "Exactly. The gods' gift carried a shadow one that could not be broken, not even by power itself. Each generation of Valeria's line bore the weight of it. Madness. Division. Death. No amount of conjuring, no amount of faith, could free them."
Her gaze flicked toward the fire again, the orange glow reflecting in her green pupils. "Their strength dwindled. The family fell apart. What was once a divine lineage became a dying curse. By the time I was born, only two branches of that bloodline were said to remain."
The man tilted his head. "Were?"
She nodded. "That's what I thought too. But I recently learned there was a third branch. Hidden. Forgotten. And when the war came, it vanished again."
"The War?" the man asked. "You mean the First Conjurers' War? The one from years ago?"
The woman's head turned sharply. For a moment, her eyes looked almost silver in the firelight.
"No," she said flatly. "Why would we be searching for a truth buried years ago?"
The man blinked. "Then… what are you talking about?"
"There was another war," she said softly. "Four years ago. A war between Valeria and a neighboring kingdom one that never should have happened."
The man leaned forward, confusion flickering across his face. "Four years ago? That was barely even recorded. It ended before most even knew it began."
"Exactly," she murmured. "And that's the problem."
The younger one finally spoke then, his voice quiet but sharp. "You think the truth was erased."
The woman smiled faintly. "Not erased. Buried."
The man rubbed his jaw, still frowning. "But what does any of that have to do with the bloodline?"
Her smile deepened. It wasn't warm it was something else. A shadowed kind of amusement.
"Because," she said, leaning closer to the fire, "every war Valeria ever fought… began and ended with that blood."
The man went still.
The mist swirled faintly, as if reacting to her words.
The woman sat back again, her gaze rising toward the dark horizon where the labyrinth gates stood hidden in fog.
"That's why we're searching for the Shard," she said. "Because it isn't just a relic it's a key. A key to everything that was lost that day."
The man hesitated, then asked, "And what exactly was lost?"
The woman didn't answer.
Instead, she smiled again slow, cryptic, and faintly sad.
"You'll see soon enough," she whispered.
The fire crackled, breaking the silence.
Far away, within the labyrinth, Kai stared up into that impossible sky, frozen before whatever truth had revealed itself above. The world around him rippled, alive, aware.
And in that endless sea of reflection, something beneath the surface began to move.