The present.
The trial.
The moment Kai wished he could blink out of existence just for a breath so the world would stop staring at him.
He floated.
No, was pulled, almost unwillingly, through the drowned sky of the realm as the palace ahead shimmered like a wound in reality. It was not built of stone, nor metal, nor anything sane. It looked like a mirror stretched into the shape of a palace, as if the ocean itself had learned to dream and then decided to dream of architecture.
The water below him rippled.
Then it roared.
A deep, quaking, distorted roar that made the ocean vibrate like a living throat swallowing lightning. Kai's crimson eyes flicked down, narrowing. The entire sea was shrieking, the liquid surface warping as if trying to escape itself.
He exhaled.
Ah. Right. The eyes.
The curse. The gift. The whatever-it-is-that-makes-the-world-scream.
"It's always the eyes," he muttered, voice almost lost to the humming pressure in the air. "Why can't I have a normal face? Just once?"
The crimson gleam in his vision pulsed, and the ocean responded like a terrified animal.
Good.
He would worry about that later.
He pushed forward, conjuring a thin stream of will beneath his feet. The force gathered, tightened, then propelled him forward through the distorted water-light. His speed kept increasing faster, then faster still his figure blurring through the drowned reflection of a sky that wasn't a sky.
He didn't notice the presence deep below.
He didn't see the second corrupted beast sleeping in the abyss. His sight could cut through illusions, penetrate bodies, unravel lies… but all of that meant nothing if he did not know something existed in the first place.
You cannot look for what you cannot imagine.
And so the slumbering corruption remained unseen, lurking far beneath the trembling ocean, its voice the true source of the earlier roar.
But Kai continued, unaware, unbothered, unbroken.
After a long moment, he reached the entrance of the palace.
The air became still.
The world became quiet—unnervingly, impossibly quiet—as if silence itself had been sculpted into a monument.
A metal gate towered before him. Tall enough to scrape the invisible heavens of the trial realm. Every inch of it was etched in symbols old, foreign, impossibly intricate. They swirled like frozen constellations, curling into loops and edges that hinted at languages predating the bones of creation.
Kai stared.
"…yeah, no. I don't understand any of that."
So he floated over it.
Because walking was for people with stamina and patience.
Landing on the other side, he looked around slowly.
Mirrors.
Mirrors everywhere.
The walls reflected him.
The floor reflected him.
Even the air felt like it was reflecting him—shadows bending in unnatural angles that made it look like he had six different silhouettes all turning at slightly different speeds.
He hated it.
His own reflection stared back at him from a thousand directions, each version a little too still. A little too clean. A little too perfect.
It felt wrong.
Everything about this place screamed wrong.
Not in the loud, dramatic way.
In the quiet, patient way of a predator that had already memorized your heartbeat.
Kai forced his breathing to settle.
"It's here or let that creature evolve," he murmured. "So… yeah. Obvious choice."
Still, that didn't stop the irritation burning in his chest.
His eyes drifted to the giant double doors of the palace. They were made of some strange alloy that gleamed gold but not normal gold.
The metal shimmered blue.
A cold, soft, regal blue.
He squinted.
"Is it still called gold if it's blue? Blue-gold? Gold-blue? No, that sounds stupid. Wait why am I thinking about this? Focus, Kai."
He rubbed his face.
"What is a palace like this even doing here? And why does it look like someone made it entirely out of mirrors? Who builds a palace of reflections? Is that supposed to be stylish? Symbolic? Practical? Ugh."
He sighed.
"Everything about this place is annoying."
But the real problem wasn't the design.
It was the door.
The symbols on it were massive bigger, deeper, carved with an obsessive precision that made the runes almost feel alive. They pulsed faintly, glowing with an old, cold intelligence that watched him with disinterest.
Kai stepped closer.
He had read about ancient city runes before.
He… had not paid attention.
Because why study something when your eyes could see through everything anyway?
Well.
Almost everything.
He placed his hand against the glowing symbols and channeled energy into the door.
Nothing happened.
Not a spark.
Not a hum.
Not even a polite flicker of acknowledgment.
"Really?" he muttered. "You need a key? A key? What kind of ancient god-palace doesn't auto-open for visitors? Ridiculous."
He leaned closer, squinting.
And then finally he saw something he recognized.
A single symbol.
One carved deeper than the rest.
One whose shape echoed on the leather hand band wrapped around his wrist.
He froze.
That symbol…
He had seen it before.
He touched the carving gently, tracing its edges.
Cataline had told him once annoyingly, smugly what the runes on his hand band chain meant. Something about the Endless Beings. Something about relics. Something about ancient mysteries that no one had solved.
He could not remember the details.
He hated that he could not remember.
But he could read the fragment carved into the door.
Barely.
Just enough for it to feel wrong.
[THE ABYSSAL OF THE ENDLESS BEINGS]
His brow tightened.
The same phrase.
Again.
Repeated.
As if the trial was mocking him.
He swallowed.
His hand band… the chains… the relic…
It all tied back into this one phrase.
This one mystery.
Kai exhaled slowly.
"Endless Beings… what even are you?"
Some said they were gods.
Some believed they were fragments of creation.
Some whispered they were monsters older than reality.
No one knew.
One of the Ten Mysteries of the World.
What are the mysteries of world. Story not for this moment.
That would come another time.
Right now…
He stared at the towering blue-gold doors.
And the doors stared back.
The mirror palace waited.
The trial waited.
The world of reflections hummed with patient hunger.
Kai stepped forward.
Because there was no turning back.
Because even if everything here was wrong—
—stepping forward was still the only path that made sense.