The scream that tore through the forest did not echo.
It was swallowed.
The trees themselves shuddered, their bark dimming into a sickly gray as if the sound peeled a layer of life off the world. Birds fled in crooked patterns, falling mid-air as though the cry had cracked something inside their tiny bodies.
And in the clearing, two silhouettes came into view.
One dripping with blood.
One burning with flame.
Original Kai stumbled forward one arm gone, severed so clean the exposed bone gleamed like porcelain. His breath hitched in jagged gasps, each dragging the smell of iron into the air.
His legs buckled.
His vision trembled.
The world warped trees twisting like melted wax, shadows bending with a pulse of mockery.
Opposite him, the Fake Kai hovered inches above the ground. Flames coiled around his blade, burning away the droplets of blood that dared cling to the edge. His smile held no warmth only the delighted patience of a butcher admiring a half-finished cut.
With both hands, the Fake Kai seized the real one by the throat.
He lifted him effortlessly.
Kai's remaining arm swung uselessly, fingers clawing at the air.
The flaming apparition tilted his head, studying him with clinical disappointment.
"You cling so desperately," he murmured, voice soft as cracking embers. "But you still don't understand."
He pulled Kai higher until Kai's toes no longer brushed the ground.
"To gain power…"
His smile stretched wider.
"…you must pay a price."
Then the first strike landed.
A hammer-like blow to Kai's temple.
White exploded across his vision.
The second hit speared into his ribs so deep Kai swore a piece of his lung tore free and floated upward inside him.
The third
A kick.
So vicious, so precise, Kai's body curved unnaturally before he was hurled into a tree trunk.
Bone splintered.
His back screamed.
And the world folded over itself.
Kai slid down the bark, leaving behind a smear of blood. His remaining hand trembled uncontrollably, fingers hooked like broken twigs. His breath rattled wet and uneven.
He tasted dirt.
He tasted blood.
He tasted failure.
His thoughts stuttered, fragments striking each other like shards of broken glass.
I can't… move…
I can't… breathe…
This trial… this… thing… it's going to kill me.
A shadow loomed.
Fake Kai descended slowly, drifting rather than walking, flames leaking from his feet like molten feathers.
"Still alive," he noted, almost amused. "Even without a hand. Even with your bones shattered."
He crouched, eye-level with the trembling boy.
"You want power," he whispered, brushing a blood-matted strand of hair from Kai's face. "But you don't know what power demands."
His eyes hardened.
"It demands what you haven't given."
Kai tried to speak. No words came only a gurgle of pain.
Fake Kai stood tall again. His sword pulsed, heat distorting the air around it until the world wavered like a mirage.
"This will end your suffering," he said gently.
"So be grateful."
He raised the blade.
Kai's heartbeat slowed.
The flames spiraled down the edge.
And then.
The blade fell.
A perfect downward arc meant to separate head from body.
Meant to erase him.
Meant to end everything.
***
Back To The Present
Twenty-year-old Kai blinked his vision still throbbing with afterimages of visions he just saw . His breathing had yet to steady, the phantom ache of old pain crawling through his bones.
The memory wasn't a memory.
It was a warning.
A reminder.
A debt.
Kai lifted his gaze.
The mirror-like palace stretched endlessly, its walls fluid and reflective like a dream trying to pretend it was solid. The gold-blue door shimmered in front of him, covered in symbols that refused meaning.
Behind him, the sky fractured.
The ocean surged upward violently yet the liquid was no longer water.
It was flesh.
Human flesh.
Stretching. Merging. Pulsing.
A sound bubbled from beneath wet, gargled, full of hunger as tentacles burst from the fleshy sea and lashed toward the reflective heavens.
Kai's pupils tightened.
"…you evolved now?" he muttered, exasperated. "Out of all times you chose now?"
The palace door remained silent, immaculate, and incredibly unhelpful.
No handle.
No keyhole.
No mechanism.
A gateway pretending it wasn't one.
The tentacles scraped the underside of the mirror sky, each impact spreading bruised ripples of pink and purple. The sea of flesh groaned, shifting as if birthing something beneath its surface.
Kai felt the trauma radiating upward, the same suffocating pressure as before.
The same wrongness.
"This realm is mocking me," he hissed.
He tried pushing the door.
Nothing.
He tried channeling aura.
Nothing.
He tried kicking it.
Pain.
Kai sighed deeply.
"Fantastic."
The tentacles below shrieked, slamming into the mirrored firmament with renewed frenzy almost as if the beast had sensed him thinking of other options and wanted to give its own violently unsolicited input.
Meanwhile outside the trial of gods.
Dawn bled across the horizon, pale-orange light pouring through the labyrinth's jagged ruins.
Cataline stood at the center of the clearing, eyes narrowed as the twin suns rose. Her green irises flickered faintly sensing something shifting deep within the maze.
Beside her, Ray was a mess of loose hair and sleep lines.
"Why the hell did you wake me?" he groaned, rubbing his face. "Kai's not out yet. So what, you don't trust me to keep watch?"
Cataline didn't even glance at him.
Her gaze was fixed on the treeline.
"Ray," she said flatly, "where is the swordsman? The one with the blade?"
Ray blinked.
"…he was here when I slept."
A distant boom ripped through the forest.
Cataline's eyes gleamed.
"They've found us."
Before she could move, Ray grabbed her shoulders and yanked just in time for a lightning-forged arrow to slice through the air, cracking the stone where her head had been.
Thunder split the clearing.
Ray let go.
Cataline glared. "Get your hand off me."
"I saved you!" Ray snapped.
"Thank you old man," she replied.
"Next time?!" Ray sputtered. "You—you're impossible."
"Besides We," ray corrected calmly, "are the same age."
Ray opened his mouth but a second explosion tore through the forest, drowning his indignation.
From the shadows surged a figure.
A young man leapt from branch to branch with inhuman grace, his movements smooth as flowing water yet sharp as a blade's promise. His black kitana flashed as he twisted mid-air cleaving a lightning arrow clean in two.
CRACK BOOM.
The split projectile detonated behind him, but he remained untouched striding forward with three silent steps before vanishing into the next arc of trees.
Another arrow streaked toward him.
He didn't dodge.
He spun, upside down, air spiraling around him like a vortex and sliced the arrow in half before landing with a soft thud.
His gaze rose.
Cold.
Focused.
Predatory.