Back in the present
Kai stood on the vacant platform of the palace suspended above the mirror-sky.
The platform chimed faintly under his feet.
A thin wind brushed against him, but the air here always felt wrong. Too clean. Too polished. Too silent.
He stared down.
Below him, the "ocean" waited.
Or rather… what the Trial stubbornly insisted on calling an ocean.
To Kai, it was a flesh-sea.
A massive, breathing expanse that looked like water but behaved like something alive. Pinkish ridges rippled beneath the surface, and black veins pulsed like arteries beneath a transparent membrane.
He stared as shards of the floating mirror-sky below him continued falling plinking like pieces of broken stars into the viscous surface below. Each shard sank slowly, dissolving into the living sea.
Kai grimaced.
Water makes an ocean, he thought.
So what does flesh make?
He didn't want the answer.
He really, genuinely did not want the answer.
He turned away.
But the world beneath him shifted.
A low rumble vibrated through the palace floor.
Kai's crimson eyes sharpened as he pivoted back toward the flesh-ocean.
The mountain of flesh at its center… moved.
It rose slowly, revoltingly uncoiling like some ancient creature waking from a long dream.
Wet ridges peeled apart.
Pockets of blackened tissue swelled once, twice…
And then.
SPLRRRRCH!
A massive tentacle burst upward, punching through the mirror-sky from below.
Shards of liquid-glass exploded outward in a rain of shimmering cracks.
Kai stepped back instinctively.
Another tentacle erupted.
Then another.
And another.
Long, fleshy limbs shot upward, twisting, searching, feeling along the barrier of the palace space. The tendrils were grotesque pale, veined, shivering like exposed nerves.
He swallowed as a cold understanding crawled across his scalp.
They were reaching…
Not for the palace.
Not for the mirror-sky.
For him.
And then the tentacles began to split apart.
Kai blinked.
He blinked again.
The ends of the tentacles fractured like rotten branches, breaking into hundreds then thousands of smaller chunks. Each chunk wriggled, flexed, then sprouted fins.
They became fish.
Skinless, translucent, pulsing little horrors each no larger than Kai's forearm, but with mouths that gaped too wide and eyes that were too blank.
And they surged.
Straight toward the palace grounds.
Kai's heart sank.
"Seriously…? Again?"
The first cluster slammed into the gate.
SZZZTT !!
They dissolved instantly.
No resistance.
No struggle.
Just pffft gone.
Kai stared.
"…You've got to be joking."
Yet the fish didn't stop.
They kept launching themselves at the gate in a continuous stream hundreds at a time only to evaporate into ash and dust the moment they touched the barrier.
It was…
It was…
"Do you guys even have brains?" Kai muttered.
It was comedic in the worst way.
Nightmarish yet stupid.
Like watching a horror film crash into slapstick.
His expression flattened into deadpan disbelief.
But then,
The flesh-ocean roared.
The roar wasn't like an animal.
It wasn't like anything natural.
It was a deep, wet bellow that vibrated the palace walls and made Kai's bones hum.
The fish stopped.
They didn't dissolve.
They didn't slam into the gate again.
They simply froze, hovering in the flesh-air.
Kai's pupils narrowed.
"…Uh oh."
The small fish turned.
And swam over the gate.
Not through.
Not into.
Over.
As though some command had rewritten the rules of the barrier itself.
Kai's face fell into pure exasperation.
"Oh, come on"
And then the fish swarmed him.
He stepped back, reaching into the shadows of his coat, and drew,
a white, shadowless gun.
A weapon that devoured the light around it, leaving no reflection, no glint, no shine. The barrel was a void etched into reality, as if something had carved it directly out of the absence of light.
Kai didn't hesitate.
BOOM!!
A compressed burst of air shot out of the weapon, punching through the first row of fish. Their bodies popped like overripe fruit, splattering into nothingness.
He pivoted, aimed upward.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.
Each shot detonated a cluster, but the swarm thickened, multiplying faster than he could fire.
Kai clicked his tongue.
"You guys really don't stop, huh?"
The fish screamed if that gurgling hiss counted as a scream and accelerated.
Kai kept firing, but the palace platform was soon fogged with the mist of dissolving flesh.
Meanwhile In the Dark Forest
Far beyond the labyrinth, beneath the thick canopy of the Dark Forest, a chase tore through the shadows.
Two figures one limping, one barely upright crashed through the undergrowth.
Arrows of mist tore past their heads, slicing tree bark like butter.
Ray and Catalina were right behind them.
Ray vaulted over a fallen trunk, as Catalina fire mist trail following him.
Catalina landed beside him soundlessly, her aura humming with restrained mist.
Another arrow of mist screamed past.
The wind users tilted his head just enough for it to miss.
"Persistent bastards…" he muttered.
The lightning user ahead sent a blast backward, crackling arcs splitting through the trees.
Catalina sidestepped easily.
Ray ducked.
The blast hit a tree behind them.
BOOM!!
Bark exploded in a shower of hot debris.
More blasts.
More impacts.
The forest flickered with light and shadow.
Then,
A blur cut through the branches above.
Zane.
He landed silently, coat fluttering.
The injured wind and lightning users froze as they found themselves surrounded:
Ray in front, Catalina to their right, Zane to their left.
Ray smirked.
Catalina exhaled.
Zane said nothing.
And then,
ROOOOOOOOOAAAAAR—!!!
A distant roar tore through the forest, shaking leaves from the treetops.
Ray stiffened.
Catalina's eyes widened.
Zane slowly turned his head toward the sound.
His left eye remained normal.
His right eye,
reddened.
A black ring formed around the iris. And then he looked at the direction the sound was coming from.
Catalina whispered, "…Zane?"
"What did you see?"
Zane blinked once, expression unreadable.
Then, in the most casual, calm, almost soothing British tone imaginable, he answered:
"A corrupted beast. It seems it just woke up.
A tree-type variant.
Based on its decay patterns and aura"
He paused lightly.
"it is a Defiled Ravager."
He said it like he was announcing the weather.
Clear skies. Slight breeze. Chance of death.
Ray snapped out of his trance.
"W-wait—did you just say a Defiled is in the forest!?"
Zane nodded.
Expressionless.
Calm.
As if this information were not, in fact, a nightmare-grade discovery.
The wind user swallowed.
The lightning user whimpered.
The forest trembled again.
And far, far away inside the labyrinth Kai was still firing as the fish swarm closed in.