The door gave way with a sound like glass breaking under slow, deliberate pressure.
Not an explosion no violence in it just a spreading fracture that crawled across the mirrored surface until the seam widened enough for passage. When the resistance finally vanished, the three figures stepped through.
A vast hall unfolded beyond.
It stretched forward in straight, unwavering lines, its floor smooth and reflective, its walls layered with mirrored panels set at irregular angles. Every surface caught light and bent it, scattering reflections into long, broken corridors that overlapped one another. Some reflections showed familiar shapes stone, sky, flame but others twisted into forms the blue-haired man could not place. Not illusions, not dreams. Just images without context.
He slowed, staff held loosely in one hand.
For the first time since entering the trial, he did not speak.
His boots clicked softly against the floor, each step precise. The two cloaked figures followed at measured distance, their reflections fragmenting and reforming along the walls. With every step forward, the hall repeated itself same height, same width, same cold symmetry yet the reflections shifted, never settling.
The blue-haired man's breathing stayed controlled, but his fingers tightened briefly around the staff. The place was stable. Solid. There was no immediate danger in the structure itself.
And yet, something here did not align.
He kept walking.
Far below, the impact drove Kai into stone.
His shoulder struck first, then his side, then his back. The force knocked the air from his lungs in a sharp burst, and pain followed a heartbeat later dull at first, then spreading as his body registered the damage. He slid down the wall and hit the floor hard, leaving a thin smear of blood behind him.
Before he could move, the pressure returned.
It descended without warning, pressing him flat against the ground. His chest compressed, ribs groaning as the weight pinned him in place. His palms scraped uselessly against the smooth floor. Every attempt to push himself up ended the same way muscles straining, joints trembling, then failure.
The guardian stood several steps away.
It did not rush. It did not advance recklessly. Its mirrored body reflected Kai's broken form back at him from a dozen angles blood at his mouth, tension in his neck, eyes narrowed in focus despite the pain.
The guardian assessed.
Then it moved.
A single kick landed squarely against Kai's side.
The blow sent him skidding across the floor again, his body rolling once before slamming into the opposite wall. Something cracked stone, bone, or both. He coughed, dark red spattering across the floor as his vision blurred.
The pressure returned immediately, heavier than before.
His limbs trembled as they were forced flat. The floor beneath him creaked, thin fractures spreading outward from where his body was pressed down. He could feel the strain in his spine, the ache deep in his joints.
He could not move.
Energy refused to answer him. Wind slipped through his grasp before he could shape it. Fire flickered weakly and died. Even the steady pulse he had learned to rely on the constant presence of power within his core felt distant, muffled, as though smothered beneath layers of resistance.
Kai lay there, breathing shallowly, staring at the stone inches from his face.
He had been trapped before.
Buried cities. Collapsing realms. Enemies stronger than him by entire stages. Situations where retreat meant death and standing his ground meant worse. He had fought through them all sometimes with strength, sometimes with cunning, sometimes with nothing but stubborn refusal to fall.
This was different.
There was no opening. No obvious weakness. No clear rule to exploit.
Just force.
Why?
The question rose unbidden, sharp and bitter.
Why this trial? Why mirrors? Why reflection after reflection, layers of false surfaces and buried chambers? What was being tested here?
His jaw clenched.
He hadn't come for power. Not this time.
The dreams came back to him in flashes burning streets, falling towers, screams cut short. Faces he recognized, voices he could no longer answer. His sister, standing amid the ruins, blood on her hands that wasn't hers alone.
And the war.
Four years ago, everything had fallen apart. Kingdoms turned on one another. Alliances fractured overnight. Valeria burned from the inside out. He had survived but survival was not the same as understanding.
Someone had guided it. Orchestrated it.
Someone he had trusted.
The old man's words echoed faintly in his mind: The Key can reach the dead. Not bodies memories.
That was why he was here.
Kai's fingers curled against the stone.
Even if this place crushed him flat. Even if it tore him apart piece by piece.
He needed answers.
The pressure increased.
His vision swam, red creeping in at the edges. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, uneven and fast. He tasted iron.
Then, through the haze, something shifted.
Not the pressure.
Him.
Energy surged through his veins, sharp and sudden, racing upward as if pulled by instinct rather than will. It burned as it moved, threading through muscle and bone, gathering behind his eyes.
Kai exhaled through clenched teeth.
His pupils ignited.
Crimson flooded his vision, dark rings forming at the edges as the world snapped into focus. Lines of force revealed themselves pressure vectors, points of strain, the way the guardian's power pressed downward rather than inward.
The guardian reacted instantly.
It flipped backward in a smooth, controlled motion, landing several paces away. The stance it took afterward was different lower, more compact, limbs positioned for immediate response.
The pressure lightened.
Not gone but reduced enough that Kai could breathe properly again. He dragged one knee under himself, then the other, pushing through the pain as he forced himself upright.
The ground beneath him was fractured now, a shallow depression marking where he had been pinned. He wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and steadied his breathing.
He could feel the energy around him again.
Not clean. Not pure.
But present.
Defiled.
The realization settled with a strange sense of clarity. Corrupted essence flowed through this place, thick and heavy, and instead of rejecting it, his body accepted it. Not eagerly but without resistance.
Kai raised his hand.
Energy gathered not fire, not wind, not anything he could name. It condensed into a transparent construct, rigid yet flexible, like hardened glass that bent light without reflecting it. The shape held, humming faintly as it stabilized.
He pushed it forward.
The construct slid across the floor toward the guardian, leaving shallow lines in the stone where its edges scraped. The guardian shifted its footing, mirrored surface catching the construct's outline and splitting it into fractured doubles.
They closed the distance.
Above, in the mirrored hall, the blue-haired man finally stopped.
He stared ahead at a reflection that did not match his movements, brow furrowing slightly. For a brief moment, his staff tapped once against the floor a soft, deliberate sound.
Something had changed.
Far below, the palace shuddered as another impact landed against its outer walls, the distant echo rolling through stone and mirror alike.
And within the lower chamber, Kai braced himself as the guardian moved to meet him head-on