The moment the three figures passed fully into the reflective palace, the world inside shifted its posture.
Light bent strangely here. Reflections did not simply mirror they delayed, overlapped, remembered. Every step echoed twice, once in sound and once in image, as if the palace itself needed time to decide whether the intruders truly existed.
The blue-haired man continued walking as if none of that mattered.
"You see," he said calmly, voice carrying through the vast mirrored halls, "this world is still young in its ignorance. People cling to cities, kingdoms, and ruins they can name. They mistake familiarity for safety."
His staff clicked softly against the floor, though the surface beneath it did not appear solid. The two cloaked figures followed at a measured pace, silent as ever.
"There are trials scattered across this era," the man went on. "Some buried. Some floating. Some sealed so deeply within reality that even the pillars barely remember them. Most remain untouched. Unmapped. Unclaimed."
They passed through a corridor where the walls reflected futures that never settled images flickering and collapsing into one another. A battlefield that wasn't there. A throne without a king. A shadow standing where a man should be.
"Each trial," he continued, "is not a test. It is an invitation. A threshold."
The group slowed.
Ahead of them stood a door unlike the others.
It was tall, seamless, and perfectly smooth—mirror upon mirror compressed into a single plane. No symbols adorned it. No cracks, no seams, no reflections warped across its surface. It did not show what stood before it, nor what lay behind.
It simply was.
The blue-haired man stopped.
For the first time since entering the palace, he did not walk forward.
"Hm," he murmured.
He lifted a hand and lightly tapped the surface with one finger.
Nothing happened.
No ripple.
No vibration.
No elemental response.
He tried again, this time pressing a little more intent into the touch.
Still nothing.
The door rejected him not violently, not actively, but with absolute indifference. As if the concept of passage itself had been removed.
The man exhaled softly and turned back to the two cloaked figures.
"We wait," he said simply.
They did not question him.
He rested his staff across his shoulders and resumed speaking, tone casual, almost conversational, as though time itself had agreed to pause for his lecture.
"I imagine you've been wondering," he said, eyes glinting faintly, "why I've invested so much effort into breaching this particular trial."
One of the cloaked figures shifted slightly, but said nothing.
"It's because of the Key of Blasphemy," the man continued. "Or rather its fragments. Six shards or key each one touched by divinity, each one capable of opening power that should not be possible."
He reached down and began unwrapping the cloth bindings around his staff. With each layer removed, the air grew heavier, more resistant.
"One shard or key ," he said, "is here."
The staff beneath the wrappings was no longer pale. Veins of blue light pulsed faintly along its length, liquid and alive.
"But before you ask," he added lightly, "no I cannot take it."
The two cloaked figures finally looked at him.
The man smiled. "I am not a challenger. I do not belong to the trial. The rules are very strict about such things, no matter how old or clever one becomes."
He stepped closer to the mirror door.
"As I've said before, these trials are not tests designed to reward ambition. They are gates. Bridges to realms shaped by gods. Some benevolent. Some indifferent. Some" he paused, tapping the staff lightly against the floor, "less so."
He raised the staff and placed its tip gently against the mirror door.
The palace groaned.
At first it was subtle a faint sound like glass under stress. Then thin cracks began to spiderweb outward from the point of contact, spreading slowly, deliberately, as though the door itself were deciding how much resistance to offer.
The air hummed.
Reflections distorted.
The man leaned forward slightly, applying pressure not through strength, but through element. Something unseen pressed with him, compressing space rather than matter.
Crack.
Crack—crack.
The fractures spread wider, racing along the door's surface like veins under skin. A sharp sound echoed as the mirror plane bent inward by a fraction.
Satisfied, the man stepped back and lifted the staff.
"That will do," he said.
He gestured lightly, and a current of elemental force wrapped around himself and the two cloaked figures, carrying them forward not through the door, but between its fractures, slipping through the broken logic of the barrier itself.
Far below, in the deeper palace, pressure still ruled.
Kai's body was forced low, muscles trembling, breath shallow. The guardian's mirrored gaze remained fixed on him, unblinking, unyielding.
The air around him felt dense, as though every thought weighed something.
Another tremor shook the palace.
Boom.
Kai gritted his teeth.
He drew on what little strength remained, not from fire, not from sight, but from movement. Wind gathered around him in a sharp, unstable burst.
He released it.
The blast struck the guardian squarely, hurling the mirrored figure backward out of the chamber. The pressure vanished instantly, snapping like a broken chain.
Kai collapsed forward, catching himself on one knee.
For a heartbeat, silence.
Then,
The guardian moved.
It returned faster than sound, reflection tearing through space. Kai barely registered the motion before something slammed into him with overwhelming force, launching him backward into the wall.
The impact knocked the breath from his lungs.
Cracks spread where his body hit, mirror-stone splintering beneath him. Before he could recover, the pressure returned heavier, colder, more deliberate.
The trial had noticed his resistance.
And it did not approve.