The air in the ruin was heavier now—thicker with purpose.
Kael stepped into the corridor, each footfall echoing softly against the ancient stone. The walls were alive with light, shifting runes rearranging themselves as if responding to his presence. Some faded, others ignited, forming patterns he couldn't yet read—but instinct told him: this place was testing him.
Not just his body.
His mind.
Finally...
He knelt near a wall, tracing the lines of a glowing sigil with his fingers. It pulsed at his touch. Not warm. Not cold. Just… aware.
It's watching me, he thought, calmly.
No fear. Only analysis.
Further down the corridor, the floor shifted beneath him—barely perceptible, but enough to make his eyes narrow. A trigger. He had seen things like this in dungeon-style games, though this was no artificial system.
He tested his theory. Grabbed a pebble and tossed it ahead.
Click.
A sound—metal sliding.
From the ceiling, a spike slammed down with brutal force.
He stared at the shattered stone.
If I had walked two steps ahead…
He didn't finish the thought. He didn't need to. This world might be new, but danger was an old friend. And unlike Earth, this place had no rules, no safeties.
Adapt, or die.
That was the language here.
Kael moved slowly now, calculating every step like a grandmaster scanning a battlefield. Ahead, the corridor split—left led to more runes, flickering with blue light. Right descended downward, into darkness, but the air smelled different there. Older.
He smiled slightly.
If I were designing this dungeon, the lower path would house the deeper secret—the reward behind the risk.
He turned right.
As he descended, the air grew colder. The silence heavier.
At the base, he entered a circular chamber. Floating in the center was a massive stone tablet, suspended by invisible force. Runes spun around it like planets around a sun. His eyes adjusted to its glow—and then he saw them:
Words.
Not in English. Not in Latin. But he could understand them.
[ Karmic Disturbance Detected ]
Candidate Soul: Caelum Veras / Kael Veyron
Origin: Outworld / Earth
State: Reborn via Karmic Overcharge
Alignment: Distorted Neutral
Initiating Trial of the Mind.
His breath caught—not from shock, but from interest.
A karmic trial? A test of intellect, perhaps?
The room shifted. Walls restructured themselves, and five glowing glyphs appeared in the air, arranged in a circle.
Each pulsed a different color: red, blue, green, white, black.
A voice—mechanical, ancient—spoke into his mind.
"Choose your path of awakening. Fail, and be erased."
Kael's fingers twitched.
No tutorial. No hand-holding. No second chances.
Exactly how he liked it.
He studied the glyphs:
Red: Power. Likely a warrior's path. Too crude.
Green: Life. Healers or growth? Possibly useful, but slow.
Blue: Knowledge. Mental resonance.
White: Order. Possibly law or structure—limiting.
Black: Void. Chaos, or perhaps forbidden magic.
He reached out to touch the blue glyph.
It surged with energy and wrapped around his hand like liquid lightning.
[ Trial Accepted: Path of the Mind Rune ]
Stage 1: Solve the Sequence Before Anomaly
Collapse (Timer: 60 Seconds)
Below him, five stone plates lit up with symbols—each a different mathematical or logical pattern. The ground beneath began to crack and pulse with unstable energy.
So we're doing puzzles under pressure?
He crouched low, eyes scanning each pattern. He didn't need the full sixty seconds. He saw the solution in six.
Plate three was the correct one.
He stepped onto it.
The rest vanished.
Silence.
Then:
[ Success. Neural Signature Recognized. Trial Phase 2 Initiated. ]
A slot opened in the wall, and from it floated a glowing rune core—a swirling crystal etched with microscopic markings.
It hovered before him, waiting.
Kael raised his hand.
The moment he touched it, knowledge poured into him.
Torrents of symbols. Maps. Mental architecture. Memory threads from a time before time.
His knees buckled—but he stayed standing.
The crystal dimmed and fused into his chest.
A second voice entered his thoughts.
Not mechanical. Not divine.
Older.
Darker.
"So… you're the one fate spat back into this world."
Kael narrowed his eyes.
"Who are you?"
"You may call me… Whisper. For now."
"You are no ordinary rebirth, Kael Veyron. You are the karmic fracture in this world's cycle."
The runes on the walls blazed to life.
And Kael—finally—smiled.
They gave me a world ruled by power, territory, and ancient secrets…
Then gave me the only mind capable of breaking it.
Let's begin the real game.
[ END OF CHAPTER 2 ]