One second he was blinking at the forest haze of Vulkren—next thing he knew, boom.
Reality just… glitched.
There was no falling, no warning. Just a blink—and suddenly, darkness. Not nighttime darkness. Not cave darkness. This was extra-dimensional, can't-see-your-own-hands, is-this-even-real kind of darkness.
"Okay," he muttered, standing up slowly. "This… isn't Vulkren. Or the academy. Or anywhere sane."
The ground beneath him felt flat, solid, but there was no texture. No sound. No horizon. It was like standing inside a closed eyelid—only without the eye. And worst of all, nothing echoed. Even his voice just stopped after it left his mouth, swallowed by whatever-this-place-was.
He activated a flicker of mana from his palm—just a dim glow—but it barely pushed back the void. Enough to see his own shoes. Barely. Comforting? Not really.
Then he saw it.
A single floating door. Just… standing there, glowing faintly, with strange symbols etched into it and no walls attached. Great. Floating door in space. Classic mysterious-trial behavior.
He sighed. "Yup. Definitely a trial. Either that or I fell asleep on the train and someone dumped me into a cosmic shit show."
Still, something about the air—or lack of it—felt charged. Like the place was waiting for him to make the first move.
So he walked. Carefully. Quietly.
And said to no one in particular,
"…If this is some twisted teacher's idea of orientation, then it's just bland.
He opened the door and reality shattered!...
And the world turned red.
No sky. No floor. No time. Just blood.
It gushed from the walls—if there were walls. It poured like rain, warm and metallic, soaking his skin, clogging his throat as he gasped. It wasn't just bodies—it was masses of torn flesh. Mouths still twitching. Fingers still clawing at nothing.
He took a step and something cracked beneath his boot. A half-dissolved skull.
Another step—his foot sank into a split-open torso, intestines uncoiling like wet ropes, steaming in the heat of the slaughter.
He couldn't breathe.
Couldn't speak.
The screaming didn't come from around him—it came from inside him.
Memories twisted and warped—flashing images of every person he'd seen die. But worse.
Now he killed them.
His blade tore through the throat of his first mentor—eyes wide, mouth mouthing his name.
His hands shoved a child into a wall of spikes.
He watched himself laughing as blood sprayed across his face. Their faces were blurred but he knew, behind those faces they were filled with primal fear.
Every death he'd witnessed… now wore his face.
Over and over. Again. And again.
His hands were soaked to the elbow. They wouldn't stop shaking. He felt pieces of meat in his nails, heard the squelch of tissue as he clenched his fists. He couldn't even scream. His vocal cords were raw from silent sobbing.
Stop. Please. Stop—
But the trial didn't stop. It tightened.
The sky above tore open, and rivers of organs, eyeballs, skinned limbs rained down like a divine curse. Faces peeled halfway open. Tongues twitching in the dirt. Someone's jaw sat inches from his foot, teeth still clenched around a bitten-off finger.
Then—
He broke.
His knees hit the ground with a crack, slipping in gore. His shoulders trembled. His breath hitched, shallow and broken.
It was too much. Too much.
Too much pain.
Too much blood.
Too much of himself.
And right when his mind was about to tear apart completely—
Something inside snapped.
And then… froze.
> [Mental Limit Exceeded.]
[Skill synchronised: Void Trance]
Emotional Flow Severed. Cognitive Suppression Active. Sensory Dampening: MAX.
He exhaled. Calm.
Not peace—emptiness.
The blood was still there. The severed heads. The twitching lungs.
But now? Nothing.
He stood.
No emotion. No trembling.
Just perfect, surgical focus.
His blade moved—not like it had before. No hesitation. No morality. No mercy.
He cut through illusions of himself and the people he'd failed. He walked through a curtain of skin. He stepped on twitching hearts. And he felt nothing.
Not disgust.
Not guilt.
Not even power.
Only clarity.
Only stillness.
And then, like a pulled thread snapping—
The world shattered.
Void Trance ended.
And everything came back.
All of it.
The screams. The pain. The grief.
The smell of burning children.
The sound of his mother's voice begging.
The guilt of watching people die. The pleasure of killing. The shame of that pleasure.
The blood wasn't on the world. It was on him.
It hit like a tidal wave. His body convulsed. His chest felt like it was imploding. His nerves screamed.
He collapsed.
Every sense flooded—color, scent, memory, regret.
He couldn't stop crying. Couldn't stop shaking.
He wanted to scream again, but there was no breath left.
Minutes passed. Or hours. He didn't know.
Eventually, he just lay there.
Silent. Still. Breathing.
Barely.
And in that silence, in that wreckage of emotion and gore and madness—
He realized something terrifying.
He could do it again.
He would do it again.
Because now…
He knew how to shut it all off.
Still crouching he felt some thing in his palms, when he opened it a shard in the shape of a broken mirror was held in his arms.
All that for what... For going back to his own world or to satisfy his own selfishness.
He knew he would get no answers if he stood there shivering while letting others manipulate his fate for their enjoyment.
With his shivering hand and those memories he popped the shard in his mouth,
Bright light illuminated the forest in the cosmic night....