Kai thought he was prepared to face whatever Saphielle had planned for him. Little did he know how big of a mistake that was. Kai's breath caught as his eyes opened. The serene valley that was around him moments ago was gone, replaced by a sea of darkness, infinite and quiet, but it was not dead. Flecks of azure light drifted lazily around him like embers in slow motion, painting the void with a calm, otherworldly glow. The silence here was not empty.....it had a strange warmth to it. He sat still for a moment, letting it all settle in.
As he looked down at himself, his eyes widened in surprise. His entire body shimmered with an outline of glowing azure energy, radiant yet ghostlike. Wisps of temporal particles streamed from his limbs in gentle arcs, dissolving into the air like snowflakes in warm wind. His heart pounded, not with fear, but with an unfamiliar weight. Something important had shifted. Something deep.
"...What....the....hell....." he muttered under his breath, voice hushed as though afraid to break the silence. "Hey.....Saphielle?" he called, turning his head. Nothing answered. No voice. No presence. Not even the comforting pressure of her hand against his back. A sudden chill went down his spine as he realized that he was all alone. Unease prickled beneath his skin. Kai stood up slowly, movements cautious, almost reverent. The void didn't resist, but Kai felt that he was being watched.
He tried summoning Umbra, lifting his right hand as he called out to her. Energy pulsed outward in instinctive command... but nothing appeared. His breath hitched. He tried again, this time with more focus, more urgency. Still, the space around his palm remained empty. The usual hum of his weapon's presence was gone. Severed. "What's going on?" Then....the silence shattered.
A sudden cacophony of voices flooded the space, layered and overlapping, impossible to trace back to any source. They were high and low, young and ancient, familiar and alien. But they all spoke one thing in perfect unity: "Kai Nightshade." He flinched. Every muscle tensed as he turned in place, searching the formless dark. "Who's there?" he demanded, his voice sharp, ready.....but it only bounced off the void, swallowed. The voices ignored his question. "The Trials of Ascension shall now begin." And then the world cracked open.
The streams of azure energy around him pulsed violently, whipping into spirals, threading together like veins beneath the skin of space. The darkness fractured, light bursting in jagged lines across the nothingness, carving open a new plane of reality. Kai raised his hands to shield his eyes against the sudden brightness, staggering backward. When he looked again.....
The void was gone. He looked around and saw that he now stood in the middle of a vast, uneven landscape of grassy ridges and rolling mounds, the ground beneath his feet soft and damp like earth after rain. Strange wildflowers shimmered faintly with energy, their petals a blur of blues and silvers. The air buzzed....not with sound, but with vibration, like the whole realm was breathing. Above him, the sky was a pitch-black dome, but littered with unmoving, burning stars. They glowed in deep cerulean and midnight hues, suspended in place like pinpricks in velvet.
Kai turned in a slow circle, his expression a mix of awe and guarded tension. This place wasn't a dream. It wasn't a memory. Then the voices returned. "The Trial of Recognition… shall now commence." They announced in unison. Dark clouds churned suddenly into existence above the sky, gathering with unnatural speed. The air grew thick. Charged with energy. Then.....CRACK!
A volley of thunderbolts burst from the clouds, blazing bright azure as they slammed into the landscape. They struck like divine hammers: wild, unpredictable, illuminating the sky with electric fury. Kai ducked instinctively, dropping to the ground and throwing his arms over his head. The air sizzled. And then, silence returned just as quickly as it had shattered. Slowly, Kai lifted his head. The landscape around him had transformed. The grassy mounds were now littered with weapons, countless of them, jutting from the earth like ancient relics. Swords, daggers, spears, axes, glaives, polearms... weapons of all shapes, materials, and origins, scattered in chaotic symmetry. Some glowed faintly. Others looked rusted, ancient. All of them waiting.
"Your First Trial: Find your True Blade." Kai stood, eyes darting. "What the hell does that even mean?" A low hiss cut through the air behind him. Kai turned, instincts screaming: too late! A blur of green shot toward him from the edge of his vision. He dove, rolling across the wet ground as something massive slashed through the air where he'd just stood. He hit the earth hard, rolled to his feet, and spun.... And his blood froze. There, not twenty feet away, coiled a massive, serpent-like beast, its emerald scales glistening like wet moss. It had three pairs of limbs, each ending in jagged, clawed digits. Its head was shaped like a distorted wolf's snout, stretched unnaturally long, with three rows of jagged, uneven teeth glinting beneath snarling lips. Eight black eyes glared down at him, pupils darting with twitching, hyper-aware movements.
"No...no way....." Kai whispered, horrified. "That's.....not possible...." He knew this monster. He'd faced it once before. It was his first Leviathan. The one that nearly killed him. "You should be dead," Kai said aloud. The Leviathan responded with a guttural, echoing roar, shaking the very air. It opened its maw, and hurled a barrage of shimmering, blade-like projectiles. Kai threw himself sideways, heart pounding, dirt kicking up around him. One of the blades nicked his shoulder as he twisted midair, nearly slicing him open. The voices returned.
"You must best your past failure in order to proceed." Kai narrowed his eyes. He raised his finger and focused, preparing the technique. A bullet of Temporal Energy formed and fired....but as it struck the Leviathan, it fizzled out, harmless. No detonation. No impact. Just a puff of fading light. Kai's eyes widened in horror. The Leviathan roared and charged ripping through the ground like a living missile. Kai had mere seconds.
Kai's breath came in ragged bursts as the Leviathan's roar echoed across the distorted realm. He staggered back a step, lifting his right arm, willing Temporal Energy into his palm. Come on....just a little.... But nothing. No flicker, no hum, no warmth. Just silence. His eyes widened in dread. It was like trying to grasp smoke, his powers were gone. Desperation flooded his chest. With a cry, Kai pulled back his arm and attempted to create a Temporal Fracture, gathering energy into his fist. But again, he felt nothing. No surge, no connection to his core. The Temporal Stream inside him had gone dark.
"What the hell is happening to me?!" he shouted, but the answer came in the form of pain. The Leviathan lunged. It crashed into him like a living battering ram, a wet crack sounding through the air as its massive head slammed into his ribs. Kai's lungs emptied in a violent gasp as he was launched into the air, tumbling like a ragdoll. He slammed into the ground, bounced once, twice...then collided back-first into a colossal war hammer embedded in the earth. The impact left him gasping, wheezing, the world tilting.
Dazed, Kai groaned and pushed himself upright. And then he noticed something strange. His breath returned. The pain in his chest dulled rapidly. He looked down and saw the bruising on his torso fading, bones resetting themselves beneath his skin. It wasn't his Temporal Aura, he hadn't activated it. Yet he was healing. "How in the....?" A distant rumble drew his attention, his head snapped in the direction of the sound as he saw the Leviathan was charging again. No time to question. Instinct roared louder than fear.
Kai scrambled to his feet, gritted his teeth, and wrapped both hands around the handle of the embedded war hammer. With a grunt, he tore it free. It was heavy....almost too heavy, but his muscles screamed with sudden resolve. He planted his feet, raised the weapon overhead, and prepared to strike. "BRING IT ON!" he yelled, as the Leviathan lunged. He swung with all his might. The hammer collided with the creature's face.....and shattered. A thunderous crack exploded through the air as the weapon burst into a thousand shards of splintered metal and stone. Kai's eyes went wide. Oh no....
The Leviathan's claw hit a heartbeat later. A brutal rake tore across his face, sending him spiraling backward with a strangled cry. Pain flared white-hot, blooming across his cheek and jaw like wildfire. Blood splattered the ground....but then, impossibly, Kai watched the crimson droplets reverse direction. His flesh pulled back together, his blood flowed back as the wound sealed shut in seconds. Kai panted heavily, wiping a trembling hand across his face. "What the hell is this place....?" The voices returned, calm yet merciless: "Only the weapon bound to your soul may harm the beast. All others shall fail. Three mortal wounds you may suffer. After the third, the Blessing of Regeneration shall fade." Kai froze. Three...
He had already taken one. His heart thundered like war drums. Around him, countless weapons still jutted from the ground, tempting, gleaming, deceiving. Each could be salvation..... or ruin. And the Leviathan was circling now, watching him. Waiting. Its eyes shimmered with cruel memory. This is more than a test. This is judgment. He looked at his hands, then at the weapons around him. Somewhere out there, his real blade was waiting. And he only had two more chances to find it.