Chapter 31: Trial (2)

Chapter Thirty One

The sun shone brightly, its blazing light pouring directly down upon the duo as they walked through the rocky desert. Their backs were hunched so deeply that it seemed as if they were carrying some kind of immovable mountain directly upon their backs.

They moved forward ever so slowly. It was almost as if they were snails. No... Even snails moved like flashes of lightning in comparison to the speed of this duo.

With every single step, they groaned in deep pain. They would rest for countless minutes before taking another step forward, allowing their shattered bodies enough time to recover from the overwhelming pressure before forcing themselves to move again.

Orion took another step forward and shuddered once more beneath the overwhelming force pressing down upon him. He gritted his teeth so hard that his gums seemed ready to bleed, and another drop of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, joining the numerous drops already staining his chin.

He didn’t care. There was no time to care. His only concern was taking another step. After several minutes, he waited for Sir Dwaine, who also took another step forward.

A small groan of intense pain escaped the old man’s mouth. The duo waited as their bodies trembled, their muscles shook, their bones seemed to vibrate beneath the crushing weight.

Only after their bodies no longer felt as though they were about to shatter apart at any moment did they take another step. The arduous torment filled each and every one of their steps. It was truly a torment.

How long had they been walking through this rocky desert? How long had they been feeling wave after wave of torment rushing through and filling their bodies with each step? They had no idea.

They had been walking for months, maybe years, maybe even a decade, there was simply no way to tell anymore. Their minds and bodies had been far too ravaged by the pain to notice the passage of time.

All their concentration was focused on one thing. Taking one more step. Recovering from the torment that the previous step had placed upon their bodies.

Then...

Taking the next step, that was all. One step, then another and another.

This way, they kept pushing forward no matter how much bone-shattering pain their bodies underwent with every step they took. They didn’t think about the distance, they didn’t think about how many steps remained.

They didn’t think about the countless floors waiting above them. If they did, their minds might have broken before their bodies ever did. So they simply moved.

One step at a time, several more hours went by.

,then days and even months. Time became meaningless and there was only pain.

There was only movement, there was only the next step. And then, during one particular step... Something changed.

The step didn’t come with the usual pain anymore. No... It didn’t come with that. Instead... They felt the weight that had been pressing down upon them for what seemed like years vanish completely.

Just like that, the crushing pressure disappeared. The duo froze, t isheir exhausted minds struggled to comprehend what had just happened.

They slowly lifted their heads and looked around, the rocky desert had vanished, the endless landscape of rocks and burning sunlight was gone. Before them stood the entrance to the 11th floor.

For a moment, neither of them moved. Then... Both of them collapsed, their bodies hit the ground as they gasped desperately for breath, feeling their exhausted bodies finally begin to relax from the overbearing strain that had been placed upon them for what felt like an eternity.

Their chests rose and fell violently, their muscles trembled and their bones felt as though they had been repeatedly crushed and rebuilt. They had only crossed from the 10th floor to the 11th floor.

And yet, it seemed like an eternity of suffering and despair had accompanied those few floors. To think that they would still need to reach the 1000th floor... The duo’s hearts sank.

This trial really was impossible. No matter how one looked at it, it was impossible. And the fact that the higher the floors became, the more difficult and dire the challenge of climbing them became...

The situation, in all honesty, seemed hopeless. More than hopeless even, It seemed utterly despairing. Yet the duo were not ready to give up. Not yet.

They rested their suffering bodies for several hours. Still, after those hours had passed, they managed to regain enough vitality to embark on the next trial. The duo looked at each other.

They didn’t need to say a word to convey their thoughts to each other. A single nod was all it took. Then they made another step and entered the next trial.

The moment they took that step...

Their legs landed in hot lava. "ARGH!" Overwhelming pain and scorching heat filled the air as yelps of agony escaped the duo.

They had been prepared, they knew another trial was coming. But being dumped into a world of lava all of a sudden, stepping directly into burning liquid flame, was not something anyone could truly be prepared for.

Their shoes burned away instantly as flames engulfed their bodies, burning every piece of their clothing and leaving their skin hot and red. They were burning. And yet...

They did not burn away. Instead, they were forced to feel the overwhelming agony. Every nerve in their bodies screamed, every inch of their skin felt as though it was being roasted alive.

The heat wasn’t simply surrounding them, it was entering them, into their flesh, blood, bones and their very existence. The duo took a long while to get their minds straight and pull themselves together before their sanity could break from the burning sensation that permeated every one of their senses.

Then, as if passing a signal to each other without saying a word, the duo took one step forward. One step at a time.

Their legs, red-hot like heated metal, stepped forward in unison. The overbearing pain immediately pulled at them. Groans and yelps of agony escaped their lips, their bodies trembled violently.

Their faces twisted in pain, but they didn’t relax. Unlike the rocky desert, where the burden eventually relieved itself after they endured for a while, this was different. This time, there was no relief.

The world itself was burning, the air was burning, the ground was burning, the atmosphere was burning as well.... Everything burned. There was nowhere to escape.

In all common sense, the duo should not have been able to breathe in this kind of environment. The air should have been burned away entirely. And yet, they were able to breathe.

But that only made things worse. The air they inhaled was like hot magma and flame, burning their lungs and singeing their entire insides. The already overwhelming agony they were forced to face rose by several levels.

"ARGH!"

The duo let out tortured cries, their voices echoing through the endless lava world. Most people would have simply given up to escape this kind of helpless torture.

But giving up was death, giving up was to be erased. And the duo, especially Orion, were doing this to survive. He wanted to live, he wanted to continue existing.

So no matter how overwhelming the pain was... No matter how much he burned... He took another step forward. Then another step forward. And then another.

The old man, Sir Dwaine, followed behind him. He was also pushing forward, he was not willing to give up either. The two could be said to be tougher than the strongest metal as they continued advancing forward one step at a time.

They burned, screamed and cried. And yet... They continued to advance. Even when it seemed as if their very souls and beings were burning apart, they continued to hold themselves together.

They continued to move forward, they continued walking through this place that would have received a full rating as a certified hell, Hours passed. Then days, then months and even years.

The duo kept walking forward as the endless assault of agony continued. Mind-crippling pain, soul-numbing torment and waging terror.

Pain that seemed capable of tearing apart not only their bodies but their very souls. They endured it all and continued walking.

They screamed and they cried...

And finally... After what seemed like an eternity of suffering, the duo made their fifty-thousandth step. The moment they took that step... The lava world vanished.

The burning atmosphere disappeared. The endless sea of molten fire faded away. And the duo found themselves standing on the 12th floor. They collapsed once more.

Their burnt clothing reappeared on their bodies as though the trial had never truly destroyed it. Their reddened skin slowly began to cool down, returning to its normal white, jade-like appearance. Their faces, pale from exhaustion, gradually began returning to normal as well.

They were recuperating once more. Yet this time, their recovery didn’t bring any sort of joy. If anything, it only made them think about the countless other soul-tormenting trials that awaited them.

It made the question the duo had asked themselves countless times over the years surface in their minds once more. Is this trial even passable?

The question lingered. Neither of them had an answer. After they had recovered fully... Or at least recovered enough to continue...

The duo looked at the next step that led to the 13th floor. Apprehension filled their gazes. They both took a deep breath at the same time. They steeled their nerves.

They prepared themselves for whatever was about to happen. And then, without wasting another second... They stepped forward.

The moment they did... The world warped once more. Everything changed, the cool restoring feeling of the floor vanished. In its place was...

An ice world.

Everywhere they looked, enormous mountains of ice stretched toward the heavens. Jagged glaciers rose from the frozen earth like the fangs of some ancient beast, their sharp peaks piercing into the endless white sky.

Snow covered everything. The ground, mountains, valleys and distant horizon. There was no sign of life anywhere. No trees, grass and even rocks untouched by frost. Nothing.

Only an endless kingdom of white and blue. Snowflakes descended from the sky endlessly, each one drifting through the air with an eerie silence before joining the thick layers of snow already covering the ground.

Yet the snow was not peaceful. The wind howled across the frozen wasteland like the roar of countless ancient beasts. Blizzards swept across the landscape, carrying countless shards of ice through the air.

The ice particles moved so violently that they resembled countless blades being thrown through the world. The mountains in the distance disappeared beneath the endless snowfall, only to reappear moments later through the shifting veil of white.

Everything was frozen, the sky seemed frozen, he earth seemed frozen. Even the air itself seemed to have turned into an invisible ocean of absolute cold.

It was beautiful.

Terrifyingly beautiful, it’s a world where life itself seemed to have been rejected. The moment the duo appeared, a chill unlike anything they believed possible slammed into their bodies from all sides.

Left and Right.... Above and Below. Front and Behind. The cold came from everywhere, It was merciless, It didn’t simply touch their bodies.It invaded them.

"Ugh!"

The duo groaned in agony immediately, their clothes froze over in an instant. A layer of frost spread across the fabric before the frozen material shattered into countless fragments, leaving them naked once more.

The cold seeped into their bodies, Into their flesh, into their muscles, Into their bones, Into their inner organs. The cold seemed to freeze everything to absolute zero.

And yet... They did not freeze, they were freezing, but they did not become frozen statues. Instead, they were forced to remain conscious, forced to remain alive, and to feel every single bit of the pain.

Their teeth rattled violently as their bodies trembled uncontrollably. Their skin became pale from the extreme cold, yet beneath that pale surface was an agony that words could hardly describe.

It wasn’t merely cold, it was pain. The cold was so intense that it burned, the feeling was as though countless invisible needles were piercing through every inch of their bodies at once.

Every breath they took felt like inhaling frozen blades. Their lungs contracted violently, as their blood seemed to slow. Their bones felt as though they were being submerged in an endless ocean of frost.

The duo had entered another hell, this one a hell of absolute cold. Earlier, while Orion had been walking through the lava world, he had thought that a cold atmosphere would be far more preferable.

At least cold would be better than burning alive. That was what he had thought. But now... Standing rigidly in a world where the temperature seemed to have descended beyond anything his mind could comprehend, where his entire body was freezing at absolute zero without actually becoming frozen solid...

Orion’s mind changed on the matter completely. The lava world was far more pleasant than this. For the first time, Orion genuinely wished for the burning heat he had suffered through before.

Because the cold... The cold was worse. It was so cold... So incredibly cold... That it really, truly burned.