Chapter 40: Shocked

Chapter Forty

This puny human child had caught his attention from the very first mini-test he had conducted on them.

His will was even higher than that of the other human with a weak unique bloodline, and even then, the being had never imagined that either of them would be able to pass the 100th floor. No human had ever reached that point throughout the ages.

The number of humans who could be considered superior to these two challengers, both of whom had failed to reach the 100th floor, could practically be described as infinite. There had simply been too many extraordinary humans who had challenged this place and fallen before reaching even this point.

So yes... If he hadn’t witnessed it with his own eyes, he would never have believed that this human child could truly reach the 100th floor.

The other human had already been completely erased after giving up. With a single thought, everything that had transpired on the countless steps leading toward the 100th floor became known to the being.

For a brief second, the being was shocked. Genuinely shocked.

That was something he hadn’t felt in an eternity, yet the audacity and sheer stupidity of this human child had somehow managed to shock him.

How could he even think about ripping the trial and the White Palace apart? That was truly an extravagant thought. Did he even know who had created the White Palace? Did he know who had created the 1000th floor and all the countless steps leading toward it?

Those were blatant words of blasphemy.

If not for the law of the trial that guarded the challengers and ensured they wouldn’t die unless they gave up, then this foolish human would have been wiped out simply for possessing the sheer audacity to declare something like that.

Still, the being could have erased him himself if he truly wanted to. He simply didn’t feel like doing so.

The reason was simple.

This human child was an anomaly.

He was the first human to have reached the 100th floor out of all the countless humans who had challenged this place throughout the ages. That alone was something else, something that made him stand apart from every other human who had ever entered this place.

Because of that, the being would allow him to continue challenging the trial. Sooner or later, he would give up anyway. At least, that was what the being believed.

For now, however, the human had truly earned his respect.

The being rested his cheek against one hand and watched the interesting little human below him, curious to see just how long he could continue walking forward.

One had to understand that the first 100 floors were merely the beginner portion of this trial. They could only be considered Level One. The 200th floor represented Level Two, while the 300th floor represented Level Three.

And it continued upward from there.

The higher the level, the more impossible the trials became. In fact, describing the increase in difficulty between each level as exponential would actually be an understatement.

It was far beyond an exponential increase.

That alone was enough to conclude that no matter how extraordinary this human child was, there was absolutely no way he would pass Level Two.

At least, that was what the being thought.

But he was bound to be shocked sooner than later.

Orion stepped into yet another overwhelming trial.

As soon as he entered, an unimaginable amount of danger, pain, and despair descended upon him. The intensity was so great that it made the Karmic Torture he had survived feel like a good trial in comparison.

Even then, Orion didn’t think about giving up. The thought had long since fled his mind, leaving behind only one thing that mattered.

Moving forward.

He started to walk.

His soul, mind, and body were drowning in pain and endless despair, yet his legs continued moving. One step followed another, and then another, carrying him through an endless nightmare as he dragged his battered existence forward.

Not long after, or rather, after what felt like an eternity, he crossed onto the 101st floor.

Orion waited as his body, mind, soul, and very being were restored to full health. His gray eyes remained fixed ahead throughout the process, and once his recovery was complete, he immediately dived straight into the next trial without giving himself time to hesitate.

Orion simply stepped forward once more.

Reality warped rapidly around him. The surrounding space twisted and distorted, and soon, a stream of information about the next trial flooded directly into his mind.

The content of that information was enough to drive a completely sane planet and all its inhabitants mad if they were forced to comprehend it. Yet Orion’s gray, emotionless eyes remained unchanged.

He stepped forward, and the pain descended.

Another hellish trial swallowed him, but Orion didn’t give up. He kept walking, carrying the motto that had become such a fundamental part of him that he no longer needed to consciously think about it.

One step at a time.

The words had been engraved so deeply into his very being that they had begun to break all logic. No matter how much pain, sadness, despair, or anything else overwhelmed his existence, his legs continued moving.

It was almost as though he didn’t feel anything.

But that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

He felt every single second of the pain, and more than that, he felt it deeply. Every nerve within his existence screamed from the agony, and every part of his being experienced the suffering in full.

Every moment of despair tried to drag him down, yet even as he stepped from one overwhelming pain into another, his eyes remained unchanged.

His steps didn’t slow, and his heart didn’t waver. His focus had shifted away from the pain and toward something far simpler.

His leg.

As long as he kept walking, he was winning.

That was all that mattered.

Orion crossed the 102nd floor, then the 103rd, then the 104th. After that came the next floor, and then another. He continued moving forward without stopping, allowing the endless trials to pass beneath his feet one after another.

Several thousand years went by in what felt like a blink of an eye.

Finally, Orion arrived at the end of the 199th floor.

His gray eyes carried more and more spite and cold rage as he looked ahead.

Only 800 floors remained.

Once he reached the end, all of this would finally come to an end. He would finally have his answer, and if that answer wasn’t satisfying, then he would unleash his chaos.

If Orion had been in a stable enough state of mind to think rationally, he should have known perfectly well that there was absolutely nothing he could do to cause chaos in a place like this.

Hell... He wasn’t even strong enough to break the tiniest pebble in this place.

Yet he was thinking about ripping the entire place apart.

It was truly a foolish dream.

But Orion didn’t care.

He was going to do everything in his power to make it happen. Even if it meant using this so-called Origin to destroy this place, he would use it. He would ruin the entire place and tear apart everything that stood in his way.

To do that, though, he needed to reach the 1000th floor.

And that was exactly what Orion would do.

He reached the 200th floor and finally allowed himself to rest for a while.

That while lasted around ten years.

Compared to everything he had already gone through and everything he would soon be heading into, however, those ten years seemed far too short.

Even if he rested for a thousand years, it would probably still feel too short.

That was simply how daunting the task Orion had chosen to push himself through had become.

Ten years later, Orion’s eyes opened.

He took several deep, steady breaths and calmed himself before finally diving straight into the next trial.

This one was different.

This was a Level Three trial, meaning it was even worse than all the endless trials he had been surviving up until now.

But did Orion care about that?

The answer was clear.

With his expressionless face carrying a cold light, Orion stepped forward and walked into another endless assault of despair.

It was despair that made even the highest form of despair feel peaceful, and pain that made every other pain feel like pleasure. Yet through all of it, Orion continued walking forward, again and again, until he finally crossed that trial.

After taking enough time to rest and recuperate, he dived into yet another endless peril.

Then another.

And another.

As Orion cleared the trials floor by floor, there was no sign that he intended to stop.

The being, who had bet with himself that Orion wouldn’t pass the 200th floor, found himself shocked for the third time in such a short period.

This human child...

How was he doing this?

How was he still moving forward after everything he had endured?

It didn’t make sense.

Even to him, it made absolutely no sense, and that alone showed what kind of anomaly Orion truly was.

The being’s red eyes glowed brilliantly like miniature suns as a small chuckle escaped him.

The sound echoed throughout the White Palace, shaking the galaxy above him.

"When did such an astonishing human appear in the universe?"

His attention remained fixed on Orion as the human child continued clearing more and more floors.

The more floors Orion cleared, the wider the being’s eyes became in disbelief, and the more his smile grew.

The longer he watched, the harder it became for him to see the child before him as nothing more than a human.

There was something else there.

Something far beyond what he had expected.

The more he looked at Orion, the more the image of a particular someone, someone whom he wasn’t worthy of calling by name, seemed to merge with the image of this human child.

The being slowly shook his head.

"That is not a human child."

His red eyes remained fixed on Orion.

"That is a monster..."

His smile widened as he watched the human continue walking through the endless trials.

"A nightmare."