Chương 92: Start of the Third Stage

Casper stood there as usual, utterly unbothered, staring off into the white void as though whatever had happened held no relevance to him whatsoever, and Ara's words seemed to concern him not in the slightest — not a flicker of reaction, not a hint of emotion, only that familiar, icy detachment, as though he'd been carved from the very same ice as his own attacks, and might as well have been standing among a crowd of total strangers. — I won't keep you waiting.

Let's begin the third and final stage of the Exam right now. Noticing the exhausted, nervously glancing faces of the Players, catching every word he said with poorly hidden anxiety, he added, fanning himself with that same lazy nonchalance, as though discussing something entirely mundane, like the weather or a light afternoon snack. — I assure you, this won't take long.

Ara snapped his fingers, thin and ringed, and immediately blue rifts began appearing around the crowd of Players, resembling doors — their surfaces shimmering with an uneven, pulsing light, as though woven from pure, frozen energy, faint sparks running along the edges of each rift, crackling with a quiet, electric sound like the whisper of a distant storm.

There were exactly as many rifts as there were remaining Players — not one more, not one less — and for some reason that simple observation struck Lloyd as particularly unsettling. — You won't need any rules. Each of you will face your own separate stage. He gestured with his fan toward the nearest blue rift, the fabric of his robe rippling with the motion, casting a trembling crimson glow across the white void, sliding over the faces of the Players standing closest to him.

— Simply step through one of these doors, one at a time. Suddenly, the long-eared Elf was the first to step out from the crowd — his face frozen in an indescribable, barely-restrained fury, jaw clenched tight, fists white from how hard he gripped them, as though holding himself back from some reckless act through sheer force of will alone.

Without a moment's hesitation, Lorian stepped through one of the doors, and in that same instant the rift vanished as abruptly as it had appeared, leaving behind no trace, not the faintest shimmer, as though it had never existed at all, as though the white void itself had rushed to erase any reminder of it.

For a moment, dead silence fell, followed by the sound of the other Players' footsteps, one after another making their way toward their own individual rifts, each step echoing hollow and solitary through the boundless white expanse, multiplying and dissolving somewhere into the invisible distance.

Before Lloyd could properly gather himself, almost no one remained around him — the white void had emptied out once more, leaving only scattered, isolated figures hurrying each toward their own blue door, as though drawn there by some invisible, relentless force that allowed no room for hesitation. He made his way toward one of the nearest rifts, feeling his heart pound somewhere in his throat, his palms growing clammy with nerves despite the exhaustion that should have long since dulled any emotion.

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"Is there some kind of riddle to this, or something like that? I don't understand any of it." Lloyd felt a light, pleasant warmth spreading from his right side, washing over his skin like the first sip of hot tea on a cold day.

Turning, he saw Brand standing in front of the neighboring door — the flame on his shoulders crackling faintly, casting sparse orange flickers across the void, his gaze, usually sharp and wary, now looking strangely tired, almost peaceful, as though he too had made peace with the inevitability of the trial ahead. — Good luck in there.

Before Lloyd could say anything in response, Brand gave a brief farewell wave and stepped through the rift, which immediately closed behind him with a quiet, barely audible click, like an invisible book snapping shut, putting a final period on some unfinished conversation the two of them had never really gotten around to starting.

Lloyd remained standing alone, looking at the rift right in front of him, at the strange blue glow emanating from its surface, trembling and shimmering as though alive, as though some foreign heart pulsed within that door, beating to its own unknown rhythm, alien to anything human.

But after everything he'd witnessed today — a talking Creature, reality itself warping right before his eyes, tons of water vanishing into nothing, an elaborately dressed Administrator floating in midair — none of this could surprise him anymore. He let out several heavy sighs in a row, trying to steady his nerves, feeling the exhaustion built up over three days pull him down like a weight of lead, his head spinning slightly at the mere thought of the new, unknown trial waiting for him beyond this blue veil.

And yet, gathering the last scraps of resolve he could scrape together from his worn-out body, he finally stepped through. The final rift closed behind him with a quiet rustle, leaving the white void in its familiar, featureless glow — completely empty now, save for a single distant figure hovering just above the ground.

The elaborately dressed Administrator fanned himself faster and more vigorously, as though weighed down by some unbearable, invisible heat, staring at the spot where the rifts had stood just moments ago, now leaving behind absolutely nothing — only endless, silent whiteness stretching in every direction to the horizon, without even a hint of a boundary.

For a while he simply stood there like that, swaying his fan in time to some inaudible melody, as though savoring this sudden silence after a long, chaotic day full of blood, fire, and ice. With one final wave of his fan, he dissolved into the white void without a sound, as though he'd been nothing more than a mirage conjured by some weary, exhausted imagination, and across his powdered face, just before he vanished completely, flickered a faint, enigmatic smile whose meaning remained known only to him.