B3 Chapter 363: Obstinance, pt. 11

Kaius stared up at the behemoth in front of him with a slack jaw.

Sure, he’d been able to see it for the last league — it’d been clearly visible as the tunnel that held the course had gradually grown wider and taller to hold more complex obstacles. That didn’t mean he’d ever studied the thing.

For his own damn sanity, he’d put it out of mind; refused to even look at it directly.

Now it was right in front of him, and it was unreasonable.

Utterly unreasonable and completely unfair.

A final mountain. An unscalable barrier — at least on first glance.

Behind it lay the end of the course, a solid wall that rose hundreds of longstrides up. He could see the exit — an arch holding an impenetrable black plane. Unfortunately for him, it wouldn’t be easy to reach.

It sat on a ledge just below the far off ceiling.

Staring at the obstacle that he’d have to best to get there, Kaius was worried it might take just as much time to get there as it had to even reach where he now stood!

He shook his head.

A dizzying field of a hundred thousand platforms, each just barely large enough he would be able to stand on them with one foot. They swirled in a dizzying storm — each one whipping up and down, curving back and forth, and lurching from side to side. They corkscrewed and looped, and did far more besides.

Damn things looked like migrating birds that had been caught in a hurricane, thrown about without rhyme or reason.

There was no doubt in Kaius’s mind — not even for a single heartbeat — that most of the platforms were trapped. A single misstep would see him dead, he was sure of it.

That alone would have been enough — an ever shifting maze that stretched for hundreds of longstrides in every dimension. To his dismay, there was still more.

Seemingly at random, violence would explode from the walls around it. Bursts of erupting magma sent glowing sprays into the centre of the obstacle, while winds full of half visible blades would swirl and gust across hundreds of platforms; an endless storm of spikes shot from a hundred hidden holes, striking a staccato beat as the unending salvo cracked against stone — and dozens of other hazards.

They came from every direction, at all times in a cascade of nonstop lethality.

Seemingly at random, points of pure arcane would appear at random points throughout the shifting platforms. For a heartbeat they would pulse, growing brighter before they exploded with a hissing crack.

By the bloody gods, it looked like even the gravity changed at random. The constant rain that fell from acid and ooze traps didn’t seem to always fall down — sometimes sliding sideways or up until the affected zone changed location.

No matter how lethal it looked, Kaius still smiled at it hungrily.

He was here. The end was within sight, and it was only a matter of time before he got through this trial. What was one more, after so many others before this?

After runs unending, he’d gotten much better at crossing the course. Even as his mind and memory burst at the seams, he’d optimised his route to the point that most of it was easy now.

Once he had the trick, he rarely needed to rely on heroic physicality or overwhelming magic to progress. There was always a route — a path of safety he could practically stroll down.

After so long, there was nothing left to distract him from his purpose. Every skill he’d used organically had hit some kind of artificial wall, and he had little interest in waiting around practicing irrelevant abilities when he could push himself towards what was truly important.

Rotten roots, even the dreamlike way he drifted from moment to moment, and run to run didn’t bother him anymore.

Not when he’d succeeded at the true goal of the Trial — had seized an Authority that oozed from every facet of his mind, an insight that led and directed the weight his will imposed on the world around him.

Kaius could feel The Veteran’s Edge like a second skin. It was a cloak of individuality that wrapped him tight, bound him in armour that strengthened with every battle. It was ineffable — unexplainable — but he felt connected to his Aspect like he never had before.

Previously, his Glass Mind had felt separate from himself. Just another tool; an odd Skill-like thing he called upon when it was needed, or a strange other that lay within his mind. He’d been an utter, slow-witted fool to think that it could ever have been as such.

It was an expansion and development he could never have achieved without the mysticism of his Aspect, but at its core it was still him. His mind, his thoughts, his soul and his will — only ever separated when viewed from one perspective. The one that was unused to focusing on more than a single stream of thought. That’s all it was. A split in his focus, one tuned to learn, remember, and grow wise — one that helped him plot a course forward to achieve his goals.

So too was he The Veteran’s Edge. Battered, but never broken. He lived and he learned, and he kept living — always assessing what path was best, based on the others he had walked.

The final obstacle was unreasonable, and he would beat it all the same. No longer how long it took — how many days or years or however long it had been! No matter if it required a thousand deaths, and agony unending! He had set his mind to victory, and he would find the path that led him there.

Stolen story; please report.

Time might seek to crush him; wear him down under its grindstone. He would reject being diminished and embrace the experience all the same. He now recognised it for what it was: a simple polish. A boon of refinement, to grant him what he needed for the greater tribulation that always lurked on the morrow.

His spells were ready, having long since been inscribed.