Max stepped through the door, and the mont he did, the world behind him vanished. The sensation was disorienting, as if every sense he possessed had been stripped away at once.
The ground disappeared from beneath his feet, and for a mont, it felt like he was falling endlessly through a bottomless chasm. Yet there was no wind, no sound, and no light. Only stillness.
When his body finally stabilized, he found himself standing on what appeared to be solid ground, though he couldn't see it. Everything around him was swallowed by darkness. There was no sky, no horizon, and not even the faintest glimr of light.
The blackness was complete, stretching infinitely in every direction. It wasn't the kind of darkness that existed in the night sky, where distant stars broke through the void—it was purer, thicker, and far more oppressive.
'What's going on?' Max thought as his gaze moved around, but there was nothing to see. He tried expanding his Three Dinsional Body, sending waves of soul perception outward to scan the surroundings, but the result was the sa. His perception vanished into the void, devoured by it like a pebble thrown into an endless ocean. Not even an echo returned.
'Where is the second part of the trial?' he wondered. The trial of flas had been tangible, alive with fire and heat, filled with vibrant energy. But this… this felt empty. Devoid of life, motion, or even ti. The silence here was so complete that it almost had a weight of its own, pressing against his mind.
He took a slow breath and steadied himself. The instinctive part of his mind told him sothing was wrong. The space here didn't behave like normal reality. It felt unstable, yet it didn't move. It was a paradox—motionless and shifting all at once.
Even the faint energy within his body seed to hum differently here, slower and heavier, as though the laws of existence were being rewritten.
Max frowned. "Is this really the trial of ice?" he muttered to himself quietly. His voice was swallowed imdiately, not even producing an echo. It was as if the darkness itself consud every sound before it could exist.
He waited in silence, his eyes slowly adjusting to the void even though there was no light to adapt to. Nothing changed. No fluctuations, no disturbances, not even the faint tremor of energy. It was as if this place had been abandoned by creation itself.
But Max didn't panic. He remained still, calm, and composed. He had experienced countless strange phenona before—spatial distortions, dinsional folds, the chaos of the void between realms. This was unfamiliar, but it didn't unsettle him.
He closed his eyes and let his mind focus inward. His heartbeats slowed, becoming steady and rhythmic. He could feel the faint warmth of the Devouring Rebirth fla still lingering in his core, but even that warmth seed to dim as if smothered by the overwhelming stillness.
'This place… isn't a physical trial,' he realized. 'It feels more like a trial of perception or will.'
The darkness around him pulsed faintly, though it was so subtle that he almost missed it. It was as though sothing far away had exhaled softly into the void. Max's gaze sharpened. His instincts told him that the trial hadn't yet begun. This emptiness, this stillness—it was deliberate. It was testing him in silence.
He took a slow step forward, feeling the faint ripple beneath his feet even though he couldn't see the surface. It was solid but also alive, like the skin of an ocean. He kept walking, each step echoing faintly in his soul but producing no sound in the air.
'This isn't random,' Max thought as he continued forward. 'The trial of ice must be hidden within this emptiness. If the flas were about understanding destruction through devouring, then this darkness must represent stillness… the essence of ice.'
He stopped walking and looked around again. The realization struck him that the trial hadn't yet revealed itself because he was expecting it to. Perhaps that was the point. Ice, after all, wasn't about seeking or acting—it was about waiting, enduring, and adapting to stillness until the truth revealed itself.
Max let out a slow exhale and lowered himself to the ground, sitting cross-legged. His hands rested calmly on his knees as he closed his eyes. "If this is a trial of patience," he said softly, "then so be it."
Ti passed. Seconds, minutes, or perhaps hours—he couldn't tell. The flow of ti here was distorted, nonexistent even. His breathing grew faint, and his body entered a ditative stillness. The longer he remained motionless, the more he could feel faint fluctuations in the darkness—small ripples of energy moving like whispers through frozen air.
It was subtle at first, almost unnoticeable. But slowly, the emptiness around him began to shift. The darkness wasn't pure nothingness anymore.
He didn't move. He kept his eyes closed and focused on that faint pulse, letting it reveal itself naturally.
Max didn't know how much ti had passed. The darkness surrounding him remained absolute and motionless, without a single hint of change. But he stayed seated in the sa position, cross-legged, his breathing slow and steady, his mind calm. For others, the silence of this place would have been unbearable, but for Max, it was nothing unusual.
He had endured far worse.
There had been tis inside his Dinsion of Ti where he had spent centuries alone, surrounded by nothing but the sound of his own thoughts. He had ditated there for what felt like thousands of years, exploring every corner of his soul, unraveling the truths of power and existence.
The stillness of the void before him now was almost familiar in comparison. The isolation didn't disturb him—it steadied him. The quiet, to Max, was not a prison but a tool. So he waited, unmoving, letting the darkness wrap around him like an endless sea.
Outside this vast and silent void, life continued for the other geniuses. In the world of the first trial, the flas still danced and burned, and one after another, those who remained there began to succeed.
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