Chapter 165: The Trial (21)
The moment they stepped through the portal, Verena felt the atmosphere shift entirely. Trial Two had been a controlled chaos of illusions and celestial beasts. This—this was something else.
The room they entered was vast—far larger than any of the previous chambers—stretching endlessly beneath a starless sky. There were no visible walls, no ceiling, no floor. Instead, they stood atop floating platforms made of crystallized starlight, suspended in an infinite void. The air hummed with ancient, humming vibrations—like the echoes of forgotten constellations whispering to one another.
And waiting ahead were countless floating pathways, bridges forming and dissolving, constantly shifting like an unsolvable puzzle.
"Where... are we?" Vivienne whispered, clutching tightly onto Verena’s arm.
Verena narrowed her eyes. "The Convergence Chamber," she muttered, recalling fragments of lore buried deep in her memory of the novel.
Trial Three wasn’t about endurance or strength. This was a convergence of fate itself—a literal meeting point between their Zodiac Affinities, choices, and accumulated karma since stepping into the labyrinth. Every failure. Every decision. Every little ripple they made would now be tested.
"Yeah, this one’s definitely more ominous than I remember..." she added under her breath.
Isolde calmly examined the floating pathways. "Looks like we’ll have to move quickly. The paths won’t stay stable for long."
Before any of them could react further, the system’s interface flickered into life once more:
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
Trial Three Initiated: Nexus of Threads