Chapter 167: The Trial (24)
[Editing]
The corridor pulsed with a low hum, as though the walls themselves were breathing. Ethereal lights flickered overhead, casting dreamy colors that shifted with each step Verena and Vivienne took. The floor beneath their feet shimmered faintly, as if not entirely solid, like they walked across the surface of a stilled lake.
Vivienne’s grip tightened around Verena’s hand, her eyes wide as she scanned the ever-shifting hallway. "This place feels... wrong," she whispered.
"No shit," Verena muttered, her voice dry but tinged with tension. "Trial Two’s not supposed to be this twisted."
It was meant to be a battle trial—clear-cut objectives, enemies to fight, something you could stab. But this? This was psychological warfare wrapped in dreamscape aesthetics.
They passed by a floating staircase that curled into the ceiling like a snake, then a door that opened to reveal a blindingly bright meadow—only for the image to flicker and turn into a pit of black ooze. The maze wasn’t just testing their bodies anymore. It was digging into their minds, pulling at their fears, insecurities, and regrets.
Suddenly, the walls began to ripple like liquid, and from them emerged familiar figures.
Verena’s breath caught.
Her old self.
Not the cold, competent version she had refined through suffering, but the earlier Verena—naive, still clinging to ideas of fairness in a twisted world, wide-eyed and hopeful. She stood across from her, expression frozen in time.
"I remember you," Verena said bitterly.