Kai staggered back as the guardian slid across the altar's surface, water and reflection braiding together along its limbs. The mirror-smooth pool beneath it rose like a held breath, reshaping itself into layered planes that wrapped around the statue's frame. The chamber sealed with a low, final sound stone meeting stone, reflection locking into place.
Kai glanced around, chest heaving.
"Of course," he muttered hoarsely. "Circular room. Mirror walls. One very angry statue. Why would it ever be simple."
The hall was vast and precise in a way that made his skin itch. Every surface reflected perfectly, not just shape but depth, angle, distance. His own image fractured endlessly across the walls some standing, some bent, some bloodied, some already falling. At the center, the altar waited, its surface unnaturally calm. No ripples. No disturbance. As if motion had been politely asked to leave.
Above it stood the guardian.
Up close, it wasn't stone in the way mountains were stone. It was layered, deliberate rock shaped into a humanoid form, veins of clear water running through it like veins of glass. The water never spilled. It slid, folded, and returned, mirroring whatever it touched. Even Kai.
That bothered him more than the size.
The guardian moved.
Not forward.
Closer.
The distance between them collapsed without warning. Kai felt it as pressure before sight a tight grip around his chest, as though the space itself had clenched. His Crimson Eyes flared instinctively, pupils sharpening as the world peeled open just enough to show him the line of impact.
He twisted.
Stone passed through the space his ribs had occupied a breath earlier and struck the floor behind him. The impact detonated outward. The polished surface split, fragments skidding away in warped arcs that didn't quite obey straight lines.
Kai landed hard, boots scraping as he forced energy into his limbs.
The world responded but sluggishly. Like thick mud instead of air.
"Yeah," he coughed. "That tracks."
Defiled or not, conjurer-stage space manipulation felt exactly like trying to shove a mountain aside with one hand. He could bend edges, stretch moments, nudge distance but anything more and his body screamed in protest.
The guardian raised its arm.
Water surged.
The altar rippled for the first time.
Not like water disturbed by motion, but like a mirror deciding to lie. A crescent formed, smooth and reflective, bending light as it tore free from the altar's surface. It didn't splash. It didn't flow. It cut through the chamber like a moving reflection.
Kai thrust his hand forward.
Wind gathered, compressed through a subtle twist of space. The air shrieked as it surged, colliding with the mirrored crescent. For a heartbeat, the attack split wind carving channels through the reflective water, force screaming against force.
Then the reflection folded.
The water snapped inward and the force rebounded.
Kai didn't even have time to swear.
The impact slammed into his side, throwing him across the chamber. He skidded along the floor, breath ripped from his lungs, reflections shattering around him like falling glass. He rolled to a stop and coughed, copper flooding his mouth.
The guardian advanced.
No rush. No hesitation.
Each step shifted the reflections along its body, angles overlapping in a way that made his eyes ache. Water thickened along its arms, sharpening into edges that caught and bent the chamber's light.
Kai pushed himself upright, gritting his teeth.
"Alright," he muttered. "Let's try a different mistake."
Fire bloomed in his palm hot, unstable, fed by compressed space. The flame stretched unnaturally as he hurled it forward, thinning and sharpening into a spear of roaring heat.
The guardian raised its hand.
The water along its arm became perfectly still.
A mirror.
The fire struck and vanished.
Kai's stomach dropped.
Not extinguished.
Not absorbed.
Reflected.
The flame reappeared behind him.
He twisted space around himself just as the explosion detonated. Heat tore past his shoulder, burning cloth and skin alike. Pain followed a second later dull, spreading, insistent.
The altar pulsed.
The room shifted.
The mirror-water at the center lifted, breaking into floating planes that hovered throughout the chamber. Each one showed a different angle. A different position of the guardian.
Every reflection moved.
Kai sucked in a sharp breath.
"Fantastic," he rasped. "An audience."
Water lances erupted from every mirrored surface at once, converging. He stepped, space folding just enough to pull him aside but the guardian anticipated it. Distance snapped back violently, yanking him mid-motion. His balance broke.
Stone struck his ribs.
Something cracked.
He crashed into the wall, reflections exploding outward. He slid down, vision swimming, the world warping at the edges as control slipped through his fingers. Wind gathered weakly around him, spiraling in uneven currents.
He tried to compress it.
Tried to stretch distance.
Tried to buy time.
The guardian was already there.
Water surged up its body, forming a massive mirrored blade. The altar aligned with its stance, reflection amplifying force until the weapon carried the weight of the entire chamber.
Kai raised his hand.
Fire and wind collided in a desperate burst, space trembling under the strain. The impact shook the room, heat and water screaming against one another. For an instant, everything froze stone, flame, air locked in a fragile balance.
Then space gave way.
The blade crashed through.
Kai slammed into the floor hard enough to drive the air from his lungs. White flashed across his vision, then darkness edged in. Sound reduced to a distant ringing as water-reflections closed above him.
The guardian loomed, its form splitting into countless mirrored silhouettes.
Kai lay there, broken and burning.
"So," he wheezed faintly, staring up through fractured reflections. "This is… going great."
The altar pulsed again.
The chamber held.
Above, beyond the shattered sky of mirrors, the reflective palace floated in silent perfection.
The blue-haired man stepped into its central hall without ceremony. His green eyes swept the vast space once, noting the towering altar at its heart and the two guardian figures seated before it, motionless, massive.
He took two steps forward.
Space snapped.
One guardian moved in a blur, stone fist tearing through the air toward him. The blue-haired man reacted instantly, staff striking the floor as a cube of compressed space formed around his body. The guardian's punch passed through the cube's surface as if through a mirage, missing him by inches.
The impact shook the hall.
The man didn't smile.
He simply adjusted his grip on the staff and stepped forward again, calm as ever, as reflections rippled across the palace walls and the trial continued to unfold below pressure building, fractures spreading, and one man refusing, stubbornly, to stay down.