Kai lay pressed into the floor, breath shallow, ribs screaming every time his chest tried to rise. The chamber around him had fully revealed itself now no corridors, no hidden angles. Just a perfect circle, smooth and polished, its walls bending light into endless reflections. Every surface mirrored him. Every surface betrayed him. he just realized after the fight that he was in a chamber.
At the center stood the altar.
Up close, it wasn't stone or water in the way either should be. It was a mirror shaped like an offering table, its surface flat and impossibly calm. From it radiated the force pinning Kai down, a pressure that didn't crush bone so much as deny movement itself. Not weight authority. As if the altar had decided he belonged on the ground.
Above it loomed the guardian.
It stood between Kai and the altar like an executioner guarding a block. Water slid through the veins of its stone body, looping endlessly, feeding back into the mirror beneath it. The reflection beneath the guardian was sharper than any other in the room. Cleaner. Stronger.
Kai grimaced.
"So," he muttered, voice rough, "I'm fighting the room now too. Great."
He focused inward, ignoring the ache, the taste of blood, the tremor in his hands. His Crimson Eyes pulsed faintly as he pushed deeper, reaching to reactivate the third vision the one that didn't just see truth, but forced the air to obey.
The pressure didn't vanish, but it loosened. Just enough.
The air around him shifted.
Not wind. Not yet.
The third ability was always like this subtle, precise, demanding. It didn't give him elements. It gave him permission to shape what already existed. Air compressed, twisted, layered into invisible structures that could become fire, water, lightning anything.
In theory.
In practice, it was a nightmare.
People loved to imagine it was unfair. An ability that let him touch every element without restriction. What they didn't understand what they never understood was affinity.
Fire was his element.
Fire listened to him because the world allowed it to. Because his body, his core, and the world's energy agreed that fire belonged to him. Without that agreement, elements didn't just disobey they punished.
Affinity was resonance. A shared language between a person and the world.
Without it, elements fought back.
Kai forced himself upright, muscles screaming as the altar pushed harder. He shaped air into heat, carefully, cautiously, like coaxing sparks from damp wood. A flicker of flame appeared in his palm unstable, sharp-edged, wrong.
The chamber reacted instantly.
The walls reflected the flame.
Not visually functionally.
Heat bent, twisted, and snapped back at him from three angles at once. The flame recoiled, collapsing into itself and detonating in a burst of backwash that scorched his arm.
Kai hissed and shook it out.
"Right," he muttered. "Definitely not my house."
The guardian didn't move. It didn't need to. The room was doing the work for it.
Every element Kai tried to form was mirrored and returned. Wind folded back into pressure. Fire rebounded as heat shock. Even space his weakest, most dangerous tool felt warped here, distances snapping into place as if correcting him.
This wasn't just a chamber.
It was a domain.
Someone else's rules. Someone else's authority.
And that made his stomach twist.
Because domains were built on affinity.
And his affinity was wrong.
Kai's breath steadied as he leaned back against the mirrored wall, reflections of his bloodied form surrounding him. His mind cut through the pain, falling into that familiar, dangerous clarity. Corruption wasn't resonance. It didn't blend.
It devoured.
World energy flowed, harmonized, and allowed elements to exist in balance. Corrupted energy consumed, twisted, replaced. It didn't care about elements it cared about survival.
And Kai's affinity wasn't fire.
Fire was just what survived inside him.
That was the difference.
Beasts had affinities that grew with them. Humans had affinities that resonated. Corruption didn't resonate at all it overwrote.
Which meant.
Kai smiled faintly, despite himself.
"This room's a mirror," he murmured. "But corruption doesn't reflect."
He pushed again.
This time, he didn't shape an element.
He shaped pressure.
Raw, ugly force compressed from corrupted energy that didn't try to become fire or wind. It didn't ask permission. It simply existed, thick and hostile, bleeding outward from his core.
The mirrors trembled.
Just a little.
The guardian reacted for the first time.
It stepped forward, water surging along its limbs, reflections sharpening as it raised its arm. The altar flared, pressure spiking as the guardian brought its weight down.
Kai moved.
Not fast.
Not clean.
But deliberately.
He folded the air beneath him just enough to slide sideways as the strike hit where he had been. The impact shattered the floor, mirror fragments spraying outward. The pressure wavered, disrupted for a heartbeat.
That heartbeat was everything.
Kai surged forward, corrupted energy wrapping around his arm like black smoke without form. He didn't turn it into fire. He didn't turn it into anything the room could recognize.
He punched the guardian square in the chest.
The sound wasn't stone cracking.
It was glass screaming.
The guardian skidded back half a step, feet carving grooves into the floor. The altar flickered, reflection distorting for the briefest moment before snapping back into place.
Kai staggered, coughing, blood dripping from his chin.
"Yeah," he rasped, straightening slowly. "Didn't like that, did you?"
The pressure returned harder, angrier. The guardian lifted both arms now, water spiraling upward, reflections multiplying.
Kai didn't retreat.
He couldn't.
He planted his feet and forced corrupted energy outward again, not shaping, not refining just pushing. It burned. It tore at his veins. His body protested violently, but it held.
Defiled.
That word echoed in his mind.
Not resonance. Not harmony.
Endurance.
Above far above, in the palace of reflections the same chamber awakened.
The mirrored hall shifted into a vast circular room, its altar towering, its surfaces pristine. Two guardians sat at its center like ancient judges, unmoving.
The blue-haired man stepped inside as the transformation completed.
He paused.
Then smiled.
Not wide. Not amused.
Interested.
He rested his staff against his shoulder, green eyes flicking over the reflections, the altar, the guardians. Pressure washed over him, heavy enough to crush lesser beings flat.
He didn't slow.
He walked forward as if welcoming it.
Below, in the buried palace, Kai wiped blood from his mouth and squared his shoulders as the guardian advanced again.
"Alright," he muttered, eyes burning crimson. "Let's see whose rules break first."