I've been running for at least an hour. My legs felt like they were filled with molten lead, and Alexia's unconscious weight was starting to crush my spine. I finally slowed to a halt, gasping for air.
"Okay... bearings. I need to... gain my bearings."
I looked around, and my heart skipped a beat. The forest had changed.
The gnarled, dark oaks were gone. In their place stood trees so tall their tops were lost in the violet haze of the sky. Their trunks were wide as houses, and their leaves... they were a brilliant, shimmering shade of azure. They didn't rustle in the wind; they chimed like crystal bells.
"What the hell is this place?" I whispered. There was something mystifying about the blue light—something that made my skin crawl.
"Guide, talk to me. Where am I? This isn't the same forest."
[Warning: Dimensional distortion detected. Loktet must be up to some mischief.]
"Loktet again?" I groaned, adjusting Alexia's weight. "What does a God have to do with me taking a shortcut?"
[He has sensed the 'resonance' of Hanma the Destroyer within his territory. For a God of Mischief, this is an irresistible invitation.]
"Well, shit," I cursed, looking at a blue leaf that had fallen nearby. It didn't hit the ground; it hovered an inch above the dirt, spinning clockwise. "What does Loktet have against Hanma anyway? Are they rivals?"
[ 'Rivals' is a generous term. Hanma and Loktet are not in good standing. During the Warring States period, Loktet tried to play a prank on Hanma. Hanma responded by trying to erase Loktet's constellation from the sky. They haven't spoken since.]
"Great. I'm living in the body of a guy who tried to murder a God over a prank," I muttered. "Fighting a God wasn't on my agenda today, but here we—"
I stopped. I had been walking toward a giant blue tree, but as I blinked, the tree was suddenly behind me. I turned around, and the path I had just walked was gone, replaced by a solid wall of azure briars.
Hee-hee-hee!
A high-pitched, childish giggle echoed from the canopy.
"Did you hear that?" I yelled. "Guide, tell me that was a Scoppl Dragon!"
[Negative. It is a localized auditory illusion. Look at your feet.]
I looked down. I wasn't standing on dirt anymore. I was standing on the ceiling of a shack that looked exactly like the one I had woken up in. Gravity shifted with a violent thud, and suddenly Alexia and I were falling "upward" toward the blue leaves.
"WHOA!" I screamed, my stomach doing a 180-turn.
Just before we hit the branches, the sky turned into a solid floor of soft moss. We landed with a muffled oomph.
"Okay, okay! Very funny!" I shouted at the forest. "You got me! Can we go now?"
The blue leaves began to glow brighter. Suddenly, dozens of "Alexias" stepped out from behind the trees. They all looked identical—diamond eyes, dual weapons—but they were all laughing with that same high-pitched, distorted giggle.
"Master!" the fake Alexias shouted in unison, their voices overlapping. "Why are you so slow? Why are you so weak?"
One of them stepped forward, drawing a wooden toy axe.
[Careful, Hanma,] the Guide warned. [In this domain, even a toy can draw blood if Loktet finds it amusing.]
"I'm not Hanma!" I screamed, summoning my steel sword. "My name is Orochi! And I've had just about enough of this genre!"
The fake Alexias tilted their heads at the same time, their smiles widening until they reached their ears.
"Orochi?" they whispered. "What a funny name for a Demon."
The Azure Labyrinth was no longer just a forest. It was a giant, blue cage. And the God of Mischief was just getting warmed up.