Kaios blinked—looking around, he found the world wrong. A minute before he had been bidding farewell to his dad with his mom, and now… now he was in this strange place.
The ground stretched above him like a false sky, while he himself stood on a drifting cloud beneath it. Rivers streamed upward, vanishing into the ground, and light was coming from the sky below. Everything, every sensation here, felt like contradiction itself.
Then stranger things happened again. He tried to step forward to explore, but instead his feet slid backward—like the world itself was mocking him with an awkward moonwalk. He tried to jump, but dove deeper into the sky.
After some time he gave up doing anything. But would the world let him do that? No, the answer was no—to prove it, the world itself slammed Kaios into the ground above him.
When the dust cleared, Kaios fell again, downwards into the sky. As his consciousness returned and he saw his predicament, he instinctively tried to rise. But like before, the world again played with him—his speed of free fall increased the more he tried to rise.
Observing carefully, Kaios came to the conclusion that in this realm, whatever he did would have the opposite effect. With that realization, instead of trying to fly upward, he dove deeper. And for the first time since arriving in this realm, something worked as he intended—he rose and returned to the position he had been in before.
After returning to his original position, he began practicing flying and falling occasionally, so the likelihood of him crashing into something or falling down would be reduced. In a while, he learned to maintain the constant change between the two and stabilized himself.
Just after stabilizing himself, as he was about to find answers about his situation, a man appeared before him.
This man was flying effortlessly, as if he had mastered the law of this world or as if it had no effect on him.
As Kaios saw this man, he bowed slightly with respect.
"Greetings, Teacher."
The man before him was his teacher, Enforcer Raion. Raion nodded to him.
"It looks like you found the first hurdle. Good, good."
As Kaios heard it, a look of understanding appeared on his face.
"Teacher, is this—"
"Yes, this is the trial I told you about before," Raion confirmed. "And what you completed just now was the trial."
"A trial?" Kaios asked in confusion.
"Yes. And there will be three trials for you to complete, and after finding the answers you can leave this World of Inversion."
Kaios stood there for a brief second, taking in all the information. Then he asked, "What will these trials be, Teacher?"
Raion shook his head, not answering his question.
"That I will not tell you. It is on you to find the motive and answers of the trial."
"Okay, Teacher, I understand. I will definitely pass this trial," Kaios said with determination.
As Raion saw this, a smile appeared on his face.
"I will be waiting for that, my dear disciple. Good luck with the trials." With this, he vanished, leaving only Kaios and three gates that had appeared just now.
Kaios saw his teacher disappear, then he focused his gaze upon the three gates.
"Three gates, three trials. But which one should I choose?" he pondered.
"Well, whatever, let's choose a random one and see what it has in store for me."
Saying this, he chose the one on the right and approached it. Just as he touched the knob to open it, he vanished from the World of Inversion.
Kaios reappeared in a new place. The sudden shift made him slightly dizzy. The landscape before him stretched endlessly, filled with jagged metallic plains, yet the surfaces shimmered and rippled like liquid silver.
The view of this plain was even more bizarre than the last. The trees, their trunks made of different metal alloys, twisted and reformed with each passing second. The sky above looked like fractured metal, glowing in shifting hues.
Among all the bizarre sensations, there was an ecstasy in it. He was on his home ground, which made him more confident in facing the trial. Just as he was lost in thought, some shapes emerged from the metallic plane—creatures forged from metal. But these were not normal; their forms twisted with every second.
The creatures writhed violently, their metallic flesh twisting like molten wire. Tentacles of polished metal gushed from their torsos, drilling inward only to vanish and reemerge elsewhere. Uneven, elongated limbs, blades thrusting from eyes and mouths, then melting back into their twisted bodies.
Each movement was sudden, unnatural—an obscene scene of metal, slithering and reforming in ways that could make a sane mind recoil in revulsion. Kaios's gut twisted, threatening to reject all his food to outside.
He controlled himself, steeling his mind against this eldritch sight. Just as he calmed himself, he saw the metallic creatures rushing toward him. Kaios instinctively grabbed the nearest metallic tree, broke off a branch, and manipulated it to form a club.
As the creatures approached the range of the club, he swung it at the first one, attempting to bash it. But would it be that easy? He got the answer the next second.
The club, instead of bashing the creature, coiled around it. The branch Kaios had made transformed into a metallic whip without his intervention. This confused Kaios, though he quickly recovered and snapped it.
The body of the creature slammed into the metallic ground with a deafening clang.
Tinnng…
Sparks flew from the impact as metal screeched against metal. Its limbs bent in grotesque angles, and though it twitched slightly, it was unable to rise.
But Kaios wasn't focused on that—his attention shifted to the remaining creatures. This time he snapped the whip at another creature without waiting for it to come closer.
Just as the whip was about to coil around the flying one, it shortened, its body hardening and turning into a sword. Due to this transformation, Kaios missed his aim, allowing the creature to come closer.
Kaios didn't panic. Because of his previous positioning, there was still a gap between him and the creature. But he didn't risk it—he leaped backward to maintain distance and get into the proper stance for the sword. He familiarized himself with the weight of the blade and then slashed at the approaching creature.
But his sword stuck between its horns, locking him in there. From the side, another horror lunged— needles protruding from its mouth, threatening to turn him into a porcupine.
Seeing this, Kaios swung the sword with the flying creature at it. The flying creature crashed into the later, its body pierced by the needles. Kaios jumped above them, sword facing downward, preparing to stab the needle creature.
Then it happened again, though this time it was on his side. His sword transformed into a spear. This didn't give him the problem as he expected. He spear punched through the metal skin of the needle creature, killing him instantly.
He didn't stop there, he went ahead to the first one, that still stuck in the ground and twitching ocassionally. He didn't want any problem for later, so he also stabbed it with the spear, finishing it.
Kaios leaned it and wiped the drop of sweat on his foreheadand said, "Looks like this was it. Finally time for a rest."
Oh boy, he will see how wrong he was.
As of mocking his word, six more creature came out from the surrounding, these looked bigger and more frightening than last ones.
As Kaios saw this only word echoed in his mind.
Shit....