The clap reverberated throughout the convergence of the optics, then suddenly the world began to change, reshaping itself as it heard it.
The space around him stretched, the multicolored light surrounding twisted. And then he felt the sudden trembling of the ground beneath his feet before it fragmented into many platforms.
As a couple of seconds passed, the trembling subsided before coming to an absolute stillness.
Then Kaios's gaze focused on the fragmented platforms before him, which were now being suspended in a vast, silvery void.
As his gaze sharpened, he saw some slabs pulsed faintly with runes—he instinctively knew what these were—safe zones. The same for others, those shimmered darkly—the kind Rule 2 forbade him to step on.
Kaios's lips twitched as he understood.
"Great. Now I have to play hopscotch with my life," he said, with subtle sarcasm laced in it.
His reflection smirked, already parted from him, standing on a nearby slab. "Don't trip. You know the penalty," he said teasingly.
Before Kaios could retort, the figure of his reflection blurred forward. The air cracked—and five more copies appeared alongside him.
Kaios cursed as he saw this. "Of course..."
Why? Well, because the platform he was standing upon was one of those that shimmered darkly. And rule 3 dictated every wrong step will materialize reflections as hazards for him.
They all lunged at once. Kaios's eyes darted to them before turning forward—intending to create strategic maneuvers? But he was too late. His instincts suddenly screamed as he saw one close in from the side.
He kicked off his slab, landing on another platform. Except the instant his foot touched, another rune flared beneath him—another restricted tile. It was the punishment—punishment for violating the second rule.
The platform groaned suddenly, tilting violently, threatening to throw him into the void below.
"Tch!" Kaios snapped his wrist, Alloys transforming into chains that stabbed into the next nearest slab. He yanked himself through the chain just before the cursed platform shattered behind him.
His reflection landed with a soft thud opposite him, as all illusions dissolved due to his correct step. "You nearly disqualified yourself, Real Me. I expected much better."
Kaios grinned despite the sweat at his temple. "Yeah, and I expected you to shut up, so we both were disappointed."
He said this as he leaped from the platform, stomping his foot in the air— but this time, he poured all intent into it.
Then, as if responding to his intent, the air beneath his feet solidified. An invisible "path" materialized between the next floating slabs, providing him with a temporary safe route.
What he did was all under the rules—and specifically, Rule 7.
Without hesitation, he sprinted across, while his Alloys slithered around him like snakes.
The reflection narrowed his eyes as he saw Kaios doing this. "So you're slowly adapting to the rules, huh... even using them against me."
"Damn right. We both can play the same game." Kaios snarled at the reflection, then snapped his fingers.
Suddenly, one of his three Alloys blurred at a mirror-like object—devoid of any light or reflection—that was just behind his doppelganger.
Kaios knew what it was, and what it did. And just as he expected, the moment the Alloy collided with it, a faint ripple spread across it.
Then, within the dark mirror, came out several copies of him—but these were different, unlike the previous ones.
These were the Temporal Echoes, the ones he had faced on the metal bridge previously.
As Kaios saw this, a smirk formed across his face. The Temporal Echoes recorded everything in front of them. And what was in front of it before?
The answer to that was simple— both he and his reflection were recorded by it, with the reflection being the last one to be recorded. And thus, several Echoes were born, all of them rushing straight toward his reflection.
One of them was about to collide head-on with his reflection, forcing him to twist and dodge—barely avoiding instant replacement.
"Careful," Kaios called, as the same smirk tugged across his face.
"Would be embarrassing to lose the game due to an echo." He mocked his reflection, taking a jab in response to its previous remarks.
The reflection growled, a crack appearing in that arrogance for the first time—the one he had maintained since the beginning.
The reflection then hurled the same three Alloys at Kaios, as the game still continued.
With each moment that passed, Kaios came to understand that this trial—it was not about speed. It was about who knew the rules better.
As this dawned upon Kaios, a knowing smile appeared instead of his previous mocking smirk. Because if this was a trial of wits and intent, then his reflection was already a step behind.
Even while all this was playing in his mind, his feet never halted once, maintaining their momentum as before.
Just then, his right foot tapped on the next slab, making a rune flicker faintly. As Kaios saw that, he sighed mentally.
A safe one...
Still, his steps didn't pause for a second. He rushed forward, his eyes darting ahead, discerning the safe slabs from the dangerous ones. The Alloys trailed behind him like ducklings.
In that time, the reflection that was being chased by several of his Echoes closed in from behind.
As Kaios turned toward the reflection, he saw a faint smile on its face. As Kaios was wondering about it, he got the answer in the next instant.
The reflection, just two tiles behind and being followed by five of his Echoes, landed on the edge of a platform.
The platform flickered once in dark light before it tilted toward the reflection, as if its weight broke the balance.
The reflection then lashed out an Alloy toward another slab, anchoring himself, saving itself from the fall. But that wasn't the case for the Echoes following him—this sudden shift catapulted them from the opposite end, hurling them forward at Kaios with explosive momentum.
When Kaios saw the oncoming dreaded Echoes of himself closing in, his heart skipped a beat—though only for a fraction of a second before his instinct kicked in.
With just a thought, the Resonant Alloy trailing behind him shifted. Its liquid-like structure twisted into something solid.
It took only a fraction of a second before the transformation was completed—shaping into a vibrant violet-colored semi-exoskeletal structure that stretched from Kaios's spine down to his ankles.
But that wasn't all Kaios did. At the same time, he guided a fragment of Gravistone Alloy to flow toward his feet, engulfing them both completely before reshaping the Alloy into something resembling weighted boots—shimmering with a faint teal.
With this, he prepared himself for the oncoming assault, and just as the Echoes were mere breaths away from him, his lips parted as a single word slipped out.
"Resonant Break – Pulse Divergence."
As this word left his lips, a deep metallic hum echoed all around him, before a sudden violet energy burst from his back—specifically from the semi-exoskeleton made from the Resonant Alloy.
And then, in the next instant, an amplified vibration tore through the air, a shockwave so dense it felt as though the very space around him rippled due to it.
Dust as well as particles of violet energy whirled outward, forming a dome of distortion that swallowed all light and sound for a moment.
But Kaios didn't stop there. He grounded his heel, channeling the Psion to the Gravistone Alloy beneath his boots. The teal veins throughout pulsed once—and then exploded with kinetic force.
The ground itself pushed him violently, hurling his body forward like the shot of a revolver.
The combined recoil of vibrations and repulsing surge twisted the air around into spirals, distorting the visibility of him. Even the Temporal Echoes—those perfect reflections of recorded motion—faltered.
Their vision blurred, their synchronization with Kaios broken, as what they sought to replace vanished amidst this storm of energy and dust.
For the first time, the Echoes hesitated, their figures flickering in and out like glitched projections.
Kaios cut through the air like a blade, creating sharp sounds throughout as he far surpassed the limit of hypersonic.
His body spun in mid-air, leaving behind trails of violet and teal energy. His mind was in overdrive, fully aware this was the window he needed—the moment where the balance between the rules and the situation would tip in his favor.
Baaammm....
He landed on a distant slab with a thunderous thud, spiderweb-like cracks spreading beneath his feet. Behind him, the disoriented Echoes were already dissolving into motes of broken light.
Across the platforms in the void, his reflection stood on the opposite slab, shielding its face from the debris.
Kaios vanished from the haze to another platform, the Echoes fading due to the distortions in their synchrony—all this happened in merely three seconds.
As the thunderous sound receded, a voice echoed. "This time I am not limited," his voice came, resonant and sharp. "But you are..."
The reflection looked above—it was Kaios, descending steadily from the platform above.
Each Alloy created a stair down before his feet could land in the emptiness, carrying the weight of his body.
"You are nothing but a mere reflection. The only reason I bore with you till now is because..." Kaios took a slight pause as his gaze met the reflection.
"I do not want to see myself being defeated."