Do-ha's party broke into the open at the very center of the dome and pulled up short.
The forest gave way to a bare, circular court of packed earth and stone. The canopy had thinned here under the pressure of whatever force held the sky like glass. In the middle floated a crystal the color of bruised wine, as wide as a wagon and cut in long, clean planes that caught the weak light and sent it back in uncertain shades. It turned slowly, as if the air itself were water and the crystal was trying to remember how to float.
People ringed it at a cautious distance. Some stared. Some argued in low, tense voices. A few tested the edge of their courage by taking two steps closer and then three steps back again.
Do-ha squinted his eyes. "Huh. What is that supposed to be?"
Yong-hun tilted his head like he was sighting down a spear. "It is very long and purple," he offered, which was not wrong.
Baek Garin blew a loose strand of hair off her cheek and leaned into the view. "Looks pretty but at the same time kinda sus."
Ryu Hye-jin's eyes observed the crystal. "Wonder how it's floating," she said, voice calm, and hands folded.
They edged closer with the other onlookers. The crystal hummed in a way you could feel in your front teeth. Carved symbols glowed far inside it, too deep to read. The air around it felt cool, as if the dome had pulled shade out of nothing.
A ripple passed through the crowd. Someone appeared at the inner edge of the circle the way a shadow appears when a cloud goes over the sun. No flash. No noise. He was simply there.
"Woah."
"Where did he come from?"
"Wait. That's Loki."
The murmur spread like heat across dry grass.
Loki did not look at the voices and studied the crystal.
'Someone found this and even solved it. Impressive,' he thought.
Ancient Gods' trials pop up at random—sigils in bark, marks in stone. Solve the pattern and the world answers: sometimes with a secret dungeon, sometimes a monster wave, sometimes a room of chests. The rewards from these trilas are just as strange. Unique skill books, items you won't see anywhere else.
Loki had run into a few in his first life.
'Looking at this crystal, this might be the monster wave type of trial, ' he thought and slid his attention off the center and onto the people around it. 'Let's hope there are people who can hold their ground.'
"Loki-nim," a male voice said, hopeful and a little formal. "It is nice to meet you again."
Loki turned to find a man with a sword in one hand and a shield in the other, posture open and eyes honest in the way you could not fake with a mask. The man bowed at the waist with a sincerity that made a few heads turn.
'Do...I know him?' Loki could not remember, so he swiped his hand to check his name.
[Poop Eating Prince]
'...it's that guy I helped at the start,' he remembered the name instantly.
Do-ha straightened. "Thank you for that time, Loki-nim," he said, bowing again but smaller. "It helped me and my brother very much."
"It was nothing," Loki said and meant it.
Garin's voice floated in from behind Do-ha, low and playful. "Oye, oye. That's some nice looking armor, mister. Wanna trade?" she asked, with a smile.
Loki looked past Do-ha and took in the rest of the little party as they came up to stand with him.
Do-ha made introductions, noticing Loki's gaze, "This is Cultivating Immortal Dragon. The person you met with me at that time." Yong-hun gave a small salute with two fingers and managed to stand straighter and grin wider at the same time.
"This is Garin, a healer, and this is Hye-jin, a warrior. They joined us recently," Garin flashed a V and then pretended she had not.
She wore light, easy layers in cuteness that did not stop the fact of her class. The straps of a small pack sat neatly on her shoulders.
Loki's gaze held on Hye-jin a fraction longer
Hye-jin was built like someone who had done the work the right way for a long time and had made a point of not talking about it. Blonde hair blunt-cut to her jaw. Eyes that did not waste light. A white cross-wrap halter that made her breathing look steady instead of small. A leather shrug over the shoulders. Tattoos like charcoal fire climbed from shoulder to forearm in clean, quiet lines. Loose monk trousers. Tabi-soled boots that ate sound.
'Hmm, she might be a high-tier unique class, ' he thought.
Hye-jin caught the look, frowned without heat, and met it. "What are you looking at," she said.
Before Loki could reply, footfalls came hard from the tree line. "Mister Loki," Sera called, breathless in the way people are when they forget they can breathe. "You are too fast. You need to wait for us."
She reached him with both hands on her knees, hair sticking to her cheek, laughing at herself. The rest of the group came in behind her in better order.
Mira's eyes assessed the crystal in a single sweep and then returned to Loki.
"Did you figure out what this is?"
"No idea," Loki lied.
'The rules for this will be explained anyway, ' he thought and moved to the side.
Do-ha cleared his throat. It took him a second to decide to speak into a circle like this. He did it anyway. "It might have happened because of us," he said.
Half their group turned toward him
"Please elaborate, " Mira said.
Do-ha looked to Yong-hun, who picked up the thread and told the group about the symbols and how he solved them.
"I see," Choi Min-seo said, hand on her chin. "So this is like one of those surprise quests you get after completing certain tasks."
Han Ga-yoon drifted closer, gaze weighing the crystal same as Mira's had. "Seeing that big purple rock hovering in the middle," she said, "I am guessing we have to protect it from monsters."
Baek Garin leaned in, eyes bright. "What you're saying totally tracks. You must be like pretty smart, huh, auntie."
Ga-yoon blinked. "A-auntie? Excuse me—auntie?!"
Sera and Min-seo couldn't help it, and a laugh slipped out.
Garin doubled down, utterly sincere. "I meant it in a cool auntie way. You know—organized, lethal, moisturized."
"I am still twenty-seven," Ga-yoon said, voice flattening with dignity she was fighting to keep.
"I'm twenty-one, so you're basically an auntie to me."
Sera could not hold on and broke into laughter.
Loki let the talk wash past and did the work he was here to do. He counted faces. He watched hands. He watched how feet set and how shoulders carried weight. He marked the ones who stood like they knew where their edges were.
A few in the crowd read clean. A shield user who checked his flanks without making a show of it. A woman in a cut robe who held herself like a spear—safer than most swords. A twin-knife boy whose eyes didn't chase every twitch; he already knew not every motion belongs to you.
Then he looked back at the ones he would actually be responsible for.
Most of them lacked experience fighting with monsters, and their levels were low too.
'If they stayed like this...they will die here.'