Chapter 600: The Merciless Cycle
The nightmare of a day within the Blooming Requiem domain ended for Alex with him going unconscious, and when he woke up exactly four hours later, he was fully healed from his near-death state, only to face the nightmares of the verdant jungle once more.
When Odesues had told him that he would be roaming the eleven domains, Alex had expected to be guided by the seats of power, who ruled over the domains, but clearly, he was wrong.
The second day made many things clear to Alex. No one was going to teach him anything, nor answer any of his questions, the world itself would be his teacher, and his own ability would define his gains.
Odesues had already revealed to Alex the steps to learning the way of Error, and told him that his only chance of learning Error was through the help of his physique.
The Eyes of the Ancient were his only resource that could help him learn error, since they could strip the world bare, making color no longer exist for him. Everything was cast in black and gray, a state of reality peeled away from illusion and ornament.
What remained was truth in its rawest form. Energies pulsed naked before Alex, the flows of aura threading through the air, the disturbances that rippled across space itself were all laid bare for him to see.
Every movement, every breath in the world had a resonance, and through those eyes, he could see its cadence.
But for now, though, that was their limit.
Alex needed to peer deeper, beneath even the fabric of reality itself, but as to how he could achieve that. He could only speculate that it would happen either after his physique grew or that he already had the potential but had yet to realize it.
The other significant detail Alex discovered on the second day was that he could not die, but he was forced to question whether this was a blessing or a curse.
A blessing because he did not need to waste his stash of law tokens, but a curse because he was healed when he was on the brink of death, and just enough to keep him alive.
It felt like he was being tortured, as the continued waves of threat, physical or psychological, never ended, crashing against him one after another.
Each brief moment of respite was a cruel illusion, just long enough for him to scrape together a fragment of strength, only for the next assault to tear it away.
The nightmare never ended. Alex adapted, but so did the threats he faced, and with every new day, with every passing hour, the agony deepened, the anger sharpened, the exhaustion gnawed, and the doubt whispered louder.
The cycle was merciless: endure, resist, survive, only to be thrust back into the hunt again.
Victory brought no relief, only the promise of a harsher trial waiting just beyond the treeline or hidden within his own body, ready to awaken when he least expected it.
There was no victory in this place, only time and opportunities to refine his skills.
The cycle lasted without any changes for seven days, and then on the morning of the eighth day, Alex woke up not in a verdant jungle but in a different place.
Alex awoke to rain hammering down on him, his body adrift upon a vast, heaving ocean. The water was salt-bitten and cold, stretching endlessly to every horizon.
Above, the sky churned with storm-thick clouds, their bellies split with lightning, while below, the waves rose and fell like the breath of a furious giant.
And there, within the chaos, Oeryndel, the Tempest Ruler, greeted him. His voice carried no advice, no guidance, only the weight of a warning sharpened into a threat.
"Do not break."
Oeryndel ruled over water, lightning, and aspects like fury and pressure. Alex’s stay within his domain was no less crushing and taxing than his stay within Blooming Requiem.
The routine was the same as before. Twenty hours of nightmarish struggle, where survival was his only choice, death not being an option, four hours of rest that he could barely remember, followed by a new day, only to repeat the same cycle.
The next came the endless snow expanse, a place of Mist, Illusion, and merciless cold.
It was the domain that gnawed at the senses, where silence weighed heavier than sound, a place terrible enough for Alex to wish for the next domain to have a warm environment.
Alex did not know if Odesues was intentionally messing with him or if it was just his luck. A week later, Alex found himself in the Golden Desert, where the sun burned without mercy and the sky was an unbroken sheet of fire.
The merciless heat of the sun was not merely heat, it burned deeper than flesh, searing at his very soul. The agony was constant, not overwhelming but unrelenting, like a single droplet of water dripping on his skull every second, slowly unraveling his sanity.
But the torment did not end there. As always, creatures stalked Alex. Glasswraiths, hollow reflections of himself, moved with his skills yet without his will, attacking with the precision of a perfect mirror.
Solar Leeches, invisible beneath the blaze of sunlight, burrowed through his shadow to drink his vitality, and worst of all were the curses, weaving illusions so simple yet so cruel, a thirst so vivid it felt as though he had been thirsty for weeks, or phantoms of enemies that did not exist.
By the fifth week, Alex began to wonder when his routine would finally change. Eleven weeks seemed the most likely end, one for each of the eleven domains, but he knew better than to trust hope.
Still, he found himself looking forward to that day.
The only reason he did not long for the nightmare to end was simple: as merciless as the cycle was, it produced results. All his skills, whether physical, elemental, or soul-related, were improving at a remarkable pace.
By the time the eleventh week arrived, Alex found himself torn, as part of him wanted to continue with his routine, but another part of him yearned for something new.
After so many days of enduring the same nightmare, merely served in different flavors, he had grown accustomed to it, even enjoyed it in a strange way.
The purpose of such merciless hardship was growth, and Alex knew that in the past eleven weeks, he had advanced more than he had in the entire past year, if not more.
He understood that his improvements did not come from simply further growth, he had already achieved that. His gains came from realizing his own skills, from refining what he already possessed.
For instance, his stats were already capped at 400,000, the peak any individual could reach before advancing to Elemental Ruler rank and undergoing law cleansing.
Yet despite gaining no new stats, the difference in his strength between the first day of his first week and the final day of his eleventh was immense. He estimated at least a twenty percent increase, a tremendous gain given his already monstrous power.
The same was true for his manipulation of Darkness, his command over the Monarch Aura, and the traits granted by his physique.
But his greatest focus had been the Eyes of the Ancient, and the greatest gains had come to them.
Now, he could see auras. Not the simple crimson glow of life, the condensed shimmer of energy, or the faint impressions of intent and presence that defined strength.
He could see deeper. Every force, every element, every being radiated its own distinct hue, and with a glance, Alex could discern a person’s elemental affinity, their emotional state, even their intent.
This was a direct refinement of what he already had, and with each passing day, he peeled back more of the truth hidden in those auras.
He believed that soon, he would see the very souls of beings, a step closer to his ultimate goal of witnessing the base of reality itself.
The final day ended the same as it always did, with Alex going to sleep, his body barely clinging to life. However, this time he did not begin his day by being attached, rather he woke to a familiar face.
A tall figure stood before him, its chiseled features sharp against pale, ash-gray skin, its emotionless black eyes fixed on him.
"Young one, you did well," Odeseus said solemnly, a faint smile curving his lips as he tossed Alex a ring.
Alex caught it, sitting upright at once, though his body, grown accustomed to his daily routine, was already at work.
His eyes opened pupil-less, turning dark and ancient, scanning the surroundings, his breath held still, a veil of darkness wrapping around him like a second skin.
’The Cinder Crucible?’ Alex murmured inwardly. ’I’m back in Ignovar’s Domain.’
Odeseus wasted no time letting him gather his thoughts or ease into comfort.
"There are exactly ten thousand and eighty law tokens within that space ring," he said, his voice calm and emotionless. "You have eleven weeks to use them."
Before Alex could even comprehend the weight of the words, Odeseus was gone. Instantly, the ocean of molten rock around him trembled, the ash-choked air quivered, as a beastial roar tore through the fiery domain, sending ripples across the very fabric of reality.