Zenith Online: Rebirth of the Strongest Player
chapter-543

The mundane blade Kieran wielded was not designed as a medium for a recondite concept like Significance, let alone the sullied version Kieran drew upon to combat the darkness.

What remained of the blade warped into scorched scrap, its edge missing. However, the blade's destruction meant little to Kieran as he tossed it aside and witnessed the Darkness Below split open.

Its disorienting blackness peeled away like a drape with a thick drawstring to reveal a strange place. Only some things here were a mystery to Kieran.

He spun slowly, taking in his surroundings.

The Darkness Below had not been destroyed, but his prison grew untethered, allowing it to fold in on itself.

Taking labored breaths, Kieran noticed this place was almost strangely similar to the Citadel of Resentments atop his head. This was no separate place but rather an extension of the Citadel far beneath its surface.

The question of how he got here rang out in Kieran's mind until it was overshadowed by him focusing on a ways behind himself, glimpsing a poorly lit doorway at its end.

Kieran was convinced he needed to take a step towards that place, climbing the flight of craggy steps leading up to that doorway, but he also had a sneaking suspicion this place was incomparably important.

Why did the Flame choose to lead him down underneath the Citadel of Resentments of all places? If he thought about it, the Flame's best move was to have its greatest pawn hidden where it could do the most damage and was safe from harm.

Kieran was that greatest pawn.

A matchless piece in the Flame's game of cosmic chess.

The pieces involved principles greater than Kieran's understanding, like fate, time, destiny, and choice. There were others, but Kieran had a faint grasp of their value, like ruin, destruction, and blood — the overarching motif in this Trial.

Casting away his broken, mundane sword, Kieran surveyed his surroundings, analyzing this strange space. In some regard, it resembled the Drained Space linking parts of Xenith together, but it felt darker and more… intangible, if that's how he'd put it.

This place was all too curious, and that sentiment aroused connected questions in Kieran's mind.

Feeling somewhat experimental, he touched the Darkness Below, not in the way he had attempted when the Flame refused to release him, but with the Condemnation of his Realm.

A strange sensation enveloped his hand as he passed it through a not-so-viscous membrane. It felt jelly-like, but it lacked the moisture he expected. The feeling was close to touching moss if it had been drained of its dew.

'What a strange place…'

Kieran retracted his hand and checked for any changes — nothing.

Contrary to his negative impressions, he touched upon something blissful on the other side, but the moment he touched it, his mind alerted him of danger, a resounding, ominous dirge he had never heard before.

It was so severe and lamentable that it left Kieran heavy with emotion.

There was nothing but death on the other side of that darkness, but it wasn't a kind of death he understood. The impression he got from touching the other side was one of… cessation.

Like he would cease to exist should he step to the other side.

Stepping back, Kieran braced his hand against his chest, viewing the poorly lit doorway again. He should leave this place; his instincts told him so. But... his mind compelled him to walk deeper into the dark.

The tenebrous depths changed subtly in a twist of fate or maybe manipulation spurred by his unspoken thoughts. Drawn to the depths, Kieran conjured a fistful of crimson flame, burning with enough luminescence to create a sphere of light.

Before him, grayish-black stones created a coarse pathway ahead opposite the exit. Around this path was craggy broken stone risen to create uneven and unrefined waist-level balustrades.

This place felt like a vestibule of nowhere to Kieran, where the endless depths of the abyss beckoned him. Clearly, it was an ill-advised idea to answer, but he did.

Kieran approached the depths gingerly, glimpsing strange etchings in the unrefined balustrades along the way. Time and distance became alien concepts in this place, but after walking for some time, Kieran felt a shift in scenery.

What he assumed to be matte pillars coated in a chalky gray texture, resembling nothing so much as ash, sprouted toward the ceiling. When they appeared, Kieran stopped and stared at them.

Markings resembling runes or the Supreme Lettering radiated an infernal energy, one his eyes warned him not to glean. Those markings were not entirely unfamiliar, though.

Kieran had caught a glimpse of those markings during Heartsbane's creation.

These were sigils, but Kieran wondered how these pillars — no, monoliths after analyzing further — came to be. Something powerful had to thrust these monolithic columns into the darkness. They had not arrived here accidentally or coincidentally.

Another decent period of endless footfalls brought Kieran before a long corridor shrouded in a pungent gloaming. It stretched a few paces before strangely tapering into a narrow, underground vestibule.

At the fringe of this tenebrous vestibule was a door that made Kieran take a step back.

His eyes rattled with abject horror.

A door shouldn't inspire such fear from anyone unless it related to unchecked trauma, but that wasn't why Kieran spazzed out. This door shouldn't be here… well, he couldn't understand why it would be here.

Like the unrefined balustrades that fenced the path forward, this door was made from stone, unknown in color due to the accumulation of soot on its exterior.

It suggested having been burnt for an eternity, scorched without end as if subject to eternal suffering.

In the center of the door was a disconsolate face wearing an expression of anguish. The stone warped as if it weren't incredibly solid but malleable, conforming to the features of the unknown face but never breaking.

Kieran could hear discordant wails carried by an inexplicable breeze.

No wind was being created here, manifesting properties of a vacuum, but still, the wails moved as if carried by wind.

Now that his memories had returned to their prior totality, he remembered why the theme of this Trial felt so eerily familiar. It was not intrinsically related to his Class but because he had seen a door once before.

'This is the damned door from the Hidden Dungeon! I remember it. And I remember the message the Zenith Frequency spoke to me.'

He couldn't anticipate the Scorched Door of Wailing Resentments would connect to his Trial! It was a surprise of the highest order, but more importantly, it spoke to the continuity in his experiences.

There was a subtle connection in everything… even if he couldn't glimpse it then.

Though there was a clear connection, Kieran couldn't understand why the door felt so strange. When he first encountered the door, it was nothing but a return gate, but right now, it seemed perilous.

'You know what… on second thought — how about we just head back the way we came.'

Kieran reversed, set to leave this place without touching a thing until his foot froze in the air against his Will, as did his entire body.

'Well… this isn't good. Don't you think?'

The Flame, drinking from the well of power hidden in the monolith, materialized more concretely than ever.

"Where are you going, my child? Now that you're here, I think you should stay."