The throne room was thrown into darkness.

Max felt all of the pressure vanish at once, but that did not mean the trial had ended. If anything, it only made the place feel more wrong. The throne was moving away from him, drifting deeper into the darkness while a narrow light shone down on it from above, illuminating it like a sacred object floating on nothing.

Max was floating as well, suspended in that same endless darkness.

But unlike the throne, which remained bathed in that pale radiance, Max’s body was cast in crimson light, as if he had been covered in blood from head to toe.

He took a step forward and reached for the throne.

It moved away.

Max narrowed his eyes and took another step, but the throne drifted farther again, keeping the same distance as if mocking him. Every single step he took left a bloody imprint beneath his feet, dark and wet, staining the invisible ground. When he looked back, his eyes sharpened. There was already a long line of bloody footprints stretching behind him, far more than the number of steps he had actually taken.

"What kind of trickery is this?" Max muttered, more curious than afraid.

He examined the footprints carefully, then took one more step.

This time, ten more bloody prints appeared behind him.

The more he walked forward, the farther the throne moved away, until it became a tiny speck of light far in the darkness, unreachable no matter how much he walked.

"What do I do?" Max stopped, trying to understand the mystery before him.

He attempted to transform into his dragon form. It worked, his body shifting, scales spreading, wings stretching behind him, but when he tried to fly, his body refused to rise. He felt too heavy, as if every drop of blood he had spilled had been tied to his bones and dragged him down.

He changed back into his human form.

"This has to be some sort of puzzle," Max muttered, his eyes returning to the line of bloody steps behind him. "If this is testing my heart, then it has something to do with blood. All of these steps... is this how many people I’ve killed since coming to this world? Is this all the blood I spilled to achieve what I have today?"

An idea bloomed in his mind. He tried to take a step backward. The moment his foot landed, a sharp sensation pierced through his chest.

A sword had pierced him from behind.

The blade tore straight through his heart, its bloody metal emerging from the other side and shining before his eyes. Max’s pupils shrank slightly as cold pain spread through his body, so real that for a moment, even he could not tell if this was only an illusion.

"Who?!"

He turned around, only to see an elven warrior standing behind him, staring at him with empty sockets. Its flesh was falling off the bone, its face distorted by rot, its mouth hanging open as if it had died while trying to scream.

"Piss off!" 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Max stepped forward, ripping the sword out of his chest as he moved. The elven corpse vanished with the blade, melting back into the darkness like it had never existed.

But in that moment, Max noticed something. The throne had come closer when he stepped back. Only now, after stepping forward again, it had moved even farther away, as if he had taken a hundred steps in the wrong direction.

"The wound is gone..."

Max touched his chest. There was nothing there. No hole. No blood. Not even a mark. Only the memory of pain remained.

"You don’t mean to tell me I must go all the way back, feeling every single person I killed kill me as well?" Max cursed under his breath. "Fuck..."

That pain was no joke.

It was not the same as having his flesh wounded. It felt deeper, like the blade had pierced something inside his soul and left the memory of death there. To pass this challenge, even if this truly was the correct way, he would have to suffer endlessly just to bring the throne back within reach.

"Even if the throne returns to me, who’s to say I will be able to take a step forward and sit on it?" Max muttered, his jaw tightening. "Only a madman would ever attempt this..."

He tried to take one more step forward, but his body would not move. There was a limit. The throne did not drift farther, and no more bloody imprints appeared beneath his feet.

"Great..."

Max clenched his teeth and took a step back. A sharp pain pierced his chest.

"Fuck you!"

He took another step, dragging the illusion with him, and another golden sword pierced him once more. The pain spread through his body like fire, but he did not stop. An endless journey began, every single step becoming torture, every single wound reminding him of another life he had taken.

All of this for power, and even then, it was worth it. He needed it.

With every wound, his movements grew slower. Max was no longer simply walking backward through his own trail of blood. He had to force himself through the weight of every death clinging to him, pushing back the figures of those he had killed as they appeared one after another, their empty eyes, broken bodies, and silent hatred following him through the darkness.

A trail of blood was left behind wherever he walked. By now, the throne had returned halfway through the darkness. After the last elf plunged a blade into his body and vanished, Max barely had time to breathe before a long spear pierced straight through the middle of his head.

His mind spun violently. The weapon was familiar.

A wind dragon spear.

Max’s eyes trembled slightly as the pain spread through his skull.

"Come, all of you. No matter how many of you rise to kill me, I will not regret slaughtering a single one of you."