Day 723[1] in Jerrica's Labyrinth
Fourth up on the Trial of the Bad watch cam was the squad's youngest: Steez Mikazuki. Don't let the baby face or that laid-back bop to his walk fool you—this kid was born movin' like he had somethin' to prove. From day one, he was clocking milestones like they owed him rent. Although second to talk, and second to walk, he was first to pull up on a training dummy with a mana-charged butter knife and start throwin' hands like a toddler possessed. When the rest of my siblings caught the spark of magick in their veins, Steez was already two spells in and shadow-boxing with imaginary goblins just to "see what's up."
We never gave him the chance to be left behind. Always 'the baby' of the clan. But Steez? He refused to wear that label like a leash. Whether it was sparring with people twice his size or meditating till his mana signature was dense enough to trip alarms, Steez made one thing real clear—he wasn't just keepin' up. He was trying to outpace us. Quietly, steadily. Not flashy. Just focused. Now? He wasn't just the youngest anymore. He stood as one of the coldest members of the Mikazuki Clan—no debate. And this trial? It was just the next step in the path he'd been carving with hard work, calloused hands, and that raw, untouchable drive of his.
If you paid attention to the themes of my family, they considered me the Spatial Child, y'know? Born with that freakish sense of direction, the power to warp spatial fabrics like I was foldin' the universe's blanket. But if I'm Space? Then Steez—my baby brother—he's Time. Not figuratively. I mean literally. While most folks don't even know Temporal Mana exists outside textbooks and ancient scrolls, Steez was weavin' that shit in his cradle.
See, most M-Cees manipulate the basic flavors of mana—water, earth, maybe a little lightning if they got spicy genes. But Steez? His soul drank up time-grains straight from the stream of the universe. His Ultra Skill let him manipulate the ticking between ticks, the moments between motion. Imagine throwing a punch at him and halfway through, he's already behind you, reading a magazine and flipping you the bird. That's the kinda alien movement he was on.
But the part that made him dangerous wasn't the gift—it was the grind. He knew he was gifted. Knew he had a power most beings couldn't even comprehend, let alone control. And he still trained like his life was on a countdown. That right there? That's what separated prodigies from monsters. And Steez was lookin' spooky.
Back in Talasi, Steez was cool just bein' the "Realest Nigga Alive." With the way he lived, it made sense. Steez believed a Real Nigga stood ten toes down no matter the cost. Didn't flinch. Didn't fold. Didn't entertain disrespect, even from Outer Gods. That phrase, "Real Nigga," it was more than slang to him. It was a code. A creed. Something he inherited secondhand from the music, the stories, the pain I used to drown in from my old life. A philosophy born from struggle, reshaped into armor.
He told me once, dead serious, "A real nigga gon' be a real nigga, regardless." Sounded goofy on the surface, but I realized how layered that shit really was. Pride wrapped in pain. Wisdom wrapped in foolishness. It wasn't all about being reckless—it was about being unapologetically real, even if it hurt.
But there's a double-edged truth in that, ain't it? Real Niggas? They don't run. And sometimes, they don't heal either. They don't reflect. That stubborn ego can blind you, have you sprinting into fights that coulda been avoided, just to prove you won't back down. And Steez... he would one day learn that as well. Real Niggas were always prone to crash outs.
After our scrap with Taurus—the Great Bull of Heaven—everything changed for him. That battle shook more than Arcadia. It cracked his damn worldview. Seeing me bleed, seeing our crew pushed to the brink, seeing how close our end truly was? That boy ain't smiled the same after that.
He ain't just want to be strong anymore. He needed to be enough. Enough to protect what little peace he'd found. Enough to stand between the people he loved and anything the universe might throw at them. I could see it in his eyes—the way they narrowed when no one was looking. The way he started moving was different. Training longer. Thinking deeper. Not only about winning... but about thriving.
And that's when he said it—one night while resting during the Trial of the Thriller. "I got all the time in the universe, big bro... but I still can't waste a second."
That hit me deep. Cuz it meant he finally understood what I had to learn the hard way: it ain't about power for power's sake. It's about purpose. And if you've got the gift of time, you damn well better use it to protect what matters most.
The moment Steez stepped out of the spatial portal, his boots crunched against black sand so fine it shimmered like noir powder under a dim sun. He stood at the lip of a coastline unlike anything Gaia had to offer. Before him stretched a honeycomb sea, infinite in expanse, its surface tessellated into hexagonal plates of glowing Chrono Nectar. Each tile pulsated like a slow heartbeat, giving off a muted golden glow—thicker than water, thinner than syrup. The liquid held an eerie stillness, like time itself was holding its breath.
A soft wind kissed the beach, carrying a faint chime—like tiny bells ringing backward—and above, the sky was… fractured. Literally. A dome of broken mirror shards revolved gently overhead, spinning like the inside gears of a shattered grandfather clock. Each shard reflected a different moment in time. One showed a younger Steez asleep under a tree. Another showed him face-down, unmoving, in a pool of something dark. The edges of the sky ticked and rotated in subtle rhythmic motion—yet the air stood still.
He glanced around warily, shifting his weight just enough to feel the Chrono Nectar resist the urge to pull him down.
"Where the hell is this?" he muttered aloud, the sound of his voice oddly echoed as if time hadn't agreed on when to deliver it. Then he turned toward one huge shard hovering low in the sky.
"Yo, what is that?"
The shard rippled, revealing a memory. A unique memory—one from back home, back when we were still little dumbasses with wooden swords and scraped knees. There we were, in our backyard, wooden sticks in hand, mock-battling like we were goddamn legends already.
Kid Steez lunged at me with a wild, overconfident slash. "YAAHH! Wooah!"
Gotta be quicker than that.
I dipped sideways with ease, letting his momentum carry him forward. "Too slow, baby brother."
And like the charming older sibling I was, I gave him a hard push from behind, right as he stumbled near that old tree in the backyard. The one with the massive beehive hanging from the top branch like it paid rent. The stick in his hand clipped the hive on instinct. A second later? Pandemonium. The bees burst from their nest like pissed-off mana sprites, angry and unified in their buzzing vengeance.
Steez tripped, hit the dirt, and tumbled straight into the bush below it. A whirling scream erupted as he disappeared into a blur of green leaves and angry wings.
Artamis was supposed to be the referee, but that nigga had been lounging on the porch, chewing on mango slices, acting like he wasn't watching. That changed quickly when the buzzing got real.
Steez bolted out of the bushes, flailing in circles like he was trying to summon a tornado with panic alone. That was the moment when he unintentionally triggered [Chrono Trigger] for the first time. Time warped around him like a shaken curtain of heatwaves, bending light as he zipped back and forth with jittery movements. His legs blurred, then reappeared behind a tree. Then again, ten feet away. Then in front of the house.
It was like he was glitching out of fear.
Eventually, we found him inside, curled in Mom's lap, mismatched eyes puffed up with tears and a swollen red bump the size of a mana crystal dead center on his forehead.
"Calm down, calm down. Moonlight, what happened to my Steezy-pooh?" Vericka cooed, brushing back his baby afro with one hand while scanning the mark.
"Oh, Mom! Um, he ran into a swarm of bees during our sparring," I said, fast and fidgety, pretending to rub my ankle like I was the one who got stung.
The truth was, I was tryna keep my name off the Ass Whippin' list after she'd just lectured me about casting fire art glyphs near the back door earlier that day. So… yeah, I omitted some truth. But Steez never let that sting go. And the worst part? Thanks to his [Memory Collection] skill, he couldn't. He remembered every detail in high-def clarity. The buzz. The pain. My evil grin.
To this day, bees were on his personal shit list.
And now, standing in this mirror-skied realm, surrounded by distorted memories and floating futures, he stared at the image of that moment playing out again like an unwanted rerun. The shard pulsed as if it too remembered how terrified he was.
But unlike then, he didn't flinch now.
Because the Realest Nigga Alive didn't run from memories. Not anymore.
The air buzzed with sound, but with a pulse, like a bassline trapped in a time loop. Repeating. Warping. Coming back harder. Steez caught himself nodding to it, eyes narrowing as the beat synced with his pulse. He didn't know if the melody was real or just inside his skull, but damn if it didn't slap.
"Wait..." he thought, the realization slow, crawling like something uninvited up the back of his neck. "Buzzing. Golden-like, thick liquid. Fuck! This must be an insect world or some shit."
He spun around, scanning everything again with new eyes. The black grains of sand beneath his feet twitched subtly, like the whole shore was breathing. The sea—if you could even call it that—shimmered and rippled with slow-motion honey tides. Hexagonal tiles of fluid, glowing like sunlight filtered through a mason jar, moved as if clock gears rotated under the surface. Just looking at it for too long made his skin crawl. His arms twitched. His scalp itched. His pupils adjusted on instinct. He couldn't shake the sensation that something unseen was watching.
He clenched his jaw and drew in a long breath through his nose, then exhaled sharply through his mouth. Again. And again. Letting the anxiety bleed out with each release. Above, the fractured mirror sky cast scattered afternoon light across the gold sea, but not a single reflection matched the present moment. One shard above him spun to show a shadowed version of himself, crumbling into sand. Another, the moment he'd last seen Grandma Fann. His heart panged, but his stance didn't falter.
"Let's just get this shit over with," he muttered, voice rough and grounded.
The moment the words left his lips, a soft pop cracked the air like a bubble being pinched out of space. No flashy animation, no booming entrance—just an indigo ripple spinning open behind him. My portal.
He didn't even look. Didn't have to. The portal belched out a cloth-wrapped bundle that thumped softly into his hand. His reflexes caught it without thought, and the portal sealed with a brief glimmer, its tone humming like a string instrument being tuned one last time.
Two mnemonic crystals sat atop the neatly folded outfit. Steez tilted his head. One glowed.
A familiar light projection beamed upward in a holographic flash, flickering with my voice encoded into it:
"That hoodie is a bit raggedy. How about something with more clan tradition? -Xi"
Steez blinked, then looked down at himself. His childhood hoodie—faded, frayed, half-stained with old mana burns and dried sweat—was basically a time capsule of bad decisions and good memories. He gave it a sigh of respect before yanking it off and tossing it to the sand.
The new fit? Oh, it was cold-blooded. A traditional Mikazuki Clan Master GI—maroon red with scarlet threading that shimmered softly under the alien sun. The fabric shifted like it had a soul, catching the light just right to remind you it was enchanted.
This wasn't just your regular drip. This was a battle fit with swagger.
He slid into it smoothly, leaving one sleeve loose off the shoulder like the old days.
"That's why big bro is the GOAT. I wanted one of these since Grandma showed me hers," he grinned, admiring the weight, the cut, the precision.
Then he grabbed the second crescent-shaped crystal. Holding it between thumb and index finger, he gave it a quick pulse of mana. Specs popped into view:
MOVIE – Created with Enchanted Starlite and Voidsilk. Can survive the center of a black hole. Raises Physical and Spiritual Defense. Drains magick from oncoming attacks, heavily weakening them. Enchantment: Chains of Command.
"Oh this... this shit slaps," he muttered, letting the grin stretch wider.
As if on cue, the Prime Realm System's mechanical tone echoed through the space like a voice bouncing off canyon walls:
«The Trial of the Bad is about to begin. Completion of the trial's objective is based on the defeat of this world's champion waiting ahead.»
His [Sense Presence] pinged like a sonar gone haywire. A bloom of power signatures, like digital embers exploding on his inner radar, lit up across the horizon. Thousands. Maybe tens of thousands. Each one twitching slightly in a tangled field of motion.
The champion had to be swimming in that crowd. Steez didn't flinch.
He dropped into a half-stretch, leaning into one knee, then the other. Bio Mana coursed down his legs like carbonated lightning, fizzing and bubbling inside his veins. Every cell in his calves screamed for release. It was the side effect of his [Afternoon Star: Belphegor]—a mutation that rewrote the rules of speed, allowing him to move past light with a fraction of the effort.
He didn't even notice the afterimage he left behind as he moved.
His body was already shifting faster than light could catch up. What looked like a lazy flex to him translated to a slow-motion blur to anything watching. Then—
Boom.
What should've been a light jog snapped like a slingshot through the world's frame rate. He vanished, warping across the honeycomb shoreline toward the ocean of temporal monsters, leaving only a rippling indentation in the black sand behind.
And just like that, the trial had begun.
Twenty-two kilometers (13.6 miles) away from where the golden sea met the broken sky, buried beneath collapsed eras of black sand and warped, pressure-aged mana, something monstrous slept.
The structure wasn't built—it had grown, evolved, and been chiseled into form by time itself. A massive, inverted hive stretched into the abyss below like some ancient creature's fang, drilled upside-down into the crust. It glittered with crystallized Chrono Nectar, its translucent walls pulsing softly with residual temporal energy. Veins of obsidium coral wrapped around it like chains of void-colored roots, holding it in place. Imagine a gothic cathedral mated with a honeycomb, then flipped it on its head and had it baptized in alien tech. That's what Steez stood before—this surreal space-time monolith that looked like a luxury watch factory had been cursed by a hive god.
When Steez reached the outer trench, he saw them.
Hundreds of them.
Insectoid Demons floated in silent formation around the top layers of the hive—each one about human-sized, with sleek chitin armor glinting with soft golds and burnt oranges. They hovered just above the honeycomb wall, flapping wings that made a sound like flowing water mixed with the rattle of war drums in the distance. The rhythm buzzed in Steez's ears and chest, setting off every nerve ending with a signal that screamed retreat. He narrowed his eyes and focused, pulling up his new skill.
[Sage Wisdom].
His pupils dilated, and mana flared across his vision in indigo veins, scanning the creatures. Their names and stats poured into his mind like an unwanted download.
Chronohymenid Workers.
A-Class Insectoid Demons.
Temporal Mana users.
Multiple hive-level mindlinks.
Abilities include: Time Aging Stings, Loop Traps, and Chrono Paralysis Spit.
Steez froze. His breath got stuck in his throat, and the sweat collecting on his back turned cold. He could hear the fluid oscillation of their wings, as if raindrops were suspended midair and stirred by low-frequency sub-bass.
Then he saw her.
A queen-to-be. Management.
"Is that the champion? If she ain't it, I don't wanna meet who is."
It hadn't noticed him—yet—but Steez had never laid eyes on something so utterly alien and yet undeniably regal. Towering at least three meters high, her armored form shimmered in dark bronze plates, curved and sculpted like ceremonial war gear. Underneath the exoskeleton, faint blue veins pulsed steadily with Water Mana, illuminating her from within as if her whole body were a lantern of living tidewater.
Four arms, all sharp enough to gut any prey. Two legs thicker than tree trunks, rooted in sand that didn't even dare ripple unless she allowed it. Her water wings—massive sapphire sails veined with coal black—flexed once, and the entire trench dimmed. Spiral antennae curved from her head like cursed harp strings, framing glowing eyes of deep aqua. And deep within those eyes... the ticking of microscopic gears, spinning with malicious calculation.
The air around her bent slightly—no wind, no force... just uncertainty. A single drop of Chrono Nectar hung between her and the floor, hovering mid-drip. The sand beneath her feet reversed, rising up, then splashed back down like time was auditioning new realities.
Even the flex of her abdomen, streaked with glowing cerulean lines, sent a rhythmic tick through the air, a pendulum of imminent death.
Steez's heart didn't just race—it tried to parkour out of his ribcage.
"Yep," he muttered aloud. "I'm about to say fuck this trial. Why are there demon bees? Who the fuck would create those?"
His mind went spiraling in panic. "Wait... how the fuck do you even quit this shit?" He looked around. "This place don't look like Gaia. What world even is this?"
He slapped his face a few times—smack, smack—then exhaled sharply.
"C'mon, man. Get it together."
He steadied himself. The Chronohymenids hadn't noticed him yet. That was rare mercy, and he wasn't about to waste it. His fingers twitched with mana as he slid into a crouch behind a ridge of glassy rock.
During the last trial, Steez had spent days grinding through a deadly dance floor of horrors. But he also learned to control one of the rarest affinities I'd introduced: Deadwind. It was Wind Mana compounded with Yin energy—cold, corrosive, and patient. The kind of wind that didn't howl or scream. It crept. It whispered.
And now it was time to show what it could do.
He spread his arms outward, elbows bent slightly, fingers forming a diamond at his center. Mana gathered, invisible to normal eyes but roaring in the arcane. The air above his palms darkened as if death itself were holding its breath.
"Deadwind Mana Arts…" he whispered.
His mana surged in silence.
"Seconds till Dawn."
Nothing happened—at first.
Then it arrived: a toxic breeze without scent, color, or warning. It rolled over the hive like a deathly fog. The Chronohymenid Workers barely twitched as their carapaces began to melt, limbs sagging mid-hover. They dropped in chunks and splashes, wings sizzling off their backs. No screams. No alarms. Just the quiet hum of slow murder.
They never even knew they were dying.
With the sky now silent, Steez descended.
He crossed the sands to the trench's edge, where the roof of the massive hive jutted out like an ebony dagger. The late afternoon light bounced off the Chrono Nectar shell, giving it the illusion of fluidity, like it was still growing, breathing. He touched it briefly. Cold. Sticky. Time-stained.
The entrance opened on instinct, folding in on itself like a blooming flower made of glass and clocks. Inside, the hall stretched downward. The air was damp and oddly warm, the walls glistening with Water Mana-fused resin. Bee-like drones hovered past him, made from half-living water constructs and regret spells, drifting with uncanny precision. They didn't even look at him.
Steez wandered deeper, into halls lined with Time Cocoons—hexagon chambers, each containing frozen horrors.
He saw M-Cees, or what used to be them, caught in endless loops.
One man screamed every ten minutes, exactly.
Another sobbed violently every thirty seconds, mouth moving in reverse as if time stuttered.
Some were frozen mid-death, stabbed by phantom stingers repeating endlessly.
"Damn." Steez shook his head. "Such a fucked up way to die. Maybe I should just blow this place up and be done."
He paused, then frowned.
"Nah… I ain't found the champion yet."
He spotted a descending stairwell shaped like a coiled drill. With one last glance back at the cocoons of tortured souls, he turned and started down.
Time ticked sideways the deeper he went.
The Wax Spiral was a cruel joke carved into reality—an endless, downward staircase of polished amber wax, slick with memory and lit only by the soft, pulsing glow of embedded Chrono Nectar veins. Each step wasn't just a platform—it was a portal. You see, the magic in that place was layered thick like old regrets; if you stopped for even a second, you'd step sideways into somebody else's life. And that's exactly what kept happening to Steez.
First time, he paused to adjust his laces. Big mistake. The world around him warped—colors bled like paint tossed in water—and suddenly, he was attending a wedding. A female cleric in pale lavender robes was reciting vows beneath a tree made of crystal bones, her hands trembling as she exchanged rings made of frozen mana. The groom had tears in his eyes. Then a spear of dark lightning tore through the sky, and the scene shattered. Rewind.
Next, he skipped a stair. The floor yanked him into the final breaths of a Kolbold hunter's life. The small lizard-like creature stood panting, chest bleeding, surrounded by broken arrows and fire, trying to crawl away from something too fast to see. Just as the claws clamped down, time snapped back. Another rewind.
More scenes unfolded the deeper he got: A child trapped in a burning village; a warrior slitting his own throat in front of a crumbling shrine; a woman rocking an empty baby blanket, her tears drifting upward like forgotten wishes. Every memory ended in pain or horror. And every time Steez had to yank himself out, cursing under his breath, mentally yanking the rewind thread like a cassette getting chewed in the deck.
Eventually, he gave up playing nice.
"Man, fuck this," he muttered, stepping to the center of the spiral and diving headfirst down the middle.
Wind Mana swirled around him in thick, protective layers, slowing his fall like a spiral parachute. The air smelled like burnt ozone and dusty grief. Down and down he went, until the spiral vanished above and the Crown Chambers revealed themselves like a secret whispered backward.
The chamber was... upside-down. Suspended at the very bottom of the Hive, the sanctum looked like a cathedral spun from nightmares and black honey. Chrono Nectar bled upward from the floor like reverse waterfalls, vanishing into the ceiling far above. Everything shimmered and pulsed with wrongness. A massive throne carved from living amber sat at the center, humming with verses that hadn't been spoken in thousands of years.
Fifteen Royal Guard Chronohymenids lined the perimeter. Their chitinous armor gleamed like obsidian polished with the ocean, and the mana leaking from them was intense, dense like molasses, thick with temporal distortion. Each one was S-Class in strength, with the size of a small vehicle, wings tucked, mandibles twitching.
Then one of them spoke, voice clicking like a metronome made of glass and steel.
"Hait. You are wandering towards the Royal Chambers of Queen B'yonsei's Innanet. Continue to advance and you will be killed."
"Damn, my nigga, no need to be rude," Steez said casually, cracking his neck. "I think I'm lost, is all. I'm trying to meet y'all champion and shit."
"He's an invader!" another hissed, wings snapping open. "He's seeking to harm Queen B'yonsei. We must kill him now!"
"No one would ever be allowed to harm our Queen. You will die for your foolishness!"
But see, here's the thing about Steez—he didn't do well with monologues. While they were still mid-introduction, he'd already started charging lightning in his left hand, the mana sparking so fiercely it left streaks of white-hot static across the air.
He took a step, vanished, then BOOM—his left fist met the lead guard's chest with a jab so swift, so precise, the upper half of the demon exploded into a soup of green plasma and broken shell. Before the other parts even hit the floor, he was already behind the second guard, elbow cocked. Another flash, another boom of flesh and chitin popping like glass under a boot.
That's when the others noticed.
Too late.
Steez zipped between them like a living bolt of wrath, a one-man hurricane of punches and kicks laced with Wind and Lightning Mana. Each blow came with the sound of thunder cracking in a jar. Bee guts and twitching limbs rained from above, dripping into upward-falling Chrono Nectar and getting carried into the ceiling void.
Fifteen entered.
Fifteen got folded like laundry in the middle of a typhoon.
When the silence finally returned, Steez was standing in front of that insane throne. Magic Gems glowed in the armrests, arranged like constellations. Runes pulsed at his feet in radiant gold and sapphire. The air around him thickened, no, slowed. Time itself was twisting, warping. The very air began to vibrate as if the scene was sinking into molasses.
Then everything appeared to stop.
Appearing frozen mid-breath, mid-thought—except for Steez. His Ultra Skill had already kicked in, passively removing the time magic like it was made of wet paper.
That's when he heard it: a voice, sultry and smooth, echoing from nowhere and everywhere.
"You are a first, Demihuman. You unravel my [Time Control] like it were a silk thread. How... deliciously unexpected."
Steez grinned, cocking his head.
"Well, I'm Steez Mikazuki. The Realest Nigga Ali—no, scratch that. The Realest Nigga of All-Time. And this is child's play."
The voice chuckled—silken, powerful, maybe even... amused?
"You say you're seeking the Cardinal Empress of the West. What for, Demihuman?"
"Is that the champion?" he replied coolly. "Then I'm here to kill her."
The room didn't gasp.
It exhaled.
Mana in the air shivered. The temperature dropped. Even the throne seemed to hold its breath, the song of lost time cutting out mid-note. The silence that followed felt like standing at the edge of a cliff, waiting to fall... but Steez just rolled his shoulders.
"I know you must be this Empress," he said, raising his voice slightly, "so come on out. I'm tryin' to get home to see my family."
Nothing.
No words. No movement.
Just silence—the kind that weighs heavily in the soul. The kind that promised whatever came next wouldn't be pretty.
And Steez?
He was already smirking.
[End of Chapter]
[1] Year Five.