Unlike anything that he had expected to witness—a giant or small crater, the torn apart surface of the earth, the spiderwebbed cracks entangling around the area.
Nothing. He saw nothing of such sorts.
On the contrary, the thing that Kai was looking at, by no means, looked like the ground either.
'What the...'
Baffled and flabbergasted with all kinds of thoughts, he just blankly stared at the "ground" with his widened eyes and loose face.
Amidst the silently fading dust cloud, Kai could see the surface of the ground on which he had stood just a moment ago, completely annihilated.
It looked like a small but complete annihilation of a rough circular area from which cracks spiderwebbed all around, crumbling further in uneven shapes.
The area affected had taken on a slightly darker shade as if it had been influenced by the attack, while the cracks slowly began to emanate vapours of the same golden light rising into the air before dissipating.
However, that wasn't the reason behind Kai's expressions at all. Because what he was looking at, was behind that surface. Or rather, inside that surface.
Below the layer of aged and moss-covered cobblestone road, Kai could see a somewhat huge hollow space.
Although it was true that the griffins' attack had pierced through the ground and created a pit. But neither the attack's trajectory nor its power was enough to have created such a deep space.
As time slowly went by and the dust cloud began to subside, Kai's pupil shrank in an instant as an image appeared in his mind.
It was the image of a not-so-distant past.
The image of the system window that carried the details of the Trial.
To be precise, it was a part of the Trial description.
---
[• Objective - Reach the Centre of the Maze as fast as possible]
---
It was just a single line, and yet, for that short time, Kai couldn't let go of it.
He kept on thinking about the image, about the line, as if he were looking for something. Prying for something that had hidden its tail within the shadows of trees.
'The centre...' his brows furrowed and his eyes lost their focus while his mind drifted deep into the piling thoughts.
'Centre of the Maze...'
He kept on hammering at the same phrase with a chisel, trying to slowly reveal the truth that was yet to be unraveled.
After repeating the same thing several times, a few more images began to blink before his eyes.
Just like before, they were the memories of a not-so-distant past. The images of his surroundings that he looked upon during the trial.
The sight of the Maze whose ends could not be seen no matter how long one ran.
'It almost looked like the entire world was covered in Maze...' It was just a thought, but it seemed to have clicked something deeper in Kai as his eyes widened once again and his body froze for a brief moment.
"Pffffftttttt.. Hahahahaha!"
Suddenly he burst out into laughter as he looked at the same hole with his partially closed eyes.
The sudden noise attracted the attention of the griffin, who silently hovered around the area—trying to confirm that his attack was a success.
Knowing that its prey was still alive, the griffin felt humiliated and let out a sharp, thunderous shriek, gaining the attention of other griffins as they all looked in its direction as if curious to know what had happened.
However, Kai remained unfazed. Or should I say... He was too busy to care about any of that.
"Now it all makes sense!" He shouted at the top of his lungs as his lips curled into a grin—something that had disappeared since the start of the trial.
'If my guess is really true and the whole world is truly coated with Mazes... Well, not like I have any other choice.' his feet automatically moved towards the hole, diving straight into it without thinking any further.
The logic Kai followed was simple.
If one were to look at a spherical ball and put their finger on it anywhere, that spot would automatically become the very centre of the ball itself.
And as of now, that ball was nothing other than the World covered in Mazes, and the finger? That was Kai.
However, he found it strange. If that truly was true, then why hadn't the System notified him about the completion of the test?
Why was the Trial of Agility designed in such a way?
Was there truly a Centre that he didn't see?
Or, was the Trial about something more than just Agility?
He had many questions in his mind, but the only plausible answer that he could think of was hidden inside his own surroundings.
'If the place and surroundings weren't the problem, then it must be THAT!'
'If the sky was in the possession of griffins and the ground reeked with nothing but metallic stench of the blood, then that leaves the only one place that was hidden by the cobblestone roads.'
It was just a mere guess, whose success rate even Kai didn't know about, and yet, he decided to play that gamble.
As Kai kept on falling more and more below in the darkness with no sight of the ground whatsoever, he couldn't help but wonder:
'Why exactly would the system create such a trial... Even I just got lucky with the Griffin's attack otherwise even I would've had no idea about it... Nevertheless, even I do not know if this path truly was the right one.'
Just as he was thinking so, suddenly, a small spark of light shone in front of his face.
A system window materialized and hovered before him as he finally saw the glimpse of a small platform—seemingly hovering—right below him.
---
[Congratulations! You have successfully cleared the Third Trial - the Trial of Agility!]
---
Surprisingly, he landed softly onto the platform without gaining any further injuries.
His smirk widened as he quickly skimmed through the screen.
"Made it."