After enduring the crushing force of the test of strength and surviving the barrage of the test of durability, Alex found himself met with yet another challenge.
This place wasn’t like the other domains he had experienced before.
It didn’t simply test physical attributes or brute power, it tested everything.
His instincts. His intelligence. His resolve.
Even his ability to choose.
Every facet of his existence was being weighed and judged here.
The [Palace of Destiny] was alive in a sense, and Alex could feel it.
The domain moved on its own, adjusted to his presence, reacted to his thoughts.
It was fully in control.
The deeper he went, the clearer it became that this palace was created by an all-powerful entity that allowed it to control itself.
A sentient, all-powerful space that would bend only for those it deemed worthy.
And Alex wasn’t sure if it saw him that way yet.
Even back in the [Abyss] or the [Depths], domains ruled by ancient and horrifying gods, he had never felt such weight pressing down on him.
Back then, he had still felt like a challenger, an invader maybe, but not a prisoner.
Not like this.
His gaze wandered slowly across the floor, the pillars, the endless emptiness.
“I need to keep going,” he whispered to himself.
He wasn’t even past the entrance, after all.
The domain had only just begun its evaluation.
The first two tests had been violent and clear-cut.
This one, though, it already felt different.
Stone echoed beneath his feet as he began walking forward through the endless chamber-like space.
Massive marble pillars stretched upward like spears aimed toward the sky, disappearing into a ceiling he couldn’t see.
There was no sound except his footsteps, no light source except the gentle glow surrounding the air itself.
The entire space felt too open, too empty, liminal, like something was deeply wrong beneath the surface.
Still, he moved forward.
Time passed strangely in this place.
It may have been thirty minutes, or maybe longer, when he noticed it, a carved arrow, barely visible, etched into the side of a pillar.
“…An arrow?”
He stopped and looked closer.
It was pointing in the opposite direction from the one he had been walking in.
He stared at it for a moment, unsure what to make of it, then let out a sigh.
“Well… I haven’t found anything going this way,” he muttered.
Turning around, he decided to follow it.
The first arrow led to another, then another.
Each one etched lightly into the marble surface of a pillar, guiding him deeper into the space like some ancient scavenger hunt.
It wasn’t long before the pattern finally ended.
The last arrow pointed to something unusual.
A crimson door, standing alone in the middle of the endless marble forest.
There were no walls around it, no hallway, no support, just the door.
It stood upright like it had grown out of the ground between the pillars.
Alex slowed his steps, narrowing his eyes.
Even before he reached it, his instincts began to scream.
The closer he got, the more intense the sensation became.
It wasn’t just a warning, it was panic.
A primal flare in his gut telling him one thing:
[Do not open this door.]
He stopped just a few feet away, staring at it.
The door looked ordinary at first glance, crimson paint, a brass handle, but the aura surrounding it was… wrong.
The kind of wrong that made the hairs on his arms rise.
Was it a trap? Or, was it actually the right door, and his instincts were screaming because whatever lay beyond it was terrifying, even to him?
He reached forward, placing a hand on the handle.
It trembled.
His fingers, steady in battle, were shaking now.
“…No.”
He pulled back.
His body wasn’t reacting out of fear, it was reacting out of wisdom.
This door wasn’t the answer. It was the end.
“It’s a trap,” he said quietly, taking several steps back.
He exhaled and tried to calm his thoughts.
Why would the domain place a door here, in the middle of nowhere, after such a long and meticulous trail of arrows?
Why make it so obviously tempting?
And then it hit him.
The true purpose of the test wasn’t about finding a door.
It was about knowing which one not to open.
This wasn’t a test of direction, or speed, or even cleverness.
It was a test of intuition and judgment.
“…So that’s what this is all about.”
Just to be sure, Alex extended his hand and conjured a spark of deep, blackened flame, [Flames of Oblivion], letting it spread along the floor toward the door.
The fire touched the base of the crimson door and, in seconds, the air changed.
Fwish, BAM!
“RAAAAAAAARGGGH!”
A deafening roar erupted as the door itself twisted, contorted, and changed shape.
Its frame bent backward violently, becoming a massive, open mouth lined with dozens of jagged, uneven teeth.
A black tongue unfurled from within, dripping acidic saliva as the void beyond it pulsed with malevolent hunger.
A trap.
[If you had opened this “Monster Door”, you would have been stunned and devoured.]
Alex stepped back again and dismissed his flames.
The maw writhed for a few moments longer, then began to sizzle, shriek, and collapse in on itself until it was no more.
“So that’s how it is,” he muttered, rubbing his forehead, “They want me to choose right… or get eaten alive.”
A new panel appeared before him.
[If you open one of the “Monster Doors”, the domain will stun you and you will be dragged inside. Failing the test will result in your permanent ejection from the Palace.]
He groaned, brushing the ashes from his coat.
“Could’ve told me that before I almost grabbed the handle.”
Another message followed soon after.
[Note: If you destroy the real exit door using force, it will also vanish forever.]
“Of course it would.”
No cheating, no shortcuts.
He couldn’t simply burn every door he found until the real one appeared.
He turned around, ready to follow a new trail of arrows, and then froze.
“…What the hell?”
Every single pillar now had an arrow.
All of them.
Hundreds of them, each glowing a different color, red, blue, green, purple, orange, and more.
They stretched out in every direction, crossing over one another like a web of misdirection.
And every one of them pointed somewhere else.
“This is insane,” he whispered, staring out over the maze.
Even so, he didn’t hesitate.
Alex stepped forward, eyes narrowing, and closed them.
If the arrows were all colored differently, that meant the only way to win was not by logic, but by intuition.
And that was something he trusted.
With eyes closed, he extended his aura outward, using a subtle skill he’d developed long ago, sending soft shockwaves of energy across the area, mapping his surroundings like echolocation.
Fwish! Bam! Bam! Bam!
Each wave rippled across the marble pillars, lighting up the arrows in his mind’s eye.
But something strange occurred, every arrow that responded to his aura appeared red in his inner vision.
Red, the same color as the door that had tried to eat him.
He narrowed his focus, strengthening the next wave.
More arrows lit up. Still red. Again.
Then, finally, bam, one arrow lit up in a brilliant gold.
There it was. In his mind, it was golden.
But when he opened his eyes, the arrow was purple in the real world.
“Found you,” he whispered, grinning.
Without hesitation, he followed it.
His feet moved faster now as his instincts settled.
The arrow led him across the marble halls, through pillars and endless rows, bypassing dozens more misleading markers.
He didn’t waver, not once.
He reached a clearing again, similar to the last, but this time, a purple door stood waiting for him.
And though his instincts still prickled with warning, this time, he understood why.
The fear wasn’t telling him to run, it was telling him to prepare.
He stepped up, placed his hand on the handle… and opened the door.
Fwash! BAM!
Beyond it was no mouth, no trap, only a massive golden-lit hallway stretching into the distance.
He exhaled, a grin flickering across his lips.
[Exceptional Intuition: No illusion, trap, or deception can bypass your judgment.]
Of course, that meant more tests awaited him beyond that hallway.
But for now, he had passed. And the Palace was watching.