The Epic Tale of Chaos vs Order

Chapter 2098: Back to the basics

What awaited Cain beyond the gate was a vast and raging ocean — a sea confined within a chamber that defied reason.

The currents roared with such force that they could hurl entire moons as if they were pebbles tossed by giants, and yet all of it — the impossible tide, the cosmic current — was trapped within that sealed space. Even with the gate wide open, the ocean did not pour out. It moved according to laws older than gravity, deeper than space.

Instinct made Cain step back. The sheer power of the waves was overwhelming, each surge carrying the weight of a world. But before his foot could touch the ground again, one of the streams of that furious ocean lunged out like a living serpent.

It caught him.

He was yanked forward, dragged into the chamber as though by the hand of a god.

In the next instant, control over his body was gone. The current swallowed him whole, twisting him end over end. Even his Neo-Demon physique failed to resist.

Then something even more dreadful struck him.

Suffocation.

He had long surpassed the need for breath, his body evolved far beyond that limitation. Yet here, in this strange chamber governed by its own alien Laws, that necessity returned. The water was not water, but an essence dense and alive, one that denied him air and burned his lungs with liquid fire.

He was drowning.

Thrown through currents faster than light, his vision blurred, his bones trembled, his thoughts scattered. The sensation was pure horror — the kind of despair that could make even gods falter. But Cain did not yield. He forced his mind into stillness, cutting through panic with the blade of discipline.

"Find the rhythm. Find the pattern."

That thought anchored him.

Through the swirling chaos, he caught sight of something — a faint shimmer near the chamber’s farthest edge. A gate. A way out.

But reaching it was another matter entirely. The currents tossed him endlessly from one side of the chamber to the other, never once bringing him closer to the exit.

"I can’t brute-force this," he thought, his mind racing even as he spun through the darkness. "If I try to overpower the tide, I’ll have to burn life force — and that won’t be seen as success in this trial."

He exhaled a slow, controlled breath — or as close to one as the crushing depths would allow. There were many ways to confront the challenge, but given the nature of this Realm, only one path made sense.

He had to yield to the Flow.

Cain’s eyes flared with golden light. He sank inward, invoking the most fundamental state of The Flow — the First Principle. The art of feeling frequency itself: the rhythm of reality, the heartbeat of motion.

His senses expanded.

The chaos around him ceased to be chaos. Each wave revealed its structure, its pulse. The currents no longer dragged him aimlessly — he could see their direction, their pattern, their song.

He reached out, shifting his body ever so slightly, moving with the current rather than against it. Bit by bit, he slipped from one stream to another, weaving his way through the raging sea like a dancer crossing flame.

At last, his hand touched the gate.

With only a brush of his fingers, the crystalline barrier opened, light blooming through the water. Cain surged forward, bursting into open air.

He collapsed to his knees, gasping. For a moment, he simply breathed, savoring the sensation of air filling his lungs. Then he steadied himself and rose, his golden eyes calm once more.

A faint glow pulsed at his brow. The lotus engraved there shone softly, and one of its petals unfurled.

A smile curved his lips. "One step closer."

Without hesitation, Cain followed the invisible current that threaded through the Maze, letting it guide him toward the next challenge.

Days passed, and eventually, a new gate shimmered into existence.

Cain unlocked the seal in it, and it opened.

He stepped into a chamber carved entirely from volcanic glass, its obsidian walls veined with molten gold that pulsed like arteries beneath living skin. The air did not burn, but it quivered with suffocating density; every breath was like swallowing sunlight.

The temperature shifted constantly, rising and falling in irregular waves. Sometimes the heat built into towering columns of flame that spiraled skyward, and sometimes it collapsed inward, sucking away warmth and sound alike. Each fluctuation carried a low hum that resonated through the bones — the pulse of the chamber itself.

Cain stood still, golden eyes narrowing.

"This room breathes," he whispered.

He could feel it — the pattern hidden in apparent chaos. The chamber’s surges followed no visible rhythm, yet deep beneath the surface there was order.

He let the hum wash through him, matching his heartbeat to its cadence.

"Sense the pattern hidden within chaos. Move when the pulse slackens. Still yourself when it tightens. Become rhythm within rhythm."

Smiling faintly, he moved.

At first, the transitions were clumsy. The heat waves surged unpredictably, threatening to crush him. But with each breath, each measured step, Cain adjusted. His body began to flow with the chamber’s oscillations, gliding through its temperature tides like a shadow swimming through fire.

Soon, the Neo-Demon was running between the pulses of the volcanic heart. The world became sound and motion, a symphony of pressure and release.

And then, as if the chamber itself acknowledged his mastery, the far wall split open in radiant light.

Cain stepped through, victorious. His smile widened, exhilarated by the trial. He was not learning something new, but refining what he already knew — grounding himself in the fundamentals of The Flow.

"The stronger the foundation," he thought, "the higher the peak I can claim."

He moved swiftly now, like a comet through crystal corridors. After another span of timeless wandering, a new gate rose before him.

When it opened, a storm awaited him.

He entered a vast spherical chamber whose translucent walls throbbed with veins of living lightning. The air shimmered silver, filled with drifting mist that tore and reformed like restless spirits.

Cain’s gaze sharpened. The storm was alive. It breathed.

With each inhale, every wind in the chamber rushed inward, converging into a spiraling vortex at the center. With each exhale, the storm released its breath in a colossal shockwave, powerful enough to fling mountains like leaves.

"The rhythm again," Cain murmured, eyes glowing gold. "But buried deeper this time."

Cain closed his golden eyes for the first time and attempted something new. He listened. The storm’s breathing followed a pattern — erratic, but decipherable.

"Four beats stable. One beat collapse. Two beats reverse."

That was the key. The moment between inhale and exhale — the fleeting stillness between chaos and motion. That was where he had to move.

Cain waited. Patient as stone.

When the rhythm reached its still point, he opened his golden eyes and leapt.

The winds seized him instantly, lifting his body into the air. But instead of resisting, he aligned himself with the current. Every shift, every gust, he anticipated — gliding through the chamber like a streak of lightning riding the pulse of a god’s breath.

The winds howled, and Cain laughed softly, exhilaration blazing in his golden eyes as they glowed with greater power.