The air felt heavier here, almost alive, pressing against his skin and crawling into his thoughts. He had not meant to enter this place. Whatever this was, he had stumbled into it by mistake. His stomach twisted with unease.
The man on the throne leaned back, one hand resting lazily on the armrest. From the blurry figure Gray could see he discerned the man was tall and wore pale robes. His face was unreadable, but there was an unmistakable gleam in his eyes that made Gray feel as though he had already been judged.
Gray's voice was uncertain when it finally broke the silence. "I did not mean to break into your temple… it was an accident."
The man's lips curled, and a deep, rich laugh rolled through the hall. It was not mocking, yet it sent a shiver through Gray's spine. "An accident?" he repeated. "You worry too much. I forgive you."
The words were calm, almost warm, but Gray's chest remained tight. "Than you..." he murmured, then hesitated. His eyes wandered across the towering pillars, the endless ceiling, the golden light filtering in from nowhere. "Where am I?"
Before the man answered, another question formed unbidden in Gray's mind. "And… that black void I passed through before I stepped into the light? What was that?"
The man tilted his head, as though considering how much to tell. "That," he said, "was your consciousness world, your mind."
'Consciousness world? I've... never heard of that before.' He pondered silently.
The man offered nothing more. Gray waited patiently for elaboration, but the silence stretched. The lack of reassurance only deepened the knot in his stomach.
He swallowed hard.
'Is this… the true afterrealm? The place spirits go when their life ended?' He had heard stories. Heaven. Hell. The endless field of souls. But this did not feel like any of them. It was too solid. Too weird. Yet too strange to be real.
The man's voice cut through his thoughts as if he had been listening. "This is not the afterrealm. It is neither heaven nor hell."
Gray blinked. "Then what is it?"
"This," the man said with a faint smile, "is my realm."
'His realm?' The answer was as unsatisfying as it was strange. Gray thought back to the earlier moment when he had asked if this man was a god. The way he had avoided answering directly made Gray think he had lied.
Again, the man spoke without being prompted. "I am not a god." He repeated, his tone carrying the weight of countless arguments. "Many claim I am. Many see me as one. But I am not."
'If he's not a god,' Gray thought, 'then he's at least something dangerously close. '
To read thoughts so easily…to control this place so absolutely… it felt like godlike power.
'Who the hell is he?' He thought for a while. Was he an origin? One of the saviours of humanity from the first generation? Or was he a forgotten existence?
The figure on the throne shifted slightly. However, he didn't respond to Gray's thoughts, not this time.
Gray took in a deep breath and looked down.
"Am I alive?" Gray asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
The man's laughter deepened, becoming almost a roar that bounced off the distant walls. It went on long enough for Gray's skin to prickle with discomfort.
The man clicked his fingers.
In front of Gray, his own body appeared. Pale. Still. The chest unmoving. The same wounds he had felt before coming here were frozen on its skin. It was a disturbing mirror.
"You are very dead," the man said simply. "The only reason you are here is because your soul has not disintegrated yet."
Gray's brows knitted together. "Souls disintegrate right after death. That is what everyone says."
"Indeed..." The man confirmed his thoughts yet offered no reasons as to why.
His eyes glinted with something unreadable. "You seem to be a special visitor."
The words suggested there had been others. Others who had come here before. Gray wanted to ask, but the man leaned forward instead.
"What is your name?" he asked.
Gray hesitated. "Gray."
For the briefest moment, the man's expression faltered. His eyes narrowed just slightly, but it was gone before it came. Gray only felt the silence that followed and wondered why the man had stopped speaking.
Then the man stood.
The movement was unhurried, yet Gray felt the weight of it, as though the entire hall shifted to accommodate him. He raised his arm.
Gray's body lifted from the ground.
'What...what the hell?!' He kicked instinctively, but it was no use. His limbs would not obey his will. The pull toward the throne was unstoppable.
"It will only take a moment," the man said.
Gray's breath caught as something invisible solidified in front of him. He slammed into it with crushing force and fell to the floor.
Before him stood a vast wall. It shimmered faintly, the surface watery and rippling, yet opaque. The fog inside it made the world beyond impossible to see. The throne, the man, everything else vanished behind its blur.
The silence broke with a sound like tearing fabric. From the wall's shifting fog, a purple arm emerged. It was ghostly, yet the talons at the end of its fingers looked solid enough to pierce bone. The claws brushed his temples with an almost delicate touch.
Pain erupted instantly.
It was as if molten metal had been poured directly into his skull. His vision shattered into jagged fragments of light. He screamed, the sound raw, uncontrolled. His knees buckled. He thrashed, clawed at his own head, but the grip never loosened.
It was more than pain. It was a burning that crawled through every nerve, flooding his thoughts with images he could not understand. The world tilted and twisted. He could feel something rifling through his mind like a thief tearing apart a home.
It went on and on. Every heartbeat was a hammer against his skull. His jaw ached from the force of his own screams.
Then, with another snap of the man's fingers, it ended.
Gray was back where he had stood before, gasping, trembling. His body, his real body, lay at his feet again.
The man muttered softly, almost to himself. "Rank One. Marked. Severing Bloom. Frozen Veins. Talent… None."
His gaze sharpened at the words Severing Bloom. His eyes locked on Gray as if they might bore straight through him. His breathing slowed.
Gray tried to steady himself, but his thoughts were scattered. He could barely understand what had just happened before the man spoke again.
"Thank you for your company, i shall be sending you off..." the man said. He lifted his hand in a lazy wave.
The sound behind Gray was strange at first, like wood collapsing. Then he saw it. The floor and pillars were falling away, not breaking naturally, but in neat cubes that tumbled into the emptiness below. It was as if the palace were a toy being dismantled.
Panic slammed into him. "Wait! Just wait a second!"
The cubes vanished faster, the edge of the floor rushing toward him. "Can you revive me?" he shouted in desperation. It was better than not asking.
The man's eyes narrowed, then curved into a smile that even Gray noticed. "What if I can?"
"Then please," Gray said quickly. "I will… I will do a favor for you."
The man laughed again, tilting his head as though amused by a child's boast. "A Rank One will help me?"
Gray gritted his teeth, heat rising in his face. "Yes."
The man clicked his fingers again.
A shimmering screen appeared beside him, hanging in the air. On it, Gray saw Lira and Adel. Alive and Moving, breathing. But barely.
His breath caught.
The man's voice was smooth. "Do you want to prove yourself to them?"
Gray stared at the image. The sight pulled something deep inside him, a knot of longing and shame. He swallowed hard, thought for a moment, then nodded.
The man studied him for a long time. The silence became so deep Gray could hear his own heartbeat. Finally, the man exhaled. "I will accept your deal."
Gray's chest loosened in relief. "What is the deal?"
The man raised his hand again.
The floor began to break apart once more. Panic rose like a tide. "What are you—?"
"You are far too weak for my interest," the man said, his tone returning to something cold. "But in the future, I will ask for a favor."
Gray's voice cracked with urgency. "When? How will I meet you again?"
"I will reach out to you," the man said.
The last of the floor gave way beneath Gray's feet.
He fell. The air rushed past him in a roaring void. His arms flailed, and his throat burned as he screamed for the man to stop, to help him.
Far above, the man remained seated on his throne. His expression softened only slightly.
"Let us hope," he murmured to himself, "that you survive long enough to be worth the trouble."
The wind tore the words away before Gray could hear them.
Then there was only the fall.