The hallway stretched out before Rosacer, and as he stopped, it should have been over. But he knew he was right, he was, in fact, trapped in a loop.
He halted his frantic run, his hand resting on the gun already materialized. The use of Blight Burn was limited, but the Gewehr relied on his blood supply, and that he had to spare.
A scrap of metal stained with blood lay before him. He held the gun firmly and began to move forward, slow and deliberate. Inside his head, thoughts bombarded him relentlessly.
There must be something that caused the loop to begin. What was it? The burning of that dead body.
His mind returned to the grotesquely butchered corpse.
The sexual organs were removed. The eyes gouged out. The head shaved. Some form of ritual emasculation. It was unmistakably male.
'Jaka, the Jester of Emasculation.' The name surfaced again, unsettlingly familiar.
'The resemblance is too close. There is a possibility that I am trapped within his loop. But could a mere man wield authority and power on this level?'
The memory of the searing burns that had killed him resurfaced, vivid and agonizing.
The system said that to escape, he needed the Mercy of the Sun God. All he had, though, was a mask that could serve as Grace for a short while, yet another question lingered in his mind.
'Grace of the Sun. It is not the Sun's Grace required for ascension to godhood. This is the Sun God himself, an existence beyond mere titles,' he thought inwardly.
He was certain that the Sun God and the Suns were distinct entities, but he questioned the system regardless.
The confirmation came immediately.
There was, indeed, a difference.
The only instances in which Rosacer's trusted system had failed were during his encounter with the ancient monster Jkoi Maysee and when he was forcibly teleported by the Mistress of Head within the City of Brewing, Crescitlok. In every other case, the system's silence stemmed not from malfunction, but from his insufficient authority, which prevented it from providing deeper answers to his inquiries.
'In the case of Jkoi Maysee, it was more his presence that broke the lock on the information. The system was actually able to at least tell me his name before it returned to normal functionality. Who is that monster, anyway?' As he thought, the primal fear etched within his soul shivered.
For now, he tried to push thoughts of that monster out of his mind.
With the Mask of Pharaoh integrated into his suit, he was embodying the Grace upon himself. In theory, this should have made him temporarily eligible for the prison's acknowledgment for pardon, even if he was not truly a prisoner. Yet reality did not reflect this expectation. The black powder reverberated ominously, as if foretelling an inevitable fall, a cycle in which the sun would rise once more to burn the soul of the one trapped within.
Rosacer found himself confused. The door remained bound to a corpse hidden somewhere beyond his knowledge, and the Grace of the Sun God proved useless. Despite wielding it, he was still treated as a prisoner. This contradicted the system's earlier implication that a Grace could be helpful. Why, then, had the system suggested it at all?
Lost in contemplation, he requested further information regarding the Grace and its usage. What he received in response was underwhelming, offering nothing groundbreaking and nothing applicable to his situation. He released a weary sigh. No solution presented itself, and for the first time in a long while, he could think of no path forward.
Time was running out.
The black powder began to crack beneath the Sun's illumination, splintering as if it could no longer endure exposure. Rosacer still had no solution. If he died again, there was no certainty that the same residue would emerge from his body to blot out the light. If it did not, he would be caught in an endless execution, burned again and again without reprieve.
That fate was worse than death.
The Sun finally broke through.
There was no more time.
Blinding radiance flooded the hallway, swallowing the walls, the symbols, and the corpse-bound threshold alike. The light descended with intent, seeking to vaporize him as it had before. The pain returned instantly, overwhelming and absolute.
Rosacer tapped his dark coat, crafted from the combined powers of the Dark Messiah and Death's God. As he activated it, he called it the Royal Death.
A sphere of condensed darkness formed around him, a black bubble intended to sever contact with the Sun's gaze. For a moment, it held. Then the light intensified. The bubble did not shatter. Instead, it ignited, glowing from within like a bulb forced into power far beyond its limit.
The floor was stained with blood once more.
Yet no scream escaped from within...
A window shimmered into existence, its hue shifting. Streaked with crimson, it appeared unreal and alien. Bold, warmly written letters read:
[Welcome to the nightmare world.]
Rosacer had entered the Nightmare World.
This time, there was no suffocating blankness or loss of ability to keep memory.
An open field stretched before him, vast and silent. Red vegetation swayed without wind, while dark roots protruded from the ground like exposed veins. The landscape felt alien, unreal, yet undeniably present.
'So this is the Nightmare World,' he thought.
Cut off from the Endless World, he knew he was no longer within an ordinary realm. The system's ability to bypass the Prison of the First Sun meant that the Nightmare God's influence could seep through the cracks. In theory, this also meant that the Mistress of Head should be capable of invading him through sleep.
Yet she did not appear.
Perhaps the rules of the Mist City did not apply within this prison. Perhaps the Sun's domain rejected her authority. Rosacer had gambled without certainty, unsure whether she could reach him or not.
Now, as the crimson field lay silent before him, it seemed the gamble had paid off.
For the moment, at least, the Sun could no longer reach him.