The deep rumbles of reconstruction echoed through the heavy silence as footsteps approached.
Zekai and Sebastian walked side by side deep beneath the foundations of the BSA Headquarters.
The underground passage stretched endlessly before them, twisting through long zigzagging corridors that seemed to descend farther with every turn.
The deeper they went, the more irritated Zekai became with the lack of disclosure.
"Mr. Sebastian..."
"How much farther are we going?"
"And what exactly am I supposed to do after this?"
Sebastian answered with nothing more than a faint smile.
"We're almost there."
He glanced at Zekai from the corner of his eye.
"After this..."
"You'll finally start seeing the truth."
Zekai sighed inwardly.
The truth?
After everything I've already survived... what else could this world possibly have left to show me?
Neither of them spoke again.
After another few minutes of walking—
They finally stopped.
A colossal metallic door stood before them.
It was large enough for an entire military aircraft to pass through without touching the sides.
Dark.
Seamless.
The metal itself was pitch-black, seamless, and strangely non-reflective—as though it had never been forged by human hands.
His mouth slowly fell open.
"...What kind of place is this?"
Sebastian remained silent.
Around the enormous gate, dozens of monitors and control consoles lined the walls.
Several uniform-clad BSA officers stood at their stations, monitoring streams of purple data rolling across glowing displays.
One of the operators pressed a hand against the communication panel.
"Command."
"Requesting authorization to access Null Void."
A brief silence followed.
Then a calm voice echoed through the room.
"Authorization confirmed."
"Proceed."
The operators immediately began activating the control systems.
A deep mechanical rumble shook the chamber.
Instead of the massive gate opening—
A much smaller door hidden beneath it slowly slid open.
Beyond it...
A staircase descended into darkness.
Sebastian looked at Zekai.
"Come on."
"Let's go."
"...Huh?"
Zekai immediately took a step back.
"No."
Sebastian sighed.
Without another word—
He grabbed Zekai by the wrist.
"Stop making this difficult."
Before Zekai could protest—
Sebastian pulled him down the stairs.
The instant the inner door opened—
An intense white light burst outward, flooding the narrow passage.
The light carried no warmth. It felt strangely hollow, as though it belonged to another world entirely.
"What the—?!"
Sebastian gave him one final shove.
"No—!"
Zekai stumbled forward.
His foot slipped—
And he nearly lost his balance.
But instead of crashing onto a cold metal floor...
He froze.
Grass.
Soft green grass stretched beneath his feet.
There were no birds. No insects. Not even the sound of wind.
Only an impossible stillness.
His breathing caught.
"...What?"
His eyes slowly widened.
We were underground...
How is there... grass?
Confused, he lifted his head.
Then—
His entire body went still.
Far ahead—
A colossal blue eye floated in the sky.
It didn't feel like an object suspended in the heavens.
It felt like the heavens themselves had become a silent watcher staring back at him.
It was so enormous that its size dwarfed the horizon itself, as though it had replaced the heavens.
Around the chained giant, countless smaller eyes drifted through the air.
Each glowed with a different color.
It never moved.
It never blinked.
It simply remained there—motionless and unchanging.
As though it had watched this forgotten world for thousands of years... without ever closing its gaze.
Heavy chains descended from nowhere, binding the immense iris as though sealing something that should never have existed.
Not a single chain trembled.
They remained perfectly still, as though time itself had forgotten them.
Below it...
The land was littered with abandoned weapons.
Ancient swords.
Broken spears.
Cracked shields.
Weapons of unfamiliar design, unlike anything ever forged by human hands.
Ancient broad swords stood driven into the earth as though abandoned at the end of a forgotten war.
Not one showed a trace of rust.
Yet despite everything—
The land itself remained covered in lush green fields.
Beautiful.
Unnaturally peaceful.
Sebastian walked up behind him, a lit cigarette resting between his fingers.
He took a slow drag before exhaling a cloud of smoke into the endless sky.
"Welcome..."
"...to Null Reality."
Zekai frowned.
"...So this is another dimension?"
Sebastian slowly shook his head.
"No."
"This isn't one of them."
"It's the place that exists... between all worlds."
The endless field stretched to every horizon without a single mountain, tree, or structure in sight. Only the chained eye watched over the forgotten world.
Neither of them spoke.
The stillness pressed against them like an invisible weight.
Even Sebastian remained still, allowing the endless landscape to speak for itself.
Zekai slowly turned in place.
Everywhere he looked... there was only green.
Endless green.
Endless emptiness.
Zekai suddenly frowned.
"...Where's the sun?"
Sebastian looked upward.
"...No one has ever found one."
It felt less like standing inside another world...
and more like standing inside a forgotten memory.
Zekai remained frozen.
His eyes wandered across the impossible landscape before him, unable to process what he was seeing.
What is this...?
How is something like this even possible?
Countless thoughts collided inside his mind.
Zekai couldn't find the words.
"It... feels like an entirely different world."
Sebastian let out a quiet chuckle as he took another drag from his cigarette.
"I told you before."
"There are countless things in this world that exist beyond your imagination."
"But this..."
Zekai struggled to find the right words.
Sebastian nodded, already knowing what he meant.
"I understand."
"We reacted the same way the first time we came here."
His eyes drifted toward the sapphire eye suspended in the heavens.
"But this place..."
"...is the remnant of a civilization erased by a great catastrophe."
"Long before the Bureau existed... humanity discovered this forgotten place."
At that moment—
Dozens of black butterflies suddenly appeared from nowhere.
They circled around the two of them in complete silence.
A chill ran down Zekai's spine.
Sebastian never took his eyes off the enormous sapphire-blue eye hanging above them.
"Our universe isn't made up of just one world."
"It contains countless dimensions."
"Every dimension is anchored to a single hidden axis—a place invisible to every civilization."
He paused briefly before looking across the endless fields.
"That hidden axis... is Null Reality."
Zekai looked around once more. Nothing here felt fake. If anything...
It felt more real than the world he had left behind.
"Every other dimension is connected to our world through it."
Sebastian raised one finger.
"But dimensions aren't supposed to touch. When they do, the boundary between them begins to weaken."
"We call those wounds..."
"Reality Fractures."
"That's why monsters, devils, and countless unidentified entities continue crossing into our reality."
Zekai frowned.
"Then why can we see them in our world?"
"Is our reality... broken?"
Sebastian quietly inhaled another mouthful of smoke.
"No one knows."
"Whether the Null Reality Error is part of God's design..."
"...or the result of something even God never intended..."
"No one has ever found the answer."
As his words faded into the wind—
The last of his cigarette burned away, turning to ash before scattering into the air.
A powerful gust swept across the endless green fields.
The black butterflies scattered into the wind before slowly circling back around the motionless eye overhead.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Zekai couldn't look away from the impossible sky as countless pieces of the puzzle began falling into place.
The monsters...
The dimensions...
The Grave Energy...
The Bureau...
Everything Sebastian had told him suddenly clicked into place.
Years of unanswered questions...
Countless impossible encounters...
They were no longer isolated mysteries.
They were pieces of the same broken reality.
Every answer seemed to solve one mystery...
...only to create another.
Yet—
One mystery refused to fit.
Deep within his mind, a single question remained buried, one he couldn't bring himself to voice.
The black stone cube.
Ever since it had entered his life, it had dragged him into events that defied reason.
From his own experience...
It was the black stone cube that had taken him into the Graveyard Dimension.
Yet Sebastian's explanation painted an entirely different picture.
The two truths didn't align.
One of them couldn't be the whole truth.
Or perhaps...
Both were.
If Sebastian was telling the truth...
Then the cube existed outside everything he had just explained.
Which meant only one thing...
The cube wasn't following the world's rules.
Zekai slowly lowered his eyes.
There's something else...
Something they're not telling me.
The black stone cube...
Its true purpose hasn't revealed itself yet.
Zekai had begun to understand the truth behind this Null reality.
But one question still refused to leave his mind.
"Why bring me here?"
"What does any of this have to do with me?"
Sebastian laughed.
"No matter where we go..."
"...you never stop asking the important questions."
A faint smile crossed his face.
"What else?"
"This..."
"...is your final test."
✦ End of Chapter 45 - Welcome to Null Reality ✦