"What the fuck is happening?"
For several seconds, I could do nothing except stare.
Beyond the enormous window was the Fairy Realm.
I could see the trees.
The endless branches.
The homes built between them.
The distant paths where fairies should have been walking.
The birds that should have been flying through the sky.
Everything was there.
And yet, something was terribly wrong.
There was no color.
No green in the trees.
No blue in the sky.
No warmth in the sunlight.
Everything had been reduced to black, white, and shades between them, as if someone had taken the entire world and washed every color from it. Worse than that, nothing moved. The fairies were frozen where they stood. A child had stopped in the middle of running. A bird remained suspended in the air. Even the leaves looked as if they had forgotten how to fall.
It was not a dead world.
That would have been easier to understand.
It was a world that had been stopped.
A world that had been robbed of something I couldn't name.
I swallowed.
"Is this a dream?"
I wanted it to be.
An illusion would have been better.
A trick created by the dungeon would have been better.
But something inside me rejected that explanation.
This wasn't an illusion.
It felt too real.
Too heavy.
Too wrong.
I slowly turned away from the window.
And then I saw them.
Two enormous gates stood at the opposite end of the chamber.
One was completely white.
Not painted white.
Not made from some ordinary material.
It looked as though the gate itself was made from condensed radiance.
The other was black.
Pitch black.
Not even darkness seemed capable of describing it.
They stood side by side, silent and motionless.
Waiting.
I stared at them.
"Now that I think about it…"
All those knights.
Silver.
Gold.
Red.
Purple.
Yellow.
Blue.
Brown.
Every one of them had possessed a different color.
But there had never been a white knight.
Nor had there been a black one.
My eyes narrowed.
"Does that mean something?"
I stepped toward the gates.
The moment I got closer, I noticed something else.
There was no path leading to both.
Only one of them would open.
"So that's it."
I looked from one gate to the other.
"Final stage?"
My grip tightened around my sword.
I had survived everything the dungeon had thrown at me.
Somehow, I was stronger than when I entered.
But that didn't make me feel confident.
It made me nervous.
The deeper I had gone, the stronger that strange sensation inside me had become.
Something was calling me.
Something was waiting.
And I had the horrible feeling that whatever was waiting at the end had been waiting for me long before I ever entered this place.
I looked back toward the window.
The colorless Fairy Realm remained frozen.
No movement.
No sound.
No life.
Just silence.
"Guess there is no going back."
My breathing became heavier.
Then I stepped toward one of the gates.
I wasn't even sure why I chose it.
Maybe instinct.
Maybe coincidence.
Maybe something inside me had already made the decision before I realized it.
The gate opened.
Slowly.
Beyond it was complete darkness.
I tightened my grip on my sword and stepped inside.
The moment I crossed the threshold, the gate slammed shut behind me.
BOOM!
The sound echoed through the enormous chamber.
Then—
Fwoosh.
Lights ignited one after another along the walls.
The darkness disappeared.
I looked around.
"…Seriously?"
It was enormous.
The room stretched farther than I could properly see.
At its center stood another gate.
And beside it—
Another gate.
I stared at them for several seconds before realizing what had happened.
The white gate and black gate weren't separate paths.
They both led here.
I looked behind me.
Then toward the other entrance.
"…What a scam."
I took a step forward.
And something moved.
A faint light appeared in the darkness ahead.
Two eyes opened.
A knight stood there.
But unlike the others, his armor wasn't one color.
Half of it was black.
Half of it was white.
The colors didn't clash.
They seemed to exist together.
Balanced.
His hands rested upon an enormous sword that had been buried into the ground before him.
I slowly raised my sword.
"So you're my final opponent?"
Wind began gathering around my body.
The knight didn't answer.
He simply pulled his sword from the ground.
The instant the blade came free—
BOOM!
The entire chamber shook.
Cracks spread across the floor.
Only then did I notice the strange carvings beneath him.
A massive formation.
Symbols.
Ancient patterns.
And beneath the knight's feet was something that looked disturbingly similar to an altar.
"A sacrifice altar?"
The knight raised his head.
His dim eyes looked directly at me.
I felt something cold crawl down my spine.
I had fought countless opponents.
Humans.
Creators.
But this was different.
I raised my sword.
Wind wrapped around its blade.
"Come."
He disappeared.
For a moment, I couldn't understand what happened.
Then—
He was standing directly in front of me.
My body reacted before my mind could.
I raised my sword.
CLANG!
His blade came down.
My arms trembled.
"What—"
The pressure was absurd.
Then fear hit me.
Not nervousness.
Not caution.
Fear.
Pure instinct screamed at me to move.
I jumped backward.
But his sword was too long.
The blade followed.
It came down.
And everything happened at once.
My sword broke.
My hand was severed.
The blade continued.
It tore across my face.
My eye disappeared beneath the slash.
Then the sword reached my chest.
SHRKK!
My body was thrown backward.
I crashed into the wall hard enough to crack the stone.
Blood poured from my chest.
For a moment, I couldn't breathe.
I looked down.
My hand was gone.
One of my eyes was gone.
My chest had been opened.
And somehow…
I couldn't feel the pain yet.
My mind was too busy trying to understand what had happened.
One attack.
He had defeated me with one attack.
"What… a monster…"
Blood spilled from my mouth.
My remaining vision blurred.
I tried to raise my hand toward my chest.
Wind gathered weakly around me, desperately trying to stop the bleeding.
But I knew.
This wasn't enough.
Can anyone even defeat something like this?
The knight slowly walked back.
He didn't pursue me.
Instead, he returned to the altar.
Then something strange happened.
A drop of my blood fell onto the ancient formation.
The moment it touched the carving—
The entire formation activated.
Light spread through the symbols.
The chamber trembled.
Something rose from beneath the floor.
An altar.
The knight stood before it.
Then I heard a voice.
"The vessel has arrived."
My breathing stopped.
"What…?"
"Beginning the ritual."
I couldn't tell where the voice came from.
The knight?
The altar?
The dungeon itself?
I couldn't see anyone else.
My body suddenly became cold.
Something was being taken from me.
My strength.
My breath.
My life.
My vision darkened.
So this is the end?
I couldn't fight anymore.
I couldn't even stand.
The knight raised his sword.
Then thrust it into the altar.
BOOOOOOM!
A tremendous force erupted through the chamber.
The knight looked upward.
And finally—
He spoke.
"The world requires balance."
His voice was deep.
Ancient.
Almost sorrowful.
"One cannot exist without the other."
Cracks appeared across his armor.
I watched helplessly.
"Carry the burden…"
His armor began breaking apart.
"…or perish with the world."
His body turned to dust.
The sword fell from his hand.
His final words reached me through the darkness.
"Live, if you can."
A pause.
"Find the reason for your life."
Then he disappeared.
The chamber shook.
My vision faded.
My body became cold.
My remaining hand fell uselessly beside me.
So this was it.
I thought about everyone.
Would they know?
Would Gray realize what happened?
Would Makima wait for me?
Would Master search for me?
Would Bell ever know that I came here because of her?
Or would they simply assume that I had disappeared?
My vision became red.
Then darker.
And in that darkness…
I saw something.
A spark.
A tiny light floating above the altar.
My remaining eye widened.
It was a stone.
Ancient.
Beautiful.
And carved into its surface were two words.
TRUE RADIANCE
The moment I saw them, the entire chamber illuminated.
There was no shadow anymore.
Only light.
Warm.
Cold.
Gentle.
Terrifying.
It felt as if the stone was calling to me.
Are you going to die?
The voice came again.
I didn't know whether it belonged to the stone.
My subconscious.
Or something else.
But then I remembered.
My family.
My friends.
Master.
Gray.
Makima.
Bell.
And Shadow.
I remembered why I had come here.
I remembered everything I still had to do.
"I…"
My voice barely existed.
"I still need to stop Shadow…"
I tried to move.
Pain exploded through my body.
My missing hand.
My destroyed eye.
My opened chest.
All of it arrived at once.
I collapsed onto my knees.
"Agh…"
My body shook.
But I looked toward the stone.
It continued shining.
Unchanging.
Like it had been waiting for me.
Then a voice began speaking.
Not loudly.
Not violently.
It simply appeared within the chamber.
"When all colors perish, the First Radiance shall awaken."
My remaining eye widened.
"It shall not burn the darkness, nor bow before it."
The light became brighter.
"The vessel shall become—"
The words disappeared.
My body collapsed.
Blood spread beneath me.
My heart stopped.
My eye closed.
And I died.
At least…
That's what I thought.
There was no pain.
No sound.
No body.
I opened my eyes.
Nothing.
I was floating inside an endless darkness.
I looked down.
My body was barely there.
It was translucent.
Almost like a fading soul.
Am I dead?
I tried moving.
Nothing happened.
The darkness slowly began surrounding me.
I could feel myself becoming part of it.
My existence was dissolving.
And strangely…
I wasn't afraid.
Then something appeared.
A person.
Someone who looked exactly like me.
But different.
His body was brighter.
More colorful.
Almost alive.
He stood before me.
Neither of us spoke.
He simply raised his hand.
I hesitated.
Then I raised mine.
Our palms touched.
And he smiled.
Just slightly.
The moment we connected—
Something inside me became whole.
My soul.
The emptiness.
The feeling that something had been missing ever since Shadow separated from me.
It disappeared.
For the first time…
I felt complete.
The other version of me began dissolving.
Not dying.
Returning.
He became light.
And entered me.
The darkness surrounding us began to disappear.
Light exploded from my body.
It spread through the endless void.
The darkness vanished.
Then everything became white.
Pure white.
I couldn't see anything.
I couldn't hear anything.
I couldn't even tell whether I still existed.
"…What the fuck is happening?"
Then—
I opened my eyes.
I was lying beneath a massive tree.
I immediately sat up.
"?!"
Fairy Realm.
I was back.
The same place where I had entered the dungeon.
I looked around frantically.
Nothing.
No dungeon.
No black-and-white room.
No gates.
No knights.
Nothing.
It was as if none of it had ever existed.
I looked down at myself.
My clothes were torn.
Deep slash marks ran across them.
My chest.
My arm.
My face.
Everywhere the knight had struck me—
The clothes were destroyed.
But my body…
was perfectly fine.
My eye was intact.
My hand was there.
My chest had no wound.
Not even a scar.
I slowly touched my face.
"…What?"
I stood.
My legs were steady.
My breathing was normal.
I looked toward the place where the dungeon had been.
Nothing.
Not even a trace.
I stared for several seconds.
Then I sighed.
"…Not again."
I looked down at my torn clothes.
"Where the hell did I walk myself into this time?"
But somewhere deep inside me…
something had changed.
I just didn't know what yet.