Ash opened his eyes to complete darkness, then shut them hard again. He opened them once more, slower this time, squinting as if sheer force of will could make something, anything, appear in the void. But there was only emptiness.
A deep frown creased his forehead.
’What the hell... did I go blind?’
He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand and blinked hard several times. Nothing changed. All he could see was pitch-black... except for his own skin, which emitted a faint radiance in the dark.
At first, his mind supplied the easiest answer: he was inside his soul space. It was just as dark there, and he was strangely unclothed. But the familiar landmarks were missing. There were no soul cores suspended above him, nor was there the still, dark ocean stretching out beneath his feet. His reflection was nowhere to be seen.
Just... nothingness.
Ash reached up and rubbed his scalp, as if doing so might somehow restore his vision.
’Right. Must be seeing things. Or... not seeing things.’
He turned his head, searching the dark.
"Guys?"
His voice came out as a raspy, dry croak. Unlike his soul space, where every sound seemed to echo endlessly, here the sound simply died, swallowed by the void.
’Strange.’
Ash called out again.
"Anyone here? Come on... if this is a joke, I’m not laughing. Dark Core? Fire Core? Dammit... what’s going on?!"
There was no answer. Only suffocating silence.
Ash wanted to feel panicked. But strangely enough, he couldn’t. A cold, unnatural tranquility settled over him. He was far too calm for a man trapped in an impossible abyss.
"Soul Record," he commanded, hoping the black ocean would manifest beneath his feet and bring back his reflection.
Nothing happened.
"Dammit... what is this place?"
He turned around, searching for anything: a distant light, another drifting figure, some sign that he wasn’t alone. But there was nothing.
’Okay... Ash. Stay calm. Think. Where were you before you ended up here...?’
He went over his memories. The last things he could clearly remember were exploring the dead planet, the unexpected reunion with Max, the encounter with that dark creature, his near advancement to the next Stage, and—
’Yes... the temple. This has to be the old Titan’s trick. He probably trapped us in some dimensional pocket or something. Which means Max has to be around here somewhere.’
As he thought of Max, the rest of his memories came flooding back.
The desperate fight against his brother over who would be the sacrifice. The priest pausing time. The strange, fissured orb that made a childish voice echo in his head.
"Wait... what is all this...?"
The memories didn’t stop. He remembered Tyrin plummeting through the temple ceiling, battered and bleeding. And then... the dreadnought’s cannon charging directly above them.
"No... please..."
Then came the final, devastating image of the sky opening up, and the entire planet being reduced to ash.
Ash’s eyes widened in horror.
’Wait... I died?’
He looked down at himself. He didn’t feel dead. He was breathing easily, and he could feel the faint warmth of his skin. In fact, this whole experience felt eerily similar to that one time he had drifted aimlessly through space.
’Yes... that must be it. I’m in space... drifting endlessly.’
Except... this wasn’t space. Ash had seen the void of space before. He had learned about it from Max, who used to point at distant pinpricks of light, explaining navigational charts with smug, intellectual precision. But here, there wasn’t a single star. And unless he had suddenly evolved lungs capable of processing a vacuum, he wouldn’t be breathing this comfortably.
Ash took a slow, deliberate breath to test the theory. He inhaled cool, tasteless air and exhaled without difficulty.
’Okay. Not in space. And apparently not dead either. So where the hell am I?’
Suddenly, the pale light emanating from his skin flared brighter.
Ash lifted his hand, watching a pale, internal light burn beneath his flesh. He looked down at his torso and legs; his whole body was suffused with the same gentle radiance, creating a pathetic personal halo in the dark.
Ash scowled.
’Great. I’m glowing. And naked. What a dignified combination.’
That was when another light flared ahead in the gloom.
Ash snapped his head forward. Drifting through the void a short distance away was another figure. It was a man Ash didn’t recognize. He was equally naked, his skin burning with the same inner luminescence. Long, silver-white hair floated around the stranger’s head as if suspended in deep water. He appeared completely unconscious, his body drifting weightlessly through the darkness.
Ash stared at the stranger for a long time, so long that he began to feel uncomfortable staring at a naked man in the dark.
Then, a sudden realization hit him. The nakedness, the absolute darkness, the crushing silence, the glowing skin... all of it pointed to one conclusion. He was in a soul space. But it wasn’t his own. Maybe it belonged to this stranger.
Yet Ash couldn’t make sense of it. For a soul space to exist, a soul had to inhabit it. But neither of their souls was anywhere to be seen. They were apparently nothing more than conscious minds, floating through the void after their bodies had been destroyed.
Ash knew little about the mechanics of death, but if both body and soul were lost, didn’t that mean the absolute end?
’Strange... So this is what death actually is. I lost my body, and now I’m stuck naked in the dark with a stranger. If this is the afterlife, whoever designed it has a sick sense of humor.’
A bitter, helpless smile touched his lips.
’I bet Max would’ve found this hilarious. He’d probably start doing some weird math to figure out how this even happened.’
And then the weight of reality slammed into his chest.
Max. Tyrin. His brothers.
They were gone. Vaporized into subatomic dust while he floated here, naked and glowing. The people he had lived for, the brothers he would have willingly died to save, were gone, never to be seen again. And all he could muster was a pathetic joke about being naked.
His stomach twisted.
’What’s wrong with me...? Why don’t I feel it? Why don’t I feel... anything?!’
For years, Ash had prayed for death, believing his absence was the only way to protect his family from his cursed Root. Now that he had achieved it, there was neither the relief of death nor the grief of losing his brothers. He couldn’t muster tears for them. He couldn’t scream at fate. There was only a hollow emptiness inside his chest, and the terrifying realization that fate hadn’t let him win at all. It had simply found a new, far more torturous way to break him.
"Dammit... what is wrong with me?!"
Ash raised his fists, striking his own face repeatedly.
"Come on! Do something! Cry! You loved them! Their deaths had to mean something! Please... just shed one tear!"
But no tears came. Ash curled in on himself, feeling hollow, lost, and completely alone. He floated there in silence, suspended in the darkness.
Suddenly, the stranger stirred.
A faint twitch rippled through the man’s fingers, and his eyes snapped open, filled with either terror or bewilderment. The stranger shut them, then opened them more slowly and examined his glowing hands with the same disbelief Ash had experienced moments earlier.
Their eyes locked across the black expanse. For a long, silent beat, two lost minds simply stared at one another in the dark.
The stranger’s lips moved, forming a silent word. Ash couldn’t hear it.
The light radiating from both of them suddenly erupted, flooding the void with a blinding white flare. Ash threw his arm across his face, squeezing his eyes shut against the searing whiteness.
*
*
*
When he opened them again, the void was gone. And so was the strange glow on his skin.
Ash was fully clothed, standing on solid, unyielding ground.
The sharp scent of salt spray and wild grass filled his nose, carried on a cool breeze that ruffled his hair. He was standing at the edge of a high cliff. Ankle-high grass swayed gently around his boots in slow, hypnotic waves. Below, an endless ocean stretched to the horizon, its waters a deep, glittering azure beneath a sky that shouldn’t exist.
Because hovering in the sky above... was not a single sun.
Multiple suns were scattered across the heavens, each hanging in a different, unnatural position. Their combined light bled across the sky in a disorienting wash of color: liquid gold melting into soft rose, deep violet bleeding into warm amber.
Ash tilted his head back, his brows furrowing in utter bewilderment. He knew of no inhabited world in the charts with a stellar configuration like this. Max had never described a system with multiple suns of different colors.
’Where... am I...?’
His thoughts were cut short as a strange, unfamiliar voice echoed directly inside his mind.
[Vanquished]
Ash’s eyes widened in shock.
’Vanquished...? Did I kill someone?’