After about half an hour of walking, they finally reached a place unlike anything they had ever seen before.
They stopped before a colossal tree unlike any other.
Its trunk rose so high that their eyes could not comprehend where it ended, while its branches stretched in every direction, some of them seeming to reach all the way to the horizon itself.
Ben stared at it for several moments before saying in astonishment:
“What is this now?”
Nerv did not answer him.
Her eyes wandered across the surroundings, moving between the strange buildings scattered amid the ruins and vegetation, as though they were the remnants of a world that had perished long ago.
Then, something else caught her attention.
A strange spirit was hovering nearby; its body was transparent and pink, surrounded by a powerful aura, and it had taken the form of a human woman.
Nerv slowly approached it, drawn in by its peculiar appearance.
The Forgotten by History immediately turned toward her and said:
“I advise you not to touch it.”
Nerv stopped and looked at him.
He continued in a calm voice:
“Once the fusion takes place, no one can alter the soul again.”
He glanced back at the pink spirit for a few moments before adding:
“That one is nothing more than a wandering soul…
It cannot resist, nor does it possess a will of its own.”
Nerv continued watching it as the spirit drifted slowly before her, as though searching for something that could bind it to another being.
But it found nothing.
A few moments later, its glow began to fade.
Its radiance gradually weakened, and then its body began to dissolve before their eyes until it turned into tiny particles resembling pink ash, drifting through the air before vanishing completely.
Nerv’s eyes widened.
“What happened to it?”
The Lost answered calmly:
“Wandering souls are incredibly weak.
Without a host, they cannot survive for more than a few hours.”
He kept staring at the spot where the spirit had disappeared before adding:
“Its end has come.”
Nerv remained silent for a few moments, while Ben lifted his head toward the colossal tree, then turned to the Lost and said:
“Sorry, Forgotten by History…
but what are we doing here?”
A faint smile appeared on the entity’s face.
“Call me the Lost.”
Then he pointed toward the top of the tree.
“And this is my home.”
Guanda tilted her head upward, trying to follow the immense length of the trunk and its branches with her eyes, but the sheer height made it impossible to see where they ended.
“Alright…
but how are we supposed to get up there?”
The Lost’s smile widened slightly.
“Don’t worry.”
Suddenly, the tendrils surrounding his body began to move.
They swelled within moments, then shot toward the friends, wrapping themselves around them before they even had a chance to protest.
White gasped, while Ben grabbed hold of one of the tendrils, desperately trying to understand what was happening.
Then the tendrils lifted them.
At tremendous speed.
The world beneath them began to shrink little by little.
The buildings became tiny shapes, then dots barely visible in the distance, while the tree stretched beneath them for an impossible distance, until it no longer felt as though they were climbing it, but rather ascending toward the sky itself.
Moments later, a massive house appeared before them, perched high above the branches of the colossal tree, as though it had been built in a place no human being was ever meant to reach.
The Lost gently lowered them in front of the house.
White stared at him in astonishment before saying:
“Excuse me…
You told us that you had reached the level of gods.
I don’t understand much about these things, but…
were you actually serious?”
The Lost let out a soft laugh.
“You still don’t know what I’m capable of.”
Then he looked at all of them and added in a calm tone:
“But I can guarantee you one thing…
I am not hostile.”
The Lost spoke with complete composure, then gestured toward the house behind him.
“Go ahead.
You can stay here and do whatever you want today.”
He paused for a moment, then added:
“Tomorrow, I’ll help you obtain powerful souls before the decomposition begins.
It has only been two days since you arrived in this world.”
Nerv stepped a little closer to him and said with a faint smile:
“Thank you.
Truly.”
The Lost gave her a small smile.
“There’s no need to thank me.”
Then he looked at her for a few moments before continuing in a more serious tone:
“You know that I am not helping you because I care about you, mortals.”
A brief silence fell.
“I entered the Fallen Gate before you did.
I crossed the lobby and saw those strange pictures and paintings.”
He raised his gaze toward the sky, as though recalling something buried deep within his memory.
“At first, I thought they were nothing more than paintings…
But later, I realized that every image represented an entire history.”
Then he looked back at them.
“A universe…
heroes…
and stories that ended after darkness swallowed them whole.”
Silence lingered for a few moments.
Then the Lost said:
“I am helping you because I hope that you are the solution…
the solution that everyone who came before you failed to find.”
The Lost changed the subject, speaking in an even tone:
“By the way…
Is your fifth friend strong?”
Ben looked at him in confusion before answering:
“In what way?
Physically?
He’s thin and a little weak.”
The Lost shook his head.
“No, that’s not what I mean.”
He paused for a moment, then asked:
“Does he frighten easily?
Is he prone to panic?
And does he have a strong, stable mind?”
Everyone exchanged glances.
The question seemed a little strange to them.
After a few moments, Nerv said:
“Yes…
At least recently, he has.”
A faint smile appeared on the Lost’s face, and he turned toward his house.
“Then…
he’ll survive.”
His steps came to a halt for a moment before he added without turning around:
“And if he truly cares about you, he will come back.”
The group silently looked at one another while the Lost continued toward the house.
Then he said calmly:
“For now, go inside.
Get some rest.”
…
Two hours later, night descended upon the depths of the universe where Ben and his companions had found themselves, while Clark remained somewhere else entirely, inside a world that knew no night and was governed by physical laws different from those of his original world.
Clark awoke inside a small cabin.
A fire burned in a stone hearth, sending smoke upward through an opening in the roof.
He raised a hand to his head and pressed his temple as he whispered:
“My head hurts so badly…
I don’t know what happened to me.”
He remained seated for a few moments before closing his eyes.
Then countless images began flooding into his mind.
Places he had never seen before.
People he did not know.
Memories whose origins he could not identify.
And yet…
they felt as though they belonged to him.
As though they had been part of his life from the very beginning.
His eyes snapped open, and he slowly stood.
But then he stopped when he noticed something strange.
He looked down at his body, then at his hands, before staring at his faint reflection in a nearby metal object.
He seemed slightly taller, physically stronger, as though his body had undergone a transformation that had not existed only hours ago.
His brows furrowed as he whispered:
“What happened to me?”
His eye shimmered with a shade of blue that had never been there before; a deep blue that seemed to conceal something within its depths.
He raised a hand in front of his eyes and said:
“That soul that fused with my body…”
He fell silent for a moment, as though trying to organize his thoughts.
“It seems to have changed something in my body…
even at the genetic level.”
Clark looked toward a small mirror hanging on one of the cabin walls.
The moment he saw his reflection, he froze.
He was visibly different; his features looked sharper, and his body had become slightly taller and stronger, as though someone else had reshaped him without his knowledge.
As for his clothes, they had shrunk and become worn and battered, their edges stiffened by the freezing cold he had endured while unconscious.
Clark turned his gaze toward the fire burning in the hearth and frowned.
“There was no fire when I lost consciousness…”
He stepped closer to it.
“That means someone…
or something…
lit it.”
He walked toward the door and opened it.
A vast field stretched before him, unnaturally still, with no one visible anywhere on the horizon.
Clark stepped outside and shouted at the top of his lungs:
“Is anyone here?!”
He waited.
No answer.
He tried again, but silence remained the only response.
Suddenly, he felt something strange.
It was neither a sound nor a scent.
It was an instinctive sensation, almost like an ability that had appeared inside him without any explanation.
Something was nearby.
Clark spun around.
A girl stood some distance away.
She was beautiful in an unfamiliar way, with snow-white hair and red eyes that calmly stared into his.
She said:
“You are one of the five Chosen.”
Clark remained silent.
The girl continued:
“Don’t worry.
I’m not a threat to you.”
Then she gave him a small smile.
“But…
you seem a little different from the thousands of Chosen I’ve met before.”
Clark frowned and asked:
“Who are you?”
She did not answer.
Instead, she pulled a book from behind her back and held it out toward him.
But when he tilted the book slightly, another title became visible on its cover:
“Ancient History.”
Clark froze for a moment, then whispered:
“I couldn’t read that title before.”
Then he looked at her seriously.
“So…
you’re trying to convince me that you’re harmless and that you pose no threat to me by doing this?”
The girl’s smile widened strangely.
“Exactly.”
For a moment, everything seemed normal.
Then…
A long, unnatural tongue slipped from her mouth, and her smile twisted into something horrifying.
She said in a low, terrifying voice:
“Exactly.”