At that moment…
Everything changed before Nerv’s eyes.
She could no longer see the treehouse.
She found herself in a strange, suffocating space, as though even the air itself had been drained away.
She tried to breathe, but her lungs found nothing to draw in.
She slowly lifted her head.
And before her…
There were ten universes stacked on top of one another, overlapping in a way no human mind could possibly comprehend.
The lowest universe contained an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space, while the highest had transcended the very concept of dimensions itself, surpassing even non-separable Banach spaces.
The ten universes were drowned in a dense, dark green, surrounded by an endless void stretching into infinity.
Then something else appeared.
At first, Nerv mistook it for nothing more than a shadow.
But it grew.
And grew.
Until its presence swallowed the entire expanse.
It was the Lost.
He appeared as a colossal manifestation standing before the ten universes, while one of his hands held them all with effortless ease, as though they were nothing more than tiny spheres dancing between his fingers.
Nerv froze in place.
She could not move.
She could not even breathe.
Then his voice emerged.
It was not a sound that reached the ears, but a tremor that passed through space itself.
“Endless creatures…”
The Lost gazed at the universes resting within his hands.
“In every one of them…
life without limit.”
Then a strange smile appeared on his face.
“These are my worlds.”
Silence descended.
Then he said:
“I am a god as well.”
Nerv’s eyes widened as her consciousness slowly began to fade.
The Lost continued in a calm voice, yet a profound weariness seeped through every word:
“A god who grew tired of existence…”
He raised his hand slightly, and the ten universes shifted between his fingers.
“And there is nothing left for me to do…
except play games.”
Then he looked at her.
“And these universes…”
He smiled.
“Are what I play with.”
Then everything went dark.
Nerv’s eyes snapped open.
She was still standing before the treehouse.
The Lost was sitting exactly where he had been, as though he had never moved at all.
As for Nerv, she was breathing heavily, her hands trembling.
She could not speak.
She simply stared at the Lost, her eyes filled with terror, while the words remained trapped in her throat.
He, meanwhile, remained seated in silence.
Then a tear fell from his eye.
It struck the ground.
At that very moment, a tiny plant sprouted from where it had fallen, fresh and beautiful, as though a single drop of his sorrow had been enough to grant life to something new.
The Lost spoke in a low voice:
“This is the suffering of being one of the strongest entities in the chaos…”
He fell silent for a moment, then added:
“If I am not the strongest of them all.”
Another tear fell.
Then another.
And he did not stop.
He wept in silence, making no attempt to hide his tears, nor did he turn toward Nerv.
And strangely…
Nerv was no longer afraid of him.
Nor did she feel intimidated by his presence.
There was something else, an emotion she could not name at first.
Compassion.
She felt a strange urge to approach him, to comfort him, even to embrace him.
She was supposed to be looking at one of the strongest entities in the chaos, a being capable of holding entire universes within his hands.
But that was not what she saw now.
She saw something else.
She saw a being so ancient that it was impossible to comprehend…
A being who had possessed everything and lived far longer than he ever should have, until there was nothing new left for him to look forward to.
Like a small child exhausted by his toys, unable to find another game to play.
Nerv gently placed a hand on the Lost’s shoulder.
He did not move.
“It’s okay…” she said softly.
The Lost silently raised his eyes to her.
Nerv smiled faintly, then continued:
“Even we humans get tired of routine.”
She fell silent for a moment, as though searching for the words that might reach him.
“I don’t think there’s a single human being who hasn’t grown tired of living the same day over and over.”
She looked up at the sky, then said:
“You wake up, go to university, study, come home, sleep…
then wake up the next day and do it all over again.”
She lowered her eyes slightly.
“And eventually, everything begins to feel meaningless.”
Then she looked back at him.
“As though something is holding onto you without you ever seeing it…
preventing you from crossing the boundaries that were placed before you.”
Nerv fell silent for a few moments.
Then she smiled.
“As though someone is stopping you from breaking through the sky.”
The Lost remained motionless.
And for the first time in a very long time, his smile was neither mocking nor mysterious.
It looked as though her words had touched something ancient, something that had remained buried deep within him for an immeasurable span of time.
The Lost slowly wiped away his tears, then said:
“I hardly care about anything anymore…
my tears, showing my sorrow, or even revealing my weakness.”
He sighed and lowered his gaze slightly.
“In the end, even if some being looked upon me with pity, nothing would change.
Only moments would pass for me…
and then it would perish.”
He fell silent for a moment before adding:
“I reached the highest stage of the soul…
the level of absolute sovereignty.”
He lifted his eyes toward the sky.
“Since then, I have grown stronger with every passing second.
Without stopping…
without end.”
A faint smile appeared on his face.
“But I am trapped in a vicious cycle.
Greater power…
then greater power…
and nothing ever changes.”
He was silent for a few moments.
“And yet, I still have one final curiosity.”
Nerv looked at him with interest.
“What is it?”
The Lost raised his head toward the stars and said:
“Darkness.”
His tone changed slightly.
“What is darkness?
And what caused it?”
He paused for a moment, then continued:
“It is the only force I cannot stand against…
no matter how powerful I become.”
Nerv remained silent as the Lost continued staring at the sky.
Then he suddenly asked her:
“What is a god, in your eyes?”
Nerv turned toward him in surprise.
“Is he powerful?”
A small smile appeared on his face.
“Because I am powerful.”
Nerv smiled as well, as though she had finally found someone she could speak to about such thoughts without being met with ridicule.
“I don’t know, honestly.”
She fell silent for a moment, then said:
“I am a Christian, so I also see Him as merciful…
loving the world and sacrificing Himself for us.”
The Lost looked at her.
“Do you believe He exists?”
Nerv hesitated.
“I don’t know anymore, honestly.”
She raised her gaze toward the sky filled with stars.
“Your words have unsettled me, along with what I have learned about the chaos and the darkness…
and all these unknown things that lie beyond the universe I once lived in.”
She breathed calmly.
“The more I learn, the more complicated everything becomes.
And every time I discover something new, there are always more things behind it that I know nothing about.”
She fell silent for a moment, then said:
“That is why even the idea of my faith has become more complicated…
because I no longer live in a world I can easily understand, or even know whether it truly exists.”
The Lost said:
“So you do not know whether He exists…
and yet you believe in Him?”
Nerv answered:
“Perhaps faith does not begin when I know…
but when I am incapable of knowing.”
The Lost let out a quiet laugh, as though Nerv’s words had returned him, if only for a moment, to a time impossibly distant.
“You remind me of my past…”
He looked toward the sky, then continued:
“In my universe, there were countless beings who called themselves gods.
The God of Wisdom and Knowledge, the God of Destruction, the God of Death…
and so, so many others.”
He fell silent for a moment.
“That universe was different from yours.
It possessed a magical system known as the Heart Essence.”
He raised a hand to his chest.
“The heart contained seven pathways, and each pathway could only be unlocked through special potions.”
The Lost looked at Nerv, then a faint smile appeared on his face.
“But me…”
He bent down and picked up a tiny plant that had sprouted from the tears that had fallen onto the ground.
He held it between his fingers, then calmly snapped its stem.
The plant withered instantly, shrinking until nothing remained but a few withered remnants on the ground.
He said:
“I was weak…
and forgotten.”
He was silent for a moment.
“I used to sit with my family, eating and laughing, spending our days without thinking about anything else.”
His tone shifted slightly.
“Then I grew older.”
He looked at his hand.
“I became a detective and gradually gained power.”
His smile faded.
“Until my family died in a mysterious accident.”
Silence descended.
“And then the events began.”
The Lost raised his eyes and looked directly at Nerv.
“Years…
then events…
then a long history whose beginning I can no longer remember.”
He slowly sighed.
“And in the end…”
He lifted his eyes toward the sky.
“I killed all the gods.”
Nerv continued staring at him in silence for several moments before asking quietly:
“What happened after that?”
The Lost remained fixated on the sky, as though recalling events he had not lived through in an eternity.
Then he said:
“The moment I killed the strongest god in my world…
he told me something I was not prepared to hear.”
He fell silent for a moment.
“He knew something about the darkness.”
Nerv looked at him with interest.
“And he warned me that it was coming.”
The Lost lowered his head, a mocking smile appearing on his face.
“But I didn’t care.”
He sighed.
“I saw myself as being above everyone else.
I thought I had reached the level of power that would allow me to stand against anything.”
He was silent for a few moments.
“Until the darkness came.”
The smile disappeared from his face.
“And the moment it appeared…
there was no longer a world.”
Nerv said nothing.
The Lost continued:
“I did not die because I crossed the Fallen Gate, and somehow, I retained my power and started over.”
He looked around at the strange world.
“There was a new system in that world, and I lived there for a very long time.”
Then he raised his hand, and tiny green particles appeared around his fingers, glowing faintly for a few moments.
“And one day…
I found the Lost Spirit of Magic.”
Nerv watched the particles with interest.
“It was an exalted spirit…
conscious, and possessing a will of its own.”
The Lost slowly closed his hand.
“It merged with me.”
Then he looked directly at her.
“And since then…
I have become what you see before you.”
The Lost smiled without realizing it, as though an old memory had suddenly crossed his mind.
Then he murmured:
“Lord Shams…”
His smile remained for a few moments.
“My old friend…
I hope you found eternal peace.”
Nerv stood and looked at him in confusion.
“Who is Lord Shams?”
The Lost answered calmly:
“An old friend.”
He was silent for a moment, then continued:
“When the darkness came, it could not catch up to me.
It disappeared within it…
while I managed to cross through the Fallen Gate.”
His smile faded slightly.
Nerv felt sorrowful, but exhaustion had begun to weigh heavily on her eyelids.
The Lost noticed and said:
“Come on.
Go to sleep.”
Nerv looked at him.
“Tomorrow, we’ll need you and the others in the best condition possible.”
Then he added:
“I’ll find some spirits for you to bond with.
No two spirits are exactly alike…
and every spirit has its own nature.”
He looked at her for a few moments.
“But you…
you’re different.”
Nerv gave a small smile, then said:
“Thank you.”
She headed toward the house, but stopped for a moment and looked back at him.
“And you, too…
good night.”
The Lost smiled.
“Good night.”
Nerv entered the treehouse and lay down beside her friends on the floor, and before long, sleep overcame her.
The Lost remained alone outside.
His tendrils emerged from behind him once again, moving slowly as he continued watching the place where Nerv slept.
He raised his hand.
Fine green dust gathered above his palm, glowing with a faint light.
He whispered:
“Let her see pleasant dreams…”
He watched her for a few moments, then added:
“And let her wake tomorrow at the peak of her strength.”
He blew gently.
The green dust scattered through the air, carried by the wind toward the house.
The glow slipped through the cracks and quietly drifted toward Nerv until it disappeared into her body.
The Lost then returned to his place before the wall.
He took his tool…
And drew another line.
Then he whispered:
“With every moment, one universe is born, and another dies…
I must draw the lines.”