On the other side, Clark continued walking across the vast field, the ancient book resting in his hands.
He turned a page.
Then another.
Then another.
But something strange began to catch his attention.
The pages never ended.
Every time he reached a page he thought was the last, he found another behind it, then another, with no end to the book anywhere in sight.
Clark furrowed his brows and whispered:
“That’s strange…”
He began flipping through several pages rapidly before suddenly stopping.
“That book has an infinite number of pages.”
His eyes moved across the titles, which were constantly changing.
“The first page was talking about that Absent One…
but the rest of the pages…”
He turned another page.
The title changed again.
“…their titles keep changing.”
Clark slowly closed the book.
At that exact moment…
The field around him changed.
A colossal celestial entity appeared, hunched over the grass and calmly devouring it.
Its body was white and slender, covered in overlapping white plates, while its face remained pale and indistinct, surrounded by long, sharp white protrusions that curled around its head like a crown of blades.
Its long white hair cascaded down its back, moving despite the stillness of the air, while a radiant golden halo floated above its head.
Several enormous white wings extended from its back, threaded with interconnected golden rings, with a distinct circular eye staring into the void at the center of each ring.
It possessed four long, slender arms, while its lower extremities ended in enormous, razor-sharp extensions resembling swords or blades, some pure white and others pitch black, jutting from its body in elongated, pointed forms.
Sharp fragments and plates surrounded its body, making the entity itself appear to be composed of celestial pieces that belonged to no single form.
Its entire body radiated an intense golden light, while luminous particles drifted through the air around it.
Its appearance was not merely majestic…
It was terrifying.
Clark stopped where he stood, his eyes fixed upon it without the slightest tremor.
“It’s incredibly beautiful…
It looks like a horse.”
Clark continued staring at the creature with fascination, then added as he studied its bizarre limbs:
“And what are those hands?
They look like sharp swords…
and they’re giving off white and black magical energy.”
The horse continued eating peacefully, while it watched Clark in silence, as though it too were trying to understand what was so strange about him.
Suddenly, the pain returned to Clark’s head.
He raised a hand to his head and bent forward slightly, causing the creature to stop eating at once.
It lifted its head, then slowly began approaching Clark.
Clark raised his eyes toward it, then decided to stand.
Only then did he realize just how enormous the creature was.
It stood well over two and a half meters tall, and simply standing before Clark was enough to make him realize the tremendous difference in their size.
And yet, the creature showed no hostility.
It merely stared at Clark in bewilderment, as though it too had no idea what exactly was standing before it.
After a few moments, the pain in Clark’s head suddenly vanished.
He let out a relieved breath, then cautiously moved his hand, attempting to push the creature away from him.
The creature instinctively stepped back.
Then it raised one of its feet and struck the ground with tremendous force.
The impact thundered through the area.
Clark froze where he stood.
It was not an attack.
It was a clear signal.
A warning.
An instinctive warning…
exactly like a horse when it senses that something strange has come closer than it should.
The creature kept its eyes on Clark, then planted its foot firmly on the ground, as though clearly telling him:
“Don’t come any closer.”
Clark swallowed, then whispered:
“If I don’t kill it…
I’ll be trapped here until I die.”
He looked at the horse before him, then added quietly:
“And I still have so much left to see.”
Clark took another step forward.
Then…
The horse struck the ground with its hoof again.
Clark stopped.
Then he took another step.
Then another.
Suddenly, the horse let out a sharp neigh that shook the surroundings, rearing its forelegs before bringing them crashing down with tremendous force.
It assumed an attacking stance.
Clark’s eyes widened.
Its limbs were not natural in the slightest.
One of its forelegs was unnaturally massive and black, with a long sword at its end that looked like a fragment carved from the void itself, while the other was white, thick, and close in color to its skin, with a strange sword nearly two meters long extending from its end.
Clark stared at it for a single second.
“Wait…
are you serious?”
The horse charged at him.
At incredible speed.
Clark froze for a moment from the sheer shock, then turned and sprinted away at full speed.
“Okay!
I changed my mind!”
He could hear the pounding of its hooves drawing closer behind him, while the sounds of the two swords slicing through the air followed every movement.
The horse rapidly closed the distance between them until only a few steps remained.
Adrenaline surged through Clark’s body all at once, his heart pounding faster as every muscle in him tensed instinctively under the threat.
The fear that overwhelmed him was not merely a fleeting sensation.
It was something deeper, like an internal alarm that forced every cell in his body to prepare for danger.
His body began moving before his mind could fully comprehend what was happening.
As though his instincts had left him with only one choice: survive, no matter what.
Fear and tension were acting as catalysts for his newfound abilities, just as a human being draws upon every last ounce of strength when standing on the edge of death.
Clark glanced back in terror and instinctively raised the book in front of himself as one of the entity’s hands lunged toward him at tremendous speed.
He had no time to think.
And suddenly…
The tips of his fingers turned blue, as though they had been made from seawater, threaded with delicate white lines that continuously shifted beneath their surface.
Clark felt nothing.
No pain.
No heat.
Not even the sensation of movement.
Just…
Everything disappeared.
He slowly opened his eyes.
He froze.
He was standing before a deep black abyss, one that looked like a massive error tearing through the very fabric of the world, while the field behind him stretched endlessly into the distance.
Clark turned around, then looked at his hand, which had returned to normal.
The entity was no longer in front of him.
Clark furrowed his brows and said in confusion:
“What just happened?”
He looked at the abyss, then back at the field behind him.
“Did I…
move from one place to another?”
Clark caught sight of the horse approaching him from the distance.
He stepped backward, failing to notice the small rock behind his foot.
The rock slipped, then fell into the abyss.
The horse continued approaching, drawing closer and closer.
Clark watched it in silence until it was only a short distance away.
Suddenly…
The horse stopped.
It raised its head and stared at Clark.
It froze for several moments.
Its body began to tremble, its eyes widening with unmistakable fear, before it slowly stepped backward.
Clark could not understand what was happening.
Then, moments later, the horse suddenly turned and fled, as though trying to escape from something terrifying that Clark could not see.
Clark remained standing where he was, staring after the fleeing horse.
He furrowed his brows and said:
“Why did it run away?”
Clark continued staring in the direction where the horse had disappeared, trying to understand what had just happened.
Suddenly…
He heard a whisper.
It did not come from in front of him.
It was directly behind him.
A cold breeze brushed past his ear, carrying a faint voice whose words he could not make out.
Clark froze.
Then he spun around.
He saw nothing but the abyss stretching behind him.
Not even a moment passed.
Suddenly…
A strange hand pierced through his chest.
Clark’s eyes widened, and he could not even make a sound.
The hand had reached directly to his heart, its fingers clenching around it with crushing force.
His chest contracted violently, as though his heart were being squeezed inside its grasp.
His breathing stopped.
His body trembled, and his limbs began to lose their strength.
For the first time since awakening in this world, Clark felt something he could not explain.
He felt death.
It was so close that he could feel it inside his own body.
He tried to raise his hand, but his fingers would not respond.
Then he heard the same whisper beside his ear:
“I found you…”
Cold began creeping through Clark’s body until he felt as though his very blood were freezing inside his veins.
He looked at his chest in shock.
The black hand remained buried inside him, its fist tightly wrapped around his heart.
And despite everything…
His heart was still beating.
The entity looked at him, then spoke in a calm voice:
“I found you…”
The entity continued:
“The Chosen One.”
Then it added in a voice devoid of mercy:
“I killed another Chosen One for the sake of my master…
and now it is your turn.”
Clark tried to move, but his body no longer obeyed him.
The entity said:
“Go quietly into the depths of Chaos…”
Its fist rose slightly.
“Where surreal universes stand upon the brink of extinction.”
Then it crushed his heart until it exploded.
Clark’s heartbeat suddenly stopped.
His body slipped from the entity’s grasp.
He fell backward, and the book fell with him, both plunging toward the abyss.
Clark continued falling through the darkness, unable to move, blood spilling from his mouth as his consciousness gradually faded away.
And above…
The entity stood at the edge of the abyss, silently watching him fall.
Then it disappeared.
As for Clark and the book, they continued their descent into the depths of the dark Chaos.