Darkness, complete and absolute, with no beginning and no end, stretching out in every direction like an ocean of black ink.

Hajin drifted in it, a leaf caught in a still current, floating without direction or sensation or anything at all. No ground beneath him, no sky above, no air in lungs he couldn’t feel. Just the endless void and the silence that came with it.

And then the pain found him.

It started somewhere deep in his chest, a dull ache that built and built until it became impossible to ignore. His ribs, the statue’s jaw clamping down with crushing force, the crack echoing through his skull as something warm flooded his internal cavity and the world went white.

He tried to gasp, to move or do anything at all, but his body had become a foreign object he could no longer command.

His eyes were open, he realized, somewhere far away in a reality he could no longer touch. His eyes were open and staring at nothing, unblinking, unseeing.

’This is it,’ he thought, the words forming slowly in the void like they were being written by a hand that had forgotten how to write. ’This is how I die.’

The realization should have hit harder than it did. Maybe it was the distance, the way his mind had retreated so far into itself that the truth couldn’t fully reach him. Maybe death just felt less real when you couldn’t feel your own heartbeat anymore.

’Is this really how it ends?’ He turned the question over in his head, examining it from different angles. ’A month ago I was nobody. An exiled failure living off scraps, waiting to become strong enough to matter. And now...’

Now he was something else entirely, something the world hadn’t seen in centuries.

His consciousness drifted, pulling up fragments of the time that had passed like pages flipping in a book he couldn’t put down.

From the guild, the ranker exam, Juna appearing in a flash of golden light, naked and furious, ready to tear out his throat before she even knew her own name.

The first time he’d felt power actually flowing through his veins instead of the pathetic trickle he’d been born with.

Vella in the ring world, her cyan hair catching the light as she’d told him about the fragment lodged in his chest, her yellow eyes holding centuries of loneliness that she hid behind a teasing smile.

The kiss that had sealed their contract, her lips warm against his while the flowers swayed in a breeze that didn’t exist and time moved differently for them than it did for anyone else.

Loccy, that stupid adorable rabbit who had woken up in a human body and immediately fallen face-first into the dirt because she didn’t know how legs worked, her long ears twitching in confusion as she stared at her own hands like they belonged to someone else entirely.

’Was it worth it?’ he wondered, the question settling over him like a heavy blanket. ’All of it. The pain, the running, the constant fight to get stronger. Was it worth becoming this before dying?’

He didn’t know, or rather, he couldn’t tell anymore. The question felt too big to hold in the state he was in, too heavy for consciousness that was already slipping through his fingers like water.

The void shifted around him, not changing or showing any light, just moving in a way that suggested something had entered the space with him.

’Hajin,’ a voice cut through the darkness, warm and familiar, the same resonance that had settled in his chest back in the ring world.

It carried no weight, no pressure, just the calm presence of someone who had been watching over him for longer than he could remember.

He knew it immediately, the fragment’s voice, the piece of the Goddess that had bonded to his soul.

’You are making a habit of this,’ she said, and he could hear the faint smile in her words.

’Goddess? Why are you here?’ he thought, or tried to think, the effort of forming words in this place exhausting his already depleted mind.

’Because you are dying,’ she replied, and he felt her presence moving closer through the darkness. ’Your soul is detaching from your body. I had to pull you here before it slipped away completely. You still have work to do.’

’I’m tired,’ he thought, the words heavy, ’I have been fighting since the day I woke up in this world. Running, scraping, clawing for every scrap of power. Maybe this is the end. Maybe that is fine.’

The Goddess was quiet for a moment.

’Maybe,’ she said, her voice carrying no judgment, ’but I need to ask you something first. Before you decide that. What was your purpose in life? Before the awakening, before the banishment, before any of this. When you were just a boy in a noble house that did not want you, what did you want?’

He tried to reach for the answer, sifting through the haze of his fading consciousness. But nothing came, the memories fragmented and distant, the desire that had driven him then feeling like a voice echoing from the bottom of a well.

Before he could speak, the void around them shuddered.

Outside, in the ruins bathed in crimson light, Vella’s hands were shaking. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

The golden barrier around Hajin’s body flickered, threads of light snapping one by one as her mana ran dry. She pushed harder, forcing more power through the connection even as her body began to rebel, blood trickling from her nose and dripping onto his chest.

"No," she whispered, her voice cracking, "no, no, no, stay with me."

Juna grabbed her shoulder, her own face pale, "Vella, you need to stop. You are bleeding."

"I do not care," she snapped, her eyes wild as she pressed both palms harder against his chest. "If he dies, I die. We all die. Do you not feel it?"

Juna went still, her hand dropping from Vella’s shoulder as she looked down at her own trembling fingers. She did feel it, a hollowness spreading through her chest, the same warmth that had anchored her to this world since her summoning growing thinner by the second.

Loccy was on her knees beside them, her breathing shallow, her ears drooping as she gripped Hajin’s hand with both of hers, "why is it getting cold?" she asked, her voice small, "why is everything getting cold?"

Vella’s arms were trembling now, the light dimming as more blood ran from her nose and stained the corners of her mouth.

She could feel him slipping, the thread between them fraying to nothing despite everything she poured into it.

"Please," she breathed, the word cracking in her throat, "please do not leave me. Not again. Not like this."

Across the ruins, the Captain swung his claymore at the dog statue’s barrier again, the impact sending a shockwave through the ground that cracked the tiles beneath his feet. The barrier flickered but held, the red light pulsing steady.

"It is not working," Helen said, stepping beside him with her blade coated in blue mana. "The barrier is still regenerating. We need to find what Hajin was going for before he got hit."

The Captain’s eyes swept across the ground, scanning the cracked tiles and scattered rubble where Hajin had been sprinting before the statue intercepted him.

He did not have Divine Eye, could not see the mana threads Hajin had been tracking, but he knew one thing for certain.

"The statue moved the moment he went for the ground," the Captain said, "not the barrier. He was aiming at something under our feet."

Helen followed his gaze, her jaw tight, "so there is somewhere underground that it needs to protect. That is why the barrier keeps regenerating, we have been hitting the shield while the real target is buried beneath us."

The Captain tightened his grip on his sword, "haha, it’s the worm monster all over again, what the hell is this gate."

The dog statue’s head swiveled toward them, its crimson eyes locking onto the Captain as its stone limbs tensed, ready to spring.

Helen stepped forward, her Shards flaring bright, "I will hold the statue. You search the ground."

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"No," she said, a grim smile crossing her face, "but I am faster than you. If someone is going to dodge that thing, it should be me."

The statue leaped.