Chương 36: Emptiness and the Abyss

The stone streets of Ithrya were bustling with movement, but the atmosphere surrounding Selene and Aurelia remained dense and heavy. Three full days had passed since the hunt in the cave, and the lack of answers regarding Kuro's whereabouts corroded the girls' psychological state with each passing hour. As they walked side by side beneath the afternoon sun, Selene tried to maintain a firm posture.

"Three full days have already passed and there's no sign of Kuro returning..." Selene vented, her voice thick with emotion, breaking the silence as she clenched her fists. She looked down at the small leather pouch fastened to her waist.

"But we couldn't simply stand around waiting and doing nothing. Our party is doing remarkably well financially now. We pushed ourselves hard during these three days and managed to obtain another ten gold coins by completing tactical gathering missions across the region. At least our logistics and supplies are guaranteed." Aurelia remained in silence for a few moments, observing the city's bustling activity.

The new, permanent purple streaks in her black bangs served as a physical reminder of the trauma she had endured. A mixture of rancor toward Kuro and a heavy sense of duty seemed to lock her thoughts.

"Ten gold coins... It is good progress," Aurelia commented in a distant tone of voice, guarding her bitterness to herself. The reality of Ithrya dissolved completely when the darkness of the abyss swallowed Kuro's consciousness into a comfortable, dócil transe. The mental illusion began softly and subtly sensual. In the inner reflection of his mind, he saw himself in a cozy and provocative moment with the girls of his harem.

Liora, Aurelia, Selene, and Mireya approached him, covering his body with affection, whispering gentle words against his skin, calling him "my master," and declaring that they loved him with blind devotion. But in the next instant, the comfortable atmosphere collapsed into pure horror.

The bodies of all of them began to crack like old porcelain, and right in the middle of the embrace, they turned into cosmic dust in his hands, dissolving into nothingness and leaving him isolated and in panic within the dark void of his mind. I awoke from the nightmare startled in the deep depths, feeling cold sweat dripping down my neck. Adjusting my rustic wolf fur coat to ward off the uncomfortable sensation of the lower gloom, I stood up and restarted the climbing march alongside the compact dragon woman.

I walked through the dark galleries and mentally calculated that we had already climbed about three floors in that vertical ecosystem. I still had not found anything that led to a real exit to the surface. We crossed paths with a few monsters along the way, but none of them were strong enough to test the limit of my brand-new Black Steel sword. Everything was running far too smoothly.

I decided to throw another clue onto the tactical table, attempting to fish for information regarding the cosmic chessboard and if she knew anything about the link that reincarnated Mireya into this world.

"Do you know the Goddess Ariana?" I asked. The dragon woman answered in an evasive and mysterious manner, keeping her golden eyes lowered as she walked.

"I know a woman by that name. But she is not entirely a goddess... she is a divine guardian and the sword of a greater entity." I tried to digest the incomplete mystery of that response as we reached the final crevices of the third floor. Before us, the gallery opened up, and we were confronted with a bizarre structure: a giant door with an entirely purple hue, and right behind it lay an immense, empty, and completely pitch-black hole.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. The moment I leaned my body forward to analyze the entrance, the dragon woman's golden eyes turned opaque, and a cruel, frozen villain's smile cut across her features. Without any warning or biological hesitation, she advanced with devastating speed, drew her blade, and forcefully pierced my left lung. The flesh yielded to the impact of the metal.

The excruciating pain ripped through the exact same spot that had previously been torn by the Modified Shadow, by Haruka's kick, and by Liora's own blade. I could barely breathe, but gripping the blade that ran through my chest, I turned my head backward in pure desperation, collapsing psychologically. She delayed for a moment, sustaining her cold gaze and her embedded weapon before delivering the kick to hurl me into the precipice, and it was in that millisecond of panic that I screamed:"No, no, no!

I can't die yet! Why again?! Why is this happening again?! It's always the same... I am always betrayed! Why does this always happen?!" With a continuous and merciless movement, she finally applied the push with her foot, hurling me straight into the dark, empty hole behind the purple door. As I plummeted bleeding toward the bottom of the precipice, my mind blacked out completely. I hit the bottom of the hole and lost consciousness.

The emptiness around me revealed itself to be a perfect biological and mental trap: a magical black box that messes with the psyche, designed by the Goddess as an ancient blueprint to shatter my psychological state and unlock hidden truths. In the midst of the mental terror and the illusions within the gloom, I refused to break. Forcing every fiber of my half-human, half-shadow body, I clenched my teeth and forced myself to stand in the middle of that black box's nothingness, facing the sadism of the world head-on.

My calculating mind fractured, and I confessed my deepest feelings to the solitude:"I was wrong, I was selfish. I love Selene—she is the one I love, damn it! I like the others too... how long am I going to keep lying to myself? I try to make it seem like they are just pieces, but when I am with them, I am happy with them. I want more chances... is it possible for me to be happy with them?" My voice echoed into nothingness. The extreme pain triggered the final protective barrier of my mind.

The trance of the black box forced open deeply blocked memories, revealing forgotten fragments of my soul. The scenery of gloom dissolved, projecting vivid images of the year 677 in the Kingdom of Valtherion. An elite warrior ran desperately to the frontline, striking her fist against her metallic armor to report to her leader:"King Kurogami has just turned sixteen! Aurelia, we have no more time! We need to attack right now, since you have also just turned sixteen, Great Heroine!

Both are at the exact same power level!" I relived the shock of that day in first person. I was King Kurogami, sixteen years old. Before the grand final battle erupted, I and my two wives—Astaria and Selene in her ancient version—had gathered in the hidden foundations of the castle to execute a forbidden reincarnation ritual, ensuring our souls and the Constant Soul would survive if our bodies fell.

When the attack began, Astaria and the ancient version of Selene fought together against the sixteen-year-old Heroine Aurelia to defend the throne. But the Heroine was relentless: sporting yellow magic circles, an absurd amount of mana, and purple armor and sword, she dominated devastating spells of light, fire, ice, and water, creating spears of light that pierced through everything. Before my eyes in the memory, Aurelia killed that ancient version of Selene, leaving her lifeless body on the floor.

I entered the field for the ultimate chess game, operating at the exact same level of mana and raw power as her. I used red magic circles, fire, earth, and ice spells, wearing entirely black armor, a black sword, and a white mask with a sinister smile and red eyes. The battle raged on with the violence of the strikes, destroying the kingdom's structures. My mask fell in the middle of the confrontation.

I was a hair's breadth away from defeating Heroine Aurelia when my chessboard was betrayed from within: Astaria, my own wife, fired a treacherous arrow into my back—a cursed projectile that instantly drained and wiped out all of my internal mana. Without energy to defend myself, I watched Heroine Aurelia advance and drive her purple sword straight into my left lung. Fallen and impaled, I used the last remnant of pure physical strength. I reacted by driving my black sword straight into Aurelia's stomach.

Eye to eye, both connected by the blades, I pulled a storage crystal containing ten million mana from my inventory and shattered it with my right fist, generating an apocalyptic-level explosion that disintegrated the entire kingdom, slaughtering the treacherous Astaria and Aurelia in the detonation, while the Goddess watched the entire massacre from above in real time.

Seized by the pain of remembering everything the Cosmic Ruler set up on the chessboard of my past, the monologue of suffering ended, and the flashback dissolved completely, throwing my mind right back into the opaque, cold, and silent solitude of the black box. I was alone in the middle of nowhere. In the midst of the absolute gloom, the silence was cut by a woman who manifested before me, her voice echoing into the nothingness.

The darkness grew heavy, bringing a final question that severed the trance:"Who are you?"