4.
140 years.
I had heard about a similar length of time before.
– When you debated with my Master, you mentioned enduring alone for 130 years… Was that what this was about?
– Ah, exactly that.
That carefree voice.
It felt as though wind was leaking from my heart just listening to it.
– My goodness. So, Sword Emperor sir….
[ No, suddenly, I thought that I could fail around the 99th floor as well. ]
The conversation I had with the Sword Emperor in the Truth Heaven suddenly flashed through my mind.
[ Sword Emperor-nim. But even someone like you died at the 99th floor. ]
Sword Emperor had shown a peculiar reaction to that statement.
[ Hmm. Well, death…. ]
I remember him repeating that.
And the kind of questions and answers that followed.
[ What is on the 99th floor? ]
At that time, Sword Emperor had not given a substantial answer.
Outwardly, he said 'I just don't want to tell you,' but surely, that couldn't have been everything.
[ Can you still not tell me? ]
To that question, Sword Emperor had said this.
– Let's walk a bit.
I blinked my eyes.
Before I knew it, Sword Emperor had risen from his seat and was looking at me with the same expression as that time.
– Uh….
– Follow me, kid.
And Sword Emperor began 'walking' just like that time.
"...."
Since entering this stage that should be called the 91st floor, my body had lost its weight. The world no longer tried to hold me down, and no matter how hard I stamped my feet, no sound of footsteps followed.
It felt as though I had been isolated from the world.
Thus, during this week that had passed, I gradually stopped performing the act of [walking]. It was more comfortable to float around as Bae Hu-ryeong usually did.
– Mahos said it looked like you had TCL-ed it.
Gong-ja said.
– I'm not exactly sure what TCL means, but I can guess.
Now, with gravity not working, all physical forces had lost their meaning. If I wanted, I could pass through floors and walls.
Therefore, I understood how difficult the act Sword Emperor was performing, this 'walking naturally,' really was. It felt like an incredible skill in the Truth Heaven, but now that I was in the same situation, I truly understood.
– What are you doing? Aren't you coming?
Sword Emperor glanced at me casually, his demeanor like that of casually looking back during a walk.
I suddenly realized that this was an important moment.
– Please wait a moment.
Instead of floating around, I said that and gathered my thoughts.
I first tried to place my soles on the ground. Still, there was no feeling of contact, but I tried my best to [stand up] naturally.
– Hmm.
Sword Emperor waited quietly. He neither urged me nor offered advice.
Yet, I immediately knew that what I had done was not really standing, but something else entirely strange.
– Just a moment more.
– Take your time.
– Yes.
I took a serious stance and delved into thought.
'How do you stand?'
Even to myself, the thought seemed ridiculous.
But a stronger conviction seized me.
'This is important.'
This moment was important.
'To stand… first, put your soles on the ground. Then the ground will support you… but now, there's no ground to support me. So….'
A fluffy mass seemed to float around my head.
It seemed graspable yet elusive, and I took a deep breath… Did I?
'No. Of course, that was just pretending to breathe.'
I focused my consciousness.
'I am now practically no different from a ghost. Naturally, there's nothing like [air] for me to inhale. And that means….'
At that moment, a new question arose in my mind.
'Wait. If there's no [air], how can I [hear] sound?'
I realized that this was a very strange phenomenon.
It's a common contradiction pointed out in sci-fi movies, the booming sounds spreading through the vacuum of space.
'Strange.'
Indeed, when speaking with Bae Hu-ryeong or Gong-ja, who were on the same level, the sound felt similar to imagining it. However, voices like Sylvia's or the director's had sounded just like normal voices….
'Sound is transmitted through the vibration of air… but there is nothing like air that can affect me now. That means I shouldn't be able to hear sounds. So….'
The moment I realized that.
Silence enveloped me.
-....
It was a silence akin to stepping into outer space, no, even more ancient than that. A primordial stillness from a time when time did not exist and hence space had no meaning.
– Hmm.
Sword Emperor, who had switched his arms from behind his back to crossed, chuckled softly.
However, that laughter merely rose in my mind and faded away, not disturbing the stillness I was experiencing.
I was completely enraptured by this pure white moment.
'Pure white.'
And soon, I realized that was also strange.
'It can't be white. …by the same logic, it can't be black either.'
This wasn't an abstract notion that silence can't have color.
It was much more concrete and fundamental.
'How am I seeing this landscape [right now]?'
Color is a wave of light.
Just as sound needs air to propagate because it is the vibration of air, something needs to exist [light] beforehand to [see] anything.
'But I am unaffected by anything now. No gravity. No resistance. No physical forces affect me.'
Is light special, an exception perhaps?
That can't be. In games, light might be classified as a special attribute, but light is just one aspect of physical phenomena.
I, who wielded a holy sword named after light, knew that fact well.
'Then, just as I shouldn't be able to hear anything, I shouldn't be able to see anything….'
The moment I felt that.
And there was no light.
-....
Perfect darkness. A pure absence of light engulfed me.
5.
Around the time I was born, Earth was a shining star.
There were cities everywhere. A little walk from one city quickly led to the next. Although the number of people was slowly decreasing, the number of buildings being erected was actually increasing. It was as if, leaving humans aside, the cities themselves were busily breeding on their own.
Every building overflowed with light. Even after people disappeared, the light remained like debt. It should have been fitting to describe them as eerie ghost towns or extinguished ruins, yet somehow that logic did not fit.
Someone called it a singularity. But many more knew it was merely the uncontrolled proliferation of cancer cells.
[ There was a time when the night sky was much darker than it is now. ]
The director said so, but as a child, I couldn't imagine that landscape. Throughout my life, the night sky was always shrouded in a misty haze that shimmered purple.
[ This star is suffering from a fever. ]
Thus, the first darkness I saw was not in the night but in the water.
And more so, within the hearts of people.
– But that was then.
I murmured without realizing.
– This is darkness.
True darkness wasn't black. It simply had nothing given to it.
Blank space.
Empty space.
Thus, it felt blindingly white at times and profoundly black at others, but it was definitely neither.
Looking at the empty thing, I gazed upon a world that had not yet been filled with anything.
– It's beautiful.
– Yes, it is, Gongja.
Somewhere, I felt Sword Emperor's response.
– What is filled will only empty, which is beautiful. Likewise, what is empty can only be filled, which is also beautiful.
I turned my head in the direction of that response.
– You fool. Do you know what ridiculous thing you're doing right now?
– Indeed.
I groaned.
– I don't have a head right now.
– Right. And yet you turn your head. Well, it's not bad, but doing it unconsciously like that is no different from before you saw this darkness, isn't it?
Sword Emperor said, with a sound like his robe fluttering—no, it wasn't actually a sound—
– Move with awareness. Only then can you move properly. Be conscious and feel. Only then can you truly perceive.
I nodded.
No.
Before that, I first created [myself].
– I… Kim Gong-ja.
Physical age, about twenty-five.
The actual time I had to experience… roughly 1,000, no, roughly 10,000.
'No.'
Words like [roughly], [about], and [approximately] won't do.
Exactly.
-....
I think of myself… imagine myself.
I begin to recall Kim Gong-ja, from birth to this moment, without adding or subtracting anything.
-....
A mind-bending task.
It was never an easy task.
[ The voices from the tower… they aren't just automatically operated by the system, perhaps…. ]
[ Yes. It's manual. ]
But it wasn't impossible either.
[ Death King. Even if it might be simultaneous events for you, for me, it's just a task that needs to be handled one by one. … Inefficiency only occurs when time and space are limited. … The concept of inefficiency does not exist. ]
'Baron Gu Won-ha.'
I thought about the character I had once been possessed by and the tasks she was assigned. Compared to that amount, revisiting my own life was nothing more than a grain of sand.
'Sand… Fox~nim.'
Even the moments when my memories were jumbled by Fox~nim had become a reference now.
And it was not only that.
' Nether World.'
The space I had arrived at when I died resembled this place.
'Sanctuary.'
The experience of initially building and filling the empty world of the Sanctuary proved useful in many ways.
And above all.
'Master.'
That season, so achingly white, and this darkness, they shared similarities.
Enveloped in darkness, I recalled myself… imagined… created… thought… and then.
Eventually, I opened my eyes.
-...,....,......
I breathed.
The temperature of the breath, its contours, direction, pitch, and volume, all these were felt.
Thoroughly.
A shiver ran down my neck, yes, I had a neck now—it shivered.
– Haah, haaah… hmm...
Saliva flowed from my lips.
I realized that I lacked the vocabulary to describe this sensation.
Simply put, it was due to a lack of experience. Despite having died and lived, experiencing countless lives in place of others, I couldn't properly explain this sensation.
I couldn't intuit the state of my own body.
It wasn't that I couldn't feel; rather, I felt too intensely.
– Sensation is supposed to distinguish between oneself and the outside, but overly sharp senses blur that boundary.
Sometime.
Somewhere.
– Remember well.
Sword Emperor's voice came through.
– That is what [seeing] is.
Thump.
With the sound of my heart beating, the darkness faded.
Light burst forth—the dam broke—the boundaries of the world were seared by the blazing light from afar—and thus, the darkness faded.
– Yes.
And thus, I found myself back in my sanctuary, in the Garden of Withered Flowers, on what corresponds to the 80th through 89th floors, and also the 91st floor.
With his arms crossed, Sword Emperor greeted me.
– Let's walk a bit.
As if urging what he had urged just a moment ago, no, certainly, it must have been something that happened just a moment ago.
– Yes.
Shaking my still dazed head, I nodded.
– Let's walk.
Slowly, I stretched my foot towards the ground, beside Sword Emperor.
Thud.
I stepped down.
Thud.
I started walking with Sword Emperor.
Thud!