~ Location: Undefined, Time: Undefined ~
The oppressive darkness wrapped around Ajax almost like a living, breathing being, squeezing him from every direction. He instinctively reached deep within himself for his Ki—his anchor, his source of strength.
But there was nothing.
Cold dread immediately crept through his veins. Without his Ki, he was vulnerable, almost like a candle flame that could be extinguished by a stray fart.
Gritting his teeth, he steadied himself and forced his breathing to slow. With focus, he delved deeper into his core, exactly as Master Roshi had taught him years ago. And then, faint but unmistakable, he sensed it—a glimmer of his Ki.
A wave of relief crashed over him, and he let out a shaky exhale. As long as he had his Ki, he could fight. He could survive.
Having found his Ki, his gaze drifted upward. A halo hovered above him, glowing softly but failing to affect the surrounding darkness. No reflections, no shadows—just an eerie, solitary luminescence.
Ajax sighed.
So, this is what it feels like to be dead.
Not all that different from being alive, really.
That being said, this wasn't the Other World. He had assumed he'd end up in line for King Yemma, forced to suffer through the mind-numbing efficiency of divine bureaucracy.
Ajax suddenly froze.
Wait, why had he assumed that?
He wasn't from this universe. There was no guarantee the rules here applied to him. For all he knew, he could be spat back into his own universe—or stranded in some limbo between worlds. He could be anywhere. Or worse, nowhere at all.
The grim thought twisted his stomach into knots, and his unease only worsened as he scanned the void around him. Suddenly, the darkness no longer felt empty. It felt alive, as though countless unseen eyes were trained on him, silently watching.
At this point, he actually preferred if one of those eyes belonged to whoever sent him here, thus setting the stage for the legendary encounter with his ROB. That's how these things usually play out in self-inserts and Isekai's, no?
Above him, the halo continued to glow softly, offering neither comfort nor answers.
Ajax held out his hand, summoning a small orb of Ki above his palm that illuminated the space immediately around him. The light revealed little of note—just the cold, smooth stone floor beneath his feet, not unlike the weathered slabs of a mausoleum. No walls or other structures came into view.
He willed the orb to hover beside him as he began to walk. His footsteps echoed softly, which suggested there was something in the distance for the sound to bounce off of, but no matter how far he went, nothing appeared.
After a while, he stopped, considering the idea of flying. With a thought, he lifted off the ground and rose a few meters into the air. However, even at that height, the stone floor below was quickly swallowed by the darkness. Reluctantly, he descended again, preferring the reassurance of solid ground beneath him.
Time seemed to stretch and distort in the monotonous void. Hours—or what felt like hours—dragged by, marked only by the steady, minor drain on his Ki, which he used as a makeshift measure of time. As time passed, Ajax's frown deepened, a sense of unease settling in his chest.
He should have been revived by now. There should have been some tug, some signal from Shenron's power pulling him back to the world of the living. But there was nothing. Unless…
His steps slowed as a grim possibility rooted itself in his mind. What if Frieza had killed Piccolo before the wishes could be granted? It seemed somewhat unlikely—Goku, as a Super Saiyan, should have been more than capable of stopping him. But what if Frieza had destroyed the planet entirely?
…Was it even scientifically feasible for a planet to last five minutes like it had in canon?
Ajax shook his head, trying to push the thought away, but it clung to him like the persistent, insidious whisper of the devil on his shoulder. His pace quickened as his mood darkened.
Thankfully, he didn't have to wander much longer. At last, something disrupted the endless monotony—a wall that emerged in the distance, its details barely discernible in the dim glow of his Ki. It stretched endlessly in both directions, disappearing into the darkness. It wasn't tall, no higher than a typical room's ceiling, but its sudden appearance was unsettling.
Ajax approached it cautiously, studying it up close briefly before reaching out to touch the wall. His fingers brushed against the cool, uneven surface, which felt like rough stone—similar to the slabs found in ancient tombs like the Egyptian pyramids or the Mayan temples. He gave it a light knock, and the resulting sound was muffled and solid, suggesting it wasn't hollow.
A frown creased his forehead. Something about this place felt deeply off, but he couldn't quite pinpoint what it was.
Ajax instinctively glanced behind him, and instantly, his entire body froze.
The endless darkness was gone.
Standing where empty space had been just moments before was another wall, identical to the first. Tilting his head upward, he found a ceiling where before there had been nothing.
He was now, inexplicably, in a corridor.
Ajax's throat tightened as he swallowed hard, his eyes darting between the walls that now confined him. The dim glow of his Ki orb danced against the rough stone, casting distorted, shifting shadows that seemed to move just beyond the edge of his vision.
Focus. Breathe. This is just another problem to solve.
He formed another sphere of Ki. With a grunt, he hurled it down the corridor, aiming to obliterate the far wall and carve himself an escape route through violence. The Ki blast exploded with a deafening roar, and the resulting shockwave buffeted him where he stood.
When the result was revealed, Ajax couldn't quite believe his eyes. The wall stood exactly as it had before—pristine and unscathed, not even a single mark to show for the attack. He narrowed his eyes, his expression hardening as he turned his attention to the nearest section of the wall beside him.
Closing his eyes, he exhaled sharply and centered himself. The raw power of Kaioken soon began flooding his body.
"Kaioken ×30," he muttered. Power surged into his fist, the energy condensing until it blazed with a silver intensity. With a fierce shout, he slammed his fist into the wall and unleashed a devastating Pinpoint Impact that sent a violent gust whipping past him.
When the winds subsided, the wall remained unbroken—no cracks, no scratches, no nothing. It was as if his attack had never happened.
Except now his hand hurt.
Shit.
He was starting to get the distinct feeling that no ROBs were waiting for him here.
Ajax shoved aside his rising unease and decisively chose action over hesitation. He shot down the corridor, moving so fast that the air behind him twisted into violent gales. The walls blurred past him, but no matter how far he ran, the corridor remained the same—unchanging and stretching endlessly into infinity.
After a few minutes, Ajax skidded to a stop. He simply stood there, mind racing as suspicion rose within him.
Something about this place was wrong, fundamentally wrong.
Years of devouring light novels had sharpened his instincts for situations like this. Places like this—environments that seemed endless—were never what they appeared to be.
With a thought, a spinning Kienzan materialized in his hand. He pressed the whirring blade against the smooth stone wall, watching the sparks erupt furiously as the grinding screech filled the corridor.
Minutes crawled by as he held the Kienzan in place. When he finally pulled it back, it was revealed that the wall bore nothing more than a faint scorch mark—barely a blemish.
But that was good enough for now.
Ajax shot forward again, his boots hammering against the stone floor while his eyes remained fixed on the wall beside him. Seconds dragged on—fifteen, maybe more—before he abruptly stopped.
There it was.
A scorch mark. The same exact scorch mark.
It was also precisely what he had hoped not to see.
Ajax shut his eyes and took in a deep breath. He had moved in a straight line, and yet, he was somehow right back where he started. He despised looping places like this.
Immediately, he expanded his Ki sense, stretching it into the endless corridor. At first, all he found was the same hollow, empty corridor that had become his prison. But then—faint, almost imperceptible—he caught a whiff of dark energy far ahead. His eyes flew open.
Without a second thought, he summoned the Kienzan once more and pressed its edge against the wall. The razor-sharp disc bit into the stone and left behind a trail of light scorch marks as he walked cautiously toward the distant presence.
This time, whether due to the Kienzan marking the walls or his tracking of the energy signature, the corridor no longer looped back on itself.
As Ajax advanced, the walls around him gradually became adorned with distinct shapes and symbols that were jaggedly gouged into the stone. The complexity of the symbols ruled out the possibility of natural wear or erosion, so they had to have been deliberately carved by human hands—or at least by something intelligent.
The symbols meant nothing to him, but they carried a muted pressure, a presence that pressed against his mind. A dull, insistent ache started to pulse behind his eyes. However, stranger still, whenever he tried to focus on them, they seemed to twist and writhe before his eyes.
Yep, that wasn't creepy at all.
The energy signature ahead intensified, tugging at him like a distant beacon. As he advanced, the walls became increasingly more disturbing. The gouges multiplied, spiraling into frenzied, overlapping patterns that lost their earlier coherence. They resembled the change in the work of an artist or author as they slowly descended into madness.
The pressure behind his eyes intensified.
Ajax stopped, his eyes darting between the walls and the seemingly endless corridor ahead. A part of him wanted to turn back—but the idea of being trapped in an endless loop, forced to run in circles, felt no better.
With a sigh, Ajax continued until he reached the source of the energy signature. His attention was immediately captured by the wall next to him, where a mural stretched across its surface, strangely pristine and untouched. The area surrounding the mural, however, was a different story. The stone was riddled with countless scratches.
His eyes lingered on the scratches. Streaks of dried, darkened blood smeared the grooves' interior, implying that they had been clawed by desperate hands.
Clearly, others had been here before him.
Curiosity compelled him to lean closer, and he guided the Ki orb floating beside him to cast more light on the wall. These scratches also formed words, though not in any language he recognized. Some resembled runes, others fragments of an alphabet, and a few appeared to be crude, distorted pictographs.
Likely a mix of multiple languages, then.
However, despite his inability to understand any of them, standing before the mural, the meaning of the words seeped into his mind as if whispered directly into his thoughts.
"We shall be remade in His image! Weak NO more!"
"Devote yourself to God! He is the TRUTH!"
"Will is an illusion! There is ONLY God!"
"Let us drown in His MADNESS!"
Ajax's throat tightened as a chill crept down his spine.
He could feel the madness wafting from the scratches. In his past life, he had always dismissed such embellishments as nothing more than overdramatic and edgy descriptions in light novels, a way to make fear more visceral. Madness wasn't supposed to be something you could feel in the air. It was a state of mind, not a physical force.
Ajax would now like to formally retract his previous statement—because he had been completely, utterly wrong.
The madness clung to him like static and pressed against his skin, not too unlike stepping into a room with abnormally high air pressure.
Ajax shuddered and averted his gaze from the scratches. Against his better judgment, his eyes drifted to the mural instead.
Despite being carved directly into the stone wall, the mural looked as if it was made of stained glass. Its prismatic surface shimmered faintly, catching the dim light and scattering it into countless fractured rainbows. The effect granted it an unnatural vibrancy and color, making it appear as if it was alive—but alive in a way that felt deeply unnatural.
At first glance, the mural appeared deceptively straightforward in its design, almost simplistic. As Ajax studied it, he was immediately reminded of the Millennium Tablet that Pegasus had unearthed, the one depicting the history of the Egyptian God cards.
This mural, however, depicted a group of people hunched over, prostrating in submission before a towering figure. The figure held a sword up high, the blade emanating an eerie lavender glow. Sickly purple tendrils coiled around the weapon, and for a brief moment, Ajax could have sworn the tendril was actually liquid dripping from the sword's edge.
Behind the swordsman loomed a throne of amber. It exuded an undeniable aura of authority and power, but there was something inherently oppressive about it, as if the throne itself were less a symbol of power and more a cage.
Seated upon the throne was another figure, likely the previous ruler. But with their slumped posture and head twisted at an unnatural angle, it was clear that he or she was dead.
Interestingly, both the sword-bearing figure being venerated and the corpse slumped on the throne lacked any discernible details. Their forms were blurry, resembling smudged watercolors that had bled before they dried. Ajax squinted, leaning in closer in an attempt to discern their features, but the nearer he got, the more distorted they seemed.
Above the swordsman, something unusual drew his attention—a strange, amorphous blob. It was even more blurred than the figures, its shape so vague and indistinct that it seemed to blend almost seamlessly into the mural's backdrop.
As Ajax stared at the blob, he felt warmth trickle down his cheeks.
His hand instinctively flew up, fingers grazing the moisture. Was he... crying? A dry chuckle escaped him. It wasn't like the mural was particularly tragic—certainly not enough to move him to tears, in any case. But as he pulled his hand away to inspect the liquid, his stomach lurched.
It wasn't tears.
It was red.
Was he crying blood?!
Ajax staggered backward, his fingers flying to his eyes. He wiped frantically, his palms coming away smeared with crimson.
When he glanced back at the mural, he recoiled in terror, for it had vanished. In its place was a plain stretch of stone, smooth and unremarkable. But it wasn't entirely unremarkable. A message, or perhaps a warning, scrawled in blood appeared across the wall. The crimson letters were still fresh, glistening wetly in the dim light.
"DO NOT LOOK AT GOD!!"
Ajax's chest constricted, and he stumbled back, his legs shaking so violently he could barely stand. As he took another unsteady step, his shoulders bumped against the cold stone behind him. He leaned against the wall for support, heart pounding in his chest. His eyes, still streaming bloody tears, burned intensely, but he couldn't muster the will to wipe them anymore.
He spun around to leave, only to freeze mid-step due to another anomaly. Just five meters ahead, a door now stood where seconds ago there had been nothing but an empty hallway.
The door looked as though it had been carved from ancient, weathered wood—the kind that could age for centuries and still be perfectly pristine. Its surface was etched with intricate patterns: twisting vines, complicated geometric shapes, and faintly glowing symbols. The handle was an ornate piece of brass or copper, which gleamed as if it had just been polished.
The door felt wholly out of place, as if it had been plucked from a grand European manor from centuries past and inexplicably embedded in this tomb of an ancient civilization.
Ajax paused, glancing nervously over his shoulder. The corridor behind him stretched into an endless void, as he had expected. When he turned back to the door, an unsettling certainty settled over him, one that told him if he tried to flee in the opposite direction, he would inevitably end up here again, staring at this same door.
And, well, standing around wasn't much of an option either.
Maybe this door was Shenron's way of leading him back to the world of the living?
…one can hope, right?
He swallowed hard as a flicker of hope surged within him and took a cautious step forward. Then another. His breath instinctively quickened as his fingers closed around the cold metal handle. The ornate patterns felt uneven beneath his palm.
Ajax inhaled deeply, calmed himself, and pulled the door open.
It was anticlimactic.
Because beyond the door was just darkness.
However, the darkness before him was anything but ordinary. It devoured light and smothered his Ki sense—both vanishing as if Hakai'd as soon as they crossed the threshold, unable to penetrate the darkness for even a millimeter. From this alone, Ajax inferred that the darkness wasn't so much a lack of light as it was a lack of... well, existence itself.
Just as Ajax contemplated how to proceed, he suddenly went rigid. A primal instinct, deeply ingrained in him as a living being, screamed, warning him of something horrifying lurking just beyond the darkness.
A childlike impulse surged within him. Close your eyes. Curl up. Hide. It was the same instinctive reflex that drove a child to burrow under blankets, believing that the monsters would vanish if they remained unseen. Surely, like the abomination under the bed or horror within the closet, if he refused to acknowledge it, then it wouldn't exist.
But curiosity—that damned fatal flaw—stirred within him, just as it had for countless others before him. "The Cat" was killed. Eve bit the Forbidden Apple. Orpheus looked back at his wife, Eurydice. Pandora opened her box.
As for Ajax?
Ajax looked up.
And something immediately looked back.
His mind did not have the opportunity to process the smallest fragment of what he saw before his screams tore his vocal cords apart. His eyes ruptured within their sockets, and thick, viscous fluid mixed with blood poured down his face, mingling with tears he could no longer shed.
He crumpled to the ground, thrashing uncontrollably, his hands desperately clawing at his mangled face in a pointless attempt to undo what he had seen. His screams twisted into wet, choking gurgles as blood poured from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears—every possible orifice.
His skin writhed unnaturally, bulging and contorting as though countless worms were slithering beneath it. As he convulsed, the very physical nature of his existence seemed to dissolve, his flesh slowly breaking apart into a pulsating mass of squirming maggots.
Meanwhile, The Thing in the dark twitched, reacting to Ajax's fleeting glance with a movement so alien it cannot be described with Euclidean Geometry. To put it simplistically, it didn't move toward anything in particular; it had simply existed in one spot and then had always existed somewhere else. It had existed at its destination before it had moved, only after it had known it wanted to be there, but also was there at the same time.
In short, its existence traveled in a manner that transcended the concept of speed and mocked the very fabric of space and time.
In that same instant, Ajax was engulfed in crimson light. It wrapped around him like molten wax, pressing into his writhing flesh and forcing it into a semi-stable form.
Then, there was a flash.
The red light exploded outward and ripped Ajax away from the accursed corridor, from the Thing, from everything. The fading roar of a divine dragon, like the wail of a dying world, reverberated through the void where sound should not exist.
The doorframe shook violently. The hinges screamed, metal scraping against metal, until the door crashed shut with a deafening bang that echoed through the hall like a gunshot. A moment later, something massive—something far too large to fit through the narrow doorway—slammed into it.
The walls around the door quaked from the immense impact, sending chips of stone scattering to the floor and shaking loose a fine cloud of dust from above.
The door cracked.
A jagged fracture ran across its surface, branching out into the surrounding stone, like veins of dark lightning.
Then, impossibly, the door began to glitch. Its edges flickered and warped, pixelating as if corrupted, like a bug in a glitchy video game. With a final flicker, the door vanished completely, leaving behind only shattered stone.
The corridor immediately regained its deathly silence, disturbed only by the next unfortunate soul to wander through its halls.