I hurriedly turned around and the sudden realization finally struck me like a bullet. I wasn't the one who had been falling, But rather, the sea level of the dark ocean was dropping at an accelerating rate. The 'endless' dark ocean was–
Draining…
I kicked my legs and swung my arms, trying to swim as fast as I could. I needed to reach somewhere, to hold onto something, but it felt futile—there was nothing but an eclipsed sun shrinking at my zenith, a bluish, nearly black sky, and the seemingly endless dark ocean.
There truly were no straws to grasp for this lonely, naked soul.
My panic was interrupted by a burst of light emerging from the depths of the dark ocean. I slowly looked down again and saw the two unfathomably huge cracks leaking light into this Nightmare dimension get opened wider and wider with each passing second, illuminating the dark world more and more.
The ocean began to form nearly indistinguishable ripples as water leaked through the cracks.
But what was undetectable for an unfathomably vast ocean still felt cataclysmic for a small entity like me.
My soul body was beginning to be pulled into the swirling ripples of the dark ocean.
It started with a gentle pull but quickly escalated into an inescapable whirlpool—no, TWO inescapable whirlpools, voiding water into one crack each.
They grew at unbelievable speeds; it had only been a few seconds since they emerged, but each one was already big enough to swallow an entire cruise ship.
To my right and to my left lay nothing but death.
As the distance between the two cracks was enormous and I was at the centre of the division the two whirlpools were far enough to not worry about them, for now…
But what this meant for the near future, was terrifying. I didn't intend to wait here until these 'adolescent' whirls turned into catastrophes that devoured the world alongside me.
I immediately tried to levitate as I did in the real world to escape certain death, but it was completely useless.
I felt like I was still weightless as a soul body, but the mysterious water of the dark ocean somehow managed to weigh me down. I believed if I could find some land and completely step out of the dark water I might be able to fly again, but unfortunately, there was none my eyes could see.
In a panic, I began frantically swimming perpendicularly to the current to escape the doomed area from behind.
I was being very observant of my sense of direction, if I were to lean left or right a bit too much on my swims would've been sucked in like a noodle.
...
I had no idea how long I had been kicking my legs and swinging my arms. My stamina felt infinite, but I still had to exert effort with every movement. Even though I wasn't physically tired, my mind was becoming slowly exhausted from the constant struggle with no signs of progression.
But one thing I noticed was the ocean water was getting progressively warmer. If this had happened at any other time, I would've been ecstatic, but right now… I was mortified.
...
To the situation, I glanced back at the ever-growing whirlpools. What I saw shocked me to the core making me skip a few illusory heartbeats.
The two 'adolescent' whirlpools I had seen at the start were now big enough to devour entire cities, maybe even small countries.
Each spiralling layer on every single one seemed as big as a mountain.
Wait no… upon further observation, I realized there weren't just two City Devouring Whirlpools, but two fucking rows of gigantic whirlpools.
Each row had, dozens, no hundreds, I don't even know how many innumerable City Devouring Whirlpools.
I kept turning my head right and left anxiously. I genuinely could not believe what lay in front of me.
The unending cracks that stretched to infinity on both sides also had an infinite number of whirlpools lined up adjacent to each other on top of them. And at the epicentre of each whirlpool was an enormous pillar of divine golden light that shot up to the heavens…
This scene was not only ghastly horrifying but also unbelievably powerful, it showed me how utterly meaningless something as small as a single human was.
I was shocked, while also awed by the absolute power in front of me, the strength in my limbs vanished after realizing my efforts were nothing more than a futile tantrum, of a powerless bug in front of divine will.
I instinctively just gave up and lay still on the writhing water. I don't think I was breaking the promise to my mother by stopping to struggle.
I didn't want to kill myself, but I literally could not do a single thing to change my current situation. The most I could do was buy a few agonizing seconds before my inevitable demise.
I was instantly pulled backwards by the water currents, but with much less force than I expected. In fact, the closer I approached my expected, almost anticipated doom, the less force acted upon my soul-body.
Regardless, my hope was extinguished, my limp body just followed the water currents with no resistance.
But then… A miracle happened. I was suddenly lying still on the ocean surface again with only slight moments of the writing water, almost as if the two rows of infinite whirlpools just didn't exist.
As I observed my surroundings, I felt perplexed. Somehow, I had ended up in the exact centre between the first two colossal whirlpools once again. If I had been just a few meters away from my current position in literally any direction, I would have been sucked into death by the combined force of these rows of city—no country devourers.
But I had struck the luck of a lifetime; I was in a small pocket of the ocean in the 'blind spot' of the colossal whirlpool's currents—the only safe haven my eyes could see… or so I thought at least.
Before I could comprehend what was happening, the still water between the two portals of death began to vibrate, soon the vibrations turned into rumblings.
I flipped and looked down to see what was causing this and felt my heart sink. My eyes lost their brilliance, or more accurately, they were about to be overwhelmed by brilliance as a third crack opened up and a pillar of light approached me at a rapid and accelerating speed…
I didn't even feel any cold while flipping my body to look down this time, the pillars of light in the two rows were so powerful they managed to warm up a forever dark, bone-chillingly cold and endless ocean.
If I were even grazed by this infernal divine—no, demonic golden light—I would be instantly vaporized out of existence.
I hadn't even noticed the third crack forming right below me, so where did this third pillar come from? But that didn't matter right now. I needed to focus on finding an escape route if I wanted to avoid being consumed by the void or scorched by the boundless light.
Suddenly, I realized there was a problem: if the approaching pillar from below was indeed a column of light, I should have been illuminated almost instantly—after all, light is the fastest thing known in the universe.
Logically, this meant that the pillar of "light" wasn't actually made of light.
I looked down again and realized that the "thing" approaching me wasn't a straight line either. Unlike how light travels; it was a wobbly torrent—an aqua torpedo, a pillar of water flowing upwards.
It only appeared to be a pillar of light due to its reflection, refraction or something like that with the two actual pillars of light nearby.
This upward torrent was likely caused by the conflicting currents of the two whirlpools harmonizing into a single spinning column, which ended up thrusting upward.
For a moment, I thought this was just another fatal attack from fate, but then I realized it might also be an opportunity. The extinguished flame of hope in my soul was re-sparked instantly and my mind went to a flow state of extremely efficient thinking.
I glanced up at the eclipsed sun directly above my head and a strange idea struck me:
What if I could hang onto the eclipsed sun until the ocean drained out?
Such a thought would be idiotic in the real world, but what if the 'Sun' and the 'Moon' in this abstract dimension were much smaller entities closer to sea level?
I had previously seen the eclipsed sun noticeably shrinking after the sea level was reduced by just a few meters. In the real world, I could stand on the peaks of Mount Everest or dive down the depths of the Mariana Trench and the moon's or the sun's size in the sky still wouldn't change, at least not enough to be noticed by a naked human eye.
Perhaps the eclipsed sun is illusory, merely mimicking the effects of the real Sun and Moon without being as great in size or power. There was also a small chance that my levitation would work after I was thrown out of the ocean by this massive upward torrent thrusting me towards the heavens.
It was a foolish idea, but sometimes foolishness worked.
So if I could get propelled into the air by the pillar of water torpedo thingy, I might generate just enough momentum to reach and grab onto the illusary celestial bodies of the eclipse. Let's just hope this theory is correct or else I am finished!
…
Bracing myself for the powerful impact, I turned onto my back and covered the back of my head with my hands.
Then I waited. I waited patiently for the water pillar to propel me into the air so that I could seize the only tangible things in sight. Counting every breath, I watched the unimaginable force of water approach closer and closer. Not that I needed to breathe in my soul-body form tho-
Splash! Rumble!
Like a volcano, the potent torrent of water erupted in the shape of a swirling pillar, launching me incredibly high into the air. The scattered droplets from the eruption sparkled like countless twinkles in the vast tapestry of the cosmos, a substitute for stars in the empty night sky.
After reaching its peak height, the pillar of water collapsed on itself and merged back with the dark ocean.
It wasn't as painless as I had hoped, almost felt like a giant, rock-hard hand slapping my body with full force… but I had done it; the plan worked.
Now was the time to test my theory and reach for the eclipsed sun. But even before I looked up at the celestial bodies, my hope already felt solidified. I realised that my soul body felt increasingly weightless as I moved higher and higher away from the strange and mysterious ocean.
I continued ascending without any change in momentum. Inertia was doing wonders. Exhaling a deep sigh, I felt at peace in the airless sky. But the moment didn't last long.
I realized that not only did direct contact with the dark waters weigh me down; but even after leaving the ocean, I would still be weighed down due to being 'wet'.
This didn't really make sense from the two things I had learned about this world in my time as a soul:
The First was that 'illusory matter' such as the soul, cannot physically interact with 'real matter'.
The second was illusory matter can react with other illusory matter, just like how real matter can react with real matter.
But then the mysterious water of the dark ocean put me into a dilemma. At first, I thought it was just illusory like my soul body, but not only did it show the traits of being an illusion—The ability to interact with a soul body—But it also acted like real water by keeping me wet even when I was not touching it.
If the dark ocean is entirely an illusion, it would only be activated when a specific trigger is pulled. It functions similarly to optical illusions in real life. Just as some optical illusions require you to view them from a particular angle for them to work, this "angle" can be seen as the trigger for the respective optical illusion.
Similarly, I believed that the 'trigger' for the dark ocean was having direct contact with it. However, even though I am not touching it directly now, I am still facing its effects.
The dark water having another type of trigger seems unlikely, and the individual drops thrown into the air due to the water pillar don't seem like an individual 'illusion', especially not enough to weigh me down, so their contact should also be irrelevant.
This only leaves me with one possibility: The dark ocean is not a complete illusion, but rather a half-illusory and half-real entity. Meaning it's an illusion that also exists in the real world. Henceforth, it's working like real water even after I have 'disabled' the 'trigger'.
However, this effect doesn't seem permanent, as I am continuously getting lighter and might soon become weightless. Maybe because my body is getting less and less 'wet'?
...
Just as those thoughts echoed in my mind, the Night Dimension—filled with an endless dark ocean and illuminated by the faint yellowish-orange light of the eclipsed sun—transformed into a manifestation of luminous brilliance.
Two equidistant horizontal cracks opened wide enough to form two giant oval holes, through which boundless light emerged as if two new suns had appeared in this dimension, soon all the cracks below the two rows of infinite whirlpools followed. This divine light burned away all traces of night, boiling the entire endless dark ocean.
...….