Leaving Abhi alone with nothing but the rough texture of the factory room floor and the cold winds blowing in from the open door...
///
Well, that flashback ended in one hell of a grim note.
At least it ended though. As entertaining as it was, just went on and on for too long!
Whoever is in charge of this magical realm, couldn't you have just shown me a little glimpse instead of giving the host a full backstory? At least should've summarized it to highlights but I had to sit through the entire day in REAL TIME! Even my hallucinations had better pacing…
But there was one good thing about this whole scenario, even though I had been observing Abhi for the whole first day of school. I was only doing so with my mind. My body, or rather my illusory soul body was still falling down the bottomless abyss…Or was it?
It wasn't… I wasn't endlessly falling the entire time.
After what felt like a falling for all eternity, I had finally landed on something.
I'm not sure how I ended up here. Did I reach the bottom of the abyss, or in a completely different place? It's anyone's guess.
The only thing I can be confident in is that the flashback started when I reached this new world. The reason for my confidence was the fact that just before Abhi's flashback started, something changed in the 'way' I was falling.
…
In the abyssal limbo realm, I was not truly 'falling'. As in I wasn't truly accelerating downwards like I did back on Earth.
Rather, I was in a constant state of motion due to inertia.
On Earth, if you throw a ball, it will eventually come to a stop for various reasons. If you throw it straight up, the ball will slowly decelerate due to gravity and fall back down. If you roll it on flat ground, friction will gradually slow it down until it eventually stops.
However, if you throw a ball in outer space, where there is no gravity, no surface, no air, and practically nothing to interfere with its momentum, it will continue moving indefinitely.
The same principle applies to my soul body in the abyssal limbo realm. I was continuously moving in a direction that I assumed to be downward, but I wasn't being pulled by gravity; I was simply maintaining motion at a constant pace due to my pre-existing momentum.
Since the abyssal limbo realm seemed to be a manifestation of nothingness itself, my 'fall' had no interference. If I were falling as a normal human, I wouldn't even realize I was in a state of free fall; I would merely think I was motionlessly stuck in nothingness.
However, because I existed as a soul body, my innate ability to levitate allowed me to sense my movement through space. This awareness was the only reason I knew I was falling.
I was in this exact state for who knows how long. But then out of nowhere, everything changed. I felt an actual pull on my body. The pull of gravity. Instantly the speed of my descent started to accelerate.
And in the next exact moment, my mind was transferred to another world, in the body of my host—Abhi. But just as a spectator to view his day's flashback… for some reason.
But even though my 'mind' was in the scene of the flashback. My illusory soul body still kept falling at an accelerating rate.
But that didn't last long, in just a few seconds… I had finally stopped my eternal descent.
///
I took a deep breath and found myself lying flat on my back, gently swaying up and down with my eyes closed. I was floating atop a great body of water. But this wasn't just any ordinary water…
Even in my soul-body state; where I was supposed to be completely intangible to reality, I felt an almost nostalgic feeling… I was cold, I was wet.
I could feel the ruthless chilling touch of the cold ocean piercing the back of my soul body like needles from every direction.
Why is this water the only thing I can touch and feel? I still can't feel the wind in this world, or maybe it doesn't have an atmosphere in the first place, so is it just an ocean world?
I do taste a bit of salty water but I can't smell it—or smell anything for that matter, what's going on? Well, no way to find out other than research…
But before I could open my eyes an abstract image took shape in my mind:
///
[World unlocked]
[
– Limbo Realm: The space between reality and illusion.
• Abyss Dimension / Abyssal Limbo Realm (The Dimension of eternal descent)
• Nightmare Dimension (Endless Eclipsed World of the Dark Ocean)
• (ƨnoiɈɔɘlʇɘЯ ϱniqoo⅃ ʇo noiƨnɘmiႧ) noiƨnɘmiႧ bɘɿoɿɿiM
]
///
What the...
Before I could fully understand what was happening, the abstract image vanished, leaving me deeply perplexed. I barely caught a glimpse of the names on the chart, and I couldn't make out all the content in the brackets. It mentioned something about "World Unlocked." I wonder if I've done something that unknowingly unlocked any forbidden spaces.
From the formatting of the chart, I can infer that a "realm" refers to an all-encompassing reality, while "dimensions" are subdivisions within that realm. If "Limbo" is considered the realm, then this ocean-like area below me should be the "Nightmare Dimension," What was that about the eclipse though? Additionally, the space I was previously falling through endlessly is referred to as the "Abyss" or the "Abyssal Limbo Realm."
And more importantly, how are all these connected? Could I really trust this abstract image though? Maybe it's lying to me for some reason...
I guess there is only one way to find out.
...
I slowly opened my illusory eyes fighting through the pain of shivering cold to observe my surroundings., only to see an unholy sight.
This nightmarish ocean world seemed like an entirely different dimension than the abyssal limbo realm that I fell through for eternity. Regardless, the scenery before my eyes terrified my naked soul even more than the feeling of an eternal fall.
At my zenith was a completely eclipsed sun, or at least something similar ominous in the starless sky.
Guess I found the 'Nightmare Dimension' huh...
This dimension was almost entirely dark like the abyssal limbo realm, but there were two stark differences: a faint yellowish-orange light glistened in the world. It emanated from the slightly visible perimeter of the eclipsed sun.
The sky, on the other hand, looked slightly different too. It appeared to be an extremely dark shade of blue rather than just pure jet black like the limbo realm.
These two things led me to believe that this endless ocean wasn't just the bottom of the abyssal limbo realm I had been falling through; but rather, it was an entirely separate dimension with its own fabric of space and time.
I am really inside an Isekai aren't I? Well as ominous as this world seems, it's at least less mundane than the abyssal limbo realm. When I return I'm gonna show Mom that reading all those fantasy novels was not a waste of time at all! They will help me a lot in this universe…
After that, I tried to locate myself and move around within the faint light of the eclipsed sun. But every direction I looked at, revealed nothing but an endless dark ocean, with just a hint of yellowish-orange glimmer.
I panicked a little, I didn't know if I needed to eat or do other normal human activities as a soul body, Well I probably didn't but how long would I survive in these cold and dark waters? I had to find some land mass to stand on…
I swam in every direction for who knows how long. Surprisingly, I never felt physically tired—perhaps because I didn't exist physically. However, the endless swimming still affected my psyche or more specifically my mental state.
I could only endure this mundane task of mindlessly swimming in the bone-chilling cold waters for so long before succumbing to boredom. With every stroke of my arm, I felt a minuscule piece of hope leaving my soul.
Yet I kept kicking my feet and swinging my arms in an attempt to conquer the cold and reach land...
But after what felt like an eternity of aimless swimming, I finally stopped. My hope had been utterly exhausted in vain. No land in sight even after swimming for hundreds of kilometres.
I gave up and decided to lay on my back and float like an inanimate object in the still, endless, dark, and cold ocean.
...
I couldn't tell how much time had passed as I swayed in the mundane rhythms of the dark ocean. It could have been minutes, days, weeks, months, or even years; But I didn't know—no I just didn't care to count…
"ABHI!"
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a voice called out a name. It wasn't my name, but it felt strangely familiar. I had no idea whose voice it was, nor did I know where it came from; it seemed to have travelled through infinity and beyond to reach me in this desolate dimension. Whatever! I still didn't care and continued my mindless swaying.
I had become too attached to my unremarkable existence, floating aimlessly on the ocean's surface like a log. A log that held no dreams, no hope, and no life—nothing to motivate me to take action, yet it also gave nothing to worry about. The only sensations I felt were the chilling cold of the dark ocean and the gentle crashing of small waves echoing in my ears.
But then, after a few moments of hearing a voice calling out to someone, my eyes suddenly flew open. My subconscious was flooded with clarity, knowledge of my existence, Unknown memories, and all the intricacies of life. This overwhelming lucidity poured into my mind at an alarming rate making me jerk around in the still water.
Crack! Crack!
I heard another sound, and this time I was extremely alarmed due to my sudden sense of clarity. So, I looked around; at first, it seemed like nothing had changed.
But then I suddenly felt an unknown yet infinitely familiar sensation—the sensation of gravity, the feeling of plummeting.
I was lying still on the still surface of the endless dark ocean, yet I instinctively knew my illusory soul body was descending. The speed of my descent was slowly but surely increasing too. For the first time in a long while, I felt panic again.
Looking around I did not understand why my instincts were implying the danger of falling, I had no movement at all, I was just lying exactly still on the endless dark water with only my head frantically moving around to check on my surroundings.
No matter where I looked, my body was perfectly aligned with the ocean's surface. In fact, I couldn't even tell if I was falling at all if not for my innate instincts, which probably developed from my eternal descent through the abyssal limbo realm.
I then remembered the still dark ocean wasn't the only thing in this world, and looked straight up at the only other point of reference in this Nightmare Dimension, and what I saw, made my illusory hair stand on end: the eclipsed sun was getting smaller and smaller and smaller...
I slowly turned around and looked down into the depths of the abyssal ocean. The act of flipping in the water always caused me to grimace in pain. The side of my soul body that didn't touch the freezing dark waters was comparatively warmer.
So, whenever I turned and the unprepared warm side of my soul body touched the bitterly crisp water, it made my stomach churn and my muscles contract because of the piercing cold pain.
As I slowly opened my eyes after enduring the gut-piercing chill, I barely made out two lines glowing with a golden aura beside each other on the ocean floor.
They were perfectly aligned and stretched infinitely in both directions, almost as if they were a single line divided into two. However, their separation spanned an enormous distance, and I felt like I was at the exact centre of it all.
I didn't sense any immediate danger from them, so I was more curious than frightened and decided to observe the lines a little longer.
...
As I continued to observe the glowing lines for any changes, I didn't have to wait long. Just a few dozen seconds later, the divine golden glow of the lines intensified, and in the next moment, the entire ocean floor turned effervescent.
Suddenly, a realization struck me like a speeding bullet: those "lines" weren't merely streaks of light; they were cracks in the ocean floor, emitting a golden glow from an unknown source underground. And I wasn't the one who had been falling; rather, the entire sea level of the dark ocean was dropping at an alarming rate. The endless dark ocean was—
Draining…
...….