Seven opened his eyes.
Or at least, he thought he did. He died, and he knew that much. Now, the world around him was nothing.
He stood alone, his feet pressed into water that rippled with each shift of weight, but the surface never broke.
There was no light.
There was no sky.
Nothing but just an endless void that seemed to stretch forever.
Blink.
But as Seven blinked, the colossal eye back then suddenly opened and light flooded the void, along with a silhouette walking towards him.
Before he could see who it was, the figure stopped.
Then, a golden glow flared from the figure's left eye.
At the same moment, the colossal eye's left eye shone with the same golden light.
And before Seven could react, his own left eye burned.
But instead of surprise, Seven giggled.
He had known from the start.
The place he stood now, the one revealed when he first activated Theia's Eye, wasn't a void or an abyss.
It was a realm—the same place where Ciae, the protagonist of the novel, found himself every time he died.
The realm of the Seventh God, Theia.
The beautiful and kind, all-seeing Goddess. Also known as Europhaessa, the wide-shining one.
And it made perfect sense now. Despite being the Seventh Artifact, Theia's Eye was the first one Ciae obtained in the story.
A single line from the novel surfaced in Seven's mind, as clear as if he'd just read it yesterday:
[Theia's Eye was the cornerstone of Ciae's journey, serving as the light of the Sevenfold World and revealing all that was hidden from plain sight.]
Seven chuckled softly. That wasn't the whole story, though.
"Seven lives..."
He murmured to himself.
The artifact's hidden ability: it granted its wielder a total of seven lives. A safety net, so the protagonist wouldn't perish too soon.
Yet, the irony wasn't lost on Seven.
In the original story, Ciae—reincarnated as the sovereign—didn't die for the first time until five thousand chapters in.
By then, Theia's Eye had already outlived its intended purpose as a guide for his early journey.
"I only have six lives left…"
Shifting back his attention to the present, he looked at the colossal pair of eyes.
This is the second time it appeared, and it just means Theia is directly watching him at the moment.
"I҉r҉r͢e̶g͝u͞l҉a͠r̷"
A voice echoed in the realm. The sound was…
Incomprehensible.
Indescribable.
A blend of harmony and dissonance.
As the voice faded, its echoes dissolving into the void, the colossal eyes vanished. In their absence, the wide-shining realm returned to an all-encompassing darkness—a boundless, abyss-like void.
"Hah… Hah…"
Seven's breathing came ragged, as his heart pounded like it might burst any second.
Ahead, still stood the figure whose left-eye was the only light in the middle of nothingness.
'So I must fight myself, huh?'
Seven laughed.
It was the only way to come back alive—defeat the current version of himself that the artifact prepared.
Only then he could advance.
Seven days.
That's all the time he had.
If he took any longer, he would remain trapped in the void for seven hundred seventy-seven days before being revived naturally.
'Fudg— Doesn't matter.
Taking a deep breath, he assumed a stance, though he held no weapon.
After all, it would appear on its own.
"Sword."
And it did.
It appeared right in his grasp.
Now, in the middle of the darkness, stood two figures apart, each one holding a sword.
Seven Hart.
And his doppelganger.
The only light was their golden left-eyes.
***
"Where's the darn button?!"
In the forest behind the Hart's crumbling mansion, Ciae yelled at the sword stuck to an anvil above a stone.
There was supposed to be a button somewhere along the hilt.
But now, there's none.
"Darn it!"
He kicked the anvil, though it didn't even budge.
It only meant one thing: someone had already taken the artifact. As a reader himself, he knew that the button would disappear once the artifact was obtained.
"Who is…"
Ciae began to point—characters out in his mind. He started with Eden, as her entire character and personality deviated from the novel, but he canceled her out.
Instead, he thought of the one who did it; the person responsible for Eden's change.
Seven Hart.
"He's also a reader?"
Unlike Seven, the other readers weren't informed. So, naturally, they thought they were the only ones who got transmigrated.
Even Lythian, Oh Son-ji, the assassin, was included, given his surprised reaction back then when he found that Seven already took the artifact.
Ciae laughed.
And then, he shifted his gaze back towards the crumbling mansion.
"He. is. a. reader."
There was no other explanation. Since the novel revolved around number seven, Ciae assumed that there were also seven of them, readers, who got sent into this world.
Ciae's laughter turned into a frown.
Looking down, he kicked the anvil one more time, letting out his anger. As much as he wanted to tear down the artifact from Seven's eye, he couldn't.
The artifact was a bound artifact, and there was no way to take it back.
Even if it wasn't bound, Eden would probably rip Ciae into pieces for touching her 'lovely younger brother'.
"Darn it."
He spat at the sword.
The Black Rose.
Seeing it up close, it looked more majestic from the way it was described in the novel. But there's no point in staring at it, as the only one with Theia's Eye was allowed to wield the sword.
Step.
Ciae walked towards the direction where the citizens of the Hart Dukedom went.
But then, he halted his steps.
He raised his hand, his fingers mimicking a gun.
"Bang!"
Screams erupted in the distance as golden light surged through the air. One by one, citizens fell, their chests glowing yellow before their hearts bursted like bombs.
Though he couldn't see it, he felt the devastation.
Ciae stood still.
"Eden, it was an accident."
He murmured to himself repeatedly, as if practicing his tone before saying it directly to Eden.
Then, he laughed again.
He turned around and walked back towards the mansion.
Step.
And when Seven was now within his view, he raised his hand, fingers mimicking a gun.
"Ba—"
But before he could cast the magic, an arrow made of frost grazed his cheeks.
As it did, Eden appeared before him.
She didn't speak.
She just looked at him.
"I was joking…"
Ciae said.
He walked past Eden and towards the mansion's gate.
"Let's go."
"..."
With a final glance at Seven's body, Iria sobbing beside it, Eden turned and followed Ciae.
Step.
As they finally left the mansion's grounds, the leaves in the trees rustled. A figure—likely a girl, given her silhouette—emerged from the shadows, wearing a cloak.
Her gaze fixed on Seven's lifeless body in the distance.
"He's alive…"
The figure smiled, and disappeared right after.
Now, only two people remained within the mansion's grounds—Iria, who was crying beside Seven's lifeless body.
"I'll stay with you… forever…"