I don't remember when I lost consciousness.
I don't remember the feel of the carriage.
Or the road.
Or the pain in my limbs.
Everything…
> Went black.
---
No wind.
No breath.
No weight.
Just an empty place where even light forgot to exist.
I floated… but I couldn't feel my body.
No pain.
No strength.
Just a quiet void—
Until I saw it again.
That figure.
The one who looked like me.
The one I met the last time I stood between life and death.
But something felt different now.
---
I was no longer standing on a battlefield of stars.
This time, the world was cracked.
A mirror-shattered sky above.
A floor of molten fragments below—pieces of myself.
And at the center of it all, surrounded by burning feathers and fragments of light—
> Was her.
The goddess.
Wearing the form of Arshi Minato—the person I used to be on Earth.
---
She stood barefoot on broken memory, arms crossed, looking frustrated, like a teacher who scolded a foolish student.
> "Took you long enough."
> "And now look at you."
Her eyes scanned me like reading a terminal diagnosis.
> "Your soul's leaking."
> "Your body's broken."
> "And don't even get me started on that wish stunt you pulled."
---
I tried to speak, but my throat felt hollow.
Even here, I was weakened.
> "Wasn't… that what the orb was for…?" I croaked.
She shook her head slowly, stepping closer.
> "No."
> "The Legendary Orb isn't meant to revive the dead. Not like that."
> "It can alter fate… delay death… reshape memory… yes. But bringing someone back from the true end?"
> "That's forbidden. Especially for someone like you."
---
I blinked.
> "Then… why did it work?"
She looked sad.
For the first time, her voice softened.
> "Because you gave something the orb wasn't meant to take."
She pointed to my chest—
And for the first time, I looked down.
My heart—
Was cracked.
Not metaphorically.
There, deep in my soul's projection, was a brilliant light inside me.
Or… what used to be light.
Now it flickered.
Chipped.
A glowing piece had been forcibly ripped away—and in its place was a scar.
A wound that would never close.
---
> "You gave a fragment of your lifeforce," she whispered.
> "Your essence. Your timeline. Your ability to exist."
> "You didn't use the orb. You overwrote it with your own soul."
> "That's why she came back."
> "It wasn't the orb that did it."
> "It was you."
---
I clenched my fists, even in this strange bodyless space.
> "Then why did she forget me…?"
> "Why did it cost so much?"
She looked at me with something between pity and warning.
> "Because everything in this world—even miracles—obeys equivalent exchange."
> "You gave your life to save someone you love…"
> "So the world took her love away from you."
> "You broke the balance, Alein. And now it's starting to crack everything else."
---
The burning sky above began to creak.
Another piece of my spiritual realm shattered like glass above me.
I staggered back, feeling a sharp pain in my chest even here.
The goddess stepped forward quickly and reached out.
> "This world inside you is collapsing."
> "That's why I pulled you here again."
> "You're not just dying, Alein."
> "You're fracturing."
> "If you fall again like this—there might not be anything left to save."
---
I fell to my knees.
> "...Then what now?"
> "I can't regret it. I still don't. I'd do it again if it meant she lived."
> "Even if she never looks at me the same way again."
---
The goddess smiled faintly.
> "I know."
> "That's what makes you worthy of everything I gave you."
> "But also…"
Her eyes darkened with something new.
> "That kind of heart is also why the world will try to break you again."
---
She turned away, as if preparing to leave.
But stopped—
> "...I didn't tell you the full truth last time."
> "About your ability. About why your soul burns like this."
> "I didn't think you'd make it this far."
---
> "So now…"
> "Let me show you what lies ahead."
---
The broken world around me began to pulse again, cracks still hissing with light, as if the sky itself were breathing in pain.
The goddess stood calmly in the center, her form still identical to the version of me from Earth—yet now, I could sense something divine beneath that face.
> "Your soul…" she said, voice steady, "…is barely holding together."
She turned her hand outward, and space parted like a curtain.
A mirror of my soul appeared before us.
Floating, fractured, flickering.
Veins of light trembled beneath the surface—barely connected, barely alive.
> "If you had taken one more blow in that battle," she continued, "your soul would have shattered entirely."
> "Your Phoenix Veil saved you from death—but not from collapse."
---
I stared at the fragments of myself.
Some pulsed brightly.
Others—dimmed and cracked like frozen glass.
> "So what now…?" I asked, quietly. "Will I die anyway?"
She shook her head.
> "No."
> "You will live… but in a coma."
She walked across the shattered floor, stepping across sparks of memory and feathers of light.
> "To repair a soul like yours… you'll need time."
> "Time in the real world—a year, at least."
---
I swallowed hard.
> "A year…"
> "So I'll be unconscious? They'll think I'm…?"
> "Gone." She nodded. "Most will."
> "To them, you'll be asleep… or dying."
> "But in this place—in your inner world—I'll be training you."
She looked back at me, eyes glowing with something colder now.
> "Not just healing you."
> "But preparing you."
---
The sky above twisted again—this time forming a vision.
A tapestry of fire and darkness.
Armies of monsters screaming.
Cities falling.
And from within that chaos…
A silhouette.
It wasn't like the Drake.
It wasn't like any monster I had seen.
It was ancient. Wrong. Twisting space itself.
Its body looked ever-changing—oozing, devouring, absorbing even light. Its mouth opened like an abyss, dragging in the world around it.
Its size dwarfed mountains.
Its eyes—if they were eyes—burned like forgotten suns.
> "What… is that?" I breathed.
---
The goddess didn't look away.
Her voice dropped low, almost a whisper.
> "That… is the one who challenged the gods long before kingdoms existed."
> "The Glutton Eater."
> "A being so cursed that even time tried to forget it."
---
I shivered.
Even watching it through a vision made my lungs tighten.
> "It… it eats magic?"
She nodded grimly.
> "Magic. Souls. Worlds. Time. Even divinity itself."
> "Its body regenerates endlessly. Its hunger never ends."
> "Not even Demon Lords go near it."
> "Because it is older than them all."
---
She turned to me once more, seriousness like iron in her voice.
> "And it has begun to wake."
> "That is why you were reborn here, Alein."
> "Not by chance. Not by mistake."
> "You are a Shardbearer—one of the last souls capable of touching both light and shadow."
---
My breath caught in my throat.
> "You mean… I was meant to fight that?"
She stepped forward, and for the first time, placed a hand on my shoulder.
> "Not yet."
> "But someday… yes."
> "And you won't do it alone."
---
Behind her, the vision shifted again.
Figures began to appear in the shadows.
Familiar silhouettes—friends I hadn't even made yet. Rivals. Seraphina, blurred by memory. Others I didn't recognize at all, yet felt strangely connected to.
The goddess looked up at the sky, and then back at me.
> "But for now—"
> "Let's rebuild you."
> "Because when the Glutton Eater rises…"
> "Even gods will tremble."
---
The shattered space around me pulsed dimly.
The vision of the Glutton Eater had vanished, but the sense of dread remained.
The goddess walked away from the projection and stood on what looked like air and memory itself—her arms behind her back, quiet, waiting.
> "You may have noticed," she said at last, "this world doesn't obey the same rules as yours."
I looked around.
Stillness.
No sun.
No moon.
No shadows.
Just a hollow void where reality itself was sleeping.
---
> "In this realm," she continued, "one second in the human world equals nearly a hundred days here."
I blinked.
Staggered.
My mind tried to do the math.
> "T-That means…"
> "By the time I'm fully healed and trained… it could be…"
> "Three trillion years," she said without hesitation.
> "Give or take."
---
I stared at her in disbelief.
> "Three trillion…"
> "That's…"
> "Longer than the universe I came from even existed."
She nodded slowly, solemn.
> "And I will be here with you."
> "Time means nothing to a soul that does not age."
---
I fell to my knees, overwhelmed.
> "I… I'm going to be alone in here for three trillion years?"
> "Fighting? Training? Never sleeping? Never eating?"
The goddess chuckled for the first time.
> "Not entirely alone."
She tapped the side of her head.
> "I'll be your teacher, remember?"
> "And you can imagine food if you want. Any flavor. Any form."
---
Suddenly, floating in front of me—
A steaming bowl of ramen appeared. The same flavor I used to eat after kendo practice back in high school.
I stared at it in confusion.
> "Wait… this is real?"
> "It's not," she smiled. "But you'll feel it like it is."
> "The sense of hunger here is only a memory, so you can choose what comforts you."
---
But her smile faded quickly.
> "However…"
> "Sleep will not come here. Because there is no dream in this place."
> "No sun. No night. No time. No true rest."
> "You'll fight. Learn. Repeat."
> "Until the scar on your soul mends."
> "Until the fire inside you is strong enough to face what's coming."
---
She turned to face me, completely serious again.
> "If you fail in this world, your soul will collapse forever."
> "If you succeed…"
> "You will become the one thing even the Glutton Eater fears."
---
> "So decide, Alein von Lunstein."
> "Do you accept this path?"
> "To give up trillions of years of silence, to return for a world that might never remember what you gave?"
> "To fight a future no one else can see?"
---
I looked around this frozen world.
I remembered her—Seraphina's hand in mine.
The way she looked at me before she forgot.
I clenched my fists.
> "I'll endure it."
> "For them. For her. For myself."
> "Even if I go mad in the silence—let me burn here."
---
The goddess closed her eyes. A faint tear of light left her cheek.
> "Then let it begin."
Grab my kendo sword and it became wooden sword i used for training
---
The void flashed white—
And the training of three trillion years began.
---