The rain wasn't elegiac.
It was dirty, gray, urban rain. It fell silently on the tin rooftops, slid down the dull windows of the cybercafé, and streamed over the hunched shoulders of passersby—without ever cleansing a thing. It seeped into the cracks of the pavement as it did into the cracks of the world.
Inside the cybercafé, the smell was that of the day after a funeral: cold, sweaty, clinging. Faded neon lights buzzed overhead. The air conditioning sputtered. The few clients still awake shared the same posture: neck bent, dry eyes, trembling hands on sticky keyboards.
In the back, in a booth hidden behind a yellowing curtain, a man was barely breathing.
Ji-Hoon.
His face was hollow. His unshaven beard cast a shadow over his gaunt cheeks. He wore a patched-up military jacket of indeterminate age and a second-hand pair of pants several sizes too big. At his feet lay his entire world: a pair of dry socks, a black notebook, and a phone charger.
But his eyes...
His eyes burned.
On the screen, an outdated interface flickered. Lines of text flashed at a frantic pace, symbols appearing and vanishing, blinking like dying lanterns.
> [QUEST: THE LAST KNOWLEDGE OF MURIM]
Status: 99%
Final Condition: Solve the riddle of the Five Celestial Spirits without losing mental integrity.
Time remaining: 00:01:23
His forehead was soaked in sweat. Not from the heat—
From the weight of this moment.
Ten years he'd been playing this game.
Ten years of forums, guides, wild theories, manuscripts translated from obscure Chinese sources.
Ten years searching for the unreachable.
— A hidden event… in an 18-year-old game…, he whispered.
His fingers danced over the keys like a surgeon riding a rush of adrenaline. Every keystroke was a prayer.
The interface trembled.
[Mental Integrity: 8%]
— Shit…
He closed his eyes and inhaled. Once. A deep, slow breath, like a diver before the plunge.
Then he typed the final command.
Not an answer.
A guess.
An ancient phrase he had found in a forgotten manuscript of the Canon of the Thousand Blades, buried in a long-dead wiki six years ago:
「五氣歸一,則道成」
When the five breaths merge, the Dao is formed.
The screen turned white.
Purely white.
Not a bug. Not a crash. A perfect, total whiteness. And then—
[Quest: Completed.]
[Access Granted.]
[Welcome, Disciple of Lost Knowledge.]
Ji-Hoon sat up. His back cracked. His breath came faster. His fingers slipped from the mouse.
— Holy...
But he didn't have time to react. The screen flickered—once.
And then the space around him shuddered.
Not the screen.
The world.
The neon lights buzzed erratically. The curtain trembled without wind. His heart pounded in his chest like a caged beast.
And then, there was—
…silence.
Perfect silence. As if the entire city had stopped.
He looked up.
The screen no longer showed anything.
No cursor. No light.
Only a single black dot, like a closed eye.
Then the ground vanished.
He fell.
Not downward—
But inward.
---
He no longer felt his body. He no longer saw his hands. His breath had vanished. He didn't know if he was asleep, dreaming, or dying.
Voices whispered. Ancient tongues, both gentle and terrifying.
He drifted in milky light, suspended in the ether.
And before him… a figure.
Feminine. Faceless. Wrapped in floating bandages like living scrolls. A crown of light hovered above her head.
She spoke without a mouth.
— Ji-Hoon, son of memory. You dared to cross the final gate.
He tried to answer.
But he had no throat.
— You rejected the world. And the world rejected you. You gave everything for a universe no one believes is real. For knowledge everyone has forgotten.
— And now… I open the archives. You will no longer be a player. You will be a vessel.
She reached out her hand.
Three objects floated around her: a silver chain, a black ring, a white pearl.
— I am Qian Zhi, the Goddess of Silence. I do not grant blessings. I do not reward.
I grant a debt.
The objects drew closer. Ji-Hoon felt their presence etch into him, like invisible tattoos on his soul.
— Three treasures. Three rules.
---
1. The Medallion of Knowledge: It will hold your inner library. But the more you know, the more you will forget.
2. The Dimensional Ring: You will travel between worlds. But you will never unite them.
3. The Soul Pearl: You will defy death. But each return will hurt more than the last.
---
— Choose.
But he had no choice.
He reached out his hand.
And the world shattered.