All Eisen could see was a never-ending white void that stretched farther than his eyes could follow.
It was silent, empty, yet strangely calm.
But then, in the middle of that endless whiteness, he noticed something — a tiny black dot.
He started walking toward it.
Step by step, the dot grew larger until it stopped being just a dot.
When Eisen finally got close enough, he realized it was a man — someone with long black hair, sitting cross-legged on the floor, wearing an old white military uniform.
"Who are you?" Eisen asked.
"I'm Death..."
The man slowly raised his head, his eyes hidden behind a curtain of hair.
"So... I'm dead then, Death?" Eisen asked, sitting down in front of him.
"Yes. You're dead, child. You're a wandering soul now."
"I see..." Eisen murmured.
Then, he glanced around.
"Huh. I thought being dead would feel worse. It's actually kind of peaceful here."
"But this isn't the afterlife," Death replied calmly. "This is the in-between world — the space that divides the world of the living from the spirit world."
Eisen pushed himself up from the cold ground, brushing the dust off his clothes with a determined look.
"Alright then! So how do I get to this... spirit world?" he asked, trying to sound confident despite the unease in his voice.
Death, still sitting cross-legged before him, let out a soft, echoing chuckle.
"Patience, child," he said, his tone calm but heavy with meaning.
"A soul needs to remain here for a while. The in-between world is where your spirit gathers energy to strengthen itself... only then may you find a way out of this realm..."
"Huh. Really?" Eisen asked, but Death didn't answered him properly.
But waiting didn't sound so bad to him — until he realized he had no idea what else existed in this strange realm.
"Uh... so there are more people here?" Eisen asked, forcing out a shaky laugh to hide his nerves.
Death nodded slowly.
"Yes. But the in-between world is endless, child. Vast enough that you could wander for centuries and never see another soul."
Eisen blinked in confusion.
"Then... how did I find you, Death?"
Death rose to his feet, the motion calm yet heavy with authority.
"You found me because you were lucky." His voice echoed faintly through the void as he started walking into the distance, his long black hair trailing like mist.
Eisen hesitated for only a moment before following after him.
Death stopped and turned slightly, his tone dropping into something almost amused.
"Huh. We have a guest."
Suddenly, the pale ground beneath them began to tremble violently.
Eisen froze, his breath catching in his throat.
A few meters away, the white floor cracked open, and a massive skeletal arm clawed its way out, bones screeching as they scraped against the ground.
Eisen's eyes widened.
"Shit!"
He stumbled back, then darted behind Death.
"What the hell is that?!"
Death let out a deep, unsettling chuckle.
"That, child, is a ghoul — a being that feeds on the spiritual energy of wandering souls."
Eisen's face went pale.
"It wants to devour me?! But it doesn't even have a mouth! It's just an arm!"
"Exactly," Death said smoothly, patting Eisen's back as if this were all perfectly normal. "That's the ghoul's arm."
A thunderous boom echoed as the ground burst open in a blinding storm of white dust.
When the haze cleared, Eisen's breath caught again.
A colossal skeleton rose from the pit, its hollow sockets glowing faintly as it fixed its gaze on them.
"I'll make you a deal, child," Death said, his long black hair dancing in the wind.
A faint, amused smile crossed his face as he gave Eisen a gentle push forward.
"Defeat this ghoul on your own… and I'll personally take you to the spirit world."
And then, without warning, the giant ghoul's hand came crashing down, sending Eisen flying across the pale ground.
The impact shattered his leg, pain surging through every corner of his body.
He tried to stand, gritting his teeth, but his body refused to move.
The ghoul's hollow eyes glowed as it charged again, its heavy steps echoing through the pale void.
"Damn it!" Eisen shouted, raising his trembling fist out of sheer desperation.
Then, it happened.
When his fist met the ghoul's bony hand, a deafening shockwave burst forth, throwing them both back. For a heartbeat, hope flickered in Eisen's chest — only to fade when he saw his arm bent and broken, while the ghoul's remained intact.
Eisen's scream tore through the air.
"Help—!" he cried, looking toward Death, who stood only a few feet away, watching him in silence, unmoving.
"Son of a—"
Before he could say another word, the ghoul's massive hand came crashing down.
CRACK.
Time seemed to stop for Eisen.
The world turned quiet — eerily quiet.
The pain was gone.
His breath too.
Eisen could feel his body fading, piece by piece, as if he were dissolving into the pale air itself.
He couldn't move.
Only… think and remember.
Faces, voices, regrets — everything he'd left undone came rushing back in fragments.
"Can a soul die twice?"
The thought echoed softly, then vanished.
And then — light split the sky.
A thunderous roar tore through the silence as a bolt of lightning struck his lifeless body.
The light was blinding — not only that, it was alive.
Death's eyes widened for the first time.
The ghoul stepped back, screeching as the ground burned with white fire.
Eisen's still form twitched — then moved.
Cracks of lightning danced across his skin as shattered bones mended and the hollow air trembled.
Slowly, his eyes opened again, now glowing with a fierce, unearthly light.
He rose slowly, his body lighter than air itself..
Then, in the blink of an eye, he vanished.
A gust of pale dust swept across the white void as the ghoul's enormous form collapsed, its colossal skull gone.
The creature's bones crumbled into ash, scattered by the wind as if the world itself wanted to erase its existence.
And there he was — Eisen — standing amidst the silence, holding the massive skull high above his head like a trophy of conquest.
A moment later, even the skull turned to dust, slipping through his fingers and fading away.
Eisen walked toward Death without a word.
His steps were slow, his gaze hollow.
Death looked down at him, a proud smile curving his lips.
"Do you wish to understand what just happened?"
Eisen shook his head weakly.
"No... just take me to the Spirit World,"
he muttered, his voice trembling as the strange power within him finally dispersed.
His clothes were torn to shreds, leaving him bare before the endless pale horizon.
But after dying once more — after feeling that same unbearable emptiness — none of that mattered anymore.