Kim Gyeong found himself drifting through the space between life and death. Unlike the endless white he had grown accustomed to, this void was pitch-black, as if the world had been submerged in ink. Perhaps this was the primordial darkness that existed before the notion of "concept" itself came into being.
His body… no, his soul, flowed along an endless silver river, illuminated by countless threads of radiant light. These threads wove together in patterns of staggering complexity, forming a network of currents that twisted and branched in ways that defied comprehension.
It was breathtaking, overwhelming in its scale and intricacy.
As he gazed upon it, Kim Gyeong felt an incomprehensible smallness and a profound insignificance. And yet, he could not help but marvel at the structure, for it bore a striking resemblance to what one might imagine as the celestial equivalent of a neural network.
'So… this is the Mercury Sea? It's a lot bigger and vast than I imagined. What should I even call this? Nothing I know seems adequate.'
Divine.
That single word immediately echoed in his mind. Actually, anything outside the logics of humans could be considered divine. Even magic.
'Ah, that's probably correct. Yes... It is.'
He closed his eyes.
According to his memory, the Mercury Sea was also called the River of Destiny. One could imagine a black sky that contained things like probability, fate, casualty and so forth. If you stretched this black sky and flew at speed the black sky was being be stretched, they would naturally transform into flowing lines.
Not a place meant to be observed from a fixed point. Destiny was not static. It only revealed its shape when one moved through it.
Kim Gyeong slowly opened his eyes.
The silver river beneath him was not truly water. It was time in motion. Countless futures compressed into a single directionless flow. Each radiant thread branching from it represented a divergence, a decision made or unmade, a life nudged by chance or intent. Some threads shone brightly. Others flickered faintly, fragile enough to vanish at the slightest disturbance.
And he was drifting among them.
Not bound to a body. Not anchored to a single thread.
A quiet realization settled over him.
If the white world had been a prison of stagnation, then this place was its opposite. Endless motion and possibility. A sea that never repeated itself.
Compared to the white void, this silver sea flowing through the primordial darkness felt far more… calm. It was not chaotic. Despite its ceaseless motion, everything followed a discernible flow, as though guided by an unseen order.
As he drifted along the currents, Kim Gyeong was gradually filled with a profound sense of tranquility. Peace seeped into him, gentle and all-encompassing, and with it, his struggles began to loosen their grip. His regrets dulled, along with the Pain. Even the sharpest memories slipped away, dissolving into the silver light as if they had never truly mattered.
It was soothing.
Too soothing.
'How scary, I should be disturbed by this… but I don't care anymore.'
All he could think about was C. Her betrayal...
He understood why she had done what she did, yet that understanding did nothing to dull the anger gnawing at him. It still pissed him off.
A bitter pill, lodged deep in his throat, refusing to go down.
Now that arrogant witch remained behind in that white world created solely for her, utterly alone, abandoned to her own loathsome eternity.
Would he ever see her again?
And even if he did… would she still be the same 'C' he knew?
Unlikely.
By stopping him from destroying himself, she had condemned herself to continue suffering alone within her own ruin. At the same time, she had pushed him forward, opening countless doors before him; doors to futures he could neither predict nor comprehend.
Paths branched endlessly ahead.
What lay beyond them, he did not know.
'Tsk.'
He gritted his teeth. The pain he was feeling at this moment was just too much to soothe away.
Just then,
[Welcome to the Dreamweave.]
'What?'
Dreamweave? What the hell was that? He was confused.
C didn't tell him anything about this.
Just as the thought crossed his mind, the silver currents around him shuddered like a ripple traveling through silk.
The tranquil pull of the Mercury Sea faltered, its soothing rhythm interrupted by something foreign. The radiant threads trembled, their orderly branching momentarily distorted, as if an unseen hand had brushed against the cosmic trapestry of fate.
Then—
A presence.
It did not arrive with force or sound. It simply was, overlaying reality with an authority so absolute that even the flowing river of time seemed to hesitate.
[Designation confirmed.]
[Soul Signature: Kim Gyeong.]
[Status: Lost.]
The word "Lost" echoed strangely as a statement of fact.
Kim Gyeong felt a pressure settle over his being on a conceptual level. It pressed against the edges of his existence, peeling him apart layer by layer, as if something were calmly flipping through the pages of his soul.
Memories stirred.
Fragments surfaced — his childhood, the white void, C's laughter, her lies, her sorrowful gaze as she forced him through the Gateway. Pain flared instinctively, only to be muted the moment it formed, dissolved by the surrounding silver flow.
[Commencing Appraisal.]
Thin lines of light peeled away from the surrounding threads and converged on him, forming faint runes that hovered just beyond perception. Symbols he had never seen yet somehow understood flickered into existence, arranging themselves in complex arrays.
[Existence Type: Anomalous.]
[Origin: External.]
[Anchoring: Severed.]
[Destiny Thread: Unassigned.]
Kim Gyeong's breath caught, though he had no lungs to draw breath with.
Unassigned?
A strange unease crept into him, cutting through the lingering tranquility like a sharp blade.
[Evaluation Result: Eligible.]
[Commencing Dreamweave Integration.]
"Hold on," he tried to say. "What exactly are you—"
Before the thought could fully form, the Mercury Sea reacted.
The silver river beneath him began to accelerate.
The calm flow twisted into a spiraling current, the radiant threads stretching into long, luminous streaks. The sense of peace shattered instantly, replaced by vertigo and a growing pressure that made his soul feel unbearably dense.
'This isn't right—!'
The tranquil erasure he had felt moments earlier reversed violently. Pain returned in full force, anchoring him to himself with brutal clarity.
"...!"
As he did, his eyes noticed something emerging ahead.
A massive structure.
It was not a place, nor an object, but a framework.
A colossal lattice of light and shadow suspended within the darkness. Threads from the Mercury Sea fed into it endlessly, weaving themselves into layered patterns that shifted and rewrote themselves in real time.
Dreams.
Possibilities.
Nightmares.
All interlaced into a single, incomprehensible whole.
Kim Gyeong understood instinctively.
He was being taken somewhere he did not know.
'No. No, no–!'
Panicking, he struggled with everything he had, flailing against the invisible pull dragging him forward. But it was useless. It felt like being caught in the heart of a raging river — when the current decided your fate, resistance became nothing more than a futile gesture.
And compared to this omnipresent sea of mercury, what was he?
Nothing.
In the end, it was all for naught.
'Damn it…!'
Those were the last thoughts Kim Gyeong managed to grasp before everything folded inward.
† †
"You did it! The baby is out, and it's a healthy baby boy!" the midwife shouted in a triumphant voice.
The room erupted into cheers, sobs, and relieved laughter.
Meanwhile, Kim Gyeong swung his head weakly in stunned confusion, trying to make sense of what was happening.
He had a body.
A human body.
He could feel arms and legs. He could breathe, air filling his lungs in short, uneven gulps. Every sensation was overwhelming, crashing into him all at once. Warmth. Cold. Pressure. Sound.
Yet something was wrong.
He was being carried. Lifted effortlessly in someone else's arms. His vision was blurry, unfocused, and the world appeared far too large. His body felt heavy and weak, as though it barely obeyed him.
His limbs barely responded. He could sense them, but controlling them was another matter.
"…!"
Understanding struck him like a bolt of lightning.
'I reincarnated?'
'Eh? Eh? Eh? What is this situation? Why are there so many people? I do not understand anything. Where am I?'
Despite the bubbling panic, Kim Gyeong forced himself to think.
'Calm down. Let's analyze the situation.'
'Judging from the sheets soaked with blood, feces, and urine, the woman lying on the bed is most likely my mother.'
His gaze narrowed.
'Long brown hair and azure eyes. She is certainly a beauty. I would rate her a nine out of ten based on looks alone.'
Then doubt crept in.
'But this does not look like a hospital. Is this an indoor delivery? Could it be that this family did not have enough money for hospital services?'
He paused.
'No. Too early to jump to conclusions.'
Another question surfaced.
'Where is my so called father? I do not see him anywhere. Everyone here is a woman. Is he waiting outside the room?'
A worrying thought followed.
'If I am unlucky and he turns out to be a deadbeat, malnourishment will be a serious issue.'
Suddenly, the noise died down.
The room fell unnaturally quiet. Kim Gyeong did not understand the reason for the sudden silence. Fortunately, someone else lost patience and spoke up.
"Um… why isn't he crying?"