[The Green Valley – Next Morning]
I woke up... not to screams, nor to the sound of shattering bones, but to the distant chirping of birds and the scent of a warm vegetable stew. It drifted slyly toward my nose, teasing a stomach that had grown accustomed to hunger and forgotten the meaning of being full.
I opened my eyes slowly, expecting a damp stone ceiling or a scorching white sky. Instead, I found leaves dancing in the wind and a golden sun in the heart of the sky, pouring its warmth and tenderness upon my face. I stood up and felt my limbs. A strange lightness permeated my body. That permanent "heaviness" in my bones... gone. That constant "noise" in my nerves... silenced. My mind was as clear as the blue sky above, as if sleeping under this sacred tree had washed my soul just as water washes the body.
I walked toward the old man. He was squatting before a black iron pot hanging over a low fire, pouring stew into hand-carved wooden bowls. "Good morning, my son..." he said in a resonant voice without turning, handing me a bowl with a calm smile.
I sat before him on a moss-covered rock. I took a spoonful of the stew. The vegetables were fresh, slow-cooked until they melted into the thick broth. The meat was tender, dissolving in my mouth. I ate in silence and reverence, trying to anchor this moment—this taste—in my memory forever. The taste of "Peace" that I might never savor again.
When I finished, I set the empty bowl aside and looked at the old man. He was lighting his long pipe, exhaling blue smoke that smelled of vanilla and aged tobacco. He watched the flowing river in silence, his blue eyes shimmering as if he were reading the secrets of the universe and its history in the ripples of the water.
"Old man..." I called to him, my voice trembling slightly. He turned to me slowly. "I feel as if I've slept for a century... and I feel as if I arrived here a long time ago... days... weeks... I don't know." I swallowed hard, pressing my hands against my knees, and asked the question that had been eating at me since I woke: "How much time has passed in my world?"
The old man's expression changed. The gentle smile of the kind grandfather vanished, replaced by a gaze as somber and heavy as a mountain. He took a deep draw from his pipe, exhaled slowly, and spoke with a voice carrying the weight of centuries: "Time, Ray... is a deceitful river. Here, it is a stagnant, peaceful lake. But there... in your world... it is a relentless, thundering waterfall." He looked directly into my eyes, a gaze that pierced through me: "A single day you spend here enjoying the sun and rest... equals a full month or more in your land."
"A month?!" I screamed, leaping to my feet as if stung. "A whole month?! I've been here for two days... and I spent what felt like eons in the previous doors... do you mean..." I began to calculate frantically, my fingers shaking. Months? Maybe a year? Is Jin still looking for me? Or did he think I died in the fire and held my funeral? Have people forgotten the fire? Did Kang and his family move on as if nothing happened? The world I seek revenge upon... has it changed and moved past me?
"Sit." His voice was commanding, firm, and powerful despite its calm. It was a voice that brooked no argument. "Panic will not turn back the clock. Screaming will not slow the rotation of the earth. You are here now... and the only way back is forward... not backward."
I sat down slowly, a bitter lump forming in my throat. Time is the only enemy I cannot kill, nor regenerate.
The old man continued, looking at the river again as if seeing faces in the water: "You think your suffering is unique... you think you are the only one who has walked this cursed path, don't you?" He shook his head with deep sorrow: "You are not the first... and you will not be the last. This place is not just a corridor... it is a graveyard of dreams, my son." He pointed toward the beautiful valley. "Over the ages, millions reached the First Door. Most died in the reconstruction. Thousands reached the Second Door. Hundreds the Third." He paused, then raised only two fingers of his withered hand. "But... to here? To this oasis that precedes the Sixth Door?"
"Only two... in the last eight thousand years."
A heavy silence fell. Even the sound of the waterfall and the birds seemed to cease in respect for the dead. "Who were they?" I asked in a low voice, terrified of the answer.
The old man straightened his posture and began to recount the tales, his eyes distant as if he were there, watching their fall moment by moment.
1. The Tale of Kai – "The Scorched Mind"
"The first came 7,200 years ago. His name was Kai." "He was not a warrior, nor a monster. In his world, he was an Imperial Advisor and a genius of his time. A thin man, with eyes as sharp as a hawk and a mind that weighed matters on a golden scale." "He believed in only one thing: 'There is no coincidence... everything in the universe has a logical solution and a mathematical equation.'"
The old man laughed bitterly at the memory. "Kai never raised a sword inside the Doors. Can you believe that?" "In the First Door, he didn't scream in pain during the reconstruction of his body; instead, he calculated the perfect angles for his nerves so that he would feel no pain in the future. He engineered his body into a perfect machine." "In the Third Door (The Desert), he didn't cut his leg as recklessly as you did. He sat down, calculated the angle of light refraction, used the 'mirage' to find a visual loophole in the system, and ascended to the door without losing a single drop of blood."
"He was a genius... a terrifying, cold brilliance. He reached here, sat where I am sitting, and discussed the philosophy of existence and nothingness with me for three days." "I asked him before he left: 'Are you afraid of what lies ahead?'" "He answered with cold, absolute confidence: 'Fear is a lack of information. Once I gather the data of the Sixth Door, I will solve it as I solved the rest.'"
The old man sighed and looked at the ground sadly. "But the Sixth Door... is not a puzzle, Ray. The Sixth Door is Chaos." "It is a place where laws, logic, and physics do not function. A place where reality shifts every second." "Kai entered... confident in his mind." "He didn't last a minute." "I heard a scream... not a scream of physical pain... but the scream of someone who had lost their mind." "His orderly brain, accustomed to system and logic, collapsed completely before the absolute absurdity he found there. His brain cells exploded because he could not 'calculate' the unknown." "Kai died because his intelligence was his prison. And because logic is useless against madness."
2. The Tale of Ghor – "The Mortal God"
"Then came the second... 4,000 years ago. The complete opposite of Kai. His name was Ghor." "A monster, in every sense of the word. In his world, he was a warlord emperor who ruled an entire planet with his fist. He was born with an impenetrable body. He never trained a day in his life because he never needed to. He considered pain a 'joke' and death a 'lie.'"
"Ghor didn't analyze the Doors... he crushed them. Literally." "In the arena, he didn't use tactics or speed. He would grab monsters and rip them in half with his bare hands, laughing with a voice that shook the walls. In the desert, he drank acid to quench his thirst and said it was a 'refreshing, spicy drink.'" "He reached here with his body vibrating with power and life; his muscles were like steel, and he didn't have a single scratch."
"He sat here, ate an entire sheep in one bite, and drank the river." "I looked at him and said: 'Humility might save your life, my son.'" "He roared back at me, wiping grease from his beard: 'Humility is for the weak. I will break the Sixth Door, and I will make the Entity kneel before me.'"
The old man closed his eyes, as if hearing the echo of that distant day. "Ghor stood before the Sixth Door and kicked it open to enter, laughing." "But the Sixth Door cannot be defeated with muscles. You cannot punch the void." "Inside... Ghor faced something that cannot be broken." "He faced his Reflection." "He faced his inner weakness, his fear, and the loneliness he had hidden behind his muscles and ego for centuries." "I heard one scream... it wasn't the scream of a warrior." "It was the cry of a terrified little child calling for his mother." "The strongest man in the universe collapsed into a pile of trembling, weeping flesh in seconds. His heart stopped from terror." "Ghor died because his strength was an empty outer shell, and because he did not know himself."
[The Broken Candidate]
The old man turned his gaze back to me. His eyes were filled with a strange mixture of pity and curiosity. "And now... after 40 centuries of silence... you have come."
He examined me with a scrutinizing look. "You are not Kai. You are not a perfect genius; you act on desperate instinct, you make mistakes, you stumble, and you cut your own hand to win." "And you are not Ghor. Your body is strong, yes, but it is full of flaws, scars, and cracks... and I saw you crying yesterday while eating an apple."
The old man smiled a mysterious smile, as if he had discovered a secret. "You are marred, Ray." "You are a chaotic mix of desperate intelligence and painful strength. You are the only one who arrived here already broken." "You are not whole... and that is your secret." "Perhaps... perhaps being broken is what will allow you to survive where the perfect ones failed." "For a broken thing cannot be broken again. And a cracked vessel does not fear pressure because it leaks the excess."
The old man fell silent for a long time, then stared into my face with intense focus, as if seeing beyond the skin. His gaze gradually shifted from philosophical sadness to something closer to ancient terror. He raised a trembling hand and pointed his long, hooked finger toward my face... specifically, toward my eyes.
"But... there is something else that distinguishes you from them." His voice dropped to a terrifying whisper that blended with the wind: "Kai and Ghor... they were humans in the end. Their souls were pure." "But you..." The old man's lip quivered. "That curse you carry in your socket... it is not just eyes, and it is not just a skill granted by the System." "It is Sin." "A sin older than this world itself... waiting for the right moment to swallow you whole."