And in the very next second—
The air that had been raging moments before, coiling like a feral beast stripped of control, came to a halt. Not gradually. Not in stages. But instantly. Absolute. As if an unseen hand had pressed the universe's pause button itself—crushing time and space, forcing everything to freeze within a single blink.
The world seemed to lose its breath.
The wind no longer whispered. The august woman's voice vanished… leaving behind a silence that pressed against the chest like a slab of stone in the depths of the sea.
Kael stood at the center of the glowing circle of symbols. Still. His body locked in place—as though time itself refused to acknowledge him. He hadn't even processed what had just happened. His expression tightened slightly, his eyes scanning his surroundings, searching for even the smallest sign of movement.
There was none. Everything was still. Even the dust hung motionless in the air.
Then—
Within a silence so dense he could hear his own breathing, another voice emerged.
Cold. Calm. Yet beneath the softness of its tone lay an authority that could not be defied—like a law of nature speaking through a human voice.
It came from behind him. A voice that made every tendon in Kael's neck tense.
"The Will of Fate… has passed judgment upon your arrival in this world."
Kael frowned. "Uh…?"
He tried to turn his head—but failed. His body did not respond, as if the world itself refused to grant him permission to move.
"Impossible… why can't I… move my body…?" he muttered softly, almost as if speaking to himself.
His muscles tightened. He tried to force it, channeling strength through every inch of his body, but it was futile. Like struggling against formless air that nonetheless pressed in from every direction.
Then something shifted at the edge of his vision.
A silhouette appeared, emitting a soft, pale white light—transparent, yet distinct. Its presence felt like the gravitational center of space and time, drawing attention without consent.
It was a woman.
Her body was like living light. Her long hair shimmered faintly, and from beneath her bangs rose two antennae, like the glowing horns of a stag. Her flowing gown reflected a tranquil sheen—and behind her rotated two enormous cogwheels, like the mechanisms of eternal time.
"How do you expect to see, when I am the one who holds control?" Her voice was flat, yet every word carried weight.
Kael growled. "Who are you? And… isn't it rude to make me speak with my back to you like this? Release me—whatever this is!"
There were no bindings, no glass of frozen time, no spells. Nothing visible restrained his body. And yet he could not move. The world itself had become his prison.
"This is not a spell," the voice replied calmly, yet absolutely. "This is absolute will. And you… will remain silent, and follow my command."
Kael clicked his tongue. "Tch…"
"Now… turn around. Then walk forward ten steps. And stop."
There was no room for refusal.
His body moved on its own, every joint obeying without delay. Kael turned—then stepped forward, one, two, three—his sour expression impossible to hide.
After ten steps, he stopped.
And at last, he could see the woman in full.
She was beautiful.
But not a beauty meant to be touched—only observed from afar. An aura of eternity surrounded her, marking that even time itself bowed to her presence.
Her voice echoed again, cold and firm.
"Do you still not understand? This is not merely a trial. This is judgment. And the decision… has already been made."
Each word fell like a carefully measured blade. There was no space for emotion, no hint of mercy.
Kael let out a small snort. "A decision, huh? If I refuse it… can I go home?"
The woman looked at him flatly. "No."
Short. Absolute. Unassailable. As if that single word alone sealed every possible outcome.
"I see…" Kael exhaled quietly, lowering his gaze for a moment before looking back at her. "So I don't have any other choice. What a shame."
"There is no refusal for you. This is an order."
Kael met her gaze with an expression caught between cynicism and resignation.
"Even if it sounds like mockery… fine, fine. I'll play by your rules. But how long do you intend to restrain me like this?"
"There is no time limit."
Kael raised an eyebrow, then let out a small laugh.
"Ohh… you're annoying. A fantasy world… I should've known."
His body relaxed. Silence descended once more, swallowing them both within a void that felt tighter than before. He could feel the woman's cold gaze piercing through him—cold, yet deeply observant.
With a small motion, Kael lifted his chin in a subtle challenge. That simple gesture alone made the holographic woman appear momentarily startled—almost imperceptible, but it was there.
"Yeah, yeah… I give up," he said softly, half-muttering. "Can we start the game already? I don't like waiting."
"As you wish. At this stage, you are permitted only to express yourself. Nothing more. Even if you resist, your body will be torn apart into a gruesome mess."
Kael chuckled under his breath.
"Haahh… that brutal? Could it be… a keyword you've already programmed in? Well, maybe you're right—I can feel that vibration throughout my entire body."
"Good. It does sound like a joke… yet I can feel the conviction behind it. That you… can surpass it."
Kael looked at her flatly, offering no reply. Only his own voice echoed within his mind.
Huh? Why did her words suddenly shift into certainty?
He held his breath for a moment.
Is she a goddess created by this chamber? Or a human pretending to be divine before me?
He let out a quiet scoff inwardly.
Appearing out of nowhere, then treating me like a puppet.
Not long after, the woman raised her hand. From her transparent palm, condensed light emerged—a dimensional mirror forming in the air, without sound, without vibration, without a single spark.
It simply appeared. Silent. Absolute.
The mirror glowed blue, cold as ice. Its light trembled, then shattered into hundreds of layered images.
A mute recording unfolded before Kael: a city in flames, seas of fire devouring the sky; a brutal war between the forces of the Silent Oath and Tyrak's army; himself, striking someone from behind; the faces of civilians falling one by one.
Then—corpses of the Silent Oath scattered across the ground, and amidst them stood a lone figure—himself—eyes hollow, staring at a collapsing world.
After that, everything was swallowed by an unquenchable inferno. The world fell apart—without a sound.
That final fragment pierced deep into his mind. The image of the first phase's collapse—light extinguished, the sky torn apart, silent screams—came crashing back into his memory.
And within the shattered debris of recollection, a single, faint word trembled: something he had once tried to protect… something called—
"All of that…" Kael's eyes flew open, trembling—his voice catching. His throat was dry, like sand swallowing every word.
His gaze shook. His pupils widened, quivering as if rejecting the reality laid bare before him. His breathing grew ragged, yet the air felt too heavy to draw in.
"Do you remember it, Kael Vieron?"
The woman's voice came from the mirror, flat and echoing, as if emerging from a boundless void. There was no emotion behind it—only oppressive certainty.
Kael clenched his fists.
"The Core Command Node fragment… that—" His voice faltered. Just speaking the name was enough to trigger a pain he couldn't understand.
The memories that surfaced were only fragments—blurred images, never whole. He knew that fragment was important. He knew it was the center of something far greater. But the missing pieces made everything feel like a nightmare forcibly erased.
The woman's voice sounded again, reverberating like metal echoes from the depths of an empty space.
"At last, you can recall what was taken—though only the portion I have chosen to show you. And that is why your world collapsed when another hand misused it—the central fragment of the Global AI System. The core of all instructions. The brain that relayed commands to the other six modules, binding them into a single unity. Without it, the Data Forge was nothing but aimless embers. The Augment Protocol became blind directives without control. And the Divine Interface—no more than a door without a key."
"The Core Command Node is the artery through which commands flow… and also the shackle that maintains balance."
The dimensional mirror shifted again. A luminous network cracked from its center, spreading outward like veins violently severed. Cities fell. Fortresses crumbled. System commands collided with one another, birthing chaos that could not be stopped.
"When that fragment slipped from your grasp," the woman continued, her voice now echoing from the very walls of the world, "everything bound to it lost its direction. The Global AI System ran rampant. Aetherial Logic lost its limits. Even human bodies and souls that came into contact with it were caught in corrupted resonance… and destruction was born. Kael Vieron, your failure to protect the Core Command Node fragment was not merely the failure of a mission—it was the beginning of the collapse of the world's first phase."
At once, the voice ceased.
Silence. Heavy.
As though every word just spoken still hung in the air, pressing against Kael's chest from within.
Kael couldn't breathe right away. Something inside him trembled—not from fear, but from an old wound torn open without warning.
Then, slowly, the voice returned. Calm, yet carrying the finality of a verdict.
"This… is your sin."
Kael lifted his chin. His eyes locked onto the mirror before him—filled with denial and rage forced into silence.
Behind his pupils, something almost like a flame began to flicker.
"No," he said softly, but with certainty. "This is not my sin."
"Then what is it?" The voice was flat, yet its edge cut deeper than any blade. There was no intent to understand—only to decide.
Kael held his breath—then exploded.
"Do you really think I could bear all of that responsibility on my own?!!"
The mirror trembled faintly, and the voice that answered sank deeper, heavier, as if rising from the marrow of the world itself.
"And do you believe emotion alone can pierce the impossible, when even logic has collapsed? You speak of burden, of limits, of time… yet all of those are merely fragments of the chains you fastened around yourself."
"Resolve without foundation is nothing more than a shadow—destined to be erased by time."
Kael gasped. His chest rose and fell sharply. His teeth ground together, holding something inside him back from shattering.
"It wasn't because of my actions that I couldn't save them…" His voice broke midway. "They couldn't be saved… even if I went back to the past. The outcome would be the same. Fate itself locked them into death."
The woman let out a small laugh—cold, devoid of mirth. More like iron scraping against stone.
"Fate…? Fate is not a prison, Kael Vieron. Fate is merely a sentence that has yet to be finished. Not chains that cannot be broken. Only those willing to smear the ink can alter its meaning. But you—you chose to be a passive reader, not the writer. You surrendered to it… and in doing so, you made the end of the world official."
Kael lowered his head, his shoulders trembling. When his voice finally emerged, it was nearly hoarse.
"I don't possess the power my father and mother had… even though I am a direct descendant of Vieron—able as they were to connect with the founder of all those insane system designs. I'm… just an ordinary human. I don't have some miraculous power to redo everything."
"And that," the woman's voice softened—calm now, yet far more piercing than any shout, "is precisely what makes you fragile."
"Your fragility is the red ink staining every choice you've made. You may blame your bloodline, or your limits as a human. But in the end, it was your own blood that wrote that betrayal."
Kael's body went rigid.
"Guilt… and selfishness. Those two killed your conscience long before anything else, Assassin. Including the moment you chose to kill your own comrade."
Kael fell silent.
His jaw tightened, his eyes shaking—caught between fury, fear, and loss. He tried to speak, but only fragments escaped his lips.
"No! He wasn't my comrade… he was a traitor—who murdered the friend I cherished the most!"
And in that very instant—
The dimensional mirror shuddered, cracking like glass that refused to accept reality, then shattered into thousands of particles of light. The fragments drifted slowly into the air before fading away, as if swept aside by an unseen current.
Silence descended once more. But this time, it was not empty—it was dense with the echo of something that had just changed.
The floor of the chamber pulsed. From the black fissures across its surface, golden patterns began to spread—slowly, spiraling and intertwining like neural pathways awakening from a long slumber.
The glowing lines continued to crawl outward, converging toward a single point—a flower-petal-shaped center—which trembled faintly, releasing a deep sound… the voice of an ancient machine roused from millennia of sleep.
KRRZZHHHH… KLAK—CHAK—CHK!
The fissure opened slowly, as if the world itself were reluctant to give birth to its secrets. From between the split stones, an ancient dais rose upward, trembling beneath the weight of time.
Dust of forgotten eras danced in the frozen air, swirling in dim light like ash from a lost civilization. No sacred symbols adorned its sides. No grand carvings offered meaning. Only one object waited atop it—a massive book, bound by softly trembling Aetherial chains, as if it were alive.
From between those chains, faint flashes burst forth, blinding for an instant. As though the entire world were holding its breath before the words hidden within.
Kael could only stare.
There was no scream. No shock. His eyes were empty—yet something in his chest pulsed, a sensation he could not name, pressing inward as if forcing his soul to remember something it was never meant to recall.
Then, from the cracked floor beneath his feet, a thin line of light emerged. It crept like a pen of fire, writing through the air with an unseen hand. Its strokes spread rapidly, branching, then spiraling around the ruins—forming golden patterns that throbbed like the pulse of a colossal heart.
The shadows around him began to shift, and from beneath them, white marble was revealed—its surface reflecting a newborn light. Four statues rose from nothingness. Their faces, once hollow, were now re-carved by thin flames creeping outward from within. Silver armor gleamed coldly, stabbing into Kael's vision.
They stood upright, swords crossed over their chests—not in prayer, but in warning.
A dry rustling filled the air.
The marble floor continued to spread, slowly yet inexorably swallowing the blackened ground beneath it. One by one, ancient symbols ignited, their reflections burning into Kael's eyes like stars summoned back from death.
—Shkttt…
—Bvrrrh…
Not the sound of any living throat.
The vibration was born from the patterns etched into the floor—like the breath of an eternal machine, awakening after a sleep that spanned thousands of years. The statues closed their eyes. Their hands opened. And the wheels that had ceased turning since the last world collapsed… began to move once more.
The symbols did not demand worship. They demanded only recognition—as laws older than prayer itself.
Above them, a glass dome grew out of nothingness. Its curvature was perfect, clear as a dream freshly conceived. Within it, tiny stars shimmered softly, as if laughing at the darkness below.
From its seams, a delicate waterfall flowed, striking the glass surface—
Plrrrhhsss…
Producing a tone like the song of the world's womb. Yet not a single drop fell to the ground; everything halted in midair, suspended like time itself refusing to move.
Kael stood frozen.
His feet did not shift, but his world already had.
The ruins around him now seemed split in two: one half continuing to decay, the other in the midst of being born. He saw layers of reality pressing over one another, like new manuscript pages forced onto old parchment that had yet to dry.
There were no walls in that space, yet its boundary was unmistakable.
Light and darkness stood side by side, no longer blending. The sky above rose like a blank canvas—formless, yet reflecting colors that had not been created yet.
The black floor beneath him gleamed calmly, and in its reflection, Kael did not see himself… but a past that refused to die.
The transformation did not consume the space—it cleaved it. Divided it. Like a soul split between choices that had never been spoken aloud.
Kael now stood between two worlds: One that had already fallen, and one that had not yet been permitted to be born.
The space became a cosmic wound—two opposing sides bound to the same pulse, yet rejecting one another.
On the left, where Kael stood, there was only darkness. Ruins. The stench of blood. And the shadow of himself that would not leave.
On the right, the light that had once been pure was now stained by a dense, creeping darkness. Its color fractured, mingled—faint black veins crawling slowly, like a festering wound upon white skin.
And at the center of that tainted light—
Someone stood in silence.
Not a shadow.
Not a reflection.
But another figure…
One that looked exactly like him.
***