I had been teleported.
Not to another place—
but into a completely different state of existence.
The air felt wrong.
Too heavy.
The ground beneath my feet wasn't solid.
It pulsed faintly, like flesh beneath skin.
The system tells me I'm inside the bandit's subconscious mind.
That thought alone made my stomach twist.
I was standing inside the mind of the man who tried to kill me.
Ding~
You have been selected as one of the 100 Candidates.
The words appeared before me, suspended in the air—cold, emotionless.
One hundred.
Not chosen.
Not special.
Just… replaceable.
Mission Issued:
Judge two souls.
I swallowed.
Judge.?
I hadn't even been able to save one life.
Special Attribute Acquired.
The space before me distorted.
Something appeared—
not a weapon a shape I couldn't fully recognize.
A fragment.
Jagged.
Incomplete.
Yet the moment I looked at it, my chest tightened.
Attribute: A Fragment of the Sword.
Forged from the darkness and flames of Hell,
and the shining light of the Beacon in Heaven.
The fragment hummed softly—
not with power, but with pressure.
Like it was watching me.
"The holy beacon…?"
A bitter laugh escaped my lips.
"I guess my parents were right after all."
They prayed to everything.
Even this.
The fragment didn't grow.
Didn't sharpen.
It just… floated there.
Useless.
My fingers trembled.
Preparation Phase Initiated.
Ready Up.
The ground beneath me shifted violently.
You will face the physical manifestation of the soul's ideology,
mental state, memories, and beliefs—merged as one.
My breath hitched.
"Wait…"
The air began to scream.
Shapes twisted in the distance—
shadows crawling over one another, forming something wrong.
"…You've got to be kidding me."
I looked at the fragment again.
Still broken.
Still incomplete.
"I can't fight with this.."
My voice cracked.
The shadows moved closer.
And for the first time since I died—
I was truly afraid..