While the situation in Drisidd was taking a turn no one could have predicted, somewhere within a void in the middle of nowhere, Alex's eyes snapped open.
The first thing that caught his attention was the complete lack of light. Everything around him was black, and it wasn't the sort of darkness where, after a while, you could still make out silhouettes. No. It was the kind of darkness where you couldn't even see your own finger if you held it right in front of your eyes.
The second thing that caught his attention was that he seemed to be floating in this endless darkness. Or was he? He honestly couldn't tell. It was as if he had completely lost all sense of proprioception.
'Am I dead?' he couldn't help but wonder.
When he was still on Earth, he knew there were many people who didn't believe in God or in life after death. To them, after death, there was nothing. Just the void.
So, finding himself here, he couldn't help but think that maybe this was it.
However, after a moment passed, he shook his head, or at least he thought he did. He couldn't be sure if he had actually moved, or even if he still had a head to begin with.
All he knew was that he had died before... Actually, no. Scratch that. He had died twice if you counted both the deaths of the previous Alex and Jack.
But back then, death wasn't... or rather, it didn't feel like this. Granted, some might argue that what he had experienced wasn't true death.
In fact, no. He had indeed died twice, but he doubted that what he experienced afterward was the true afterlife. After all, he couldn't imagine that two beings from vastly different worlds meeting and fusing together was part of the afterlife package... Though, who knows? Maybe it was.
Either way, as he floated, or stood, or whatever state he was in, inside the vast nothingness all around him, Alex had nothing to do. He was left alone with his thoughts, which naturally drifted to the events that had led him to his current situation.
As he thought of what had happened, an unbridled anger and disgust rose within him to the point that if he could feel his body, he knew that he would be shaking all over right now.
However, contrary to what one might think, he wasn't angry at his opponents. He was angry at himself.
At the end of the day, his enemies were just that: enemies. They sought to destroy him while he sought to do the same.
Granted, his opponents this time were massive, detestable assholes who didn't shy away from wiping out an entire population if it meant getting what they wanted.
Nonetheless, what they had done before the battle or their morality had nothing to do with Alex's current situation.
If he was here, it was mostly his fault. It was the consequence of his own unwarranted arrogance.
He had been so full of himself that he thought that whatever his enemies tried against him, they would fail. And for a good while, that had been true. Despite their increasing numbers and power, he had still managed to stay on top.
However, in the end, here he was in this vast nothingness while his enemies were God knows where.
No matter how much he thought about it, he had fucked up. It was to the point that he was ashamed of himself. He had failed everyone, and the reason for that wasn't even that he wasn't stronger than his opponents. He was stronger than them. That's not even debatable.
The reason he lost wasn't even due to his enemies. It was his own fault.
He had been too arrogant, thinking that he could have taken them out while not giving his all. He had wanted to keep his aces hidden.
The thing is, having an ace hidden wasn't even that bad. What was outrageous was his timing of when to use it and when not to. Had he decided to take out his longsword from the start, the fight would have ended before his opponents knew what had hit them. Instead, he had dragged the battle on, and even when he finally summoned it, instead of just getting rid of them, he had lingered, giving the werewolf enough time to unleash his attack that brought him here.
In the end, Alex could only sigh.
'It's not even the arrogance that's the problem, but the lack of power to back it up,' he thought to himself.
If he had an ace or the power to thwart whatever plan the werewolf had, would it even be called arrogance?
'Never again,' he thought resolutely, but the next instant he chuckled. 'If I get the chance, that is.'
His body was still floating in this vast nothingness, and it seemed that nothing would change, so in the end, he was left alone with his thoughts.
Since he had nothing to do, Alex stopped blaming himself and began thinking back on the fight, where he had fucked up from start to finish, and what he could have done better.
Time passed, not that Alex had any clue about the passage of time, as it seemed as if time itself had been suspended in this place, and after a while, Alex's thoughts drifted toward other things, mostly related to combat or his manipulation of the smoke element.
He didn't know if the techniques he was thinking about could ever be applied, as he didn't know his current condition, but he thought about them anyway.
After an incalculable amount of time had passed, something happened that immediately caught his attention.
Far away from him, Alex spotted the sudden emergence of a light. The light was small and feeble, but in this godforsaken dark dimension, there was no way Alex would miss it.
As he wondered what that point of light was and whether he could somehow approach it, everything suddenly accelerated. Other points of light appeared throughout the dark dimension, and in the blink of an eye, they had become so numerous that the darkness was completely driven away, allowing Alex to confirm that his body had indeed been drifting through the endless void all along.
He still couldn't move his body though.
However, Alex felt there was no need for him to try to move or do anything. Not that he could anyway. He was certain things would unfold as they were meant to, with or without his intervention.
And he was right to think so.
The small dots of light kept appearing out of nowhere until their radiance completely chased away the surrounding darkness.
Then, all of a sudden, they all converged toward Alex.
They moved so fast that he couldn't keep track of them. One moment he was staring at an incalculable number of lights rushing toward him, the next, he found that his surroundings had once again changed.
Everything happened so quickly that saying it took the blink of an eye would have been a gross understatement.
"Argh..." Alex grunted as a sudden wave of vertigo, followed by an intense headache, assaulted him.
His vision blurred, his breathing hitched, and he began to hyperventilate, cold sweat covering his entire body.
Despite his best efforts, he couldn't stop himself from throwing up everything he had eaten that day, and then some.
After what felt like an eternity, and an extremely unpleasant ordeal, Alex finally managed to compose himself and glanced at his surroundings.
"Huh?"
He didn't know what to expect after spending who knew how long trapped in that endless void, but it certainly wasn't the sight that greeted him.
Vast and green.
Those were the only words he could think of to describe his surroundings.
As far as the eye could see, the only thing visible was an endless sea of lush green grass stretching in every direction.
No matter where he looked, all he could see was a seemingly boundless field of vibrant grass extending for hundreds of meters.
'Hundreds of meters?' Alex suddenly froze.
He could usually see for kilometers, so how come his vision was suddenly limited to such a short distance?
It was only then that Alex turned his attention to himself, and what he discovered made him pause.
First of all, as he looked down, he realized that he was no longer wearing his smoke mantle or the clothes beneath it. Instead, he was dressed in a plain, sleeveless dark tunic that reached his knees, tied at the waist by a simple cloth belt. Loose linen trousers covered his legs, while a pair of worn leather boots completed the outfit. There wasn't a single ornament or distinguishing feature on his attire.
However, this was by far the least noteworthy change.
The most shocking one was internal.
The moment Alex examined himself, he immediately realized that he had become much weaker, and not by a small margin.
'I have regressed to level 1... What the heck?!' he thought, shock written all over his face.
Worse, he didn't even seem to be a strong level 1. Instead, he was at the very bottom of the barrel, only slightly stronger than an average human. Heck, plenty of ordinary people were probably stronger than him.
The changes didn't just affect his level. Even his physical strength had dropped to match it, meaning he was actually weaker than even the previous Alex had been.
"What the hell is this place... and what the hell is going on?!" Alex couldn't help but shout out loud.
As if in answer to his questions, a series of system notifications appeared before his eyes, each one more shocking than the last.
[Unknown Dimension Detected]
[Wadata connection lost]
[Current Location: Unknown Dimension]
[Dimension's flow of time and space differs from Wadata]
[The Dimension's laws are suppressing you]
[Level has been forcibly reset to 1]
[All abilities have been sealed temporarily]
[All stats have dropped to the minimum value: 10]