Olivia remained on the floor for a long moment. She had been crawling before—broken, bleeding, moments from death. But after reviving, after the suffocating pressure of fear finally vanished from the hall, she exhaled shakily, as if taking her first breath in hours.
Relief washed through her body, warm and almost unreal. She lifted her trembling hands and closed her eyes, letting her mana circulate through every corner of her body—her limbs, her organs, her core—searching for anything wrong.
Any injury. Any tear. Any lingering effect of the crushing gravity that had nearly killed her. She stayed like that for half a minute.
Nothing. No pain. No damaged organs. No broken bones. No internal bleeding.
She breathed deeply and pressed a hand against her chest. Her heartbeat was normal again—calm, steady… comfortable.
Too comfortable. A strange chill crawled up her spine. "I… I'm feeling too comfortable," she whispered, voice trembling. "Did I die… and not realize it?" It was the only explanation that came to her.
A moment ago, she had been crushed, suffocated by a weight so terrifying she couldn't even speak. And now that pressure was gone completely. She hadn't even dared turn around—too afraid to look at Aeren, too afraid to face whatever was happening behind her. Her eyes widened as she swallowed shakily.
She didn't even remember the exact moment she lost consciousness. Her breath caught. "…Am I dead?" she murmured numbly. But then— She opened her eyes fully and checked herself again. She touched her arms, her waist, her legs, her face—the physical sensation grounding her.
Everything responded. Everything felt real. Her fingers trembled as she ran her hand across her skin. And then, somehow, she smiled.
"...Nah," she whispered, almost laughing at the absurdity of it. "I'm alive." She finally realized it. And the shock of that realization left her frozen, breathless, and wide-eyed.
"If I'm alive… and well," Olivia thought, placing a trembling hand over her lips. Slowly—hesitantly—she turned her body to assess the situation behind her. Aeren was still standing.
Alive. Bleeding. His left arm stained with dry, dark blood… but undeniably alive. Across from him stood Samarth. He looked perfectly fine—physically unhurt—yet he had been begging for his life before, and now looked too well. A bizarre contradiction that made Olivia's expression tighten. Her eyes drifted further across the ruined hall, and she noticed five unconscious figures on the ground. Among them—her sister, Emily.
Olivia's breath hitched.
Nil had died before she even realized what was happening…but Emily wasn't dead. She was breathing. "Then who healed her…?" Olivia wondered. No answer formed in her mind. Her gaze shifted back to Aeren and Samarth automatically, as if drawn by gravity.
Strangely, she wasn't scrambling away this time. She had stopped fleeing like before. "Samarth looks… different," she muttered under her breath. Something about him felt off—as if the man standing there wasn't the same person who had been screaming moments ago.
She squinted at him. "Hmm… what does 'different'…?" She tapped her finger against her lips thoughtfully. "Ah—his eye changed." She leaned forward, narrowing her gaze, trying desperately to catch the details. But Samarth's face was too far, too unclear.
She couldn't make out what exactly was wrong—or what exactly had changed. Frustration tugged at her expression. "Tch… forget it," she muttered, giving up on deciphering the subtle shift in his eyes.
Instead, she instinctively took a few steps back. Then a few more. And then a few more. By the time she stopped retreating, she realised she was standing almost a few miles away, still watching the two figures from the safest distance she could manage.
She kept her eyes on them—on Aeren, dripping blood yet unyielding—and on Samarth, whose gaze no longer looked human at all.
***
A few miles away from Olivia…
Aeren's single eye stared into Samarth's new one—an eye that no longer belonged to a human. Galaxies spun within it. Stars flickered and died. A cosmic ocean churned behind the surface, infinite and cold.
Aeren watched it intently. And yet… what he wanted to see—the true form hidden beyond that cosmic veil—he still could not perceive.
No matter how hard he pushed his sight, no matter how deeply he tried to peer into that abyss, reality refused to open for him. To see what lay beyond… he would have to destroy the Heart of Loneliness inside him.
He would have to die.
Only through that death could he reach the place he sought. Only then could he step beyond Universe, Existence, and Uselessness. Aeren remained still, blood dripping from his shoulder, while memories of his long existence flickered through his mind—the countless achievements he once chased, the impossible goals he fulfilled, the heights he had reached. He had achieved everything he ever set out to do.
Every milestone. Every absurd dream. And now he was close—so close—to seeing past the Universe itself. Yet every time he reached a new peak, disappointment followed like a shadow.
He thought of it now:
A child walks all day to return home, excited to reach it—only to stand inside four walls and feel nothing but frustration.
To see the world. To understand everything. To find meaning. But reaching the end of the path only revealed a higher stairway—another wall to climb, another ceiling to break, another disappointment waiting.
That had always been Aeren's life.
Always ascending. Never arriving. And this moment, staring into the cosmic eye before him, was just another step on that endless staircase. Another reminder that even now, at the edge of the Universe, he still hadn't reached the place he truly sought.
***
When Aeren was a child, he had only one dream:
To cure death.
It consumed his early life. It swallowed every emotion, every piece of despair, every trace of humanity he had left. And in the end—he succeeded. He cured his own death.
But the moment he achieved it…he felt nothing. His triumph turned hollow instantly, like ashes dissolving in his hands. He realized he was still small—a speck in the Universe, a whisper in a Galaxy, a grain in countless Worlds. Even with immortality, he was imprisoned.
Trapped inside existence itself.
So he sought the next thing:
Freedom.
Freedom from the Universe. Freedom from the cosmic walls that confined him. Freedom from the chains that held all beings, from humans to gods. He wanted to escape that cosmic cage—and ensure no one else remained trapped in it.
It took time, but he achieved that too, because he met a few abysses in that silence that helped him achieve it: Silence Itself, Fear Abyss followed behind, Despair came later after silence, Time of abyss, and more…
He reached the state of freedom he'd longed for, stepped outside the boundaries of worlds, and beheld the Universe itself…
And yet—He felt nothing.
No joy. No relief. Just emptiness. An endless, cold emptiness. So he looked upon the worlds with those new eyes—the eyes of freedom—and what he saw made him pity them all.
Humans, bound by endless desires. Chained by instincts, by suffering, by illusions too small to resist. They were prisoners. Every one of them. So Aeren decided to give them peace.
Erasure.
And when he erased his first Universe—when he dissolved an entire existence—he believed he was freeing them. And he was tricked at that time, too.
Tricked by his beloved Loneliness—Quella.
She asked him to take her heart with him. A request so gentle he accepted without a second thought. He didn't know the cost.
Because of that heart—Quella's heart—Aeren reincarnated into a different world. A world where he spent years without his memories of freedom.
Years forgetting who he truly was. When he finally remembered—when the truth returned—he tried to break the Universe System again.
And his words alone were enough. Reality shattered. The system collapsed. His second Universe was destroyed. He ascended again. Reached a new level of freedom. But at that height, he saw the truth: Freedom was also an illusion. Just another layer of existence, another wall, another cage.
So he discarded it. He embraced Nothingness instead. A state beyond freedom. Beyond meaning. Beyond being. But that transformation was flawed—not because of him, but because of Quella's heart lodged inside his chest.
That heart still carried human desires. Still longed for worldly emotions. Still sought attachment. Because of that heart, Aeren accepted Nil's manipulation.
(Aeren had let her see the memory of the past she had not seen; she never doubted that Aeren was manipulating her)
Not because he trusted her—but because he couldn't remove Quella's heart. Aeren used Nil, as she is an alternate form of Quella—a substitute, a placeholder, a reminder.
But now…Now that Aeren stood on the edge of death—bleeding, broken, and facing the Cosmic Ocean—He finally understood.
When he truly dies here, when this mortal body collapses, and the heart stops beating…He will finally be free. Free from Quella's promise. Free from her heart. Free from the manipulations that shaped his reincarnation. Free from everything.
Because this—all of this—was Quella's doing. And only death could undo it.