Aeren and the Cosmic Being stared at one another. For the first time in countless lifetimes, Aeren stood face-to-face with something that had lived beyond the Universe—or at the very least, something that had seen beyond it.
He desperately wanted to hear a word from such a being. To know what lay outside existence. To know what waited beyond the cosmic walls he could never break. To know what he had chased his entire life.
But Aeren already knew the truth: Even if he asked…the Cosmic Being would not answer. Or worse—it would manipulate him.
And if Aeren died here…if this mortal body finally collapsed—he would find cosmic consciousness and reach beyond existence. Even if the Cosmic Being entered Pause, Aeren would reach him and find him.
Pause was not a place—it was a bind. A chokehold made of pure endless meaninglessness where everything stops. No life, no death, no existence—not even cosmic beings—could escape it.
Aeren had touched it once. Barely. And spent billions—trillions—of years trapped in its silence. Where being and unbeing mixed. Where even existence became as meaningless as dust on a dead planet. He had escaped only by tearing apart the laws that held him.
Now, facing the Cosmic Being again, Aeren felt the weight of that memory. The cosmic entity—wearing Samarth's body—stared back with no expression, no emotion, no breath. Just an infinite, empty awareness.
It slowly raised its right hand to a perfect ninety-degree angle—pointed directly at Aeren—its face still a blank void. And then it spoke. "Aeren, my beloved child… why are you killing all my beloved children of this planet?" The words echoed across the atmosphere—across the continents—across the souls of every living being.
The voice didn't just vibrate through air. It resonated through existence. Everyone heard it. Every kingdom. Every creature. Every mind. The entire world went silent, stunned beyond disbelief. Even Olivia—watching from miles away—froze as the voice poured directly into her thoughts.
Her eyes widened. Her breath caught. Her entire body trembled uncontrollably. This was not sound. This was authority, spoken by something beyond Reality Illusion.
Aeren heard the voice echo directly into his mind. Even he flinched—just slightly—at being called beloved child. But he wasn't surprised.
His expression didn't change, his posture didn't shift, and no fear showed in his body. He simply processed the words carefully, dissecting their meaning. He had erased existences before—entire universes, entire systems—but those had been hollow.
Empty. Without consciousness. This one… had consciousness. And yet Aeren saw no difference between this cosmic being and the useless existences he had erased before.
Its presence did not dominate him. Its voice did not bend his will. Its authority did not affect him enough to control even his mortal body. He lifted his remaining hand slightly, his voice calm and brutally honest.
"Hmm… I want to see beyond you." His words broke the silence between them, cutting through the tension like a blade. The Cosmic Being showed no reaction—not even a flicker. It remained perfectly expressionless, perfectly still.
Then it spoke, but not to the world this time. Only to Aeren. Its voice echoed inside Aeren's mind like a private telepathy:
"You won't reach beyond Existence. You are just a mortal."
It lowered its hand slowly, as if disappointed—though no expression ever formed on its face. Then, aloud—its voice again resonating across reality—it questioned:
"And what is the connection between killing the beloved children of this planet…and your desire to see beyond me?"
Aeren stared at him without blinking. He knew these words came from something that called itself Existence, something that believed itself superior. But to him, it was still weak.
Still limited. Still without meaning. So he answered with the same cold clarity:
"That is the reason I'm doing all of this. There is no other answer." The Cosmic Being stared at Aeren. Expressionless. Unmoving. Unchanged.
Aeren's answer—simple, absolute, and terrifying—had no visible effect on him at all. The silence that followed was heavy enough to drown the air itself. Aeren and the Cosmic Being stood facing each other like two laws of reality confronting one another, neither bending.
The Cosmic Being still couldn't understand the connection between Aeren's slaughter and his desire to see beyond Existence—but he did not think Aeren was lying.
His voice resonated gently, almost politely:
"You will gain nothing from this. You will never reach outside Existence—not even if you annihilate every being around you. So listen to my advice. Stop pursuing something that cannot be touched. Do not kill your own kind for a lie."
His tone shifted. Cold. Sharp. Threatening.
"Or I will take action…and erase you from this Existence."
The air trembled at the words. But Aeren didn't react. No fear. No hesitation. No emotion. He heard the threat. He processed every word. And then he dismissed it.
Aeren's mind analyzed the implications carefully—and he knew the Cosmic Being's declaration was empty for him. His name—Aeren—had already resonated across the world.
Every being had heard it. Every consciousness had registered it. Every corner of the galaxy now held the imprint of his existence.
And Aeren had understood Nothingness: A name of Aeren reaches to nothingness, and his name resounded cannot be erased.
Even if memories are wiped—even if minds collapse—his name would echo in the gaps between forgetting. Aeren would remain. He could not be erased.
Not by the Cosmic Being. Not by existence. Not by anything.
So Aeren simply stared back at the cosmic entity, unmoved by its threat, already thinking about the real question he wanted to ask. Aeren looked at the Cosmic Being… and then slowly turned his gaze around the hall.
What he saw was emptiness. Broken walls. Blood stains. Ruined floors. A shattered auction house filled with nothing but the remnants of a meaningless struggle.
Nothing in this place made him want to remain in this prison called life. Nothing in this loop of existence—this cycle he had lived for years, worlds, and universes—offered him anything different.
Anything new. Anything beyond the circle. Magic. Mana. Technology. Civilizations. Knowledge. People. All of it was the same.
Aeren found nothing in this world that could carry him beyond the loop he had been trapped in for lifetimes.
Attachment? A lie. The desire to be noticed—to be loved, to be hated—was all an illusion the mind used to trick itself into enduring the endless cycle.
In truth, no one wanted to be alone. Everyone wanted to be remembered. Everyone feared being forgotten. But all of it was only a loop. A loop to give relief. A temporary comfort to justify living.
Relief.
That was all mortals ever truly sought. But was relief real? Or simply another illusion to distract from emptiness? Aeren's voice broke the silence as he returned his gaze to the Cosmic Being.
"Is the outside… truly beyond you?"
He expected nothing. He expected silence. Manipulation. Or refusal. A being like this would never give him truth. But then—To his surprise—the Cosmic Being answered.
Its voice was calm. Infinite. Emotionless.
"Yes. There is an outside."
The words struck Aeren deeper than any attack could. For the first time in a long, long time—He felt something.