In a world where there was nothing, absolutely nothing, no light, no sound, nothing at all, just pure darkness that stretched infinitely in all directions, Crystal existed.
If she were to explain where she was, if she still possessed the capacity for coherent thought and explanation, it was like she was at the bottom of an ocean. But not just resting at the bottom. She was also sinking deeper and deeper into that ocean, falling through layers that shouldn't exist, descending through a space that had no concept of up or down.
It couldn't be explained properly, not with words or concepts from the living world. But that was what it felt like for her in this expanse of absolute nothingness. Just darkness pressing in from all sides, a void so complete it seemed to erase the very idea of existence.
Crystal could feel herself letting go of everything.
It started slowly, almost imperceptibly. Her memories began to fade, slipping away like water through cupped hands. First went the recent ones, the collapse of the blood world, the statues, the vortex swallowing everything. Then older memories started to dissolve. The courtyard fight. Noah's betrayal. Her time as queen.
She was like a pill that had been dropped into the ocean, slowly dissolving, her substance bleeding out into the surrounding void until there would be nothing left. She could feel it happening, could sense each piece of herself that vanished into the darkness.
But then something worse began.
Her mind itself started to slip away.
It continued happening for a while, this gradual erosion of thought and consciousness. The questions she could formulate became simpler, more basic, as if her mental capacity was regressing.
Where am I? That question formed in whatever passed for her consciousness in this place.
What is happening?
Who is there?
The questions simplified further as time passed, or what she thought of as time in a place where time might not exist at all.
Where am I?
Then even simpler, more fundamental.
Her thoughts began to follow the same pattern of dissolution as her memories. It was like thinking was becoming very hard, each mental process requiring immense effort. Her mind was being molded, reshaped, broken down into constituent parts that scattered into the void.
She couldn't explain it. Couldn't understand it. Could barely even perceive it anymore.
The questions turned inward, becoming more existential, more desperate.
Who am I?
What am I?
As she floated in that absolute nothingness, Crystal could feel her very being dissolving. Not just her memories or thoughts, but the fundamental essence of what made her herself. Her soul, if such a thing existed, was being broken apart piece by piece and scattered into the void.
After a while, she stopped feeling the sensation of being a soul at all.
It was like the concept of self had become foreign, alien. She could sense something that felt like it might be hers, some remnant of identity, but it was distant now. Separate. Not connected to whatever she currently was.
The question had changed again, becoming even more abstract.
What is reality?
Days might have turned to weeks, though there was no way to measure such things here. Crystal could not tell. Time was meaningless in the void. She was sleeping away, consciousness fading like a candle flame guttering in wind.
She was forgetting what she was. Not just who she was, but what. The concept of being human was slipping away, becoming vague and uncertain. Was she human? Had she ever been? What did human even mean?
It was like she was becoming one with the void itself, merging with the nothingness. Her mind, soul, and will were being broken down completely, assimilated into this world of absolute emptiness where nothing existed and nothing had meaning.
Then something appeared.
A green screen materialized in front of her, or what remained of her. It hovered in the darkness, providing the first source of light she'd experienced since arriving in this place.
Text was displayed on the screen, and for some reason she could not explain, she understood it. The words made sense when nothing else did, cutting through the fog that had settled over her consciousness.
She tried to read it, marshaling whatever mental capacity remained.
[Error: Time and Space Limbo detected. Host exposure critical.]
[Reabsorbing host back to system.]
As Crystal continued to read, something miraculous happened. She started to remember.
The screen was like an anchor, something solid in the void, something that proved reality existed beyond this endless darkness. Looking at it, focusing on the words, brought fragments of her identity back.
She remembered who she was.
No, she thought with sudden fierce determination. She willed the thought into existence, forcing it to be real and solid against the crushing void.
I am not nothing. I am something.
The declaration felt powerful, important, like grasping a lifeline thrown into drowning waters.
I am Crystal Aserra of the Asura Clan.
More memories flooded back, called forth by speaking her own name even if only in her mind.
The General of Death herself. Queen of Asterion.
Each title, each piece of identity, felt like armor against the void's assault on her existence.
I am not nothing. I am something.
She repeated it like a mantra, using every shred of strength she possessed to will herself back into existence. To resist the dissolution, to fight against being absorbed into the emptiness.
As she did this, the screen showed new text:
[Helping host will to recreate soul structure.]
A loading bar appeared beneath the text, and it began to fill. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, the percentage crept upward.
After what felt like hours or days or seconds time had no meaning here the green screen suddenly turned red. The color shift was jarring, alarming.
[Error! Error!]
[Host location has been discovered in Limbo.]
[Beginning countermeasures.]
New text appeared rapidly:
[Sending host back to past self body: 1%… 5%… 8%…]
The bar reached 20%. Then 35%. Crystal watched it climb, hope blooming in whatever remained of her heart.
Then it stopped.
The progress bar froze at 35%, and another error message appeared:
[Unable to send host soul to past body.]
Crystal looked at this message, her newly reformed will faltering. She was still forcing herself to exist, still mentally shouting her identity into the void to prevent complete dissolution. But she was exhausted, whatever energy sustained consciousness in this place running dangerously low.
The system continued showing text after text, messages scrolling past faster than she could fully process. Still, she understood them on some fundamental level, and she just hoped desperately that the system would help her.
Because she was lost. Completely, utterly lost in a way that went beyond physical location.
She had not thought death would feel like this. What even was death? Was it supposed to be felt, experienced? She didn't know anymore.
But she had experienced something, and it was torturing. Like hell itself, though even her hell had collapsed, swallowed by the vortex along with everything else.
After a while, she looked at the system screen again. New text had appeared, and this time it felt different. More direct. As if the system was actually talking to her rather than just displaying diagnostic information.
[Host: Full soul transfer has been unsuccessful due to lack of available energy and unknown entities attempting to enter Time and Space Limbo.]
Crystal read the words carefully, trying to understand their implications through the fog still clouding her thoughts.
[The system will initiate a complete shutdown to increase chances of host survival.]
A complete shutdown? What did that mean? Would she be left alone in the void without even the screen as an anchor?
Before she could fully process this, something changed in the darkness around her.
A vortex appeared in front of her, materializing out of nothing just as the screen had. It spun slowly at first, then faster, creating a spiraling tunnel of distorted space that seemed to lead somewhere else.
Crystal felt herself being pulled toward it, drawn by forces she couldn't resist even if she'd wanted to.
As she began to move toward the vortex, as she was about to enter it and be transported to wherever it led, a new prompt appeared on the system screen.
The text was different this time, formatted differently, as if this was important information she needed to see and remember.
[To reactivate the system after waking, please try to complete these missions:]
[Mission Prompt:]
1. Die: Completed
2. Create a Soul Sea: Incomplete
3. Find a Soul Mate: Incomplete
Crystal looked at the words on the screen, and shock ran through her like lightning. Her expression changed again this was the second time since entering this void that she'd managed an actual facial expression, the second time she'd felt something strongly enough to register physically.
What? She thought, the word echoing in her mind.
Die? Create a soul sea? Find a soul mate?
But before she could hold onto that thought, before she could process what any of it meant, another section of text appeared below the missions.
[Time Limit: 30 days]
[Reward: You will live]
[Failure: You will die]
Crystal stared at these words, her reformed consciousness struggling to comprehend their meaning. Thirty days. She had thirty days to complete two impossible tasks, or she would die.
But she was already dead, wasn't she? She'd died in that courtyard, killed by Noah. So what did it mean to die again? Was this a second death, a final ending beyond which there was nothing at all?
The vortex pulled at her more strongly now, and she could feel herself being drawn into it completely. The system screen was fading, growing dimmer as the shutdown it had mentioned began to take effect.
Crystal tried to memorize the missions, burning them into whatever remained of her consciousness so she wouldn't forget when she woke up.
If she woke up.
Create a soul sea. Find a soul mate. Thirty days.
The vortex swallowed her entirely, and everything went black.
Even darker than the void she'd been floating in, if such a thing was possible. A blackness so complete it erased thought itself.
Crystal's consciousness, what little remained of it after the ordeal in the void, slipped away into that absolute darkness.
Her last coherent thought, before everything stopped, was a simple desperate plea:
Please let me wake up.
Then nothing.