The moment my consciousness faded, descending into what should have been a well-earned, impenetrable slumber... I opened my eyes.
I was not in the warm, temperature-controlled bed. Nor was I in the luxurious, heavily fortified penthouse that I had spent a small fortune to secure in the upper echelons of Zirathion's underground rings. The hum of the advanced mana-generators, the soft texture of the imported silk sheets, the absolute certainty of my safety—all of it was gone, wiped away as if it had never existed.
I was in a black place.
It was not merely a dark room or a night sky devoid of stars. It was a place that fundamentally broke the physical laws of vision and space. An absolute, suffocating void, with no floor to anchor gravity, no ceiling to cap the emptiness, and no walls to define boundaries. It was just an infinite, conceptual darkness that seemed to actively devour light, sound, and the very essence of the human soul.
