He fell silent. His heart pounded violently, yet his body remained frozen—unresponsive to his desperate urge to flee.
The thick fog began to retreat, revealing three horrifying figures. Their bodies were emaciated, their eyes blazing with an intense emerald light that cut through the darkness.
Terror gripped him like icy claws. He felt like a helpless rabbit caught in a tiger's gaze.
A tremor raced down his right leg, but it faltered halfway, his knee stiffening, as if locked in place by an invisible force.
Fear devoured him, crawling up his spine, making his muscles twitch involuntarily as one of the Hollow Leapers tilted its head ever so slightly, its cold, predatory gaze fixing on him.
"Am I… going to die again?"
The three Hollow Leapers slowly turned toward him, their eyes now glowing with a pale, unnatural white.
"I-I don't want to die…"
He had to move—had to escape. But how?
His body refused to respond.
Then, their eyes locked onto him.
The Hollow Leapers began walking toward him—slow, measured steps that sent chills down his spine.
They weren't teleporting.
That alone was strange. Hollow Leapers were known to vanish and reappear in an instant, warping space like ghosts.
But this time… no. Was this change tied to the story's alteration?
He didn't know.
What mattered most was moving. Surviving.
The Leapers stood before him now, towering shadows of death.
His fear intensified. Death breathed coldly down his neck.
One of them raised its hand.
Hastora felt the presence of death itself in that raised hand—heavy, suffocating, absolute.
Boom!
The creature's hand smashed into the ground, shattering the surface. Debris exploded in all directions like shrapnel.
The impact thundered through the air. Hastora was thrown back violently—his leg snapped with a grotesque crunch, and blood burst from his lips. Crimson stained the broken earth.
"Damn…" he groaned, pain wracking his body.
"Am I… really just a weakling? Always failing…?"
His mind flooded with memories—his mother's laughter, his little sister's smile. Fleeting fragments now on the verge of vanishing forever.
Even for a moment, they were the most beautiful things he could remember.
Slowly, consciousness slipped from his grasp. Blood welled from his mouth as darkness claimed him.
Ding!
[Second Death]
[Separating character's soul from body…]
[Process complete]
[Transferring soul to anomaly dimension: "Nihility Collapse"]
---
"Ugh… it hurts… So this is what it feels like… dying a second time…"
Hastora groaned as he regained consciousness, clutching his head.
His eyes snapped open.
He stood, dazed, and looked around.
"What… is this place…?"
There was no sky. No ground. Only a vast void cloaked in absolute blackness, streaked with swirling purples that resembled cosmic wounds.
Cracks in reality floated midair like shattered glass, reflecting fragmented scenes of pasts, futures, and impossibilities.
"I don't remember writing this place… Did it appear because of the story's alteration?"
Gravity itself defied logic—bodies drifted, then plummeted at random, as if the dimension thrived on chaos.
The silence wasn't just quiet—it was alive, pressing on his consciousness, whispering thoughts he wished to forget.
"Why am I falling? What is this…?"
Hastora spiraled, pulled in conflicting directions—until a figure appeared and stopped him.
"You need Nihility Adaptation to move freely here."
A voice.
A woman with flowing blue hair and piercing sapphire eyes drifted toward him.
"Huh? A… woman?"
He stared. She moved effortlessly, gliding through the void as if it were water.
She wore a white, gold-trimmed imperial gown. Her pale skin shimmered like polished ivory.
"How did you get here?" she asked, curious.
"I should be asking you that."
"What?! I should be the one asking you, strange man!" she snapped, pointing at him.
Hastora narrowed his eyes, floating silently.
His impression of her soured quickly.
'What's wrong with this woman? Is she mentally unstable? She seems likea fool…'
But that didn't matter. What mattered was understanding where he was.
He looked around again, scanning the void.
Only one thing was certain: this was no ordinary place.
He turned back to her. "Where are we?"
"This is the Nihility Collapse dimension," she replied. "An anomaly outside all known laws. Not a world, not even part of reality. It's an existential failure—where time, space, energy, and meaning themselves disintegrate."
"I thought so. Then, why are you here?"
"My name is Elyshara Vanthelis," she said. "I ended up here because of the Dimensional Gate Catastrophe."
Hastora's eyes widened. "Dimensional Gate… Catastrophe?"
"Yes. It happened 5,000 years ago. Dimensional gates began appearing randomly across the world.
"From those gates, monsters emerged. They attacked humans without reason, killing countless people.
"I was defending my kingdom at the time. Demons appeared alongside the monsters.
"I was overwhelmed briefly—but I destroyed them using existence-erasing magic."
Elyshara lowered her head.
"But then… a strange gate appeared behind me. Before I could react, I was pulled in.
"When I opened my eyes, I was here. I don't know how to leave. I've been trapped for 5,000 years."
'Isee', Hastora thought.
Another change. The Dimensional Gate Catastrophe—he never wrote that into the original story.
It must've been caused by the story's alteration.
And if it happened once… it could happen again.
Troublesome.
He needed to understand this world better. But there was a problem.
How could he do that when he was already dead?
As he fell silent, Elyshara tilted her head, curious.
"Now that I think about it—why are you here?" she asked.
"I'm dead," Hastora said plainly. "I was killed by three Hollow Leapers. Then, I woke up here."
"I see… Well, at least I have someone to talk to now. I'm not alone anymore!" she said cheerfully, twirling in midair.
'Understandable', he thought. She'd been alone for five millennia.
But to him, she was just… an obstacle.
"I need to get out of here," he said coldly.
Her smile vanished. "W-What? You're… leaving me? Alone again?"
"Of course. There's no reason for me to stay."
"B-But… don't you care about me? I've talked to shadows for thousands of years… And now you show up, only to walk away?"
"Not at all. You're nobody. Why should I?"
Elyshara bowed her head. Tears formed.
"I-I see… You're right. I'm… nobody."
She began to cry.
Hastora frowned slightly.
"Why is she crying? How strange."
He waited in silence, but five minutes passed—and she kept sobbing.
"Tch. I can't focus with her like this."
There was no choice.
If he wanted answers, he had to deal with her.
He floated toward her and wrapped her in a tight hug.
"Don't cry. If you tell me how to get out of here, I'll take you with me."
Elyshara sniffled, wiping her eyes.
"A-Actually… I don't know how to leave either. If I did, I would've left long ago."
"…Huh?"
Was this really his fate now? To be stranded with a woman who cried too much?
To be continued in the next chapter…