Chapter 3: The begining after then end (3)
Their conversation continued in that strange, star-lit void. Rimon shared everything he could. secrets, survival tactics, names, warnings. A lifetime of wisdom compressed into fleeting moments. But soon, Nafees's breath grew heavy, labored.
Rimon paused, his expression softening.
"…It seems our time is up," he said quietly. "I wish you nothing but the best."
"…"
"You'll arrive after my era ends. Oh...and in that world, I'm known as Julius von legolant."
As the moment of parting drew near, Nafees's lips trembled, and his voice broke with sorrow.
"I'm sorry big brother… for being such a burden to you. You're the only family I have… or maybe I don't anymore. Sob… sob… After this moment, I'll be alone....Please… forgive this foolish younger brother."
Hearing those words, Rimon's eyes brimmed with tears. Without hesitation, he stepped forward and wrapped Nafees in a final, trembling embrace. one heavy with sorrow, love, and everything they never had the time to say.
"I've seen the path you'll walk… I know how cruel it is. If I had the power to rewrite fate, to give us a happy ending, I would've done it without hesitation."
As he spoke those words, Rimon finally broke down, unable to hold back his tears.
After a long silence, Rimon suddenly stepped back, his face unreadable. calm, yet heavy with something unspoken.
Then, without warning, he reached forward and thrust his hand into Nafees's chest.
THUMP!
Nafees looked down, dazed. expecting pain, expecting blood. But there was none. His chest remained untouched. No wound. No scar. And yet... something was there.
His big brother Rimon's hand.
Still pressed deep inside his chest, not harshly or forcefully, but as if it belonged there, like a key fitting into a long-forgotten lock.
Then, something began.
A soft, radiant light bloomed where Rimon's fingers touched. A line appeared, not tearing the skin but unraveling the very fabric of reality.
Nafees gasped.
His ribs seemed to open gently, not with pain but with awe. From inside him, a universe began to unfold.
Galaxies spiraled silently. Stars flickered softly, their light warm against his skin. Nebulae spread like breath—colors and movements beyond his understanding. The air around him pulsed with an ancient rhythm, every beat of his heart echoing through this new cosmos.
He was frozen, not wanting to move.
His eyes trembled as they reflected the starlight.
"I… what is this?" he whispered, voice breaking under the weight of it all.
Meanwhile With Rimon's hand still resting in his chest, a soft light emerged from within. It flowed gently into Nafees's left hand, swirling and wrapping around his wrist.
A soft, ethereal hum blossomed as the light curled around his wrist, like the whisper of ancient magic awakening, delicate yet powerful.
The light formed a delicate bracelet-like band that felt warm, like a living tattoo etched onto his skin.
"You can use that as a sub-space. " Rimon said gently, "Store items inside it. And I left you a companion… he is the strongest species ."
As those words echoed in Nafees's ears, the ground beneath him gave way.
Reality fractured.
The mirror-like surface beneath their feet shattered with a sound like breaking glass across the void.
Then, Rimon slowly withdrew his hand from Nafees's chest.
The moment his touch was gone
Nafees began to fall.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
His scream stretched into the darkness as gravity lost all meaning. plummeting through nothingness...as if the sky itself had cracked open and dropped him into the void of space.
Above him, Rimon grew smaller and smaller, until he was just a glowing silhouette watching from afar.
"Goodbye, my brother…
Heir to the Forgotten Deity.."
Silence swallowed the last word. Yet even as Nafees vanished within darkness, Rimon did not look away.
His gaze darkened, lips tightening as something stirred within him. A memory.
He remembered the enemy. The one Nafees would one day face.
It wasn't just powerful.it was something far worse.
The being who saw all possible futures. It wasn't just foresight. No, its power twisted fate itself.
Even if you resisted, even if you carved your own path, all you were doing was choosing one of the futures it had already seen. Defiance was an illusion. Struggle, a selection. To fight it was to dance in a cage of infinite threads, no matter which way you turned, the ending was already waiting.
As the weight of this truth pressed down, Rimon's form began to waver.
First, his edges blurred. like smoke caught in a rising wind.
Then, piece by piece, his body dissolved into shimmering fragments of light, drifting apart like stars torn from the night sky.
His presence grew fainter with every heartbeat, fading from the world he fought so hard to protect.
But even as he vanished, his voice echoed softly in the emptiness. a promise, a prayer, a final wish.
"Wherever the path takes you, little brother… may you find the strength to overcome what I could not."
And then, he was gone.
* * *
After what felt like an eternity of falling through the void, Nafees suddenly felt a chill run down his spine. Goosebumps spread across his skin like wildfire.
Then he saw it.
A colossal swirl of darkness in the distance.vast, endless, and pulsing with an otherworldly force.
A black hole.
It loomed in the abyss like a god of gravity, its center pitch black, devouring all light, all reason, all hope. Around it, a brilliant accretion disk spiraled in blinding rings.glowing with blue and gold hues, twisting time and space like a burning halo. Stars bent unnaturally near its edge, as if reality itself was cracking under its presence.
Nafees's breath caught in his throat.not that he needed air anymore. Fear. Awe. Wonder. All collided in his chest. The black hole didn't just sit there.it pulled. It called. Every cell in his body felt it, like invisible threads were dragging him forward. Faster. Closer.
The further he fell, the more everything warped. Light stretched and snapped. The stars behind him elongated into streaks. The silence screamed in his ears. His thoughts became fragmented.memories flickered like dying lanterns, emotions looped in strange echoes.
He didn't know.
Time slowed, then sped up, then stopped altogether. He wasn't sure if seconds passed, or hours. The black hole filled his vision now.no up, no down, just the crushing inevitability of its pull.
And in that final moment before the plunge, as the edge of the event horizon yawned open to swallow him whole...
Nafees whispered to himself.
"…So this is the end of everything… or the beginning.my journey. The begining after then end"
Then
Everything went black.