Looking up was like watching a staircase stretching endlessly into the heavens. The mana above was so thick and dense it took shape, resembling a clear night sky threaded with beautiful northern lights.
"Woah... this is beautiful."
I whispered, admiring the game design. I knew that with Kido Gina as the visual artist team leader and Hayakawa Riko as the lighting specialist, together with so many other talented people, they would create stunning scenery.
"Man, they really outdid themselves this time."
I took my first step onto the endlessly long staircase. The old stone shimmered with an otherworldly fir, and the moment my foot touched it, magic swirled into the air—mist blooming outward as if it inhabited every star in the universe before fading again.
Then I stepped onto the next stair, and once more the mist burst beneath my feet, spreading the pure essence of magic into the air. It was so indescribably beautiful that I even forgot the sky above me, focusing only on the magic dancing with each step I took.
The background music was also out of this world—like a symphony of distant stars and slow, reverent chimes, each note stretching endlessly, as if the universe itself were breathing.
I didn't know how long I climbed.
Time lost its meaning up here. There was only the sound of my steps, the gentle pulse of mana beneath my feet, and the endless sky above me. Each step felt lighter than the st, as if the staircase itself was slowly lifting me away from the world I had come from.
I didn't feel cold anymore.
I didn't feel tired.
Only... small.
Insignificant in the best possible way.
Far below, the horrors of the mountain, the fight with Runan, the suffocating darkness of the halls—everything felt distant. Like memories from another life.
Ahead of me, the staircase continued upward, disappearing into the shimmering aurora above.
And for the first time since this journey began, the thought that this was only a game—and not reality—completely slipped my mind.
Every breath I took felt too real, and each step sounded too perfect as I continued ascending, mist spreading from beneath my feet.
The fight with Runan had been fast and merciless.
Every second demanded my full attention. There had been no room for hesitation—no space for thought beyond survival.
This was different.
This was ethereal.
Eternal.
Beautiful.
This was what the world should feel like.
No pressure weighing on my chest. No fear cwing at the back of my mind. No invisible walls forcing me forward.
Just the freedom to think—clearly, calmly—without the world demanding anything in return.
Yet not a single thought formed in my head.
I had no need for one.
I was completely at peace.
The colors around me swirled and blended into each other, shifting endlessly, never settling—yet never chaotic.
If perfection had a form, it would be this.
This pce.
This moment.
This state of mind.
Runan’s ring vibrated softly, synchronizing with the mana saturating the air. With every subtle shift in space, it released gentle waves of warmth, grounding me even as the world itself seemed to bend and flow.
The staircase stretched… then retracted.
Sometimes my steps were hard and firm, solid beneath my feet. Other times, I sank slightly into the ancient stone, as if I were walking on clouds rather than rock.
Eventually, I came across a small window set into the endless spiral upward.
Curious, I leaned closer and peered through the narrow slit.
My breath caught.
Beyond it stretched an infinite sea of stars, expanding endlessly into a deep, oppressive—yet strangely calming—jet-bck void.
This wasn’t just game design anymore.
This was art at its absolute peak.
No game. No artist. No world I had ever seen came even close to this.
And then—
Reality cwed its way back in.
A sharp system alert fshed across my vision.
“Warning: You have not taken a breath in two minutes. Oxygen levels critical. Please breathe, or you will be forcibly logged out.”
That was when it hit me.
The slight dizziness washing over my body.
The tightness in my chest.
The sudden, desperate gasp as my lungs finally dragged air back in.
I stumbled back from the window, heart pounding.
It was still only a game.
But for those few moments…
I had completely forgotten.
The higher I climbed, the sky stopped pretending to be a sky.
What had once looked like a vast, endless gaxy began to fracture.
Fine lines split the void above—hairline cracks glowing faintly with color, like broken gss reflecting starlight. Mana leaked from those fractures in slow, drifting streams, pouring downward like liquid light before dissolving into mist.
Then came the rain.
Not falling from clouds—but seeping through the cracks.
Droplets emerged from nothingness, pushing through the void itself, distorting the stars as they fell. Each drop carried mana within it, bursting into soft fshes when it struck the steps, as though reality rejected the idea of water existing here.
The staircase responded.
Stone warped subtly under my feet, rippling as if submerged beneath an invisible tide. With every step upward, the pressure increased, the air growing denser, heavier—charged to the point where breathing felt like pulling mana directly into my lungs.
Runan’s ring burned hot.
Not painfully—but insistently.
Its pulses grew faster, syncing not just with the mana around it, but with the fractures above, each surge of warmth arriving the moment a new crack split open in the false sky.
The gaxy overhead began to bleed.
Stars stretched and smeared, their light dripping downward in long, distorted trails before vanishing entirely. Thunder echoed somewhere beyond the void, not as sound but as vibration, rippling through space like a shockwave passing through water.
The storm was forcing its way in.
Lightning fshed behind the cracks—massive, jagged arcs crawling across the fractures as if searching for purchase. Rain intensified, falling sideways now, dragged into spirals by opposing currents of magic.
Two presences pressed down from above.
One was vast and overwhelming, its mana so dense it colpsed the space around it, swallowing light and sound alike.
The other burned violently, overflowing, its power tearing open the sky itself just to exist.
The staircase curved sharply—and ended.
Before me stood the door.
It no longer looked solid.
Cracks identical to those in the sky spread across its surface, glowing with the same fractured starlight. Rain struck it and evaporated instantly, while mana leaked through the seams in slow, drifting waves.
Cracks identical to those in the sky spread across its surface, glowing with the same fractured starlight. Rain struck it and evaporated instantly, while mana leaked through the seams in slow, drifting waves.
I wrapped my fingers around the handle.
The moment I pushed—
The door exploded outward.
the gaxy around me shattered, falling apart like broken gss. Fragments of void ripping past me as the illusion broke.
And then—
Wind smmed into me.
Freezing rain struck my face like bdes, ripping the breath from my lungs as thunder cracked overhead.
I staggered forward, boots skidding across slick stone, barely catching myself before the storm tore me off my feet.
The sky above was no longer endless.
It was dark, split by violent lightning and roiling clouds churning like a living thing.
Rain poured relentlessly, soaking me within seconds, the cold cutting deep despite the warmth pulsing from Runan’s ring.
I was outside.
At the top of the tower.
Behind me, the shattered remnants of the stairway dissolved into nothing but stone and ruin.
Ahead—raw, oppressive mana flooded the air, colliding in massive waves that shook the tower to its core.
Two forces that could not have been more different cshed right in front of me.
One was vast—mighty, calm, and cold.
A presence that felt endless, crushing not through violence, but through certainty.
The other was Almighty, brutal. Violent.
Radiating such overwhelming he
at that the storm itself seemed to recoil from it.
I felt like I stumbled right into a battle between gods.
Then—
their gazes shifted.
And suddenly, both of them were looking at me.
