Chapter 1129

Looking back, I think I’d wondered about death since I was very young.

Not that I was particularly precocious.

I was just curious.

Why was the amusement park I’d been promised a trip to if I got a perfect score on my spelling test burning on TV?

Why was there a white bouquet on the desk of the classmate I’d played with just yesterday?

It didn’t take long for me to learn the truth.

Death, destruction, grief, and anger.

Hunters and monsters. Gates left all over the world. A war that still hadn’t ended.

That was simply the age we lived in.

An age of chaos, with truths too vast and terrible for anyone to hold back spilling out without end.

I soon understood why my parents had changed the TV channel with grim faces, and what the white bouquet on my friend’s desk meant.

But my kindergarten teacher’s description of my friend’s absence as a “long journey” left me with even more questions.

I understood that she’d been trying to be kind. Still, one thought led to another.

Why do people die?

Where do they go when they die?

If they really do go on a journey, is there a world beyond death?

Even after many years, no one could answer those questions for me.

Of course they couldn’t.

The departed don’t speak.

So I wanted to find the answer from someone who had died, but wasn’t dead anymore.

“Hey, Golgoli.”

“A mere human like you dares call me by such a vulgar name? Can’t you see this radiant crown?”

“Want me to make it so you can’t see anything at all?”

“…Why did you call me? Get to the point.”

Deep down, I’d believed Bones—or rather, the Skeleton King—could answer the question I’d carried for so long.

But faith has a way of being betrayed.

“The afterlife? I don’t know why you’re asking me.”

“Does that mean—”

“That’s right. I don’t know a thing. I can’t remember my life before I died, so why would I know any more about what came after? I just woke up in the dark and found myself like this.”

It was ironic.

Even an undead being who had already crossed death’s threshold and been reborn didn’t know what lay beyond it.

In the end, I gave up looking for an answer.

Or rather, I put it off.

I’d find out someday.

Whether I wanted to or not, death would wait in the shadows for its moment, then swallow everything whole.

Just like now.

Ssshhh.

Everything blurred and drifted away.

The sky that had only just begun to clear. The faces looking down at me.

Their cries, and the shouts still rising from the battlefield.

The past I’d struggled through. The fleeting moments I’d let slip away.

All of it.

Ah.

With no voice left to escape my lips, I sank weakly.

Into pitch-black darkness.

Into the swamp of death, tugging hard at my soul.

And in a gap in time that felt like eternity, I heard a voice echo as if in a hallucination.

“Open your eyes.”

At that moment—

Whoosh!

A beam of light appeared from nowhere, somehow, tearing through the darkness and illuminating the world.

A new world, where everything had changed.

I blinked blankly.

Then I took in the sight before me and wondered:

Where am I?

The gray-white space stretched on without end. Even “vast” felt too small a word for it.

The horizon far in the distance was hazy. When I looked up, I saw a ceiling that seemed higher and more distant than the sky.

It felt as though I’d been shut inside a gigantic box.

Strangely, though, I wasn’t afraid.

For all its emptiness, the infinite space inspired an awe I couldn’t explain just by looking at it.

Yes.

The answer to the question I’d carried for so long was here.

Though it looked nothing like I’d imagined.

“Hmm. I suppose so.”

“…!”

A voice came from behind me without any hint of someone’s presence. I instinctively twisted away and retreated, fixing my gaze on the uninvited guest standing only a few steps away.

“…You’re—”

I had no time to marvel at the fact that I could speak.

The unexpected visitor—an old man—was far more shocking.

He, on the other hand, sounded perfectly calm.

“Do you know who I am?”

I nodded and tried to answer evenly.

“The Grim Reaper?”

“…”

“Uh, no?”

After a brief silence, the old man shook his head.

“Think whatever you like. It isn’t important.”

“It’s pretty important to me.”

“Why? Worried you’ll be dragged to hell?”

“Honestly, yes.”

“You must have sinned a lot.”

“…Who knows?”

I gave the old man, whoever he was, a bitter smile.

I’d sometimes wondered whether every enemy I’d defeated had really deserved to die like that.

Whether the mountain of corpses and river of blood I’d made with my own hands could be weighed against all the lives saved because of me.

Maybe I deserve to go to hell more than anyone.

That was when he spoke.

“You’re worrying over nothing. It’s not so easy to end up in hell.”

The old man’s sunken gaze settled on me.

As if he could see right through my thoughts.

“And the people you miss won’t be there, either.”

“…!”

“Isn’t that what worries you most? That you might die and still never see them again?”

For a moment, I couldn’t speak. I stared at him, frozen like a statue, then barely managed to force out the words.

“Wait. Is this, by any chance—”

“Ah, forgive me. I didn’t mean to let that slip.”

His answer all but confirmed my guess.

As I struggled to find the words, the old man shrugged.

“Well, there it is.”

“I knew something was off. So it really was true.”

“It happens more often than you’d think. When the thing you thought couldn’t happen does. It’s easier if you think of it as just one of those cases.”

There was nothing simple or comforting about that. Yet, for some reason, I found it surprisingly easy to accept.

Even who owned that voice, the one that had sounded like a hallucination just before I opened my eyes in this strange place.

“You’re quick on the uptake. Good.”

I took another look at the old man, who now read my thoughts as naturally as breathing.

A robe without a speck of dust on it. A beard long enough to reach the floor.

And something about him that felt oddly familiar.

“Have we… met before?”

The old man seemed to ponder the question for a while before answering.

“We may have. Or we may not.”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s the best answer I can give. I have my own circumstances to consider. I’ve already gone quite far out of my way to help you.”

“You helped me? How?”

“Find the answer to that question yourself. You don’t have as much time as you think, so…… let’s get started.”

I wanted to ask what on earth he was talking about, and what he meant by begin.

But the instant his figure blurred, every tangled thought in my head vanished.

Pop.

I hadn’t seen him move. I hadn’t even sensed it.

He was so fast he left no afterimage.

By the time I turned, he had crossed the few steps between us and taken position behind me. His fist blotted out my vision.

Thud!

My vision swam, and strength left my legs.

I’d never seen an attack so fast and precise.

I had no reason to fight anymore. Even so, I forced my buckling legs to hold and reached out on instinct.

Whoosh—BOOM!

Indigo flames engulfed the gray-white space.

Before I could even think about why I had internal energy here, the old man’s calm voice rang out from beyond the scorching heat.

“The Flame Divine Palm. An excellent martial art.”

“…How do you know that?”

“Didn’t I tell you? Keep it simple and accept it.”

Whoosh.

The flames parted as he answered.

Without even forming Palm Force, the old man waved a hand and blew away the heat of the Flame Divine Palm as if snuffing out a candle. Then he signaled to me with his eyes.

“Go on. Struggle all you like. Try the Flame-Extinguishing Divine Fist—or better yet, the Blazing Flame Divine Spear.”

“…!”

“Ah, but not One Annihilation. For your sake, not mine.”

Was this what it felt like to be haunted by a ghost?

I could only stare at the ghost—or rather, the old man—in a daze, unable to speak.

Of course, he didn’t even allow me that moment.

Slash!

When had he moved? How?

He’d been standing amid the dying flames, but now he was in my blind spot. Invisible qi carried on the edge of his hand swept smoothly across my chest.

So sharp that a beat later, the flesh it sliced through—like tofu—let out a scream.

Splurt!

Blood sprayed into the air. At the same time, a distant pain I’d thought I’d never feel again came surging back.

So did the fear I’d briefly forgotten.

At this rate… I’ll die.

It was bizarre.

I’d already died once, yet here I was thinking about dying again.

But I had no time to question it.

Against a power that seemed capable of erasing not just my body but my soul, I had to struggle with everything I had.

“Good. That’s right. Looks like you’re finally starting to understand the situation.”

The old man nodded, seeing straight through my thoughts. A curse escaped before I could stop it.

“You crazy old bastard.”

“High praise. Thank you.”

“What… the hell are you?”

“Who knows? I might be your grandfather.”

The old man smiled faintly for the first time. While I stood speechless at the unexpected family insult, he reached toward me.

No—he held something out.

A spear that had suddenly appeared in midair.

“Take it. Even if you’re going to die, you should at least get to fight back properly once, shouldn’t you?”

I gritted my teeth.

Then I caught the shaft as the spear flew slowly toward me and spat out the words.

“You’re dead.”

The old man replied, “May you be reborn in paradise.”

At that moment—

Shhhk!

A dazzling flash of light streaked across the vast gray-white space.