Atom had entered the Mountain of Nori with the permission of the soul itself. The moment he stepped inside, the world outside shifted. The sky, the land, everything—turned pitch black. Darkness swallowed all.
And then it collapsed.
The hand-shaped peak of the mountain, the very thing Sil had been clinging to, shattered. And Sil slipped. Then He fell.
But he did not hit the ground.
He floated.
No land.
No sky.
No horizon.
No shape.
Just emptiness.
Wondering around he find out it was— A void.
Sil looked around, but there was nothing to look at. Only the weight of silence pressing against him.
"What… is this?" he whispered.
His voice didn't echo.
It didn't go anywhere.
It was as if even sound refused to exist there.
Sil felt the question repeat in his mind, softer, smaller:
What is happening to me?
On the other side, the villagers—who had been frozen under the elder's command finally began to move again.
"We… we can move?"
"But how?"
"What changed?"
But when they tried to look around, they realized something far worse.
They couldn't see each other anymore.
Only darkness.
Voices floated in the empty black space.
"I can hear you… but where are you?"
"Are you close? Are you far?"
"What is happening!?"
Panic began to spread. Their hands reached for one another, but they only touched nothing—thin, cold air.
"Elder?" a villager whispered, voice trembling, "What's happening…?"
But the elder stood alone in the void too.
He couldn't see the child.
He couldn't see the village.
He couldn't see anything.
Only emptiness around him.
He wanted to answer.
But he did not know himself.
He had no answers.
So he stayed silent...
Meanwhile… inside the Mountain of Nori.
Atom stepped deeper into the forest hidden within the mountain's body. The air was thick, silent — like everything was holding its breath.
On the ground, he saw faint tire marks, curved grooves pressed into the wet earth.
The chariot.
The one that took Ana.
His hands clenched.
He was one step away.
Just one.
Farther within the forest, Anzi stood alone under the towering trees. The storm clouds that once churned above had now softened, leaving only a cold, gentle breeze.
"…It calmed down," he murmured to himself — almost relieved, almost afraid of why.
Behind him, hidden in the shadow of a wide, ancient trunk, Deil watched silently.
Unmoving.
Observing.
Neither spoke.
But both knew — this calm was wrong.
Elsewhere, at the King's Castle.
The chaos had stilled. The smoke had cleared.
But the battlefield scars still marked the soldiers. They were wounded, bandaged, some barely standing as they lined up.
The Minister of War stood before them, his voice heavy, unwavering:
"The war is not over. The Blasphemous has entered the Mountain of Nori.
He seeks something there — perhaps someone.
He must not succeed.
Fight until your last breath.
For the Mighty Kingdom."
And so the soldiers marched.
Broken bodies, unbroken resolve.
But as they approached the mountain—
They felt it.
The same darkness.
The same emptiness that swallowed the villagers.
They could walk, but they could not see.
Their armor clinked. Their footsteps echoed.
Yet they were surrounded by void.
Below the summit, Sil slipped. The stone gave beneath his boot and he fell — but there was no ground to meet him. He dropped into emptiness and then, impossibly, began to float. No sky. No land. No up or down. Only a cold, endless dark. He clutched at the air and shouted, but the sound vanished into the void.
"What is this?" he wondered aloud, weightless and small under the black.
On the island's edge the villagers breathed again — the paralysis had ended — but the relief was hollow. They could move, but the world around them had changed. Shapes dissolved into nothingness; friends and family were visible only as voices in the black. "I can hear you," one cried, "but where are you?" Panic rose like a tide. Even the old grandfather, who had answers for everything, stood mute and bewildered.
But the darkness did not act the same for everyone.
Inside the royal hall, another figure knelt before the King — Proton, Atom's other self. He listened with a smirk as the King spat an order: "If he's not here for that thing, then it must be something else. Kill him. Bring me his head." Proton rose, bowed once, and melted into the black as if he owned it.
The King, clutching power like a spoiled child, fumbled for explanation. The darkness unnerved him. "Who has done this?" he demanded, glancing at Proton's vanishing silhouette and then into the empty halls. He smelled deceit, not the work of his loyal huntsman, and his confusion tightened into fear.
The King stood up from his throne, steps slow, unsure, his boots echoing on marble he could no longer see. He stretched a hand out into the dark, but it touched nothing. Not air, not wall — just absence.
This was a world without light.
And without light, the world has no form, no meaning, no direction.
Just a silent swallowing void.
No warning.
No sound.
Just a world sealed shut.
Everyone was trapped — without knowing who had trapped them.
This was the Event of Unknown..
Meanwhile, inside the Mountain of Nori, Atom walked.
His grip around the sword was trembling — not from fear — but from rage.
A body lay by the roots of the old trees.
A woman — with bones sharp beneath dried skin, ribs like a cage.
She had died hungry. She was Abandoned and Used.
Her hands were still reaching, as if asking for help even in death.
Atom closed her eyes, gently.
Then stood.
His aura lit around him — a white, ghost-like radiance, soft yet terrifying.
Like a god walking through a world unworthy of him.
shing—
A blade sound behind him.
A man stepped out, sword raised — except his hands were shaking so badly he could barely hold it.
"A–Are you…?" his voice cracked.
Atom turned his head slowly.
The divine white smoke rising off him.
His expression colder than winter.
His eyes were calm, but carrying something vast and merciless.
"The Blasph—"
The guy never finished the word.
thk.
His head was already on the ground.
The body remained standing for a breath, then toppled.
Atom did not even blink.
He continued walking — silent — like judgment passing through a cemetery.