Crack—
It was before Dong Bong-soo could even finish his words. From somewhere in the distant darkness above his head, a faint sound leaked out.
It was the sound made when an iceberg split, as if massive masses were cracking and sliding apart.
This was the Heavenly Secret Academy, where nothing ever changed. Above the tangled time and space, a single crack tore its maw wide open. A threadlike fissure was carved into the darkness above, and a bone-chilling cold air seeped down through the gap.
"..."
Dong Bong-soo's eyes naturally turned upward.
Far above, so distant that its height could not be gauged.
The open gap widened little by little, continuously increasing the amount of flowing cold air.
In response, an unidentified frost silently covered even the path he had walked, distorting the time and space of this entire space.
Dong Bong-soo looked up at the gap and asked,
"Is that also its doing?"
The intent of the Karma Root Collective paused for a moment.
— The seams it gnaws through freeze over.
It didn't feel like a pause to hide something. It was a tone that told only what was asked and stopped right there.
'Freezes over, huh.'
Since he couldn't even estimate what kind of existence was beyond that gap, knowing one characteristic was enough.
It gnaws away at space, corrodes past time and coming time to throw time and space into chaos, and freezes the place where it exists.
"Hmm."
Now that he defined it, it was somewhat similar to 'that thing' he had last met in that other Murim.
However...
That thing was dead. He had clearly witnessed its head flying off to meet its death with his own eyes. Right before he crossed over to this Murim.
"What do you mean by gnawing at yesterday and tomorrow?"
— What was said is all of it. Digging further will yield nothing here. Because we too know no more than that about it.
"Is that so?"
— Indeed. However, it appears to be an error that damages, destroys, and ignores nature just as much as you.
"An error. Nice."
—
...
"Listening to you, I get the feeling you're trying to use me as a vaccine for that virus... Am I right?"
— An error is also merely a part of nature. You, we, and that thing above will all flow in accordance with the providence of nature.
"Well, fine. Then, out of human instinct, I shall devour every last bit of that providence of nature."
A moment of silence.
Soon, instead of a direct answer, the Karma Root Collective shifted the conversation in another direction.
— When that gap first tore open, tens of thousands poured out at once. Just like how you people fell here moments ago.
Ten thousand threads of intent continuously echoed and spread through his mind.
— The moment they crossed over, they were materialized not as shadows, but as the Descended Species possessing flesh and bone.
The wavelength of the wills lowered as if pressed down.
— Those that have perished are still merely a handful. The remaining ones walk upon your land. ...They will not be able to walk for long.
'Are they talking about the Users?'
From Dong Bong-soo's perspective, they were not particularly important people. Items no different from livestock turned loose in a pasture.
However, from the perspective of the Karma Root Collective, they were of the same kind, entities branched from the same root. The Advent Species that would one day merge together.
"Not able to walk for long... huh."
The end of his low repetition trailed off slightly.
"It's not wrong, but well. Perhaps because you are a collective of failures, you seem to ignore the human race's tenacity for survival."
—
...
"Some of them might become powerful beyond what you think, turning into existences as bothersome as that error up there, you know?"
— Such a thing is an occurrence that might happen once in tens of millions, hundreds of millions of years.
"Heh, hehehehe. Once in hundreds of millions of years?"
Dong Bong-soo looked up at the top once more.
The torn crack was quietly healing before he knew it. Perhaps the providence of nature mentioned by the Karma Root Collective was working, closing time and space once again. But even that would break completely if that entity grew larger.
"With that thing."
Dong Bong-soo pointed at himself with his index finger and smiled faintly.
"And me, aren't there already two?"
The Karma Root Collective neither took back nor accepted those words.
After a long silence, the collective intent delivered its will into Dong Bong-soo's mind once again.
— ...To be exact, there are three.
"Three...?"
The hundreds of thousands of shadows that had merged into one shook violently.
— There is one more. An error like you people.
That short will was unusually heavy.
— It flowed in from the outside like you, but unlike you, it is one who walked to the very end. Unable to stop walking, it even cast off all the frames it carried. That entity looked upon us, called us futile, and passed us by. Right now, it sits high above your sky.
"One who cast off the frame and climbed above the sky?"
— Indeed. An error of a different manner from you people.
"Heh, heh. Look. Isn't that three errors existing at the same time, when you said it might happen once in tens of millions, once in hundreds of millions of years?"
— Soon, it will converge to zero.
"We'll see if we wait. Either way."
Dong Bong-soo quietly stared straight at the center of gravity of the endlessly overlapped shadows.
"Where should I go? To meet those things."
The intent that was splitting into many soon settled into one.
— One has escaped, one was born to distort, and the rest are slumped here. Which side do you wish to face?
Before the question could fade, the next words were placed on top of it.
— Whether you are strong or we are strong is something even we do not know. However, whether we swallow you or you swallow us, it will be of no great significance for now.
Dong Bong-soo did not ponder those words for long and retorted briefly.
"I can tell that much just by listening to what you guys say. You are prey."
—
...
"Prey are just prey, no matter how much they gather."
Even if millions of bison roam the fields, they scatter at the appearance of a single lion or tiger. They merely form a herd and fail to create meaning. They just endlessly repeat being eaten.
— If you define it so, then so it shall be to you.
"Yeah, I'll leave you alive for now. You are prey, but you are weaklings who know a lot and tell me things. But is there no price for this question?"
— You asked, so we answered. That is the law of this place.
The tail of the collected intent reached the inner darkness and lowered slightly.
— The records have merely been waiting for one to read them.
Having finished speaking, it stepped back. As the tangled outline moved aside, the inner side submerged behind it was revealed.
A narrow path stretched out to a place where something had been preserved for a long time.
— Enter and read.
To read.
'Heavenly Secret Academy.'
Yes, it was clearly defined as an academy.
Dong Bong-soo immediately stepped forward. Behind his back as he walked inside, the voices of the many spread one last time.
— One day, the day will come when your steps slow down. Only on that day will you truly know what you were.
Dong Bong-soo did not slow his steps. He did not look back either.
A lion does not listen to the cries of bison. Even if it occasionally gets trampled to death by those bison during a hunt, bison are always prey, and the lion is always the predator.
The intents behind his back were buried in the inner darkness, and his steps were already ahead of the wavelength of that will.
The Karma Root Collective followed no further. It was after that when the darkness ahead split once more.
Tread, trreadd, treadd.
Something began to line up to his left and right. At first, he thought they were walls. As he moved his steps, he saw that they were not walls, but bookshelves piled high. There was something tightly packed in each compartment. It was in the form of books. However, it wasn't paper.
It had the shape of a book, but it was not a book; it was energy. What it contained was not yet known.
He traced one with his eyes at a place within reach of his hand. He could not sense at all what it was made of or what form of energy it was. Neither [Spiritual Eyes] nor [Eyes of Faith] could pinpoint what had condensed to form such a shape. Ever since entering this place, the true Heavenly Secret Academy, those two eyes had been consistently quiet.
Still, as he walked and became familiar with them one by one, something came to mind. What the Karma Root Collective had spoken with its own mouth moments ago. That countless things like him had crossed over to this world, and the vast majority of them had failed to walk their path to the end and were submerged here.
If so, couldn't each and every one of these placed on the bookshelves be those submerged souls?
When those who stopped walking cooled and hardened, wouldn't they remain in this shape?
In other words, weren't these bookshelves and the things placed here the very inside and true body of the Karma Root Collective?
Dong Bong-soo was walking inside it.
The smell that had been deeply steeped since he first entered this space also fully revealed its roots only upon reaching here. Old damp moss, dried ink, and decayed paper. It was the smell of flesh that the placed items had exhaled for a long time. Every single one was hardened while half-decayed. A smell that was neither fully decayed nor fully matured.
The bookshelves were endless. Whether the deep darkness had swallowed the end or if there was no end from the beginning could not be known. Above and to the side, the placed items stretched boundlessly. Before he could scan a single shelf with his eyes, the next shelf floated up from the darkness.
Rustle.
He reached out his hand and pulled one of them out.
As soon as he opened it, the smell of ink abruptly grew thick. It was different from what dried paper exhaled. It was the smell of something unraveling from within.
At that moment.
Fl-fl-fl-flip—
Along with the sound of pages turning, the entire surrounding background went completely pitch black.
* * *
He was falling infinitely inside a dark space.
In the midst of that, a single line of a familiar mechanical sound brushed past his mind.
Ting—
[Do you wish to log into 'Kingdom Under Violence'?]
[Yes / No]
It was familiar after all. Only the format was different.
Click—
The moment he pressed the 'Yes' button floating in midair, a single color consumed his field of vision.
A brilliant golden light.
At the same time that light covered his whole body,
His brain, which had been idling leisurely, began to accelerate wildly, and knowledge that was not his began to be engraved in his head.
A flood of incoming knowledge.
Information assumed to belong to the 'protagonist of the book' just now was engraved into his brain like a surging tide.
"..."
Feeling the sensation of his mind becoming a rag as a fire sword entered his brain, it was quite painful. Enough for a normal person's mind to collapse. Perhaps the Karma Root Collective had let him inside expecting that as well?
However, to him, it was not much different from a single sting of a needle. Because such an experience was beyond familiar, to the point of being cliché.
It was just that it felt like the fine wrinkles in his brain were increasing tremendously, which was slightly different.
Before long, a hologram window of a form different from Murim Online or What is Hero System overlapped in his field of vision.
[Loading the world of 'Kingdom Under Violence'.]
Flash!
Fl-fl-fl-flip—
Once again, the sound of pages turning blurred his ears.
Gradually, the background distorted like a heat haze.
Swooooosh!
Midair... Far below the sky, a long tear was opening wide.
Right in the middle of the sky, opening wide like a book page, occupying all below the sky was an 'eye'.
The moment he realised it, Dong Bong-soo's body was sucked deep into the black pupil of that eyeball, a clear and cheerful sound struck his hearing.
Ting—
[Loading complete]
Once again, the world went pitch black.