Chapter 1: Laughter in the face of death
The sky above was not the sky of a world—no, it was an abyss. A black void stained with crimson, the blood of the universe dripping from an eye that loomed far above. Olixander Dusk stood in the center of it, his body poised as though waiting for something. The platform beneath him was a dark altar, its surface slick with the crimson stains of those who came before. There were no witnesses, no audience—only the heavy silence of inevitability.
The crowd that once stood in judgment over him, filled with hatred and curiosity, no longer existed. Their eyes, those who once believed in justice, had long since faded into dust. Here, in this realm between realms, only the dead and the damned remained. The air was thick, pulsing with an energy that spoke of a universe on the brink of unraveling.
A single voice broke the silence—the voice of the judge, sharp and cold, slicing through the stillness. "Why do you smile?" she asked, her tone filled with disdain, her gaze piercing through his still figure. Her appearance was immaculate, like a sculpted image of justice itself. "Is it because you think you are beyond redemption? Or do you think this place, this moment, is some kind of triumph?"
Dusk opened his eyes slowly, as if waking from a long slumber. His smile deepened, the kind of smile one wears when faced with a paradox they've already solved in their mind. "You misunderstand," he whispered, his voice low and contemplative. "I am not here for redemption. I am here because there is no redemption. Redemption is a lie—a construct made by those who fear the truth. I am here because I have finally understood that death is just another form of life."
The judge, unshaken, nodded. Her eyes glimmered with a cold truth she had long since accepted, yet her lips did not move in any sign of acknowledgment. Instead, she pressed the execution seal into the air before her, sealing his fate with a single motion.
But something unexpected happened.
A surge of energy erupted from Dusk. Not a physical power, but something much deeper—something metaphysical. As the seal began to close in on him, time itself seemed to ripple, stretching and twisting like a shattered mirror. Dusk's form blurred, and he felt the entire universe contract around him as if he were being pulled into the very core of existence. It was no longer an execution; it was a rebirth.
Suddenly, the world around him dissolved. He was no longer standing on the platform, nor was he within the grasp of the judge's cold authority. He was falling—falling through an endless void, where light and darkness intertwined in a cosmic dance.
When his feet finally touched solid ground, it was not on Earth. It was in a place beyond time. A place where no rules governed the laws of existence. His body stood unmoving, the same as before, but his mind... his mind had been fractured. Pieces of a puzzle he had never known existed were now beginning to assemble themselves in his consciousness.
He was not the person he once believed he was.
Around him, the other criminals, those who had also been sentenced to this strange purgatory, stood like broken statues. Lian Rinova was among them, standing tall, her expression unreadable as she surveyed the scene. Her presence seemed almost prophetic—calm, yet heavy with the weight of knowledge. Beside her stood a judge, one who was familiar to Dusk—the Corrupt Judge, a man whose eyes seemed to pierce straight into his soul. A man whose power, even here in this forsaken place, was unmatched.
But there was something wrong with this place. The air was thick with a sense of foreboding, as though it was not simply a prison, but a stage set for a play with no audience. No one here was truly alive, and no one was truly dead. Dusk felt an undeniable pull in his chest—a deep aching, a feeling that perhaps there was no escape from this place, not because of the judges or the system, but because of something much deeper.
Lian approached him, her eyes focused not on him, but on the Corrupt Judge. She said nothing, but her presence was a question in itself.
"Do you feel it?" she finally whispered, her voice just a trace above the silence. "This place isn't just a prison. It is the end of all things. And it is the beginning."
Dusk turned to her, eyes now wide with realization. "The end? The beginning of what?"
"Of everything," she said softly, her eyes glinting with something tragic. "This world—your death, your crime—were never an accident. You've been placed here for a reason. You are not a sinner, Dusk. You are something far worse: You are the consequence of a world that cannot accept its own destruction. This place... is the world's memory. It is not a prison for those who have sinned, but for those who understand that existence itself is a sin."
His heart twisted in his chest. The world he had once known was not a place of justice or redemption. It was a place where every living thing had committed the ultimate sin: the sin of existence.
But then the tragic twist unfolded.
The Corrupt Judge spoke, his voice low and resonant. "You've made it far, Olixander Dusk, but your journey is far from over. The truth you seek lies ahead—but it comes at a cost. The truth of your existence, of your purpose here, will unravel everything you thought you knew about yourself."
Dusk froze. His mind began to shatter as the pieces of his past, the fragments of his identity, came crashing down. "What... what is the truth?"
The Corrupt Judge's voice softened. "You are not a criminal. You were never meant to die. You are not a victim of the world. You were created as the world's correction—a tool to reset the balance. Your purpose is not to end this world. It is to give birth to the next one."
Dusk stumbled back, overwhelmed by the weight of the revelation. "No... that can't be true."
The Corrupt Judge's smile was both cruel and sorrowful. "The truth is, Dusk, you have already died. You were never supposed to be here. But now, you must live again. You must become the force that ends this cycle... or it will destroy you."
As the last words echoed in his mind, Dusk felt the crushing weight of the truth. He wasn't meant to be here as a criminal—he was an instrument of destruction, a catalyst for the rebirth of a world that had long since lost its meaning.
But the question remained: Could he live with that truth? Or was he doomed to remain a prisoner of his own existence, forever bound by the very concept of life and death that had brought him here?
End of Chapter 1