Stab!
...
...
...
Haa... He heaved a deep sigh and lowered his gaze, his eyes dull beneath the curtain of black hair. Only a faint glimmer of dark-gray irises showed through, calm yet unmistakably weary.
He was sitting on the floor in a dark gloomy room.
After a dozen seconds he glanced sideways at the wall clock.
[ 19:17 ]
"...Is that it?" He murmured wearily, releasing his hands and body from a strange posture he had been holding.
Everything was utterly normal, serene and... familiar than ever. With an exhausted expression, he was about to stand when he noticed that his breathing was unusually steady, almost unnaturally so, and instinctively placed his left hand against his chest.
For a moment, he felt as though something was missing within him, an inexplicable emptiness he couldn't quite locate. Then, in the next instant, a faint warmth emerged beneath his sternum. It wasn't itchy or burning, but rather a soothing sensation, like holding cold hands near a fire without actually touching it.
He initially assumed it was merely a lingering effect of the ritual, but the warmth continued to expand with unhurried steadiness, unfolding in layers.
The sensation spread through his chest, shoulders, abdomen, and back, as though something had quietly opened within the deepest part of his body.
It gradually reached his muscles, passing through them with a soothing subtlety, as though caressing every muscle fiber and relieving a tension he had never realized he was carrying.
His shoulders loosened. His fingers felt lighter. His breathing deepened without conscious effort, while the persistent heaviness in his head gradually subsided into a rare sense of tranquility.
The sensation resembled an ethereal flower blooming somewhere deep within him, its petals unfolding one after another before extending their influence throughout his body.
The exhaustion accumulated throughout the ritual began to recede, though the fatigue itself remained. His body was still physically worn from the prolonged strain and restlessness it had endured.
It was clear that whatever was changing within him was improving his internal state, not restoring his physical condition.
After expanding throughout his body, the sensation gradually began to return and recede. Everything slowly gathered back toward the point beneath his sternum.
The warmth condensed and the space within his torso felt strangely hollow for a brief moment.
Then...
It stabilized.
The sensation settled into stillness so naturally that it was almost as if nothing had happened.
Yohan remained mildly baffled by the anomalous phenomenon, yet no word of astonishment escaped him.
Once the sensation had completely stabilized, Yohan subconsciously arrived at a simple conclusion.
He had awakened his core.
Strangely, even that realization failed to stir much emotion in him. He remained completely unruffled until...
...a faint current commenced moving outward once again.
His expression changed slightly. He instinctively recognized it as the first circulation of Qi.
The current followed paths through his body that Yohan could not consciously name. It passed through his chest with a mild, almost imperceptible pressure before reaching his shoulders. From there, a refreshing sensation travelled down his arms, accompanied by a faint warmth that gradually reached his hands and settled once more beneath his sternum, leaving behind a quiet incorporeal heaviness.
Finally, Yohan's eyes widened, his lips parting slightly. Something clicked in his mind. Without dwelling on it, he moved toward the corner of the room beside the desk, where a glass of water sat with a piece of paper submerged inside it.
He pulled the paper from the glass and closed his eyes, drawing a long breath as he tried to recall certain things. After a moment, he opened them again.
He began pacing around the room almost subconsciously, the now-empty paper held loosely in his right hand, its surface completely blank, without even the faintest trace of ink. Meanwhile, he repeatedly cracked the fingers of his left hand, his thoughts sinking deeper into rumination as he retraced everything that had happened until now.
Why does everything feel unnecessarily bizarre?
All of this was expected, but it's more than I anticipated.
Yohan first retraced the ritual itself. He had followed every step with extreme diligence, including writing certain names in black ink, using the Saerin language, on the sheets of paper he had submerged in water. Yet now, those papers were nothing more than soaked scraps, completely devoid of ink or even the faintest trace that anything had ever been written on them.
He set the anomaly aside for the moment. There were stranger things demanding his attention.
One of the ritual's procedures, and perhaps its most important precaution, stated that the Subliminal Continuum of the Core was unique to each individual and contained no additional layers beyond their own.
As he had suspected then—somethings could only be understood after experiencing the ritual— this matter of layers was probably one of them. If so, it meant there should be no illusory or deceptive strata of worlds. The world experienced within the Continuum should instead be, to some extent, a reflection of the world the individual inhabited, shaped by the semi-conscious will and conscience of their Core.
Yet what Yohan had entered was far more cryptic than anything he had anticipated from the text.
And that was not even the most troubling part.
After escaping the first world, he had discovered another layer waiting beyond it, something he had only realized moments ago.
Initially, Yohan considered another possibility. What if the awakening ritual was never actually meant to awaken the Core? What if it was a fraudulent ritual designed to deceive people into performing a secondary sacrificial ritual, using the awakening ritual as bait?
Perhaps that was why it had been framed as forbidden and confidential. The secrecy would discourage scrutiny while making the ritual appear dangerous and exclusive enough to attract those willing to pursue forbidden knowledge. Yet despite its supposedly confidential nature, the ritual had not been particularly difficult to obtain. In retrospect, that only made the possibility seem more plausible. And since performing it was technically illegal, expecting assistance from any official authority would have been pointless.
However, Yohan had emerged from that bizarre world without becoming trapped there forever. More importantly, his Core had awakened too... most probably.
That left him with two possibilities.
The first was that the ritual being used as a sacrificial component of some larger ritual was not entirely false. Perhaps anyone who remained trapped within that world indefinitely would eventually become the sacrifice, while those who managed to escape would somehow break free from the ritual's restraints and, as a consequence, awaken their Core.
The second possibility felt slightly more convincing. Something had interfered with his ritual.
Perhaps he had unknowingly performed an additional step. Perhaps he had missed something. The timing could have been wrong, the location unsuitable, or some external factor might have disrupted the procedure. There were countless variables that could have altered the ritual's intended course. Something that should not have happened had happened, and that deviation might have been responsible for everything that followed.
If the instructions were genuine, and there had been no hidden sacrificial purpose behind the ritual, then the second possibility made far more sense.
But what exactly had caused the disruption? Yohan had no answer... yet.
There was a chance of a completely different third possibility, but right now, Yohan had no dots to connect, assuming there were any.
He shifted his thoughts toward how he had escaped the Serene Hell.
Initially, he had not the slightest idea what to do. He had simply faced despair again and again, searching for some way out, until he finally looked more directly at the Moon. That was when something flickered within his soul for the briefest moment. It felt strangely familiar, almost like recognition. The sight of the Moon had given him a fleeting sensation of the times he had subconsciously glimpsed his Core while Seeking.
Acting instinctively on that sensation, and with desperation leaving little room for hesitation, he discovered something peculiar. Each time he prolonged his Seeking, the position of the Moon shifted subtly along the vertical axis.
Perhaps it represented his progression in seeking Essence and shaping his Core. That was the only explanation he could think of at the moment.
Or perhaps not.
He had not even the slightest clue what the Black Sun represented. As for everything else he had witnessed there, he could find no useful meaning in any of it, assuming there was meaning to be found in the first place.
The tombs scattered across the field of contrasting flowers.
The colossal, otherworldly structures.
The two distinguishable figures standing beyond the field of flowers.
The strange, incongruous hovel and whatever lay within it.
None of them yielded anything he could decipher.
Nor could he remember what he had seen inside the rectangular tomb.
Except the fact that after peering inside it, he woke up on a bed, the words "Throne of the Fallen..." escaping his lips before he could even understand why.
That waking had been the most twisted part.
The moment he woke up there, his head had felt strangely empty and distant, completely clear of the fog and mental chaos that had plagued him. but there was indeed a feeling of a strange wall residing somewhere in his head. Yet beneath that clarity, he could sense a strange wall lodged somewhere within his mind. It was faint, almost imperceptible.
At the time, he had barely been given an opportunity to contemplate his situation before he was interrupted.
So... I was under some sort of subliminal influence the moment I woke up? The thought made him pause. And gradually, something was attempting to induce a psychological cue in me through subtle manipulation?
Wait...it does make sense now—why she had entered the room at precisely the right moment when I was just about to Seek within my Core.
The more Yohan ruminated over it, the more certain the conclusion became. The world he had awakened in after peering into that tomb had never been real.
It had been a false reality constructed to deceive him, most likely the very world described in the ritual's procedures—the very destination Yohan had actually been meant to enter from the beginning.
Suddenly, everything that had happened began to fall into place.
Yohan realized that his own behavior upon waking had been unusual, yet his mother had acted as though she had noticed nothing. Even the world itself had been constructed with an unnerving degree of realism. It was neither an idealized utopia nor a life burdened by constant hardship. It was simply ordinary enough to feel real.
That had nearly erased every doubt he might have had about the reality surrounding him.
It had even gone so far as to make Yohan's life as simple and uneventful as possible, stripping away anything that might have given him reason to worry, investigate, or question his circumstances. To make the deception more convincing, he had awakened in a world nine months ahead of where he should have been, presumably corresponding to the mental span he had experienced within the Serene Hell.
During the first few days, he had tried to figure out what had happened during those missing months while he had supposedly been unconscious. Yet he found no clear answers. No one seemed to know anything useful, and nothing he discovered provided enough of a discrepancy to justify suspicion.
Eventually, he stopped looking. His life had become stable, comfortable, and almost worry-free. There was no immediate reason to keep digging into questions that offered no answers.
And with each passing day, he failed to notice how deeply the psychological cue was taking root.
Without realising, gradually, he almost gave up thinking, noticing and questioning inconsistencies that should have been utterly abnormal for him.
Almost as though parts of his memory had been quietly erased. Yet whenever he tried to determine what it was, there was nothing to recall.
The voice of the Lost Origin was one of them. He had stopped hearing it. Or perhaps... He had almost forgotten it had ever existed at all.
Now came the most important question of all: what was the key factor that allowed Yohan to realize that the reality he had been living in was false, despite being so deeply ensnared by its psychological influence?
The ritual's procedure had stated that the subject had to find the Essence within the world created by the semi-conscious will and conscience of the Core. It had also clearly warned that abnormalities within that world might attempt to harm or consume the subject. Most importantly, the procedure stated that the subject would know the Essence upon seeing it.
Yet none of that had happened.
Not even remotely.
The deceptive reality had contained no abnormality that tried to harm Yohan. Quite the opposite. Everything within that world seemed intent on preventing him from being harmed or dying.
Was that because the reality was deliberately trying to keep him trapped? Was protecting him simply another way of preventing him from waking up? Or was there some other reason behind its behavior?
Whatever the answer, one thing was certain.
Yohan had never found the Essence.
He had lived there for months, yet nothing resembling it had ever appeared before him. And if he had encountered the true Essence, he would have recognized it immediately. According to the ritual's instructions, the Essence was something that the world's abnormalities could neither conceal nor destroy.
Its very existence should have exposed the deception.
So what had Yohan been missing?
There was one significant mistake Yohan did—
Flick!
"I forgot to do the flame test." Yohan struck a match, abruptly halting his circling around the room
—He had forgotten to verify whether the world he had awakened in was real, blinded by the relief of escaping the Serene Hell.
He had lowered his guard, and with time, the psychological influence had gradually suppressed that memory, dulling it until the very need for verification had disappeared from his conscious mind.
But now came the most peculiar part of it all.
If something were to trigger that buried memory and cause the psychological influence to falter, the deceptive world had apparently been designed to prevent him from encountering fire by any means possible, whether through deliberate interference or mere coincidence.
That explained several things for Yohan now, why throughout the entire period he had spent there, he had never once encountered someone smoking a cigarette or ever witnessed any ordinary circumstance that required fire. The figure impersonating his mother had never been seen cooking, and strangely, she had never allowed him anywhere near the stove and no obvious means of ignition could be seen ever anywhere.
But fire wasn't the only thing he never came to notice, there was something else as well:
Reflection.
Something suddenly clicked in Yohan's mind.
He hadn't been able to see his reflection in the mirror inside that strange hovel either.
At the time, he had dismissed it as another inexplicable detail of that bizarre world. But now he realized something far more disturbing.
He had never seen his reflection anywhere throughout the ritual. And somehow, his mind had never registered the absence. The realization sent another thread through everything he had experienced.
He had even begun dismissing the strange things happening around him as time passed, including the unexplained decline of people around him during seemingly random events. Even the subtle changes in the world's buildings, streets, and infrastructure occurred without his conscious awareness.
He could no longer consciously recall anything suspicious happening around him. Yet the anxiety remained. It accumulated quietly.
His dreams had been suppressed to such an extent that, on the rare occasions he woke with anything resembling a dream, only a vague residue remained. Whatever his mind experienced during sleep was almost immediately swallowed by the same influence that governed his waking consciousness.
The result was an increasingly strange mixture of anxiety, agitation, and impulsiveness. His emotions had nowhere to go. They were suppressed before they could reach the surface, leaving behind nothing but persistent headaches and an agitation he could neither understand nor explain.
Deep within him, an overwhelming sensation that something was wrong kept creeping through his soul. It continued building pressure, constantly threatening to surface, yet every attempt to reach his conscious mind was suppressed, thus driving him toward insanity. Even that, however, was being suppressed.
The strange feeling of ecstasy he had experienced was also a consequence of the psychological influence. So was the emptiness that had accompanied it, at least partially.
But Yohan suspected there was something deeper behind that emptiness.
Something had been consuming something that belonged to him.
His identity, perhaps. Or something even more fundamental. That was the only explanation he could presently construct.
Was that world trying to consume me from within?
My identity? My consciousness?
Or... my soul?
Whatever the answer, Yohan was certain of one thing that the inexplicable emptiness he had felt was not merely the consequence of his own psychological state. Something had been taken from him.
And ironically, it was the very symptoms of that influence that eventually saved him, ultimately leading to the incident in the kitchen.
By then, his composure had nearly reached its limit. The accumulated pressure finally broke through, leaving Yohan dangerously agitated and poised to lash out at the figure impersonating his mother. Yet two contradictory impulses collided within him: one urged him to stop, while the other demanded some outlet for the unbearable frustration that had been building inside him.
As a result, he ended up harming himself rather than his mother through his own will whether consciously or instinctively. That precise moment became the trigger.
The instant his composure finally fractured, the psychological influence faltered with it. A flood of missing pieces and forgotten memories rushed back into his mind, breaking through the shackles that had been placed over his consciousness.
Yohan collected the empty pieces of paper from the glasses, while thinking about the possibility whether that sudden lucidity triggered solely because of the excruciating pain he had experienced or the sight and sensation of blood somehow played a role as well?
He couldn't tell.
But one thing had been confirmed beyond any doubt at that very moment—something had gone terribly wrong.
That moment left Yohan with two desperate situations to gamble on: If something truly was wrong with his memories, his mind, and even the world around him, should he attempt an irreversible escape without first confirming whether this was actually the false reality described by the ritual?
Or should he risk staying?
The second option carried its own danger. Every moment he spent thinking, there was a chance the psychological influence would reclaim him despite the constant pain and agitation keeping his consciousness unstable. Whatever process had been consuming something within him might intensify again, and if that happened, he might lose whatever control he still possessed.
There was no certainty either way.
Yohan chose to gamble on second situation—confirming where and what Essence was!
The plan wasn't actually to find it but merely to confirm a theory that had only begun taking shape in his mind and before he could organise his thoughts, his mouth moved in a reflex,"...I've found the Essence."
If the ritual's instructions were accurate, at least regarding the deceptive world, then the human-like concepts and figures appearing within it—in most cases—should try to harm you and prevent you from getting to the Essence. But they could neither harm or conceal the Essence itself.
But...
What if...
Yohan was the Essence?
The thought was barely formed when he spoke the words, half-consciously anticipating that the reaction of the figure, or perhaps the world itself, would expose the truth.
The moment those words left his mouth, something changed. The air tension in the kitchen shifted almost noticeably and the warm presence of his mother's figure became sinister in a way Yohan couldn't describe. Her appearance remained unchanged, yet the presence behind it suddenly felt alien, predatory.
Then a pure harrowing intuition screamed from somewhere deep within his soul.
Escape.
He instantly felt that if he hesitated for even a fraction of a second — he might face consequences ninety-nine times worse than a normal death.
And in that single fraction of a moment, two truths crystallized in his mind: First, this was the world created by the ritual. Second... Yohan was the Essence.
Without stuttering for even a thought.
He...drove the knife through his temple.
Thus, he woke up in his actual room, sitting in exactly the same position and posture in which he had begun the ritual. Except instead of months or years having passed, only a few hours had elapsed.
Never thought in my life that even my anxious impulses would prove this useful.
A shadow of a chuckle crossed his face as he thought back on everything. So even the Subliminal Continuum of the Core couldn't manifest an engineering syllabus, huh?
Now it makes sense why I could never remember anything I studied at the university with any clarity. Maybe neither I nor my Core's subconscious had any actual memory of those studies in our life experience.
Ha... quite a humbling moment.
Yohan wiped away the words written across the gray floor before emptying the water from the glasses into the basin.
But why did I never see my father even once there?
He paused.
Could that also have something to do with my Core's subconscious will? Or my own subconscious?
He frowned slightly.
Did I really wish to see less of my father...wait, yeah...no, not exactly.
But yes, at some point during childhood, I did subconsciously wish for something like that. I used to see other people's fathers working abroad, making fortunes for their families. I suppose I once wished mine would do the same.
He scratched his head.
Though I never genuinely wanted him to leave.
His gaze drifted toward the room.
Hmm... what's actually the difference between my subconscious will and my Core's? Or is there really any? And why would my own Core attempt to devour my very existence... Shouldn't it be a part of me?
He stared blankly ahead for a moment.
Ahh...it doesn't matter. I'll think about it some other time.
He sprawled across his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling with an oddly calm expression.
The main thing I should be more concerned about right now is my Innate Trait. I'm really worried whether I'll be able to manifest them now after sleeping.
Sigh...
I really hope...I've not truly awakened yet, else it'll be a real mess—
"Yohan!!"
He was just about to close his eyes when his mother's voice thundered from downstairs, carrying an unmistakably furious edge.
A tired smile tugged subtly at his lips as he heard her voice and muttered while getting up from his cot,"Uh...I almost forgot I've an actual family too because of that damn ritual."
Even if it's only been a few hours, I'm kinda eager to see them. With a serene, mellow feeling, he headed downstairs, passively itching to talk with his mother and stumbled in the room across the staircase.
There was no one there.
"Here! Come here!" His mother's voice came from the kitchen.
Yohan followed it and entered to find his sister sitting on a chair beside the dining table, her back facing the wall opposite the kitchen entrance. She was comfortably slouched against the chair, one foot resting on the seat as she idly scrolled through her phone.
She sneaked a brief glance at him from the corner of her eye, then immediately returned her attention to the screen, pretending to be indifferent.
His mother sat at the other end of the mundane dining table, to his sister's left, her hands empty as she waited for him.
"So. Where were you?" His mother asked with a deep frown and her voice unusually grim.
"W-what...What do you mean, where?" He winced inwardly though his expression remained somberly calm.
"We...! Have been calling your name for more than an hour... and even went to your room but you didn't respond at all. Why have you been keeping your room locked lately?" Her frown deepened, her eyes growing increasingly sullen.
Tsk—haa... Yohan closed his eyes as he looked down then looked at her again. "I am sorry. I was sleeping—"
"Sleeping. You see, sleeping." Siyun cut in without taking her eyes off her screen.
His mother immediately continued, her voice carrying a mixture of frustration and quiet bitterness. "We don't know what you have been doing lately. But can't you... see the efforts we have been putting into you? Don't you feel anything when you look at the circumstances of your house?" Her gaze wandered around the room as her voice grew more mournful. "You sister is doing so much for you so that you can study without any hurdles and secure your future... Can't you see the sacrifices we have made for you?"
"I..."
"Whom you're talking to, Mom? If he cared, things would've been much better. Like father like son." Siyun interrupted coldly then threw a furtive glance at him. " Can't you see his face?"
Yohan went rigid as he stared with exasperated eyes at his mother, almost zoned out.
His mother sighed and looked away, continuing to speak in a bleak, weary tone. Yohan barely heard her anymore, his mind had become strangely placid.
Now this feels more real...no need to verify.
And soon, he gripped his entire face tightly with his right hand. An eerie grin flickered beneath his palm, accompanied by a couple of subdued, almost involuntary giggles.
He lowered his head further, quietly listening to his family argue around him.
This is so real...but why this has to be...
His mother continued, "What exactly do you want, Yohan? Why are you being so indifferent to your own situation? We have so many hopes for you. At least...at least if you don't care about us, then care about yourself and your future—"
Thud!
Yohan suddenly slammed his left fist against the wall and his mother's voice grew silent.
"Stop hitting the walls! It's not your house. I pay for all this. Break as many things as you want once you start earning on your—"
"Yeah...!"
Yohan clutched his face more deeply, his fingers pressing against his skin with grim force.
"YEAH! I never cared... anything else? Who told you put all your hopes—ahh... whatever." He turned away from them, slowly relaxing his hands.
"Yeah. I know. I know. I've always known. I still know. And will forever remember."
His voice settled, losing the sharpness it had carried moments earlier.
"Keep uttering whatever you wish to. Say whatever you need to... but I'll do what I have to..." His voice trailed off. "...because I'm not wrong...not completely."
The house fell serene for a fleeting moment but again Siyun's voice suddenly shrieked through the room, retorting angrily at Yohan before their mother immediately cut her off, telling her not to interrupt and to calm down since she was the one speaking with him.
He walked to the stairs and halted once, "Thanks for everything!" His voice calm, too calm, almost cold. He climbed the stairs and disappeared into his room, closing the door behind him.
Instantly grabbing his improvised sword—as he called it from where he had left it and took an offensive stance.
He took a deep breath as he blinked once and a translucent, blurry phantasm gradually materialized several steps ahead of him—roughly as tall as Yohan, its features indistinct beneath the hazy outline. A longsword rested casually across its shoulder, giving the figure an almost effortless confidence, while its other arm remained extended toward Yohan as though beckoning him forward.
Yohan stared at it with impassive gaze.
He was Shadow Sparring.
So glad I didn't wake up directly in the real world after going through that hell... His rear hand closed around the sword's hilt, fingers flexing once around the grip. Then he raised his blade and phantasm moved.
...Someone might have died else.
Fwoosh—wham!