His clothes had been burned away into the void beyond existence. All that remained was the naked body of Messiah Christ. Yet even that body was penetrated by light, becoming translucent. His outline blended ambiguously with space itself, and he felt as though his consciousness had slipped free from the vessel called the body.
When he directed his gaze forward, countless particles of light came flying toward him, trailing luminous tails behind them. At the source from which they streamed shimmered a brilliant mass of radiant light.
Then, from a space stretching infinitely far beyond sight, a voice arrived like a gentle spring breeze.
"How many worlds have risen and fallen?"
The voice, neither distinctly male nor female, spoke as though asking Messiah a question.
"Huh…?"
The sound nearly escaped his throat, but Messiah swallowed it back. After witnessing countless grotesque phenomena throughout the day, he had become cautious by necessity.
"Countless worlds surpassing infinity itself have repeated manifestation and destruction for eternities beyond measurement, even if one were to repeat the human unit known as a googol endlessly. Heroes and saviors were born in uncountable numbers. They fought, and then vanished. All became legends. All became myths. Yet the infinite wars existed only to lead here. Those who came before existed so that you might survive. You are the savior. And you are the last."
Messiah could not grasp the meaning behind the voice's words.
"Who… are you?"
Only with great effort did his transparent lips manage to form the question.
"My name is Ort. One who advises the gods."
The gods?
Just as Messiah tried to question the meaning of that word, the rain of light suddenly weakened. A sensation like space itself spinning overtook him, and darkness engulfed everything.
But he immediately realized this was no ordinary darkness.
The darkness clung to his materialized body like mud or slime, eating away at him with crushing despair and nausea.
The ground beneath his feet was sticky, like a floor covered in animal entrails, radiating a foul stench. Tiny insect-like particles crawled upward from below, numbing his senses in moments and making it feel as though cold fingers were squeezing his heart.
His face twisted as he struggled desperately, but the more he fought, the deeper his body sank, like quicksand swallowing him whole.
Trying to brush away the sticky darkness and escape, Messiah suddenly realized that the darkness before him had gained form and visibility. Like fog dispersing, like a torrential rain ending, like a sandstorm calming, the darkness cleared enough for him to see into the distance.
A highway.
Before him stretched the endless road that cut through the city like an artery—the very highway where the high-mobility vehicle had stopped moments earlier.
Yet the scenery was not one of destruction, consumption, and despair drowned in screams.
"You have entered their dimension. This is the consciousness of beings that exist far, far away. You must never be consumed. Never—"
The androgynous voice of Ort faded away, as though its volume had been lowered into silence.
It was still a hallucination.
Having experienced countless impossible phenomena over the last several hours, Messiah calmly decided to wait until reality eventually pulled him back again. Barefoot and still naked, he began walking along the white lines of the highway.
He walked like a ghost drifting through the dead road.
Then, ahead of him, a single round object floated out from the darkness.
A jellyfish drifting upon ocean waves came to his mind.
The moment he focused his eyes and recognized the object drifting toward him like something blown by the wind, he recoiled in shock.
An eyeball.
The word itself sounded absurd, almost comical. But if a bloodshot eyeball over two meters in diameter, veins bulging across its surface, actually appeared before someone in reality, it would feel like nothing less than a nightmare made flesh.
Messiah felt himself drowning within such a nightmare.
The eyeball slowly drifted closer until it stopped directly before him, floating silently in midair while staring straight at him.
Before he realized it, cold sweat covered his entire body.
A putrid odor suddenly flooded his nostrils, so vile it felt like claws scraping at his brain. At that moment, the surrounding scenery transformed once again.
The hardness of the highway asphalt vanished abruptly, becoming slick and slimy beneath his feet like mud. His gaze dropped downward as though dragged by gravity itself.