He paused for a brief moment, then looked directly at me, his tone turning serious again.
"Billion... we leave the fate of the Prime Universe to you. Do well."
Before I could respond, a notification appeared in front of me.
[All the best :)]
I smiled.
"Don’t worry," I said, "I’ll return victorious."
With that, I stepped forward and lay down inside one of the coffins, the surface cold and rigid beneath me as it adjusted slightly to my form.
"This is so uncomfortable," Lyrate said as she glanced at hers, clearly unimpressed. Then her gaze shifted toward Aurora and Vivi. "They won’t be able to touch my body while I’m gone, right?"
"No," Amun replied, sounding mildly amused. "Your body will be sealed completely. Why do you ask?"
Lyrate stepped into the coffin and lay down, crossing her arms with a dramatic sigh before answering, "Because they clearly can’t tolerate my beauty. I was worried they might try something."
"Crazy," Aurora muttered.
"Just get lost," Vivi added without even looking at her.
Lyrate grinned, turning her head slightly toward them and silently mouthing, you lose , before settling back.
Knight didn’t say anything at all. He had already stepped into his coffin and lay there quietly, his usual calm expression unchanged.
"Crush the tokens when you’re ready," Amun’s voice echoed calmly.
I closed my eyes for a brief moment, then sent a message directly into everyone’s mind.
Take care... and trust only each other.
There was no reply, but I felt their presence acknowledge it.
Without hesitation, I tightened my grip on the token and crushed it.
A crimson light burst across my vision, sharp and overwhelming, swallowing everything in an instant. My senses collapsed inward as the world around me dissolved, and within a breath, I lost consciousness.
Everything went dark.
*******
Something pulled me back into awareness, the feeling similar to waking up after a deep sleep, my senses returning gradually until my vision cleared.
I found myself standing in front of a large arch gate with the words The Terminal written clearly across the top.
I let my gaze move past the archway and took in the surroundings, finding myself standing at the edge of a narrow stone bridge that stretched forward over a slow-moving river, its water clear and blue as it flowed steadily beneath.
The sky above was open and calm, a clean blue that felt almost unreal in contrast to everything else, while beyond the immediate area, thick white fog surrounded the space on all sides, swallowing the distance and cutting off any view of what lay further ahead or behind, as if this place existed only within the few steps we could see.
I stayed still for a moment, letting everything settle, then looked down at myself and frowned slightly as I noticed the loose blue gown I was wearing, the kind usually seen on patients in a hospital.
A presence beside me made me turn. Knight stood on my right and Lyrate on my left, both already awake and dressed the same way.
Knight looked down at himself, tugged lightly at the gown, then glanced at us.
"Well," he said, "looks like we died and got admitted at the same time."
Lyrate slowly turned her head toward him, her expression flat.
"If that was a joke," she said, "you should reconsider your life choices."
Knight nodded slightly. "I will. Just not today."
I exhaled quietly and looked back at the gate in front of us.
So this was it. The starting point.
"Let’s go inside and see where it takes us," I said, and without waiting further, we stepped through the arch.
The moment we crossed it, the emptiness vanished as if a layer had been peeled away, and suddenly there were people all around us, moving forward in a steady flow. They were dressed the same as us, yet different in every other way, coming from various races and forms, though the number still felt small compared to how vast the place seemed to be.
We followed the movement, walking across the bridge as the river flowed quietly beneath us, and once we reached the other side, the path opened into a wide plaza where the only structure in sight was a fountain at the center, its water rising and falling in a calm rhythm.
Around it, the crowd gathered in loose lines, most of them moving toward a single point toward a white cat that sat casually on a bench near the fountain, watching everything with a level of calm that didn’t quite match its size.
I slowed slightly, then glanced at Knight with a faint smirk.
"Well," I said, "nice to see your people made it here before us. Looks like you’ve got competition."
Knight didn’t even look at me at first. He just stared at the cat, then at me, and finally let out a slow breath.
"I was a panther," he said flatly. "A predator. Not... whatever that is."
Lyrate glanced between the two of us, then looked at the cat again.
"Still a cat," she said lightly. "Just downgraded."
Knight closed his eyes for a brief moment as if reconsidering his life choices.
"This is exactly why I don’t talk much," he muttered.
I let out a quiet chuckle.
"Relax," I said. "Maybe it’s your future self after reincarnation."
"That’s not helping," he replied immediately.
Lyrate smirked faintly. "Either way, that’s clearly where we need to go."
I nodded, and the three of us moved forward, joining the line. It moved slowly, and as people ahead finished their turn, they walked away in different directions, leaving the path open.
Soon enough, it was my turn. I stepped forward and stood in front of her.
After a brief moment, she lifted her gaze toward me.
"So," she said, her tone calm but edged with mild disinterest, "another one who thinks they’ll make it."
I watched her for a second before replying, "I was expecting someone bigger."
She blinked once, slow and unimpressed. "And I was expecting something smarter. Looks like we’re both disappointed."
With a small flick of her paw, a scroll appeared in the air between us and unfurled smoothly, revealing a list of missions. I let my eyes move across it, taking in the details quickly. There were around twenty missions in total, each marked clearly with a difficulty classification—low, medium, and high.
Most of them fell under the lower tiers, a handful under medium, and only three stood apart, marked distinctly as high.
"Pick one," the cat said casually, as if she were offering something far less consequential. "Once you choose, you go. No returns until it’s done... or you are."
I ignored her tone and focused on the scroll, scanning through the options one by one, noting the variety in tasks and scale. Then my gaze paused on one of the high-difficulty entries.
"Save the World."
I looked at it for a moment longer than the others.
"That’s... not very descriptive," I said, glancing back at her.
She followed my gaze briefly, then returned her attention to me. "If you need hand-holding, you can pick something from the lower section. They usually come with fewer regrets."
I exhaled quietly, then reached out and tapped the mission.
"Save the World."
The scroll reacted instantly, the moment my choice was made, rolling itself back up and vanishing just as smoothly as it had appeared.
The cat studied me for a brief second, then let out a quiet sigh.
"Of course you did," she muttered.
Knight folded his arms. "We don’t do easy."
"You don’t do thinking," she replied without missing a beat.
The cat shook her head slightly, then raised her paw again, her tone returning to that same calm indifference.
"Stand closer," she said. "All three of you."
We stepped forward without hesitation. Her eyes moved across us one last time before she spoke again, almost as an afterthought.
"Try not to make things worse than they already are."
The space around us began to distort before I could respond, the ground beneath our feet losing its form as everything dissolved into motion.
And in the next instant we were gone.