"Now that I am clothed, where the hell am I?"
Ash looked around curiously as his gaze slowly swept across the vast emptiness surrounding him.
To gain a clearer understanding of his surroundings, he gently moved away from the planet’s gravitational field and floated higher into the open void, allowing his perception to expand as far as it could reach.
However, nothing he saw resembled anything he could recognize.
Then again, it was not as if he had ever been familiar with the starry sky in the first place.
"Hmm... let’s see..... let me sense the anchor I left on Elysia. Previously I had way too little energy to leap across light years, but now that I have infinite energy, using the anchor I can just directly go back, no need to waste too much time wandering around."
Ash slowly closed his eyes and focused his senses inward before extending them outward across the immense distances of space, carefully trying to locate the anchor he had once placed on Elysia so that he could return there instantly.
However, when he attempted to sense it, there was nothing.
The expected connection that should have appeared within his perception simply did not exist.
Ash paused for a brief moment and attempted the process again, this time concentrating more deeply as he extended his senses farther, carefully scanning for even the faintest trace of the anchor’s presence.
Yet the result remained exactly the same.
He found nothing.
A faint tightening appeared in his expression as he opened the description of his skill Transcendent Step in order to confirm the status of his anchors.
The result displayed before him was simple.
[0/3]
There were no anchors present.
Did something happen to Elysia?
The thought surfaced quietly within Ash’s mind, and although his face remained calm and neutral, a rapid chain of reasoning had already begun unfolding beneath that composed exterior.
However, he did not allow those thoughts to spiral into panic, because he was no longer the same Ash as before. His mind had already endured countless things, and because of that, he possessed enough control to keep his thoughts steady even when faced with uncertainty.
Instead of immediately jumping to conclusions, he decided to verify something else first.
Ash extended his senses again, this time reaching through the bond he shared with Snow.
Almost instantly, he felt her presence.
Ash slowly turned his gaze toward the direction where Snow was located, even though there was nothing visible in that direction except distant stars and the endless darkness of space. Through the connection between them, he could sense the immense distance that separated them, a distance so vast that it felt almost immeasurable even with his heightened perception.
However, he quickly realized that he could not use her as an anchor point to teleport to her location, because the skill required a properly established anchor rather than a living connection.
Since that option was unavailable, Ash attempted another approach.
He tried communicating with her directly through the connection they shared, sending his voice through the bond that had always allowed them to reach each other instantly.
However, no reply came.
A slight frown slowly formed on his face.
Ash then attempted something else as he aligned his perception with hers, trying to see through Snow’s eyes in the same way he had done countless times before.
Yet the moment his perception synchronized with hers, his vision was filled with nothing but darkness.
There were no shapes, no light, and no visible surroundings.
Only endless darkness.
"What is even happening..?"
Ash murmured quietly as he focused once more on the connection that linked him to Snow.
From everything he could sense, Snow herself appeared completely fine. Her presence felt stable and unharmed, and there were no signs of weakness, pain, or danger within the life force he could perceive through their bond.
Yet despite that, she was not answering his voice, and when he attempted to see through her eyes, there was still nothing visible except an uninterrupted expanse of darkness that revealed absolutely nothing about where she was or what she was seeing.
Ash did not immediately give up after that. He continued trying various ways to stimulate her consciousness, to wake her awareness.
But no matter what method he tried, nothing changed.
Snow remained silent.
In fact, Ash had already tried speaking to her many times back when he was inside the Soul Space, but because of the enormous difference in the flow of time between the two locations, the words he sent would have reached her far too quickly.
From Snow’s perspective, those words would have appeared so rapid and compressed that they would sound like meaningless noise rather than something she could properly understand.
Realizing that this path was also blocked, Ash shifted his attention to another possibility.
He began visualizing the world of Akumia within his mind, so that he could attempt a direct teleportation there.
However, after trying several times, his expression finally changed.
"I cant sense it. Even after visualizing it clearly, I cant teleport there. Don’t tell me... is the world destroyed...?? What the hell was Ray even doing? Even if he has no Runes, he was still supposed to be powerful!!"
A faint irritation surfaced in Ash’s voice as that possibility crossed his mind. At that moment he completely overlooked a simple fact, which was that he himself had already changed the fate of Akumia far too drastically.
Because of the changes he had caused, even if Ray had tried his best, it was entirely possible that he would never have become strong enough to prevent the world from being merged with the New Realm.
I can’t think of anything.... Hmm?
While he was still thinking about what to do next, Eva suddenly tried to contact him.
Because of the difference in the flow of time, he could sense that she was speaking, but the information arrived far too rapidly for him to properly interpret the meaning of her words.
"Tsk... first I need to find a solution to the time difference problem. Otherwise there would be no point even if Eva tries to help me."
"There is also the problem that Eva cannot perceive anything from the outside world. I was originally planning to search for a way to create a formation that would allow her to sense the outside environment, but with the new ability I obtained, [Consciousness Link], I can simply connect my senses with hers. That way she can see and hear whatever I perceive. I can always create that formation some other time."
"Right... lets connect with her and ask for her opinion. Who knows, I might get some ideas through her perspective. Every person’s perspective is different after all. But first, lets see whether this skill can bypass the time difference."
With that thought, Ash immediately activated the ability and extended the connection toward Eva, linking it directly with her consciousness, or more precisely, with her soul. Because of the deep connection he already shared with her, establishing this link was extremely easy.
"Can you see what I am seeing?"
{- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - }
Ash slowly shook his head.
He still could not understand what she was saying.
Realizing that the time difference was still interfering with their communication, he withdrew his consciousness and retreated back into his Soul Space.
**
When Ash appeared back inside his Soul Space, he immediately noticed that both Eric and Eva were staring at him with strange expressions.
Eric stood there with his mouth slightly open, while Eva looked completely frozen, her eyes wide as if she had forgotten how to blink.
For a moment Ash was confused by their reactions and instinctively looked around, wondering if something unusual had happened behind him. However, when their gazes remained fixed directly on him without shifting even slightly, realization slowly began to dawn on him.
He quickly examined his own appearance.
Only then did he understand what had happened.
Somehow his appearance inside the Soul Space had changed as well, matching the same form he currently possessed outside. The human version of Ash.
Eric blinked a few times as if trying to confirm that what he was seeing was actually real.
"...What the hell happened to you?"
His voice carried a clear note of disbelief as his eyes moved from Ash’s face to his hair and then back again, as though the more he looked the less convinced he became that this was the same person he had been talking to earlier.
Eva, on the other hand, reacted very differently.
The moment Ash’s gaze met hers, she quickly lowered her eyes and looked away, a faint blush spreading across her cheeks as she awkwardly tried to pretend that she had not been staring so openly just moments before. Her fingers lightly fidgeted with the edge of her sleeve as she quietly turned her head to the side.
She was in her human form. Indeed, after years of nourishment provided by Ash soul, she was able to project herself in human form. Now she looked like that of 15 year old girl.
Ash watched their reactions for a brief moment, and an amused feeling rose inside him.
A faint smile tugged at the corner of his lips as a small sense of satisfaction crept into his thoughts. Seeing their stunned expressions gave him a strange feeling of giddiness, almost like a child secretly enjoying the effect of a harmless trick.
For a brief instant he could not help but remember how different things had been before. Back then he had constantly tried to suppress or hide his charm, worried that it would attract unnecessary attention or cause complications.
Now instead, he felt complete opposite.
Eric looked as if his brain had momentarily stopped working, while Eva could barely bring herself to look at him properly.
Ash lightly cleared his throat and shook his head, pushing those stray thoughts aside before they could wander any further.
This was not the time to dwell on something so trivial.
There were far more important problems waiting to be solved.
It took some time, but Ash finally managed to bring both Eric and Eva out of their stunned reverie. Their eyes still occasionally drifted toward him as if they were not completely convinced that the person standing before them was the same Ash they had known until now.
However, once their minds settled down enough to focus, Ash began explaining everything he had just experienced outside.
He carefully told them about Snow, about the strange darkness he saw when trying to look through her eyes, and about the disturbing possibility that the world of Akumia might have been destroyed.
Both Eric and Eva were clearly shocked by what they heard. The idea that an entire world might have been erased was not something anyone could easily accept.
Yet the shock did not last long.
Being with Ash for so long had already exposed them to far too many impossible events. Compared to the things they had already witnessed, even the destruction of a world no longer felt completely unimaginable.
After understanding the situation, Eva explained what happened when she tried to observe what Ash was seeing through the Consciousness Link ability.
However, because of the enormous difference in the flow of time between the Soul Space and the outside world, she could only perceive a frozen mental image of Ash’s surroundings. The moment he shifted his vision, the image she received would take an incredibly long time to update, making it practically useless for real time perception.
Realizing that this approach would not help much, Ash decided that he first needed to find a solution to the problem created by the time difference.
Naturally, the first idea that came to his mind was the Rune of Time.
He had already comprehended 260 glyphs of it, and since each runic symbol contained 360, he only needed 100 more to fully comprehend one complete runic symbol.
From the knowledge he had already gained through those 260 glyphs, Ash knew that this particular runic symbol indeed possessed the potential to overcome the communication issue caused by the time difference.
However, he also understood that reducing the time flow of his Soul Space itself would likely require an entirely different runic symbol, something that belonged to a more complex aspect of the Rune of Time.
Since there was currently nothing else he could do about the situation outside, Ash decided to temporarily leave the task of figuring out a way back home to the Unicorn siblings, trusting that they might discover something useful while he focused on the runes.
Of course, he could technically travel through space manually, but such a journey might take an absurd amount of time even with his current abilities.
And more importantly, the thought of wandering endlessly through empty space sounded unbearably boring.
After making that decision, Ash returned once again to the dark space where the Runes existed.
Once he arrived there, another idea occurred to him.
He left the dark space briefly and created a Blood Clone outside.
This clone possessed roughly 50% of his overall power, although it did not contain the universe within his body like the original Ash did. After creating it, he sent the Blood Clone into the dark space to attempt comprehension of the runes.
However, the moment the clone began experiencing the flow of time inside that place, the small wisp of consciousness that controlled it encountered an overwhelming difference in time perception. The sudden overload placed enormous strain on the connection between Ash and the clone.
Before the strain could cause more serious problems, Ash immediately severed the connection.
For a moment he thought the experiment had completely failed.
But then a sudden inspiration flashed through his mind.
Instead of maintaining a direct conscious link with the clone, he decided to simply review its experiences afterward through his memories.
Using the Soul Library as a medium, Ash accessed the stored memories of the Blood Clone and carefully observed everything it had experienced while attempting to comprehend the runes.
Through this method he was indeed able to see and feel what the clone had gone through.
However, the result was still disappointing.
The clone was completely incapable of comprehending the runes.
No matter how long it stayed there, it simply could not grasp the meaning behind the Runes. Ash had no clear idea why this was happening, but the result itself was undeniable.
After confirming this limitation, he returned his attention inward and began comprehending the runes personally.
It was during this process that he noticed another important difference.
He did not lose consciousness.
Previously, whenever he attempted to comprehend the runes, the overwhelming influx of knowledge would immediately push his mind into unconsciousness.
This time, however, that did not happen.
The knowledge flowed into his mind slowly and steadily, allowing him to remain fully aware throughout the entire process.
Although this difference surprised him slightly, it was also something he had expected after gaining his new body.
Ash carefully analyzed the speed of his current comprehension.
He realized that he could now comprehend approximately 0.1 % of one glyph every hour.
Unlike before, where the knowledge arrived all at once in an overwhelming surge, this time the information entered his mind gradually over the course of an entire hour.
In simple terms, this meant that the time required for him to comprehend 1% of the Rune had been reduced drastically.
Previously it had taken him 119 years to comprehend a 1% of the total rune.
Now it would only take around 30 years.
Of course, that calculation assumed that he remained continuously focused on comprehension without interruption for those 30 years.
Even so, the improvement was enormous.
Considering the difference in time flow between the Soul Space and the outside world, comprehending 1% of the Rune would now only take about one week in the outside world.
Which meant that fully comprehending the entire Rune would only require around two and a half years outside.
After confirming this astonishing improvement, Ash allowed a quiet sense of satisfaction to settle in his mind.
Then, without wasting any more time, he began his comprehension once again.
Around 35 years passed, and during this time Ash finally comprehended a complete runic symbol of the Rune of Time, which was ’Time-Bridge’.
There were many possible applications for this ability depending on how it was used and structured, but its main purpose was to form a stable temporal link between two points that existed in different time streams.
Using this knowledge, Ash spent another five years carefully creating a formation around Eva’s core that would establish a direct link between their consciousness.
Through this formation, Eva would now be able to contact him easily without being affected by the enormous time difference between the Soul Space and the outside world.
At the same time, the formation was designed in such a way that she could deactivate it whenever she wished simply by turning the formation around her core off.
This meant that if Ash were fighting some enemy outside while Eva needed time to search or research something, she could temporarily disconnect the link, take advantage of the time difference, and spend a long period of time analyzing the problem before reconnecting and informing Ash of what she discovered.
This was only one simple example of how such an ability could be used.
After completing the formation and confirming that the connection worked properly, Ash finally spoke with Eric and Eva again to ask whether they had discovered any possible way for him to return.
And they did not disappoint him.
Hearing their idea and considering that it might actually work, Ash appeared outside.
All this while, his body had remained completely defenseless in the outside world while his consciousness stayed within the Soul Space, but he was not worried about it. His instincts had already evolved far beyond ordinary perception, and he was confident that if any real danger approached him, his instincts would immediately warn him before anything could truly threaten him.
Ash then slowly steadied his mind and began visualizing the image of the Dragon Library within his thoughts.
According to the Unicorn siblings, even if the world itself had been destroyed, the Dragon Library along with the Sacred Land of the Dragons existed separately in outer space. Because of that, there was a real possibility that those places might have survived whatever disaster had befallen the world.
Ash silently hoped that such a miracle had indeed occurred, because if those places no longer existed, then he would have no choice but to travel the immense distance manually through space, which would take far longer than he preferred.
As the image of the Dragon Library became clearer within his mind, he suddenly felt a faint but undeniable connection forming between two distant points in space.
The moment that connection stabilized, Ash did not hesitate.
He simply took a step forward.
In the very next instant, the vast emptiness around him twisted and shifted, and the surroundings around him changed completely as space folded and repositioned itself around his movement.
The moment Ash completed that step, the silent darkness of space disappeared.
His surroundings shifted instantly, and when his senses settled once again, he found himself standing inside a vast and ancient library.
The instant Ash appeared inside, he activated Absolute Concealment without hesitation.
His presence vanished completely.
Only after ensuring that his existence had been completely hidden did Ash begin examining his surroundings.
Towering shelves stretched far into the distance in every direction, filled with countless books and records. The architecture surrounding him was unmistakable. The structure of the halls, the arrangement of the shelves, the towering columns supporting the ceiling, and the deep silence that filled the air all confirmed what place this was.
It was the Dragon Library.
However, the moment Ash arrived, he sensed that something was different.
The mana flowing through the air was far denser than he remembered.
It was not merely a slight increase, but a noticeable change in the density of energy surrounding the entire structure. The mana moved through the environment like an unseen ocean, brushing against his senses with a richness that had not existed here before.
Even without actively focusing, he could feel the concentration of energy pressing gently against his skin, as if the entire place had been submerged in a far deeper sea of power than before.
Without wasting time, he slowly lifted his gaze upward.
A faint glow appeared within his eyes as his vision sharpened and began penetrating the obstacles above him. His sight passed through the towering bookshelves, massive stone walls, the layers of protective formations.
Each layer of defense became transparent before his gaze.
His sight continued rising higher, passing through magical barriers and protective structures until it finally reached the sky above.
There he saw the azure sky stretching across the heavens.
Yet even at a glance, Ash could tell that something about it was different from what he remembered. The color, the depth, and the feeling carried by the sky felt subtly unfamiliar, as if the world itself had changed in ways that were not immediately obvious.
Rather than waste time guessing what had changed, Ash immediately chose the simplest method to confirm his suspicions.
In the next instant, he teleported outside.
The moment his surroundings changed again and he appeared beyond the structure, Ash’s thoughts froze for a brief moment.
The Dragon Library was no longer floating in outer space the way it had been before.
Instead, before his eyes stretched an endless expanse of land that extended in every direction as far as his vision could reach.
Ash slowly turned his gaze across the horizon, observing the vast terrain that surrounded the library.
Mountains rose in the distance, forests stretched across wide plains, and rivers wound their way through the enormous landscape. The land did not appear broken or fragmented like the remnants of a destroyed world drifting through space. Instead, it appeared whole, stable, and impossibly vast.
It did not resemble the secret realm of the dragons that he remembered. Here he could even see a enormous city in the distance.
Ash slowly began ascending higher into the sky, moving upward through the air as he continued observing the landscape below. His body rose rapidly, crossing the clouds and continuing higher without slowing, as he attempted to gain a wider perspective of the land that stretched endlessly beneath him.
The higher he rose, the more enormous the landscape appeared.
Eventually he passed through the upper layers of the atmosphere and entered outer space.
From that vantage point, Ash finally looked down at the land below.
For a brief moment, his mind stalled.
What he saw before him was a single, unimaginably vast expanse of land that stretched outward in every direction without any visible end. Even from that height, he can’t see the end of the land.
It was simply one enormous landmass.
A world made entirely of land that extended endlessly beyond the limits of his sight.
Ash remained silent as he stared at the colossal landscape below.
At the same time, Ash realized something else.
Through the connection he shared with Snow, he could clearly feel that she was now much closer to him compared to the enormous and immeasurable distance he had sensed earlier.
The bond between them had grown noticeably stronger, as if the space separating them had suddenly shortened by an unimaginable margin.
That realization caused his thoughts to slow slightly.
As Ash continued observing the endless expanse below him, a strange feeling slowly began to surface within his mind.
For some reason, the sight before him felt familiar.
At first the feeling was faint, almost like a memory buried deep within his mind that refused to reveal itself clearly.
However, the longer Ash stared at the vast landmass stretching endlessly beneath him, the stronger that sense of familiarity gradually became. It was not simple curiosity or imagination. Instead, it felt like the quiet echo of something he had once known, something his mind had seen before even though it should have been impossible.
Then suddenly, his instincts reacted.
The moment the thought about familiarity became clear in his mind, a subtle reaction stirred deep within his instincts.
It was not a warning of danger or an urgent alarm, but rather a quiet pull that gently directed his attention toward a particular direction across the endless land below.
Ash did not question it.
He just followed his instincts or intuition.
Without hesitation, he slowly turned his body and began moving in the direction that feeling guided him toward, allowing that invisible pull to lead him forward.
Even Eva remained completely silent within the Soul Space as she observed through their connection. She could sense the subtle shift in Ash’s mood and understood that something important was unfolding, so she chose not to interrupt his focus and simply watched quietly.
Ash continued moving through space, following the direction his instincts indicated.
Because he was already in outer space, the immense distance across the landmass did not hinder his movement in any meaningful way. With every passing moment he crossed enormous stretches of terrain that would normally take an unimaginable amount of time to travel.
Mountains passed beneath him like distant ripples across the surface of the land.
Endless plains extended across the horizon without interruption.
Forests, rivers, cities and valleys appeared one after another, only to disappear behind him as he continued moving forward at tremendous speed.
The land seemed to stretch without limit.
Yet Ash did not slow down.
After some time, he finally arrived above a particular region of the massive landmass.
The moment his gaze settled upon what lay below him, his entire body froze.
His eyes widened slowly as the sight before him entered his vision.
For the first time since obtaining his new body, Ash completely lost control of his facial expression and emotions.
The shock that surged through his mind at that moment was simply too overwhelming for him to suppress.
His thoughts stalled as he stared downward.
Several moments passed while he remained completely still, his gaze fixed upon the land below as disbelief filled his mind.
"H-how.....can it be??? What happened here..??? What is this place??"
His gaze continued to remain locked on the landscape beneath him.
"And why the hell does this place look exactly like the World of Eden from the game I played in my previous life???"
The very same game.
The same game that had ultimately led to his transmigration.
END OF VOLUME 4 : The Realm of Eden
***
A/N: This is the longest Chapter I have ever written. Hope you enjoyed the cliff hanger!!! hehehehe!!!