COTE x TBATE | A Masterpiece

Chapter『62』 - Hello Darkness, my old friend!

7400 words. Another longest chapter. Woohoo!

It was dark. Really dark.

Within this void of impenetrable darkness, I found myself suspended, adrift amidst its harrowing obscurity. It was an abyss devoid of reflection—a blackness so absolute that I could not discern movement from stillness.

All that encompassed me was this void, devoid of sensory input—no sounds reverberating, no flavours lingering, no scents wafting, and no textures gracing my touch—a vacuum that swallowed everything—sights, sounds, scents, and touch—leaving me with nothing but a profound sense of isolation. I was enveloped in an eternal void, where silence was my sole companion.

Initially, there was a tranquillity to this boundless, obsidian expanse. I felt a peculiar sense of both insignificance and universality. I felt as though I occupied both the infinitesimal and the infinite simultaneously. I was a mere speck, insignificant in the grand cosmos, yet, paradoxically, I also sensed that no existence existed beyond my own—like the creator of a domain—like a God in his universe.

But as time elapsed, fragments of my identity returned. I recollected that I was human—a creature of flesh and bones, with appendages to manipulate the world. Nevertheless, I could not sense anything, no matter how hard I tried. My attempts to curl my fingers or wiggle my toes proved fruitless, as did my efforts to stimulate my senses by flaring my nostrils or parting my lips. There was an eerie absence of sensation, an inability to even perceive the rhythm of my own breath.

Uncertainty and coincidences were the scariest things I knew. And I had exactly started to feel the prior. It began to grip me, creeping through my consciousness without any physical manifestations that I had grown accustomed to. No racing heartbeat, no hastened breaths, no trembling limbs. Although I had learned to keep them steady most of the time, I had experienced them twice. And even now, certain things triggered them. The last time it happened was when I... died and was trapped into a familiar place. However, right now, what I was experiencing was much more... impactful, than before. I was not able to express , but right now, I couldn't even feel my sole emotion—curiosity.

In fact, I yearned to feel fear, to experience anything that would validate the existence of something beyond my own consciousness. Yet, I remained trapped, the passing of time slipping away unmarked. I grasped at every conceivable method to retain my sanity. I tried to scream, but the sound was swallowed by the unyielding darkness. I attempted to bite my own tongue, seeking some semblance of sensation, yet it was an exercise in futility.

The sensation was weird, and I couldn't really wrap my head around it. I had reached the Integration stage on my secondary core while my primary core was still on white stage, pumping mana into each and every mana vein and vessel—providing a 24/7 exposure of mana to my body, resulting in making it as sturdy as the asuras.

The basic disparity between asuras and human's body composition was because of this core reason. Because no human reached the integration stage on their own, they were never able to gain access to physiques like this—let alone their future generations—hence in extension; humans, elves and dwarves didn't have a specific mana type like Force-type mana for the Pantheons.

Within the vast expanse of my dormant mind, elusive memories danced tantalisingly close, yet forever eluding my grasp, akin to delicate mirages shimmering on the periphery of my consciousness—teetering at the precipice of my hypothetical tongue—only one person revolved in my mind—Ellie.

As the sluggish passage of time wove its intangible web, it started to feel like an enigmatic phantom when I tried to decipher its rhythm—whether it careened with the fleetness of a shooting star or meandered languidly like a sluggish river through the boundless void—it remained indifferent.