And Then, There Was Darkness

''What the fuck happened?!?'', a shaggy black-haired man yelled, lonely in the middle of nowhere.

He was up from the icy ground he was lying on in an instant with that scream, still terrified of what had happened a moment ago.

''The demons, those bastards killed us! They killed me without hesitation!'', he yelled, the words coming out of his previously slashed throat.

Kailan took a deep breath, tossing his head down, then left and right, in an attempt to get it all out of his damn mind.

"I... I... hadn't I died?" Kailan asked himself, stuttering nervously as he gripped his head tightly.

Memories of that recent traumatic event surged like a wave through Kailan's mind, causing him immense pain, both physical and mental. He remembered Mildred's lifeless eyes, the crushed bodies of his friends, and Martha's limbless torso and head.

He dug his nails into his arm, and some blood ran through them. Kailan fought with himself not to throw up there, his vision blurred for a few seconds as he remembered everything he'd been through in the last few hours of his life.

Just a few minutes ago, his legs refused to move, his arms grew cold and heavy, and his head emptied completely as he bled to death on the dirty floor of a hall full of madmen.

He was definitely dead. So where the hell was he?

"So this is the afterlife? But the first time I was reincarnated, I wasn't sent anywhere and I just appeared in that world."

He pulled himself together and took the initiative to try to find out what was going on.

Kailan was a former inhabitant of Earth who lived a miserable life on the great blue planet and died in a way that no one cared when he departed from the world of the living. However, he was sent to that other world with his memories and decided to live in a better way, putting so much effort into it that he was eventually titled the Sword Saint.

But in the end, both of the young man's lives ended sadly.

''.....''

Kailan was very disoriented, he had never been through a situation as strange as this. That is, with the exception of the betrayal of some of his teammates and the death of everyone important to him right before his eyes.

There was nothing in the region, it was just a stark white room surrounding it. From the floor to the ceiling, it was all entirely painted white, which gave the place an eerie air.

FSSHH

He felt a strange sensation brushing the back of his body. An extreme and strange heat that burned his back suddenly surged as he thought about what it meant to have woken up in that unfamiliar place.

"Shit! It's HOT, IT'S VERY HOT!", he yelled, rolling on the floor instinctively.

Then his bowed head lifted again, and Kailan began to examine his surroundings minutely, noticing something even more bizarre than the sensation he had.

White and black flames surrounded the entire space he was in, in some sort of formation he was totally unaware of. It was almost like a fence on a gravel road, the kind that guided people into towns and villages.

FSSHHH

The flames were extremely hot, and their temperature was so high that it could be felt even from the distance Kailan was now.

He looked around and confirmed that those flames did indeed spread endlessly all over the scene. That white room didn't seem to have a beginning, not even an exit, just a straight path surrounded by flames.

That white room he was trapped in seemed to have no beginning and no exit, with only a straight path surrounded by flames. Their temperature was such that just surrounding Kailan, they still slightly burned his bare ankles and legs, disappearing and reappearing in the young man's field of vision at random intervals of time.

"Is this some trick of those maniacs? Maybe they want to extract information from me…", he pondered with a hand on his chin.

No, it was impossible for that statement to be correct, after all, he knew it was unlikely. Since the most informed and intelligent person in the group was Mildred... And they killed her without a second thought, leaving only Kailan alive just to play with the man's life a little longer.

"So what the hell is this?", said; his voice echoing through the vast, empty place.

There was only him in that place. And all this reminded him of a text he had heard Martha recite:

"𝑁𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑙, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑡 𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠, 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑎𝑠 𝑖𝑡 𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑔𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑜𝑑𝑠. 𝐵𝑢𝑡 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑠 𝑎 𝑠𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒, 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑦. 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑛, 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑎𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑠𝑢𝑑𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑛 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒. ...

𝐸𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑐𝑙𝑎𝑖𝑚 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒 𝑖𝑚𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑐𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑜𝑡 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑝 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑓𝑒𝑎𝑟 𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑡ℎ. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑓𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑖𝑛𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑡𝑒, 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑑𝑎𝑦 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚; 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑓𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑟 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝑝𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑑𝑎𝑦."

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*(NOTE: Old memories and speeches will be italicized.)*

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"..."

He was silent, then the room was quiet with only the crepitate sounds of the flames, crackling nonstop in the background.

Soon after, he cleared his mind of the depressing thoughts and began to walk as the flames dictated. When he passed a certain point, walking through the formation that the flames took, something abnormal happened.

The flames began to turn into a thick fog that prevented him from seeing ahead, nor going beyond it, which made the option of 'returning from where he came from' impossible.

The flaming light sources that had lit the place before, had gone out completely, but the room was still bright enough for Kailan to see and walk around without any problems. He continued onward without blinking, always trying to find something that was visible through the veil of mist that filled the room.

PSHHS

"What the hell?"

Two torches lit by themselves 10 meters from Kailan, revealing his surroundings more clearly and accurately than before.

"Is this a castle?"

Kailan asked, confused. He had been completely naked since he arrived at that locale and his body showed the results of what several years of training and battles could do to someone.

The fog around the torches was thinner, so Kailan could see more fully and with less adversity.

The Torchlight revealed dark ornate walls and a marble floor. Golden chandeliers with a few candles protruded from the ceiling in random spots with no defined gaps, giving the place a unique aesthetic.

When he finally got close enough to the torches, it was visible that they were hanging from some sort of gate.

Although his vision was trained, it was almost as if the gate was transparent, so Kailan had to squint to see what was in front of him. As he did so, Kailan was able to discern what appeared to be a huge, half-broken, old wooden gate.

Like the gate that started the final event of his pathetic, meaningless life.

"Am I repeating my death? Maybe then, I'm in some kind of purgatory?", he shook his head from side to side repeatedly and hit his head a few times. "Let's ignore these silly thoughts for now and find out what is this first. It could be a clue to what happened to me and how I got here."

Then, he used his eyes and senses, which had been developed over the years, to peer closely at that huge gate.

The gate had a few gold-covered silver ornaments, which distinguished it from the wooden gate he had opened moments before he was killed. There were a few metal dolls that seemed to depict some kind of mythical event, almost as if they were an illustrated book.

For a moment, Kailan felt like a child reading a sketched story.

Despite not being a very smart person (in both lives), he had a great knowledge of history, and that scene described at the gate was unlike anything he remembered, so nothing really good that would help him came to mind.

''So? How do I get out from here onwards?''