Twenty six: world full of darkness

In a grand, spacious room adorned with majestic yet ancient columns, stones lay scattered and the walls were cracked.

On the ground, bodies of various races lay mixed, their faces unified in expressions of fear and disbelief. Amidst the blood and grotesque mingling of limbs, there was a man in his late teens. His black hair was starting to turn white, and his skin had just begun to wrinkle.

He smiled and sighed, despite his waist being severed from his body. "260 years! What a headache! Who would have thought I'd face something like this?" he mused.

"The nightmare has nothing to do but destroy my sect." He picked up his pipe and began to inhale. "Should I pretend to be dead? No, the nightmare knows I'm still alive."

After a few seconds, a young man who appeared to be eighteen emerged. He was beautiful, with flawless skin, neither too tall nor too short. What stood out were his crimson eyes. As he walked slowly towards the man, his shadow was enormous and filled with crimson eyes, making anyone feel dizzy.

When he reached the man, he said, "You know this will be pathetic."

The man looked at him and laughed heartily, "Won't it be funny?"

The young man smiled, "Your character exceeds my expectations. To laugh in such a situation! You must not value your life."

The man smirked, "You're wrong, it's not that I don't value my life, it's just that I don't value you."

As soon as he said that, his arm was cut off, but the man's expression didn't waver. This made the young man smile again and say, "How about becoming my avatar?"

The man's gaze faltered slightly but quickly steadied. He said, "The embodiment of the nightmare? Is that a fancy name for a slave or what?"

The young man looked at him and said, "There is a difference as vast as the earth and the sky. If you become my embodiment, I will help you live for tens of thousands of years and even give you a chance to become a nightmare or a constellation yourself."

The man looked at him and said, "It seems you want an answer now, don't you?"

The man extended his good hand in a fist and pointed it at the young man. The young man wondered what he wanted, but then he saw the middle finger directed at him. The young man didn't know what it meant, but he felt it was something disrespectful.

The young man's eyes narrowed, "It's really a waste of human resources."

Then the man began to burn as he saw the nightmare before him. He remembered all his memories on Earth and in this strange world since he had transferred to this world with a new body.

But at that moment, he felt pain far beyond the pain of burning. He screamed in agony, "Haaaaaaaaaay!"

The young man couldn't help but be surprised by his sudden scream. The man's heart glowed with a colored light unlike any color the young man had seen in his millions of years of life.

As soon as the man's scream stopped, the young man heard the sound of glass breaking in the man's heart. The phenomenon stopped before him, and sweat poured from him.

Nothing happened for several minutes until the young man calmed down and left the room.

As he was heading towards the door, the walls and floor began to collapse. But what scared the young man wasn't that, but his own disintegration. Then he realized he shouldn't have killed this man. The last thought the young man had was:

"Is this what the man felt?"

The young man disappeared.