Chapter Twenty Six

Feeling the slight stimuli on his skin, Kyle closed his eyes and opened his arms—as if he was inviting someone for a hug.

"Loine…"

The gossamer-thin resistance touched his body and dispersed, but not before covering his body in a warm and comfortable film.

It was as comfortable as the warm embrace of a family.

The warm sensation left him as quickly as when it had swallowed him whole.

The faint presence of another being dissipated, along with everything else in this world. Around him to the horizon from all sides, everything was a dull emptiness.

Kyle remembered the memories he had made with the sibling, further highlighting his current solitude.

But the world will not give him the time as to be engulfed in sorrow.

He felt a slight force sucking on his bare skin.

With him witnessing it, a whirlpool of nothingness came into being. With him at the center of the immaterial vortex, any residual matter left was being sucked into the tornado.

Mists, dirt, objects, decorations— everything was sucked into the unseen vortex around him. Everything that had touched the surface of the whirlpool will be disintegrated and turn into nothingness, blending into the world around them.

Even the tears that slid down from his eyes disappeared when they came into contact with it.

"What is wrong with me?"

He wiped his eyes, but tears continued to slide down from them.

'It won't stop?'

No matter how many times he tried to wipe them off, droplets of salty water kept on coming out from his eyes. Even closing his eyes shut did nothing to stop the barrage of tears.

'No, these are not regular tears…'

It was a fact that he felt extreme sorrow at this point, but this emotion shouldn't stick with him for this long. After all, he had experienced the pain of losing his loved ones—but even that wasn't able to make him cry this long.

In this state of extreme despondency, cold rationality emerged alongside it. Kyle observed his emotions and the tears that flew down into nothingness.

'Loine's disappearance did truly upset me, but it shouldn't affect me to the point of crying incessantly. If so, then what is happening to me—or more accurately, my emotions?'

At one half, he was reminiscing about Loine and Karan. But one the other half, he was coldly calculating this unfamiliar emotion running through his head.

'…sorrow, sadness, and tears…'

Kyle massaged his slightly damp nose bridge. He recounted his behavior for the last two days.

'Back then at that room with notes on the wall, my emotions also went slightly out of control. I even attempted to slice that artifact in half using only a sharp knife.'

'Not only that, I sometimes even do something I wouldn't normally do. Approaching Karan outside the gates was something I would do, but it won't be on the top of my priorities.'

'And when Karan launched us to the air to get away from that explosion, it felt as if somebody else was controlling my body after that. Even our conversation was mostly done by "him"'

He recalled the conversation he had with Loine in his hospital room. Back then, the one in control of his body wasn't himself, it was as if someone else had taken control of his body temporarily. His consciousness only returned when the sky shattered into the void.

'Wait a minute…'

Memories quickly flashed through his head. The youth teared up when he saw the moments where Loine existed, but he kept treading through it nevertheless.

'Here, and here too…'

The fight facing those creatures. When he ate at the dining hall.

'Hmmm…'

When he sliced through the artifacts with the sharpened blade. When he subconsciously prioritized Karan before himself.

'As expected…'

At the point where they were launched to the air. At the point where he conversed with Loine.

All of them flashed through his mind over and over. Opening his eyes, he dropped his hand and felt chills rising on his back.

With sorrow accompanying it, the chills on his body felt even stronger.

'The old Kyle is still here…or at least, his emotions still remain on my head.'

This was the conclusion he had arrived at after contemplating.

If what he thought was accurate, then the "Kyle" before him was still here—just sleeping inside of him.

'That explains the sensation of déjà vu I kept on getting…'

It wasn't just a familiar feeling, it probably was the previous Kyle's emotion guiding him through this unfamiliar place. If so, then it would explain his abnormal behavior when it was related to Karan and Loine.

'All three of them were siblings, after all.'

Kyle knew this for a fact from Karan's words and how he had referred to Loine as his sister in the hospital room. It was a fortunate thing that he could still remember their conversation even though he wasn't the one in control.

'I would've become bewildered if I wasn't able to remember that.'

Nodding to himself, the tears that felt as if they could go on forever started to slow down.

"Oh, so it can stop," both of his eyebrows rose.

The tears have stopped and his mind felt terrible.

"…"

A night of deep sleep was what he wanted at this moment. After letting his tears slow, his body was perfectly fine but his mind felt very exhausted.

The youth swept his gaze to whatever was in front of him, but only a boundless void was present. He turned around and found a similar view from what he saw seconds ago.

"…It seems that I would be staying here for a while."

'Thinking about how to get out from this place wouldn't give me a ticket outside, so it'd be better for me to think of my current situation.'

He felt terrified from the prospect of staying here forever, which granted another rise of eyebrows from Kyle.

'So not only am I affected by the old Kyle, the emotions I feel will be amplified as well…'

The combination of sorrow and terror sickens him. If he could, he would've chosen to sleep right there and then. But he still had to rack his brains to speculate about this place.

'Amplified emotions, old Kyle, and this world…Is this some kind of a test?'

He thought back to the blue orb back at the building on Blynth Forest.

'Looking back at it, this seems more like a test from that object. The prize better is something great if I'm going through all of this trouble.'

While he was entertaining himself with that thought, he noticed that the whirlpool around him have disappeared at some point. The loss of suction from anything around him was how he realized it.

To confirm this, Kyle spitted from his mouth—launching saliva in front of him. It kept launching itself further away from where the vortex used to be, effectively validating his thoughts.

But outside of his expectation, the blob of saliva kept on floating. It even reached a point where it seemed to be able to float to the edge of this emptiness.

'Hoh?'

Kyle tried to enhance his body with energy, only to realize that he couldn't feel an ounce of energy on his body. He clicked his tongue and tried to swim forward.

But he was interrupted before he was able to do so.

Just like the vortex of nothingness that appeared earlier, another force started to suck him into a certain direction.

"…!"

But it sucked him strongly into a certain direction, unlike the previous vortex which was located around his body.

Kyle bit his lower lip.

'If objects were disintegrated earlier, then this time—'

The youth tried to save himself by swimming to the opposite of the suction force. His swimming posture was a reminiscence of an athlete's. However, it could do nothing to help Kyle escape from this suction.

Within seconds, Kyle was sucked toward the center of the whirlpool. In front of his eyes was a faint outline of razor-sharp invisible winds.

"Damn!" He shouted while clenching his hands.

'Let's hope this would end well…!'

He was sucked into the vortex.

----

On the bed, a person woke up from his slumber. His originally shut eyes were opened abruptly.

Sweat covered his whole body, and his hands were clenched as if he had just woken up from a long nightmare.

The person on the bed—Kyle—was greeted with an unfamiliar ceiling.

"…This pattern again?"

Those clenched fists were relaxed, same with his whole body.

Kyle closed his eyes slowly and thought.

'So, I would be transported into a different place each time…All of this seems more and more like a test as time passes.'

'Judging from before, I need to be careful and not to let my emotions fluctuate too much. Other than that, I need to watch out for signs if the emotions from old Kyle would emerge again and take control of my body.'

"Haaaaaah…" he sighed deeply. "…how exasperating…"