Chapter 96: Hollow World (6)

The world was gone.

Not swallowed. Not shrouded.

Consumed... Totally Consumed..

The tree Agon had stood near no longer existed. Not rotted, not broken.. it was simply erased, as if it had never been. His body dropped in the silence, feet touching ground that wasn't ground. A faint thud echoed, impossibly sharp in the absence of anything else.

And yet, he was calm.

He always tried to be...

Fear serves no purpose.

The words echoed within him, not as a reassurance but as a simple truth. Fear changed nothing. Fear led nowhere.

He exhaled softly, his gaze drifting into the blackness. Not forward, not upward, not anywhere.. because directions did not exist here.

Only emptiness. Pure emptiness

Then.. he loosened his detection.

Not tentatively. Not carefully.

Completely.