Published at 26th of July 2024 10:50 am

Chapter 1791 Death's Hold [1]

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Damien walked the forest for a long while. He didn't know how long he spent walking, but he was subconsciously looking for the water that woman waded through.

He felt like he could find something there. Even if it wasn't a vestige of what once was, it would be something.

The black forest didn't have the same eerie atmosphere as it did when Damien first arrived here. Perceiving it through the lens of the story instead of the rumors of the outside world, Damien felt a pang of sorrow in his heart.

He didn't know why.

He tried to analyze it as he searched for the black water, but an answer didn't come to him.

There wasn't a single logical reason for him to feel sorrow of all things. Sympathy, maybe. Curiosity, maybe. Sorrow, however, was not an emotion he could feel towards the black forest.

It existed because it existed. There wasn't anything sorrowful about it.

While Existence was a wide expanse of perceivable space, this was the only possible location where the black half of the forest could reside, so its location also was not unfortunate.

At the end of the day, it also received the means to have its existence acknowledged. Though it was more difficult, it was more meaningful as only the most powerful men and women in the entirety of Existence could find it.

It was not necessarily a sorrowful existence. Not unless it had a mind of its own.

That thought led Damien down another lane. 'What if the sorrow I feel is not my own emotion.'

Through the story, he learned that a vessel was necessary for the whiteness and blackness to gain meaning.

The whiteness that characterized Existence already found what it wanted. It birthed everything that was known, and every achievement made was attributed to it.

Every life and every death was attributed to it. In every waking moment, it was given praise.

What about the blackness of Nonexistence?

If Damien had to say whether it achieved things or not, he would definitely say it had.

However, was it satisfied with just that?

If Existence and Nonexistence, concepts created by the Void so everything else could be born, also had subtle spirituality and the ability to at least somewhat recognize emotion, would it be satisfied seeing its counterpart achieving everything it could not?

Did this sorrow originate from the fact that it was feared by all?

Was it caused by the misunderstandings that Existence unintentionally created about it?

Nonexistence seemed like a concept too far separated from living beings for it to ever be touched. Any and all beings with consciousness feared nothingness.

They looked at nothingness as the end, as the unknown, as death. They associated it with all of their most negative concepts and thoughts, and that became its definition.

However, did the people know?

Nonexistence was more connected to them than even Existence.

Existence had set laws. The people worked hard to comprehend them, and those who succeeded to a greater degree were rewarded with their comprehensions' addition to the world's existing laws.

If the people never tried to touch Existence, would it have ever responded to them?

Nonexistence was different.

It was just like the human mind.

There was no real form to it in the beginning.

It was created alongside Existence and many other things that served different purposes, large and small.

Realistically, it was meant to follow a straight path for the sake of survival.

But that was not the case.

The human mind had an unbelievable potential for growth that no other mind could replicate. It took the world in stride and granted countless paths to follow. Free will to become whatever it could possibly want to be. That was what the human mind possessed that others couldn't fathom.

Nonexistence was no different.

It never had a form to begin with, but it took on infinite paths as it wasn't constrained to the same conventions put in place by Existence.

It grew through the thoughts of people. As other concepts were related to it, it grew and evolved, becoming something impossible if it weren't for their accidental recognition of its form.

If nobody dreamed of what didn't exist, Nonexistence would still just be a small black forest.

Was that why the concept fell in love with them?

Was that why it felt sorrow when it realized that it would never be able to truly interact with them?

Nobody understood.

The people who came here always assumed they needed to slay the beasts in Death's Hold. They always acted without thought, so they died.

Those who had a bit more sense tried to interpret the story, but only saw it as a portrayal of good and evil.

They viewed Nonexistence as a weapon. They viewed it as the power they needed to complement Existence and erase their enemies and woes.

Nobody saw its true value, so everyone died.

When they tried to build on its origin while disrespecting it, wasn't it normal for the concept to lash out?

So, in the end, what did Nonexistence want?

Did it want recognition? Did it want respect? Was it chasing a futile dream to become like Existence?

No.

'All it wants is to be recognized.'

Damien understood well.

He never quite worried about it. He was always too focused on getting to whatever goal he was chasing to pay attention to it.

However, didn't he suffer alone for a long time?

In the First Dungeon, he went insane and came back from the depths on his own. That was the start of it.

He met many people who helped him in many ways. He gained connections that he never would have reached this point without.

However, when he truly struggled, he was always on his own.

Nobody could match his progress. Nobody could move at his pace. He found himself going from place to place. Almost every time, he made friends and acquaintances. Still, none of those people could ever accompany him to the depths he traversed.

It was always too dangerous for others. It was always he who had to do the most difficult things.

And he was fine with that. That was never the problem.

But…it was tiring.

It was tiring to struggle and fight to survive, to come from nothing and become something and have nobody know his story.

It was tiring to see how people interacted with him, telling him how much he was this or that without realizing how much pain he'd gone through to stand where he stood.

When he saw the true faces of Grand Heavens Boundary and the Saint Emperor, he felt a sort of warmth from them.

They were people who had been watching from the beginning.

They understood how he became who he was at the time.

Grand Heavens Boundary acknowledged his struggle and made him feel something familial, which is why he had to save the universe at all costs.

The Saint Emperor was an enemy who fought him not because of old grudges or misplaced greed. At the end, the Saint Emperor fought him because he saw Damien as the only person who could surpass him and achieve what he couldn't. He acknowledged Damien's struggle in his own way.

There were a few more examples in Damien's life that kept him able to deal with the more tiring interactions. He had a support system that allowed him to struggle in silence without minding that others would never know how much he did.

What about Nonexistence?

Did it have anything like that?

Did it have the ability to stop struggling in silence even if it was tired and filled with Sorrow?

'No.'

It didn't.

'No.'

It didn't.

Not even in the slightest.

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