The void shifted.
Around Ethan's drifting soul, the Dimensional Gap remained timeless and silent — an endless stretch of black with streaks of cracked light that split the void like jagged glass. Each rift glowed with a different hue, and within some, entire universes pulsed — flickering like candles in the night.
Ethan had long lost track of how long he'd been floating, if time even moved in this place.
But then—
A strange pull.
Soft at first, like a breeze brushing against his formless essence. Then stronger. Steadier. It was no longer just floating. He was being guided.
Drawn.
His soul twisted slightly in the dark as he turned his attention toward the source of the pull.
There — not far, but still unreachable — was a rift wider than the others. Unlike the chaotic flickers of the multiverse fractures he'd passed, this one was unnervingly stable. Its edges weren't wild or cracked like lightning; they were smooth, almost intentional, like a doorway carved with precision.
And its color—Blue-gold.
The same eerie glow that still lingered faintly from the strange sphere that had passed him before. But this wasn't the system. This was something… bigger.
Through the rift, he could see flashes of land. Trees. Sky.
A world.
Alive. Breathing. Real.
The deeper he looked, the more he recognized.
Massive mountain ranges. Serene lakes. Towering forest canopies that shimmered faintly with spirit energy. Cities hidden behind vast walls.
And then—
Spirit Rings.
He saw them — clear as day. Floating beneath soul masters as they trained, hunted, fought. Rings of white, yellow, purple, black, red…
"No way," Ethan murmured, or would have, if he still had a mouth.
His soul pulsed.
"That's… Douluo Dalu."
Of all the possible rifts, it had to be this one. The very world he'd been ranting about before his death. The very setting of the story he both hated and couldn't stop reading.
And the rift—It was growing brighter.
Drawing him faster.
The sensation intensified. His formless self shuddered as if being tugged by unseen threads. Not painful — not quite — but relentless. A summons, silent yet absolute.
"Why that world?" he thought. "Of all places… why his world?"
Tang San's.
The hypocrite protagonist he'd raged against. The man Ethan had dissected in every forum post, every rant, every subway conversation.
He never imagined being dragged into the same world.
But now, he had no choice.
He was moving faster, soul pulled like iron toward a magnet, past the drifting relics of broken stories and lost timelines, straight into that widening rift.
His consciousness blurred. Pressure mounted around him as he neared its edge — as if the universe itself was resisting his entry.
And just as he hit the threshold—
Silence.
And then—
Light.