章 35: Chapter 33 - Reality can be breathtaking~

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Thank you!

-SR_2027.

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Despite trying to 'breathe', his body choked over as he barely hung over his conscious. It was a very confusing situation as he felt his body 'adapt' to 'something' if he could say.

It was as if he was being choked, while not entirely needing the air to breathe in.

Despite all the pain, a smile formed on the figure's face. Looking down on his body, he found that he was in a sort of dark purple-ly 'Gaseous State', while having his white hair and fair skin in sight.

'This seems to be my soul, or Astral Body, or my 'Origin'. The color purple probably indicates my 'Infinity'... All according to Keikaku...'

*Swish!* *Gasp*

Before he could react to the situation, a bright flashlight enveloped him and he felt his body hit some sort of wall, knocking the air out of his lungs... If there was any.

Rolling and banging on the hard floor and wall a few times, pain shot up from his soul, making Ryo frown, as a muffled noise crept out of his mouth. "Ugh.", Opening his eyes, he found himself on one of the hundreds of bookshelves around him, but the scene around him was something that could not be narrated.

In front of him laid a huge 'Room' of some sort if Ryo could describe it. The whole area was covered in white 'walls'; which to some extent fractures into small shards.

With each broken shard, the white 'tiles' were losing their color and turning darker and darker until there was nothing but a 'small' black line; separating the whole 'space' from an infinite amount of vivid void.

It was as if he couldn't even comprehend if what he was seeing was real or an illusion.

At one point, the library went on for what he can describe as 'infinity' while on one end it was 'nothing' more than an 'illusion'. It was magical and mesmerizing. The more he looked into the 'void', the more he found himself being absorbed into it.

'Wait... I am losing control over my body.'

His body continued to stare into the 'void' while in his mind, he started to ask, 'Hmm? Hypnotism? No... Seems more like a Conscious Overload. This is as if I am trapped in my own body not able to do anything.'

'Also... there is no oxygen here, and somehow I now have no 'instinct' of trying to collect the oxygen in my lungs... It's quite mysterious. This means my 'Soul' might be adjusting to the current situation, making it painful, I guess?'

While he amused himself with the thoughts, while being trapped in the body, for some reason, his eyes started to feel heavy, making him blink once.

'Huh?'

Blinking again, Ryo looked around as he found himself on one of the hundreds of bookshelves around him, but the scene around him was something that could not be narrated.

His mind started to ache as he winced as he wasn't able to understand what was happening. He knew something happened...

To him... This place seemed... familiar...

His memory was hazy, jumbled up if he was honest, it felt as if he was missing something, making his eyes narrow down lightly as he conjured up the possibilities. Ranging from mind manipulation to memory loss due to some conditions.

'It cannot be helped. I have not much knowledge about this... place.'

Looking around he found himself in a 'sort' of an infinite library, but his eyes suddenly fell on a small book that was a few meters away just by his side, making his eyes narrow down on it, as a smile formed on his face.

'This seems like my mind forgot memories while trying to adapt to the new 'higher dimension'? Seems feasible but there are still many other possibilities. But this book... is this...?'

He had an idea of what the book could be. Some ideas conjured in his mind, as he picked it up and opened it... only to find it empty. 'Disappointing... Thought it explained my past and my plans and stuff... Anyway...'

Standing over in the hall, Ryo threw back the book in the air without looking back as he looked around the 'void', as he discovered several flashing arrows guiding him somewhere.

Tilting his head, he looked back at the place he threw the book and noticed it 'frozen' in the air as soon as it went 'outside' the 'library', as it passed through the 'floor' where he was standing.

-Tch.

Clicking his tongue, he concluded that he was stuck somewhere where he had no option but to follow the guiding lights and it was probably a small test for him by the being that had taken him away from the planned trajectory. 'But I have another plan in mind...'

Looking back at the glowing arrow-like thing, he decided to walk toward the path, opposite to that, being pointed at. This was to understand a few things.

If the entity knew he would be walking in the opposite direction, it would either have just pointed in the opposite direction. But seemed non-feasible as at higher dimensions, the directions are just messed up.

He could be walking 'in front' way, but in reality, he might be walking toward a completely different 'time'.

For Ryo, who had lived through a 'semi-cyberpunk' world, he knew very well that outside of the 'humanly' understandable dimension, which was the 4th dimension, the 5th Dimension would signify the 'Space', 6th the 'time', and next one might as well signify the 'Reality'.

'Let's see how this works out.', A small thought flashed in his mind, making Ryo smirk as he entertained the small thought. 'After all, there is something I have to test to figure out my position.'

*Step* *Step* *Step* *Step*

Slowly Ryo expression turned to as if he was bored, making him look back toward the direction he came from, but the sight around made his eyebrows shoot up.

As he looked back, he noticed that the book which he threw was on the same place he last saw it and the arrow was also at the same distance from what he last saw.

'Looks like there's no escape. Hmm... Was that space or illusion magic or something? I definitely walked for 10 minutes... according to my senses, but that doesn't mean I might not be stuck with something out of my expectations... *Sigh* it's so irritating when dealing with someone too powerful and indescribable...'

Sighing, he decided to walk in the direction that was being pointed at by that arrow. But as he continued to walk, his expression turned to that of annoyance... He was still stuck at the same place, he didn't move a single step.

Speculating that this was because he walked in the opposite direction, he decided to continue trying to walk toward the pointed direction.

After walking for an unknown amount of time, he noticed something... Calculating the difference in the size of the book and arrows and their position, he concluded that he had moved approximately 80 cm...

'I walked for 20 minutes through... If I walked only 80 cm in 20 minutes, that means I walked 4 cm in a minute or 0.066667 cm in a second...'

He had moved from his initial location, but that was only something like a step distance, making Ryo's eyes turn sharp as he looked at the arrow and then toward the dark pathway that stretched to eternity as he opened his mouth.

"Are you done?"

"..."

"Why don't you stop playing your game? I already know that you won't harm me. Furthermore, since I am here, there should be a reason for me to be here, right?"

"..."

-*Yawn*

"Something like you having something in mind for me. Huh?", Yawning, Ryo just looked at the infinite darkness with boredom.

"..."

"*Sigh* Still not talking? Are you either scared... Or waiting for me to adapt to the new dimensional world or something?"

"..."

Knowing full well that he wouldn't be getting any reply even after he said all that stuff, Ryo smirked as he knew that he was vaguely at the point.

Looked to the side and after some thought decided to reach out to one of the books in the 'cabinet'. Only to realize that his hand froze in place before it could reach the book.

"You're quite courageous and arrogant for someone who I thought of as... But I won't judge, after all, there are far more arrogant people that I have seen and heard of... And you are Ryo Otsuki, every action of yours has some meaning hidden in it..."

Just as he was about to retract his hand, a soft voice rang in the void. It was a sweet voice, which could make people want to listen to it and get addicted to it. As soon as these thoughts crossed his mind, Ryo chucked.

A smirk formed over Ryo's face as he retracted his hand and placed it over his side, knowing full well that he had gotten a simple overall read of the 'person' he was going to face, but it was all that was being shown to him firsthand, making him conjure up a lot of thing in his mind.

*Blink* 'Hmm...'

But as soon as he 'blinked' and looked around, unlike the library he was in, he found himself in a sort of throne room which was suspended in a 'vibrant void filled up of unimaginable colors'... If that could be what he could describe.

But there were many things that he noticed... like the whole 'void' itself was fractured as it looked as if it was about to crack at any moment, there were also several 'things' in thousands flashing by in between the cracks.

Just looking at the 'things' which he can't describe he felt his body tremble from within his soul. Making him, want to remove his eyes from his face. His mind was being molded and overloaded by things that he couldn't comprehend.

But the indescribable fear froze him in 'fear' and forced him to continue looking around in the void place he was in. But after a short second, he found his body instinctively looking away, toward the pure transparent glass, which was not fractured.

This was the involuntary instinct that he forced upon himself and adapted after coming up with the hypothesis that he got conscious overload, making his body involuntarily remove the extra memories.

Although he didn't have his 'biological' modifiable body, his control and understanding of biology were so good at that point that he almost had complete control over his 'body' or 'consciousness' if he could describe it.

As soon as he looked away, and blinked again, he found himself still missing with his memories, solidifying his assumption.

'I can resist the 'Conscious Overload' now. It is now nothing more than a stinging feeling in my eyes. Was I looking at an indescribable being or just some sort of 'thing'?

'Since I can somehow regain some of my memory of looking at the void, am I adapting? But I do not have a physical body to do that... Is this probably my Core or whatever it is that makes up my higher dimensional soul...?'

'As Infinity can be 'synonymized' along the void and notingness... I guess this theory holds a better chance... Well, I can ask the being who bought me here...'

Ryo concluded as he once again looked up, making him freeze, his body then looked down again; where he once again looked up.

After going through the process a few hundred times, he was finally able to scan the whole place, where Ryo's eyes finally slowly landed on the empty throne floating in the empty void, making him squint his eyes.

But there was something else, which cut his thought.

"Ah! How long have I been waiting for you to die so that I can capture you from that Demon's hand.", A slight chill ran down Ryo's mind as he felt a soft whisper by the back of his ears. He wanted to turn and check his back, but his instincts told him not to.

The voice felt indistinguishable, unknown to him if it was a male or female-like voice. But he knew for sure, once he looked at 'it', he would lose his mind, again.

As soon as the whisper sounded in his ears, he felt every single part of his body being touched at the same time, making him feel as if something was crawling just beneath his skin.

For the first time in a long while, his instincts warned him of something. Something far more powerful...

Something far far far more 'Incomprehensible'.

"Hehe. To think you will form a sort of hidden personality within your mind that sees and orders your body as a 3rd person in view, which will signal your body to move according to a certain order..."

"It's like programming and improving your coded program making it think it is following the normal act... And then using it to adapt to the situation... Truly a masterpiece of body manipulation. But it's harmful."

"What if you accidentally get a double personality or your body adapts and develops another personality overriding your current control and making you trapped in the infinite void of mind, where you are trapped for eternity?"

The whisper slowly grew louder and louder until the last few words were literally something screaming in his ears; it felt soft as well as hurtful to his ears.

His nerves calmed down as he realized what had happened.

It's like using my physical body as a puppet while using the third point of view if he can say that... Like being a gamer while being protected by his 'playable character'. It was hard to describe it.

But to put it simply, it was that his body was currently guided by 'instincts' that were generated by his real 'conscious' hidden deep within his mind, which was working as a 'secondary' brain.

'Also way of stopping anyone trying to read his mind. But they can still ream my intent and plan to some percentage...'

Closing his eyes, his body relaxed to the extreme. His mind felt different. It was empty. Truly empty, "So... What do you want?".

He was sure that the higher beings could neither enter nor peep into his world, because of the 'System', but they could still feel the 'major' changes in them. Just like being human and knowing that something is wrong within your body not being able to pinpoint what.

As for the entity...

'Why is Chaos not here? I planned it to be him... Looks like he figured out my plan. But if he did, then this entity is either stronger than Chaos or has something worth exchanging his life...'

"You're too boring!", Suprised by the sudden outburst, Ryo raised his eyes as the entity continued, "I am still confused. Why would you kill yourself and come to the realm of 'uncontained'?"

"Either you have some sort of 'protection' on you or something else. Then again, with the way you traveled to different worlds, it seems either some sort of Entity is working with you or you have got a 'System' from somewhere."

All of Ryo's actions pointed out to him possessing the 'System'. For a being in a higher dimension, the concept of a 'system' user was a child's play. For them, system users were weaker than ants, bounded by fate.

But Ryo was different.

He was unique. He was free. Free from manipulation or bounded by any concepts.

He was sticking out like a sour thumb.

"Now onto the main note, your plan is good, but the moment you fail to kill that 'Entity', you will instead make it hundreds of times stronger! If by accident the entity was able to perceive your intent, and escape, the 'paradox' it will generate would be enough to make it one of the top few strongest beings."

"Anyway... Quite a good plan! Which will in return give you some sort of 'Title/Ability/Energy' for making and doing something out of physical and mental bounds if I am correct!"

"But... You are nothing more than a small ant on the board of gods. If I wasn't there to kick that Baal's ass and save you, you would have been turned into a low-level slave or something... used as a breeding tool for eternity."

"Wait... I think that was also within your expectation at some point, that system of yours might be able to reactivate. Is there a timer or some sort of condition?"

"Just who made that system? I can't perceive... You know what... I don't want to know because if I don't know only the likes of Chaos and Order will be his opponent... Or probably even not them..."

Ryo's face formed a small frown as he kept listening to the entity. It was not irritation, it was just that every time the entity talked to him, his 'brain' started to hurt. Then words were literally too 'strong' for him.

What the entity said was a part of his plan. But that was not his 'Only' plan, which the entity called out, and it might already know what was coming next, but he already had contingencies for it.

There had never been only 'One' plan that he had made, even if there were no 'concepts' coming to get to him, he wouldn't just be left to die.

Each dot connected to the other, and even if he was wrong and was left in a void, he had planned with the system to restart itself using 100,000 UPs, sending him to his desired world, which was the one where he had originally died in.

But he wasn't omnipotent and omniscient to know who and what powers the opponent had or what he would be facing...

But all the plans that he had made and all the contingency and countermeasures that he made were falling into place. 'The situation is still within my expectations.'

He had been collecting and hoarding points because out of the 250,000+ PE points that he had, he had to use 100,000 of them to make the system run the 'Death' protocol, which was implemented in case he died.

To be honest when he went through the rules and regulations that the system had to follow, which he had to pay 10,000 for to read through; he found this loophole just when he was done with in the previous world.

Normally, cosmology would have been ignored at a low level, but as soon as one reaches a certain level, there is no possible way for a low-dimensional being to win against a higher-dimensional being.

'But to think I was almost on the mark...', A small smirk formed over his face, which made the entity frown behind him, "Hey! Why is your face full of smiles? Your target might have been Chaos, but I got to you will not change my plan for you..."

Ryo chuckled at the statement, making the being 'howl' out loud in annoyance, it was just irritated as it knew that it couldn't hurt 'Ryo', or else the 'System' would awaken.

Ryo was finally having fun. It was like playing chess... but he was at the highest disadvantage... Looking ahead at the throne, Ryo asked out, "Hmm.... Looks like I don't need to introduce myself huh? What a bummer, what about you? Who... No what are you?"

"..."

Narrowing 'its' eyes, 'it' looked at Ryo's back as Ryo continued to stare at the infinite fractured void. After a split second of inspection, and making sure everything was fine now, 'it' smirked as it slowly revealed itself.

*Blink*

"Aghhhh!"

Ryo's mind was flooded with a swirling maelstrom of confusion.

He felt as if he was going to die. He literally felt as if his mind was going to 'break' if he could describe the feeling. He couldn't comprehend what he was seeing, for it defied all his previous notions of reality and existence.

What he was seeing was an amalgam of hundreds of thousands of colors mixed with a physical aspect floating in the void. Hundreds of images started to flash in his mind. Incomprehensible things he couldn't describe.

It felt like infinite information was forcefully injected into his mind.

What was left in the void was his loud cries of pain which went on for several minutes.

*Blink* *Blink* *Blink*

Blinking again and again, Ryo's eyes trembled as he finally gained focus as he found himself on the ground, facefirst. His head felt as if it was going to burst. Shuddering in pain, he sat up on the 'ground' in confusion.

Looking at his body, he was astonished to find that his whole body was covered in glowing purple cracks. Some sort of purple particles were seeping out of those cracks.

Suddenly it struck him...

He saw it... for a split second...

Trillions of trillions of trillions of 'elevated floors', some branching off, some below the 'cubical' space he was standing in, some going off forever, some stopping at a point of destruction.

Each compartment has trillions of trillions, almost infinite numbers of sub cubicles, representing space...

Each divided by an infinitely small 'outline', representing 'void'.

As the information flashed before him for a brief moment, a single thought floated in his mind. He was looking at the 'Time'.

Each 'elevated' floor represented a unit of 'time', past, present, and future. And the sub-cubical, inside the cubical, represented the point of 'Space'. At that moment, he understood, he was the 'Time', 'Space', 'Void'...

...

HE.

WAS.

THE.

[INFINITY]

....

*Blink*

"Ah!", Pain shot up from within, as Ryo finally grabbed his head in pain, again. The information was breaking him. But then again, his 'body' suddenly adapted.

He had seen it.

He had seen an 'infinite' amount of probability, each 'branched' room, each elevated 'room', he had seen it all. But it was just too much for him.

For his brain to function, he knew that he had to delete most of the 'memories' that he had retained from what he 'saw'.

'...'

He was back in the same place he was in, the fraudulent fractured void.

He blinked again.

[System in Reviewing Protocol: Revival.]

[Time Remaining: 1:00:00]

[Time Remaining: 0:59:59]

But this time, he knew what he was looking at, making him chuckle. He had officially entered the 'Higher' Dimension. And there was only less than one hour left. But he knew he could not let his single thought wander off to that 'topic'.

The brief moment he saw the 'Infinity', he had overused his awakening 'Paradox' Energy, that his body barely had, as he was after all, an 'anomaly' within the infinite reality.

If previously he was covered in a dark purple aura, which formed his body, now his body was glowing much brighter, while there was brighter light of some sort seeping out of the cracks over his whole body.

His hair had fallen off, so had his skin.

At that moment he knew that he had officially entered the league of "Higher" Dimension.

"Welcome to our rank~ Newbie~! Congratulation! You have finally permanently opened your Origin."

"You have finally joined the ranks of true higher-dimensional beings! Now there are two news for you, one is good while another one is bad.", While his mind was still clouded by pain, Ryo moved his eyes toward where the sound came from.

A perfect face.

That's what Ryo saw.

The deep blue floating hip-length hair, pale white skin, and cold golden eyes felt as if they were empty like that of a dead fish.

In front of him sat a female 'human' if he could describe it, sitting on a throne made of glitching material within the fraudant fractured void, or an interdimensional empty pocket.

His mind, but, just wasn't able to delve into the surroundings as his eyes felt forcefully drawn toward the 'person' sitting on the throne.

Dressed in clad black armor of some sort made out of feather-like features. If he was a normal human, he would have been mesmerized.

No. It was an understatement. Even as an in-human human; He was feeling it... His desire to possess her. Capture her and trap her in a cage, to admire her beauty. His mind wanted to protect her 'beauty', protect her from any sort of harm.

If he could describe it in words, Ryo would have said that this might have been the first time in all his different lives that he saw such a 'perfect' being. 'But...'

But that was not the main thing... Her face was that of someone that he knew of... Someone like the little girl he knew of when he was in the small camp in his past life...

Ryo narrowed his eyes as he looked back at the woman sitting on the throne and asked again, "Just what are you?", For him, it was getting annoying as he was not getting any answers to his questions.

Feeling his annoyance, she chuckled at him, as she finally answered him, "Hmm~ Looks like someone was mesmerized by me, but still regained his mind. But the answer to that question is that I am... the 'Reality' itself."

Standing up from 'her' throne, she instantly 'teleported' in front of Ryo. Her previous body melted and glitched into the space, which Ryo was barely able to feel. It was as if she popped into existence, and formed in front of him, making his eyes twitch a bit.

"I am one of the few beings at the tip of the 'Concept' tier. There are only two concepts that are stronger than me, which gave 'form' to me which caused you to be here. But I am still confused about something...", As she popped in front of Ryo, she used her forefinger to raise Ryo's face, as she examined him with her empty eyes.

Her face adored an emotionless smile, which could make one feel as if she was merely a hust of her 'body'. For Ryo, her finger, which was lifting his chin felt cold as ice.

Removing the finger from his chin, Ryo stared at her with displeasure, "And let me guess... That your doubt will be how I actually break free of my 'fate', right? After all, I am a part of your 'body' in a way, and you felt my presence the movement I was born.", which cause 'her' to chuckle.

"You are quick on catching up on stuff, my dear Ryo Otsuki... Do you know how much pain I felt after you were reborn-ed? It felt as if my whole body was on fire, in human terms! For the first time in my existence, I felt 'emotions'."

"You are a miracle. A being breaking out of your path. An anomaly who is causing our death... First, there was that 'MONAD'* which caused the separation of my power into half and scared away the Two main concepts, 'Chaos' and 'Order', and then you caused me to feel these intense emotions..."

{*Monad: Concept that 'we' are a very very small part of a much larger higher dimensional being.}

Forcefully grabbing Ryo's hand, 'She' placed his hand in between her chest. As she smirked at his cold expression. "Can you feel it... the pain... which is now fading away as you are connected to me... Now this brings us back to square one, two news... which one do you want to know first?"

While she asked that, she murmured softly, "After that, you have to take responsibility..."

Staring back coldly at her emotionless eyes, Ryo ignored her soft murmur, he knew what her intentions could be. But what grabbed his attention was that the hand that was squished between her two boobs felt an agonizing pain.

Her clothes suddenly melted off as his hands began to "sink" into the concept that she was made of.

It was as if his whole hand was literally burning. He left his hand 'merging' into her, but a small barrier barely stopped it.

Looking at her, he slapped her hand away from her grip, "I see. I would like to hear the bad news first. Also, can you turn to your original form? I would rather prefer the 'formless' form to your current form. Your current form has the face of someone I knew of..."

Looking at him taking his hand away from herself, she only showed an expression of 'disappointment'.

As her eyes narrowed down, her clothes started to form back on her body as a new set of clothes began to glitch onto her body.

('Reality') "You are gravely wrong. This is not the 'form' that I adapted. This is the form that automatically 'adapted', which followed the rule of reality and paradox and showed the closed desirable body the person seeing wants to see. And as for the Bad news, it is?"

A smirk covered 'her' face, which Ryo described as her acting, acting to be human-like toward him

"The bad news is that you are now stuck in this void for Eternity. You are trapped here with me. And your only solution is to kill me... BUT- I have a proposal which is much better than your current plan."

Listening to her, Ryo felt like rolling his eyes. "Oh~ What is your plan? Is it even interesting enough for me to participate?", which caused 'her' expression to return to dullness, as she approached Ryo's ears and whispered, ".....^&@*@>)_L>>....", as she continued, Ryo's eyebrows shot up as he looked at her with a weird but colder expression than before.

"..."

Silence ensued between them as Ryo raced his mind, counting the pros and cons, and decided. "That is indeed a good proposition. But how can you guarantee that you won't betray or backstab me?"

Grabbing her chin between her fingers, 'Reality' unexpectedly asked back, "Say... Can a fish, that has never seen the surface, know that it's underwater? Can it know that there is a huge sky about it?"

Caught unguarded by such a 'philosophical' question, Ryo didn't respond back but only narrowed his eyes toward her, telling her to continue.

Although a bit annoyed, she continued, "You see. We as Higher Beings, cannot lie. It's not that we cannot lie. The moment we 'lie' it won't stay as a 'lie', it will turn into reality. In case I said, people die when they are killed, it will become true if I am saying it, for the sake of convincing someone."

"This not only gets caught easily due to change perceived and the shift of 'Paradox' energy, it also uses the 'Paradox' energy from the 'liar' to form the change in reality."

"Now, onto another main news, the good news. I am quite astonished but your Core rank... it is actually YYY-Rank. As for what it represents, it shows you potential... The highest your core and your Astral Body could develop into."

"Reaching YYY Rank is easy, but let me tell you this. It is impossible to surpass it. Currently, I am at Y-Rank even with my power being half; and even when I was at my peak, I was at max YYY-Rank, just like you."

Turning her eyes to Ryo, 'she' smiled at him and continued, "You have the potential to reach the same rank as me at the peak of your life...", but as she said that, Ryo narrowed his eyes in confusion.

'Y rank? YY Rank? I only know E to Ex rank... Looks like there are more rank higher than Ex...'

As if understanding his confusion, 'Reality' smiled, and grabbed his arm forcefully as she stared directly into Ryo's eyes with her 'empty' emotionless eyes as 'she' continued, "Let me tell you what rank represents what... And what your potential is capable of..."