Illusion of Light

N was still standing in the middle of the square, staring at the torn leather cover of the book he had picked up, when a strange feeling swept over him...As if the air itself had changed.As if the laws of this place had momentarily broken down.

He lifted his head.

The world grew heavier.The light was dim but steady — not like sunlight... it didn't change. Didn't flicker.

Everything became too silent.No rustling, no falling ash, no breathing.

Then he realized.

This was not the same world.

He took a step, and heard it echo, as if the ground itself whispered.Everything around him looked like a scene painfully drawn with deliberate slowness. Even the corpses he had just seen with faces... were now faceless.

"What is this?" he said, but without sound — his voice echoed inside his head, not out in the world.

He looked up to the sky... no sky.Only a still gray dome, like many eyes watching him without blinking.

Suddenly, silence cracked.

A laugh.

One laugh.Distant... close... repeating... distorted.

He spun around quickly.No one.

Then it appeared.

From the smoke, a tall figure stepped forward — faceless, silent, but its footsteps left marks on the ground as if time itself shattered beneath them.

It stood before N.

"Are you the one who chose to see?"The entity said, its voice unlike any human's — a mix of voices: a man, a woman, a dying child, all at once.

N said nothing.But he did not step back.

The entity continued:"The book opened a door for you... and not everyone who has a door opened can close it."

It came closer.Then extended a hand, showing something.

It was... a human heart.Still beating.

"This is the heart of a man who wanted to know, and he did... then he regretted it."It paused."Will you regret it too?"

N slowly raised his sword, ready to strike the entity.

But it vanished.

Everything vanished.

The village, the corpses, the square... all faded in a blink.

And he found himself standing again where he began...At the edge of the village, before entering.

But in his hand... was the book.

And his heartbeat quickened.

N realized he had crossed a threshold from which there was no return.

When N moved after sensing that hidden change, he felt everything grow heavier...As if the air itself became solid matter, as if time lagged a step behind him.

He clenched his fist.A slight pain.A sharp pulse at his fingertips.Every sense inside him screamed, no whisper remained.

One step... then another...

The pressure increased. As if the world around him rejected his movement, like an intruder in a fabric where he shouldn't exist.

He raised his sword.Not as a threat, but as a summons.A summons to his will.

He whispered a voice no one heard:"Free..."

Complete perception ignited.His famous triad shattered for a moment: body, mind, spirit — all awakening at once.

He struck the air before him.It was no ordinary strike.

It was a slash.

He did not aim for a target, nor seek an enemy.

He struck existence itself.

The air split before him, then collapsed like broken glass into a bottomless well.A thin tear formed in the void.As if his sword's blade severed this dimension from something else... something raw.Something primal.

The light changed, the color faded, and vision blurred between reality and imagination.

The door was opening...But he didn't know where to.

Then he heard a whisper, not from outside, but from within him.

"As if you've tasted the beginning of embodiment... but haven't fully grasped it yet."

It was not the voice of the entity he saw in the village, nor the spiritual perception voice he knew.

It was something new.

The tear vanished.

Everything returned to its place... but the ringing in his ears remained.

N took a deep breath, then whispered to himself:"What I just did... I learned from no one."

He knew something had begun to change within him.