Agnes had teleported—but not to safety. He'd teleported to the afterlife.
Again.
He groaned. Again? He looked around. The familiar, unsettling realm greeted him with its warped sky and eerie silence. And then—him.
The glowing man.
But this time, the figure wasn't chained with roses or sobbing with blood gushing through his eyes. He just sat in a throne, leg crossed, head propped up on one hand like he was bored to death—if that was even possible for a glowing entity.
Agnes scoffed. "This is absurd. I'm here again?"
He tried to stand.
SMACK!
Something slammed into his face. Dazed, he stumbled back, rubbing his nose. When he looked up, his heart dropped.
A pair of feet. Dangling.
He looked higher.
The Hanging Woman.
She tilted her head, then smiled—softly. Kindly.
Agnes screamed.
He scrambled backward, kicked his heels, then full-on bolted, but it was useless. The dream—or death—realm had no escape. He clawed at invisible walls. Still there. Still trapped.
Then, her voice—a voice that was gentle and strangely tender—called to him.
"Can you help me get off this?"
He froze.
Despite his fear, Agnes approached. Her hands were bound. Slowly, shakily, he untied them. She fell with a light thump, gasping for air. Then, without a word, she tied her messy hair into a ponytail and sat down on a bed that had appeared beside her.
Agnes, still shaken, asked, "Can you tell me where I am?"
She patted the bed. "Sit."
He hesitated, then obeyed.
She asked softly, "Did you die again?"
He frowned. "What do you mean again?"
"You can only come here when you die," she said. "And this is your third time, isn't it?"
Agnes clutched his head. "I... I can't argue with this time. But three? Seriously?!"
She looked down, face darkening. "By the way, you will lose a body part every time you return to the living world."
Agnes collapsed to his knees. "Was that why my balls fell off?!"
Then realization struck. He screamed again. "Wait—THREE times?! Then what did I lose the second time?!"
She shook her head. "I don't know. But he might."
She gestured toward the glowing man.
"Be careful. He holds within him the memories of every living being. You'll need to find your own memories buried among them."
Agnes trembled. "That's suicide. Last time I nearly went insane from the overload."
She smiled softly. "You need to reach a certain level to hold that much data without frying your brain. But..." —she gave a wink— "I guess I'll do it for you this time."
Agnes's ear suddenly twitched—no, flapped—like a startled bird. Something clicked in his head.
Agnes blinked. "Wait—what? No! You don't have to—!"
But she was already moving. She stepped toward the glowing figure and reached out.
Agnes panicked. "If you don't want to, you can still stop—"
She touched him.
Nothing happened.
They exchanged an awkward chuckle.
Then she shook violently.
Her eyes rolled white.
She collapsed.
Agnes caught her just in time and laid her on the bed. After a few agonizing minutes, she woke—drenched in sweat, pale, breath ragged.
"After digging through the data... I found your memories," she said, voice calm but heavy. "Come closer, Agnes..."She smirked. "Or should I call you—***********?"*
Agnes froze. "How do you know that name?!"
She burst out laughing. "I saw everything in your memory. Including the time you—"
"STOP!" Agnes tackled her and covered her mouth. "You don't need to talk about that!"
He jumped off the bed like it was on fire.
"But wait," he asked, flustered. "How did you see my memories if even I don't remember it?"
She chuckled. "Great question. There was only one clear point of view for the event when you lost that body part..."
He narrowed his eyes. "Whose point of view?"
She smirked darkly. "Umm... it was viewpoint if your body part."
Agnes screamed. "WHAT?!"
She nodded solemnly. "It was your appendix. Apparently, it became sentient."
Agnes blinked. Hard to believe for him.
She burst out laughing again.
He flinched. "Why are you laughing like that?!"
She wiped a tear. "Do you want to know what your appendix said before leaving you?"
Agnes hesitated. "...What?"
She projected the memory directly to him.
The scene was surreal.
A fleshy, blinking grub / larvae-like creature—Agnes's appendix—crawled up his throat, peeking out of his mouth like a shy worm. It blinked twice and whispered:
"You never needed me anyway…"
Then it launched itself out the window.
Agnes collapsed. "At this rate… what will even be left of me?!"
Suddenly, his body glitched—like a hologram with a bad signal.
"What's happening?!" he asked.
She smiled. "It's time. You're returning. Try not to lose another piece next time."
Agnes paused. "Wait! What's your name?!"
She opened her mouth. "My name is—"
He vanished.
Agnes woke up in the arena.
Smoke curled around him from the recent magic outburst. Not much time had passed—thanks to the strange time flow of the afterlife.
But he had other problems now.
Agnes sprinted out of the arena, checking his body in panic. "Nope. Not again. Everything's staying RIGHT WHERE IT BELONGS."
Drones captured the footage of a terrified Agnes fleeing the battlefield.
Elders and Masters blinked, confused... then reluctantly nodded.
"Winner: Red."
Once things calmed down, however, a hole had torn open in the sky. A pillar of fire blazed through it, burning the heavensthemselves. It basically burned the atmosphere.
All across the arena, other matches were still going. Drones flew overhead, broadcasting every fight through holograms to the crowd.
Leorin was out there too—while she spammed magic spells like a broken final boss. Thanks to the hundreds of Qi potions in her inventory, she had zero plans of slowing down. The twin-blade guy from the Eastern Wastes? Poor guy didn't even get to blink.
Away from the arena, the streets were packed. The governments even made it an International holiday. Food stalls, fireworks, people everywhere. The whole world was watching.
But not everyone was in the mood to party.
Deep within the secure vaults beneath the arena, the Golden Relic—a glowing orb of unimaginable power—sat within a high-security chamber, guarded by elite cultivators and a host of magical seals.
That's when it happened.
A group of cloaked intruders attempted to breach the chamber.
"Intruder alert!" barked a guard.
Blades were drawn. Spells were cast.
The attackers didn't hide their identities for long. Their scaled arms, slit pupils, and sharpened claws gave them away:
They were from the Dragon Race.
Once one of the apex of the power hierarchy, the dragons had fallen behind in recent years—outpaced by technological advancements and weakened by a lack of god-tier relic. This orb, they believed, would restore their dominance. It was for their pride.
A captain of the guards stood tall. "You think you can steal from the neutral lands?! You'll start a war."
One of the dragons hissed, "We're already in one. You just haven't noticed."
Tension built. A fight was imminent.
But while both sides postured and threatened—
A third group had already slipped in.
Unseen and unnoticed by the guards and dragons, a group of Beastmen silently infiltrated the chamber.
They moved like whispers—barefoot and swift. Their appearance was a strange fusion of human and animal—...each bearing traits and abilities of their animal lineage—swift as wolves, silent as cats...Their leader, a sleek lynx-woman with silver furry tail and ears, her glowing blue eyes, gave hand signals to the rest.
In seconds, the illusionary wall concealing the relic's inner sanctum melted away.
There it was.
The Golden Orb.
Floating.
Glowing.
Pulsating with power.
The lynx-woman approached. "There it is."
A younger cat-boy whispered, "Do you think it's real?"
"Does it matter?" she replied, wrapping it in an enchanted cloth. "It's ours now."
As the dragons and guards shouted behind them, the beastmen vanished into the shadows.
As they vanished with the orb, the glowing relic pulsed once—violently—as if it was awakening.