With Sasa gone, the silence settled like dust.
Dirga sat down cross-legged in the center of the void.
This was the first thing Sasa had taught him — the first key to all things:
Meditation.
To close his eyes and turn inward. To find his soul.
And there it was — a darkness beyond darkness.
Floating in the abyss, he saw them:
Seven Karma Points, each one pulsing like a distant star.
The seventh, the reddest one, shimmered faintly — the soul of Domiscus Vantasio, now integrated.
Dirga exhaled. Thought.
What would Sasa's concept be?
Probably something absurd. A slot machine. A roulette wheel. The madness of a gambler.
But Dirga wasn't chaos.
He was weight. Pressure. Memory.
And so, he let his mind replay his life —
like watching a film on fast-forward:
The moment he was born — in darkness.
Abandoned beneath a moonless sky.
Left in a stranger's field like trash.
The orphanage.
The fists.
The hiding.
The shadows that always swallowed him.
Darkness had always been there.
Not as a fear…
…but as a companion.
And the only light he'd ever known — the only one who didn't flinch at the dark —
was Naya.
She was the sun in his skyless world.
And to save her… he'd collapse the heavens.
Time became meaningless.
A second…
a day…
a year…
His body — trapped in The Endless — began to rot, piece by piece.
No food. No water. No rest.
But his mind refused to break.
He tried building a solar system, with himself at the center. Planets orbiting his Karma Points.
But it felt too alive. Too distant from his truth.
He tried imagining a dwarf star, compressing Karma into light. But it was too hopeful.
So he chose…
The Black Hole.
The only concept that made sense.
He reached out with his soul and began the process.
One Karma Point. Absorbed.
He gritted his teeth. It burned.
Second. Third. Fourth. Fifth. Sixth.
His body convulsed. His veins turned black.
The skin at his chest began to crack, thin fissures spidering outward like ink on glass.
And then…
The Seventh.
The red one.
Vantasio's soul.
It was heavy. Too heavy. A lifetime of sins compressed into a single point of pain.
Dirga screamed — not in fear, but defiance — and forced it in.
The moment it sank into his core, his soul began to pulse violently.
Outside, in the Endless, his body shook. Black veins rippled beneath the skin.
Blood poured from his nose. His mouth. His ears.
Then came the compression.
Dirga focused everything — his guilt, love, rage, karma — into a single point.
Smaller.
Smaller.
Smaller.
The pressure surged.
A shockwave tore through the Endless. A massive spiritual quake.
A lesser soul would've stopped here — where stars are born.
But Dirga didn't want light.
He wanted gravity.
He wanted darkness that nothing could escape.
He crushed it further.
His body bled from every pore. His spine cracked. His vision went white.
Still—he refused to stop.
Collapse.
Collapse.
Collapse.
Until finally…
It happened.
A point in his soul disappeared — not vanished, but erased.
A Black Hole.
Tiny. Insatiable. Alive.
But it couldn't survive on its own. Not without fuel.
So it began to feed.
The Endless bent toward him — and began to fall in.
Dirga, unconscious, hovered at the center — a dark sun with a soul of steel.
The Black Hole devoured space.
And as it fed, it healed him.
The black cracks on his chest closed.
His bones knit.
His organs pulsed again.
But his form changed.
His hair darkened at the ends, dyed with the orange glow of an event horizon.
His eyes became like the depths of space — endless, swirling, reflecting stars that were no longer real.
And in the center of his chest, where the cracks had once split him open...
...appeared a black tattoo.
A single ring.
The first orbit of the soul he was becoming.
And still, the Black Hole fed.
A year.
Maybe two.
Maybe more.
Time meant nothing here.
Outside of linear moments, beyond days or decay, Dirga floated at the center of himself — and of the void.
Until...
His eyes opened.
There was no gasp. No jolt.
Only the slow, deliberate inhale of someone who had died, rebuilt himself atom by atom, and returned.
His pupils glowed with the color of collapsing suns — the orange-red hue of an event horizon. You could see galaxies in them if you stared too long. His scar still marked his face — but now, it looked like the crack in a planet, like something containing power instead of weakness.
His aura surged like a storm ready to consume a solar system.
He inhaled sharply, then focused.
Suppress.
It took effort — but the gravity around him slowed, then stilled. The wild surge faded, buried beneath iron will.
He stood.
And finally looked at what remained of The Endless.
A place once infinite…
Now it felt small. Like a drained cup. Like an animal stripped of its teeth.
"What… happened to this realm?" he muttered.
A familiar voice answered behind him, equal parts amused and mournful.
"You happened, kid."
Sasa appeared, sitting sideways in the air with a half-empty wine glass in hand, swirling it like a disappointed collector.
"You ate my realm."
He pouted like a sulking child.
"This was a treasure, you know. One of my favorite hiding spots. And you chewed it up like it was a snack."
Dirga smirked — an expression colder now, grounded by deeper pain.
"Well… you're my patron. It's the price of investment."
He stretched slightly, testing his body. It felt… wrong. Or rather — too right. Like power fit his bones now.
Sasa stared at him, deadpan.
"You say that like you're proud. You know how hard it is to grow an endless dimension in this economy?"
Dirga laughed — for the first time in ages.
And it didn't sound broken.
"So… what level am I at now?"
Sasa blinked.
"Level?"
Dirga nodded. "The concept. I felt it while I was building it. Nine stages. It's like a law written into the soul."
Sasa's brow lifted. "Huh. So you figured that part out too."
He sipped. "Yes. Every soul concept follows nine stages — it's how power stabilizes across realms. Anything more becomes divine law… or chaos."
"I just reached the first." Dirga's voice had weight now.
"Gravity."
Sasa's smile widened slowly.
"A good start. You're going to be scary."
Dirga's gaze sharpened.
"We should head back."
"Did anything happen while I was here?"
Sasa raised a finger, mock-dramatic.
"Oh-hoho. Well. You were in here for... a million years."
Dirga blinked.
"…What?"
"One month in real time."
"WHAT THE FUCK?!"
Sasa grinned, flashing a peace sign.
"Relax. I covered for you. Wore your face for a few weeks. Smiled, waved, said boring CEO things. You're welcome."
Dirga stared at him.
Sasa only shrugged.
"You're lucky I like you, kid."