Chapter 34: A Million Years of Madness
The moment Ethan agreed, he regretted it.
His mind blanked out.Then—he was somewhere else. Not in his body. Not in the present.
He was floating. Disembodied. Invisible.
Before him stood Esmeray.
Not the Esmeray he had just spoken to, but a younger, prouder version of her.
Her long green hair swayed as she took in her surroundings, bewildered.
Her fingers ran along the invisible wall of the barrier, her brows furrowing.
"…What is this?"
At first, she didn't panic.
She tried everything.
Fists struck the barrier with earth-shattering force.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Centuries passed, but nothing changed.
She screamed in frustration, but there was no one to hear.
Then, she adapted.
She was a necromancer. Poison was her specialty.
If force didn't work, corruption would.
For thousands of years, she experimented.
Toxins deadlier than death itself seeped from her hands, creeping into the cracks of reality.
Her very presence became profane because of that. If before she was a woman, now she was a plague.
A being that should not exist. A being whose mere presence if not controlled can corrupt a whole state.
But even after all that, the barrier didn't so much as flicker.
That when the fear set in.
And that was when Ethan's mind started to crack.
He wasn't just watching her suffering. He was feeling it.
Every moment of dread.
Every second of hopelessness.
Every breath in this infinite, suffocating prison.
A hundred thousand years.
That's when Esmeray understood.
She wasn't trapped for a year. Or a decade. Or even a century.
She would never get out. And that make something inside her snapped.
Ethan felt it like a hammer to the skull.
His thoughts blurred. His sense of self—fragile.
He was breaking.
But Esmeray was just getting started.
She tried talking to herself to stay sane.
Then singing.
Then laughing.
She laughed until she couldn't remember why she started.
She cried until she had no more tears.
Her mind folded into itself.
She begged.
To gods. To devils. To the celestials. To anything that could hear her.
But there was no one.
There was only her.
A million years of silence.
A million years of being unseen, unheard, forgotten.
And then—she stopped.
She didn't move. Didn't blink. She just sat there.
For centuries. Her gaze empty.
Her once beautiful green eyes now nothing more than lifeless glass.
If someone had walked past, they would have thought she was dead.
She wasn't. She was just… gone. Choosing to shut down her brain.
And Ethan?
Ethan wasn't breathing.
His body convulsed. His lips parted in a silent, mindless scream.
Blood streamed from his nose. His eyes. His ears.
His hands gripped at nothing, nails digging into his own flesh, trying to anchor himself to something—anything.
'I… I am…'
His thoughts were shattering.
He had only lived thirty -something years, if you take into account his two lifes.
How the fuck was he supposed to survive millions?
He couldn't.
The weight of eternity was crushing him.
His consciousness fractured.
Sanity slipping—
Thoughts drowning—
Everything fading—
That when something changed.
A new memory.
Ethan saw a little girl.
She was alone.
She wasn't in the Labyrinth. She wasn't trapped.
She was in a cold, colorless mansion, surrounded by people who refused to look at her.
Her parents were nobles. Respected. Worshipped.
But she?
She was a disgrace.
A child born with gloomy, deathly aura.
A necromancer.
An affront to their faith.
Her own mother flinched when she reached out for a hug.
Her father ignored her existence. Her siblings mocking and treating her like filth.
The maids spoke of her in whispers, as if saying her name would curse them.
And so, she ran.
She ran and never looked back.
She lived alone. Grew alone. Entered the tower. And became strong alone.
She reached heights few had.
She had power. Influence. A name that echoed across the Tower.
But… she never found a home.
And so she, trying to escape this hollowing feeling, started to do some experiments.
As a necromancer, she dealt with souls.
But there were things not even she was allowed to touch.
Things that ruled over souls.
Ethan's mind cracked even further after seeing a glimpse of Esmeray's childhood.
'Ahhhhhhhhhh—!'
The pain was unbearable.
Blood poured freely from his face, his body shaking uncontrollably.
His own identity was slipping—his name, his memories, his emotions—
They weren't his anymore.
They were hers. He is losing his sense of self.
The weight of a million years of solitude was crushing him alive.
The only thing keeping him from losing himself completely was his Mind Prison—a passive skill meant to store memories.
But it was too much.
Too heavy.
The skill was struggling to keep up.
Ethan was suffocating.
Drowning in eternity.
And then—
It ended.
Ethan collapsed.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
—End of Chapter 34—