Beyond The System-Chapter 266: Afterlife

Janus stared at me, his eyes wide with shock and incredulity, as though I were a ghost. He scratched the back of his head, muttering under his breath. “Hard to keep track of time here, but it couldn’t have been that long, right? So how the hell did you kick the bucket this time?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but he didn’t give me the chance. His words rolled on, unbroken.

“Seriously, it’s always the same with the prodigies. Charging ahead, throwing themselves into danger. Why can’t any of you just sit still and train like—”

“I’m not dead!” I snapped, cutting through his lecture before it could spiral further. “Or… I shouldn’t be.”

Silence hung between us for a breath, until his voice drifted back, puzzled. “Oh. Huh. Then…”

I raised an eyebrow, wary. “Why would you assume I’m dead?”

Janus tilted his head, a flicker of amusement crossing his face. “Peter, you really don’t know where we are?” He swept an arm through the air, gesturing at the boundless nothing that surrounded us.

I stepped closer, though the ground was no ground at all, until I stood before him. He was sitting cross-legged in the emptiness, calm as ever. I lowered myself across from him, shrugging. “I don’t see how I would.”

His brow furrowed. “You could at least guess.”

I glanced around, first left, then right. Nothing. Just endless white void without even a shimmer of horizon. Turning back to him, I stayed silent, waiting.

He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “It’s been too long since I’ve talked to anyone. So, how’d you end up here this time?”

“A green space-bird,” I said plainly, careful to sound at least halfway sane.

He blinked once. Then again. “Riiight. And you’re absolutely sure you didn’t take a blow to the head before dying?”

My head bobbed with stubborn certainty. “It told me to ask you, about your plan... Assuming it was talking about you.” 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

His eyes widened dramatically, the calm cracking into shock. “How would anyone—no.” He stopped himself, rubbing his chin as though to anchor his thoughts. “More importantly, how would anyone but you even know where I am… Damnit!” His muttered curse echoed faintly through the emptiness.

There wasn’t much I could do but watch. Escape didn’t seem possible, but I consoled myself with the thought that my body still lay somewhere in that desert storm. I might yet return once this encounter ended. So I asked, “What’s wrong?”

Janus’s expression shifted again, his earlier frustration softening into something quieter. His shoulders sank. “Tell me, Peter. What do you think happens to the dead?”

The question hit me off guard, hanging in the air like a riddle. “The dead?” I repeated.

He nodded, expectant.

It was the kind of question that had haunted sentient thought since the dawn of time. Every race, every age had wrestled with it—what lies beyond the end? What follows the final breath? How was I supposed to know?

But he clearly wasn’t looking for a shrug. So I answered as honestly as I could. “I… I don’t know. I’d like to think there’s something more. Not just an end to—” I stopped mid-sentence, memories surfacing of the Cosmic Beasts, of Will and Intent persisting beyond their deaths, of how Force itself had been born from both the Master and Fate. “Something persists past death,” I said slowly. “I don’t know what it really is, or if it lasts forever, but it’s there.”

Janus’s lips curved into a faint, satisfied smirk. He drew a breath to speak, but then—WHOOSH.

A brilliant flash of gold tore through the corner of my vision suddenly, the first color to break the blankness of this realm. There was no portal, no ripple of entry, only an eruption of light, appearing from absolute nothingness.

Curiosity got the better of me, and seeing Janus rise without hesitation, I followed suit—hurrying after him until we both stood before the swirling mass of gold.

“This makes things simpler,” Janus murmured, eyes narrowing in interest. “With how vast this place is, it’s rare to see one appear.”

“What is it?” I asked, watching the golden smoke coil and shimmer, its movements graceful yet erratic, like a living flame.

“It?! HOW DARE YOU REFER TO ME AS IT, I—THE GREAT— Wait...” The voice burst from the haze, loud enough to make me stumble back with a startled yelp. “WHERE AM I?!”

Janus, completely unfazed, tilted his head and asked evenly, “What’s the last thing you remember?”

The luminous stream quivered as if thinking, each word that followed pulsing with light, its rhythm mimicking a heartbeat. “Hmph. There’s usually a proper procedure when addressing me, but I suppose I can humor you… Hmm… let me think…”

The voice rambled for a bit before finally answering.

“Ah! Yes, that’s right! I was in my villa enjoying the gardens over a fine meal with my darling wife. My head guard approached, whispering something into her ear, which—quite rightly—infuriated me. I stood to reprimand them, and then… my chest hurt. Everything went blurry. She—she smiled. That BIT—”

The last word fractured, and before I could react, the golden presence vanished as abruptly as it had arrived, leaving only silence.

Janus clapped his hands once, the sound sharp in the emptiness. “See?”

I exhaled, still reeling from what I’d witnessed. “He was dead,” I said quietly, more realization than question.

Janus nodded, his certainty as calm as ever.

“And he came here…” My gaze drifted around the endless void again as we both sank back down into a seated position. “But… where is here?”

Rather than answer directly, Janus’s eyes grew distant, lost in recollection. “You know,” he began slowly, “when I first met you, I felt something awaken inside me. The power in you set my blood aflame.” He gave a low chuckle. “Almost literally. I’d only felt that kind of energy twice in my entire existence: once before you, and once after.”

He sighed deeply, as though exhaling centuries. His gaze turned inward, seeing a memory no one else could.

“When I gained my first Essence, I glimpsed the birth of the world. True Creation. It was… staggering. A single man stood in the void, a singularity of being, and then—he exploded outward in a storm of violet power. From him came new energy. Stars ignited. Gas condensed into land. Life took root in the wake of his light.”

He turned to me then, eyes intent, his tone almost reverent. “You carried a thread of that same power once long ago.”

What?

No, that couldn’t be right.

A thread of violet power? When I’d met him, I’d only used my Precursor Sense, and that came from—no. No, it wasn’t possible.

I shook my head, denial sharpening my thoughts. “The Great Ancestor couldn’t have created it. I saw the birth of the world too, and it wasn’t like that at all,” I argued, voice rising as unease churned into anger. My pulse quickened.

If this man had the power to create a world, then how could I ever hope to—how long would it take to make him pay?

“Peter?” Janus’s voice cut through my thoughts.

I blinked, shaking my head again. “Why did you see something so different?” I asked. His certainty unsettled me. A quiet conviction of someone who had truly witnessed truth.

“Different?” He lifted a hand, fingertips grazing the air as though tracing something invisible. “So, you saw creation too? Hmm.”

“What does it mean?” I pressed, hoping his answer would make sense of the conflicting visions, and layered realities.

He stared upward, thinking. Waiting. Then he simply shrugged. “No idea.”

“What? But the violet energy has to be him!” I demanded, a growl creeping into my tone. “You have to know—!”

Janus waved his hand dismissively, cutting me off with casual indifference. “Do you really feel the need to know everything?” he said, his tone somewhere between amusement and exhaustion. “I’ve been here longer than I can measure, surrounded by questions without answers, and I’ve never once been troubled by their absence.”

He began listing his own questions, voice calm. “Where did the boy who killed my master and awakened my blood disappear to? Why did he mistake me for an illusion the next time we met? How does the Blood of Creation even exist?” He let the words hang for a moment, as though inviting the void itself to answer. “In the end,” he said quietly, “does it really matter? You’re here now. And so am I.”

My rising anger faltered before it could really form. I drew in a breath, forcing the tension from my throat. “I don’t need to know,” I said slowly, “but what you’re telling me is that Kazriel…” The rest of the sentence fell away, swallowed by the growing heaviness in my chest. Hopelessness sank through me.

Janus reached out, his hand settling gently on my shoulder. “I told you I felt that same power once more after meeting you,” he continued, his tone soft, almost nostalgic. “It was many years later, long after you vanished. A man with golden eyes and a hollow core. Kazriel. My, maybe our, creator.”

He shuddered as he spoke the name, as though the memory itself carried a chill. “By then, I had already awakened my Bloodline because of you, and learned to understand it through the visions that followed. But when I met him, I realized something terrible: that there was a darker path hidden within it.”

Realization struck me like a physical blow. I looked into Janus’s eyes and asked, “You have it too? You possess the Bloodline of Creation?”

“Yes.” His answer came firm, steady. He nodded once before turning away, gaze drifting into the endless white. “And he knew it too, instantly. With one glance, he recognized what I was. He chased me.” A rough breath escaped his nose. “I don’t know how—why a being with power enough to erupt an expanse into existence could not… perhaps he was weakened, diminished by whatever came after. His next creation, maybe.”

I frowned, trying to make sense of his fragmented thought. “What happened?”

He gestured outward, tracing invisible lines into the void. “I ran,” he said simply. “Tore through space itself, again and again. Every time I split the void open, he followed. So I kept tearing and ripping deeper, until I ended up here. And over time, I realized what this place truly was.”

“The afterlife?” I guessed, voice quiet.

He paused, then shook his head with a faint smile. “No.” A spark of humor lit his eyes. “But maybe it can be.”