Gun of Ashes

This is a desolate, cold world, an endless ice plain underfoot where dark blue seawater surges beneath the heavy ice layer. In those depths, it seems there are other things, but hindered by the ice, they can only weakly knock against the cold surface, mixing eerie friction sounds with the cold wind.

The stars gather into a river of stars that pierce the night sky, spreading from one end of the horizon to the other, occupying the entire field of vision.

Lorenzo watched the figure standing against the full moon, countless emotions surged in his heart, but in the end, he found himself unable to say anything, just gazing across at him until the man walked to his side and sat on the solitary bench.

"Doesn't this place feel like the absurd dream of an artist?"

He sat down casually, his shabby coat unfit for warmth, yet he seemed unbothered by the cold, casually judging the world.

This is a world within a gap, existing in the interval between life and death. Everything besides the two of them was so desolate.

"Maybe... at least I think it's not bad."

Lorenzo thought for a moment, then sat back on the bench. The two of them faced the full moon rising from beneath the horizon, as if sitting in a park watching wild dogs chase squirrels.

"By the way, what should I call you now? Is Lorenzo okay, or...? How's life in Old Dunling?"

The man smiled slightly.

"Lorenzo... To be honest, I don't like the feeling."

Lorenzo was too lazy to show any shyness or other emotion, his whole demeanor icy cold.

"I know. After all, who would have thought you'd actually name yourself after me to commemorate me. You intended to remember, but it turns out the one to be remembered wasn't completely dead."

"Oh, I totally get that feeling, it's mortifying!"

The man was downright cheerful, discussing from every angle.

But then everything calmed down. Lorenzo wasn't amused by that damned joke. He took a deep breath, seemingly enduring agonizing pain, his steadfast eyes unexpectedly filled with sadness.

"I remember you died. I killed you with my own hands."

In the long silence, Lorenzo was the first to speak, breaking the calmness. He didn't look at the man, only stared straight ahead. The full moon was so immense and bright, as if it rose from the sea below, and the huge craters on its glowing surface were faintly visible.

Lorenzo remembered what those astronomers said, they said those craters were formed by asteroid impacts, but to him, they seemed like a series of sunken eye sockets. Perhaps there once were gigantic eyes there, but they were all gouged out by an unknown force.

"Oh, oh, oh, I almost forgot if you hadn't mentioned it. You've got some nerve."

The man didn't care about Lorenzo's feelings, saying cheerfully. He opened his black coat, revealing blood-stained bones in his chest devoid of flesh, just like a ghoul's attack, all organs and even the heart devoured entirely.

"How did I taste? I've always thought I was like vanilla cake."

Like a salesman asking a customer how they liked his meat, a large part of Lorenzo's neurosis stemmed from this jerk.

"You know, your eating manners were terrible at the time. You were crying while chewing, smacking your lips."

Ah... I really want to tear this maniac apart.

Lorenzo shot him a look. When a madman encounters another, even madder person, there's always a sense of helplessness. Usually, it's Lorenzo tormenting others, but here he's tormenting himself.

"So you said this place is the [Gap]? What is that?"

"Literally, the [Gap] of all things."

The man covered that disdainful wound, then slowly explained.

"The Order has always been researching matters on the mental plane, that is... the soul. Alchemists divided things into four elements, but above all that, there's a soul related to life."

He turned his head, a face somewhat resembling Lorenzo but also slightly different.

The man was an optimistic person, so optimistic that even in death, he couldn't stay calm. Even if thrown together with a demon, he might drag those terrifying creatures along to tell dark jokes.

"Like our familiarity, the connection with darkness. Lorenzo, have you ever thought about what's at the deepest point of the connection?"

"The deepest point?"

Lorenzo shook his head. He didn't understand much about these things. To him, the deepest point was probably just endless demons and instant death from corrosion.

"Yes, this is what the Order's later research focused on, what exactly lies at the deepest point of the connection? Every experiment starts with a hypothesis, hypothesizing a thing."

Lorenzo seemed to have thought of something and asked.

"So this is the place, right? The deepest point of contact, you called it the [Gap]."

"As expected of my successor, you guessed it right."

The man was delighted with Lorenzo's sharp thinking and clapped in approval.

"So... am I dead? After all, you died six years ago, and here you are, a dead man happily telling me that we are in the deepest contact [Gap]. Although I don't understand what this place really is, it's not somewhere you can just come at will, right?"

Lorenzo thought he might be dead, feeling a sense of relief as he slumped onto the bench, looking at the galaxy spanning the night sky overhead, suddenly thinking that the scenery in the afterlife wasn't so bad.

"You're not dead, my friend. Normally, no living person can reach the [Gap], but there are always exceptions, like us."

The man said as he hugged Lorenzo, the cold air carrying a faint scent of blood, emanating from the man's grotesque wounds.

"I died back then, and when I woke up again, I was here. Sometimes I could sense your presence, but couldn't see you. It's like what we know, similar to the connection with darkness, our worlds overlap, but I couldn't observe your world.

Until today, your connection with the darkness reached the deepest point, I finally saw you, so I pulled with all my strength, and here you are."

The man spoke as he waved his hands, mimicking the motion of pulling something with force.

"Did you know before coming here I was fighting a Michael Demon Hunter? He broke through the critical point, and the rising Purifying Flame could melt steel. Maybe I was already burnt to death while talking to you."

The touching reunion had been almost drained away by the man's nonsense, Lorenzo said coldly.

"Ha? I'm really sorry about that."

The man apologized after hearing this, yet Lorenzo couldn't see any sign of remorse on his face.

"The [Gap] still holds many secrets I haven't figured out, but at least we've proven that it indeed exists."

Another useless piece of information. Lorenzo's eyes turned slightly cold as he looked at him and asked icily.

"And what about you? What's your deal? You died a long time ago, so are you a hallucination, or some so-called soul of mine?"

This is a strange place with strange things, strange everything.

The man didn't seem to mind, he thought for a moment and then pointed to the ice sheet underfoot.

"I'm probably like it. Just like six years ago, we still couldn't kill it but managed to trap it. You're the last person in the world who remembers its existence, so it lives within your memory. As long as you don't spread its information, it remains eternally trapped in your memory.

Technically, I'm dead, but part of me got intertwined with it. As you trapped it, part of my consciousness was also trapped here, hence lingering till today."

The man said solemnly.

"Which means I'm truly dead. What stands before you is merely a reminiscence with memories, a ghost that belongs nowhere."

This is a sad story. As the man spoke, the ice began to tremble, the friction sound in the wind grew louder. Lorenzo barely had time to feel sad for him, instinctively started to move, preparing to attack, but the man held him firmly.

"Don't worry, it can't escape. It throws a fit like this every day over these years."

Like appreciating some beautiful view, the man sat steadily on the bench, watching the ice sheet below crack, enormous sea waters surging up from beneath.

"This might be heaven's final consolation for us. Though almost everyone is dead, it's indeed nice to see it struggle painfully every day."

Lorenzo quietly listened to those words as the azure darkness below completely erupted, countless withered arms emerged from the water, bound by heavy chains, yearning for fresh air, then let out wailing laments.

The palms scratched against the smooth ice surface, trying to climb up, but all in vain, leaving deep scratches on the ice before drowning back into the deep sea.

How many were there?

They numbered in the hundreds, thousands, trying to escape from this freezing Ice Sea, but no one could succeed.

Heavy iron chains stretched from the deep sea's abyss to the surface, its form converging like a school of fish, finally forming a black killer whale with countless faces merged together, transforming into a hundred-faced Demon, eerily visible in the moonlit darkness.

The tide roared as it came, Lorenzo watched the terrifying hundred-faced whale stir up waterfall-like white surf, but then the low temperature froze everything. It still couldn't escape this Ice Sea, standing like a sculpture in the desolation. The next moment, everything shattered, smashed into fine snowflakes, swallowed by the chaotic white under the drag of the wild wind.

The man wasn't a bit flustered, as if watching a performance seen countless times, now at its end, the audience should calmly sit in their seats awaiting the end, so he clapped his hands, giving applause for this death repeated countless times.