What the hell is it like to transmigrate into a perspective?

On a certain year, month, day, at a certain hour, minute, and second.

The world below was as usual, clear in the observable area, with no wind and sparse clouds.

Gawain gazed silently at the distant land from an absolute overhead perspective, contemplating life—after all, there was nothing else he could do.

He couldn't remember how many years he had been in this state, nor what he looked like now. Although he could roughly judge time by the alternation of day and night, to be honest, after tens of thousands of day-night cycles, he couldn't be bothered to calculate anymore.

Had he transmigrated?

To be honest, Gawain was quite open-minded about "transmigration." It wasn't that he had such great enlightenment to view life and death as nothing, but when his plane crashed in his previous life, he realized the impermanence of worldly affairs and that life and death were in the hands of heaven. After all, in a situation where death was certain, having a chance to transmigrate was better than dying on the spot. What he couldn't accept was why he ended up floating in the sky after transmigrating...

And floating for who knows how many tens of thousands of years.

Gawain didn't know what state he was in now. He couldn't shift his perspective, nor could he feel his body. In fact, apart from sight, he had completely lost the ability to perceive the external environment. Therefore, he couldn't be sure if he was a lingering soul or a space corpse floating in orbit. But one thing was certain: he was definitely not in a normal human state, floating here.

Because he was sure that a normal human's mental structure could not remain clear-headed and with complete memory after floating in the sky alone for tens of thousands of years, even having the leisure to contemplate life.

A normal person would have gone mad long ago.

But he hadn't gone mad; not only that, but his memory was also extraordinary.

The passage of tens of thousands of years had not affected Gawain's memory at all. To this day, he could still clearly recall the events of his last moments in his previous life—the piercing screams, the alarms, the violently shaking cabin, the world rolling outside the porthole, the neighbor struggling to put on his oxygen mask, and the loud bang when the plane disintegrated in mid-air.

Everything was as clear as if it had happened yesterday. And he could clearly remember how astonished he was when he opened his eyes again after that loud bang, only to find himself floating above an unfamiliar planet.

From the moment he reopened his eyes, he knew he was not looking at Earth's land and oceans. So, he took a little time to deduce and accept the fact that he had come to another world. Then, he spent more time trying to figure out how to stop floating like this.

Unfortunately, the second task was unsuccessful.

He found that he was "fixed," or perhaps his current form had no ability to move at all. He had become a "fixed perspective" overlooking the land, bound tightly to his current position. He could look at the land, but only the land, and he could only look at a restricted area on the land—this area was an irregular continent, surrounded by oceans, but his vision couldn't see anything beyond the immediate surroundings.

He couldn't turn his gaze left or right, so he couldn't be sure if there were other landmasses beyond the oceans. For the same reason, he hadn't seen what the starry sky of this world looked like to this day.

He wasn't even sure if other celestial bodies existed in this world—perhaps if he turned his head, he'd see a white-bearded God shining a spotlight on everything.

Damn it, I really want to do a backstroke...

Even if all I could see after doing a backstroke was a white-bearded old man holding a spotlight and illuminating everything.

However, it was all a luxury. This perspective of overlooking the land could not be changed.

But after trying for a long time, Gawain found a small operational aspect of this perspective—although he couldn't move left or right, he could zoom in and out within this field of vision, or rather, bring his perspective closer or farther away.

After discovering this, he was genuinely happy for a long time, and then he tried various ways to adjust his field of vision. Although when he zoomed out to the limit, he couldn't see anything beyond the surrounding oceans, he could at least choose to zoom in and see what was on that continent.

It was lush and vibrant, clearly indicating the presence of life.

It would be good to see the daily lives of the people in this other world. Although he was still floating here, at least watching the customs and traditions of the people in this other world could relieve some boredom, right?

Then, he zoomed his vision to the closest possible distance, so close that he could clearly observe every blade of grass and every tree on the land.

That day, he despaired to find that the mammals on the land...

None of them had yet learned to walk upright...

But it didn't matter. Gawain was very patient—perhaps his patience was limited when he was human, but after transmigrating into an overhead perspective, he found that he possessed immense patience.

He waited until those monkeys learned to walk upright.

Then, many years passed, and he witnessed the birth of the first man-made flame with his own eyes.

It was flint and steel.

The changes began to occur after the birth of that flame.

Gawain didn't know what happened, but after the first flame was born on the land, he felt that everything suddenly "sped up," or rather, his perception of the passage of time became problematic. Things on the land began to evolve rapidly, like a video played at countless times the normal speed. He saw those humanoid races quickly build primitive tribes, and then the tribes became early city-states. He saw those humanoid races master incredible abilities and expand their territories with techniques that seemed like magic. But before he could clearly see what was happening on the land, those early kingdoms turned into ruins one after another. Then, new humanoid creatures began to multiply again from various corners of the ruins...

Humans and various other races began to compete for living space on the continent. They established various kingdoms and beliefs, shouting the names of various gods as they fought each other, and then quickly disappeared.

The pace continued to accelerate. Gawain gradually began to be unable to process the massive amount of information he was seeing. He saw creatures that looked like dragons suddenly appear in his vision, but he didn't know if those "dragons" had evolved on the continent or came from beyond the oceans.

He saw wars break out, and the flames of war almost burned the entire land, but in the blink of an eye, new civilizations were established.

It was only after a long time that he realized it wasn't that the pace on the land had accelerated, but rather that he had "skipped" a large amount of information.

His "observation" was becoming intermittent, changing from continuous observation to recording only a few frames every few years or even decades. It was only when these frames with huge time spans were put together that he had the illusion that the pace had accelerated.

He hadn't realized this before because, during the periods when his observation perspective was interrupted, his own thoughts were also static.

And when the observation perspective restarted, his thoughts seemed to continue seamlessly.

So he didn't realize the problem happening to him at all.

This is bad.

The three words "This is bad" flashed through Gawain's mind like lightning, but this lightning-like thought probably took hundreds of years to form.

Because he clearly saw the world change dramatically on the land—at the same moment the three words appeared in his mind, another kingdom had turned from its peak into ruins.

Gawain didn't know what was going on, but he knew this was definitely not normal. From the fleeting images that kept flashing by, with time spans measured in years, he realized that his own thoughts were rapidly disappearing.

In a hundred years, the total time he could think was probably less than a second.

And his "thinking interruption period" was continuously lengthening.

Because he realized that the leaps in things on the land had reached an unbelievable level. Those "slides" that switched rapidly like fleeting glimpses were almost incomprehensible.

If this continued, perhaps after a certain moment, the consciousness named "Gawain" would completely dissipate in this inexplicable place. He would fall into eternal slumber at that moment, with no chance of restarting.

For the first time in who knows how many tens of thousands of years, Gawain felt a sense of urgency. He frantically pushed his mind, desperate to break free from his current predicament. He felt his thoughts racing at lightning speed—if he still had such an organ—with countless ideas erupting like a geyser. Yet, watching the "slideshow" of the earth constantly changing before him, he knew his thoughts were actually moving at a glacial pace, a thousand years per frame.

Of course, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but the reality wasn't much better.

Escape this situation, escape this situation, escape this situation, escape this situation...

No matter the method, no matter the form, he had to escape this situation. Even if it meant returning to that crashing plane, he couldn't die in this inexplicable place in such a bizarre manner!

Gawain felt his thoughts becoming muddled, his consciousness gradually blurring. His previously "seamless" thought continuity seemed to have gone awry. He thought furiously, with all his might, but trapped with a fixed perspective, no amount of angry contemplation could change his reality.

But just as he felt his mind was about to completely dissipate or freeze, a voice suddenly echoed from who knows where:

"Energy failure, host restart failed.

Evasion program initiated."

The next instant, the fixed perspective vanished—Gawain's vision plunged into darkness.

But his thoughts did not cease.

For the first time in countless years, he was still thinking while "his eyes were closed."

He didn't know how long he spent in this darkness. He felt as if he were tumbling, falling, entering a cold, cramped space. All sorts of unfamiliar sensations coursed through his limbs, throwing his brain into chaos. Amidst this confusion, he vaguely heard a young female voice, sounding quite panicked:

"Don't... don't kill me yet! Compared to this, your ancestor's coffin lid is about to pop open!"

(Everyone! I'm back!)