To people, death was not the main theme of life. Life always brought all kinds of beauty, as well as the inevitable twists, pain, and sorrow. That was why death was so often forgotten and overlooked.
When endless lifespans were once again shackled, birth, aging, sickness, and death followed. Along with them came the fear of death, and endless emptiness and desolation.
What did death feel like?
After his Gene Engine collapsed, Hua Zhen often thought about that question. He contemplated it with reverence, curiosity, and no expectation of experiencing it himself. Naturally, he never arrived at an answer.
Some things were simply like that. Unless one experienced them personally, one would never understand the feeling.
But now, Hua Zhen could say quite directly that death was really nothing much. Close your eyes and never open them again, and somehow you would muddle through it.
As for where exactly he had muddled through to?
It was not the underworld or King Yama's court of traditional tales, nor was it the Hollow World, Soul Society, or Seireitei of surreal fantasy.
To explain it properly, everything around him was an utterly pure blank, without the slightest impurity. But why call it blank rather than space?
Because there was no sense of space or direction here at all. White was the only color, and though there was light, he could not find its source.
The instant Hua Zhen opened his eyes, he clearly felt his aged body regain its vitality. The heaviness throughout his body had vanished, replaced by the lightness of a swallow and the agility of flight.
He did not know whether all dead people came to a godforsaken place like this, where even time and space had no meaning. There was no way to verify it, so he could only