A Conversation That Never Existed

Under normal circumstances, the instant the invisible barrier shattered, a powerful suction force should have erupted, swallowing all dozen-odd systems into the halo.

Yet Benjamin saw nothing of the sort.

"What is this...?"

Soulheart entered the halo, followed immediately by a flash of white light. Benjamin reflexively closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the entire world had turned upside down.

The halo was gone. The terrifying suction was gone. The systems that had been howling themselves hoarse were gone too... The vacuum-like silence gave him an intensely jarring sense of being torn apart.

Wait...

It took him quite a while to come back to his senses. He raised his head and looked around in astonishment. This was clearly not the Consciousness Space he knew. It seemed another teleportation had occurred, but strangely, it was completely unlike every previous time he had entered the Elemental Plane.

Blinding white light shone in from every direction, filled with an icy tranquility. The space was not large. He felt as though he were inside a sealed room, its four walls covered with cold fluorescent lights and nothing else.

—Though flooded with white light, this place did not feel holy. If anything, it felt somewhat sci-fi.

What had happened now?

Benjamin was filled with a sense of unfamiliarity. This was an utterly unknown place. How had he ended up here? An illusion? Or had the collision between the halo and Soulheart caused his actual body to undergo some kind of spatial transfer?

And... where was the system? It had not been swept into the halo, had it?

Benjamin immediately grew tense.

Though their daily routine consisted of trading barbs, he did not dislike the system. Only the system understood what Benjamin had gone through over the years. Beyond its constant companionship, it might