Time rewound to the instant Acnologia's roar had struck the ground—
"Where... am I?" Seated on a white block, Mira rose and surveyed her surroundings, then rubbed her eyes. When she opened them and looked around again, she still saw nothing but a pure-white space. Astonished, she exclaimed, "Am I dreaming?"
"You are not dreaming..." The moment Mira finished speaking, an ethereal voice quietly echoed through the space...
"Who? Who's there?!" Mira immediately crouched into a defensive stance, but when she tried to use Satan Soul to assume her demon form, she discovered to her shock that her Take Over Magic was completely ineffective.
She stared at her fair-skinned hands in disbelief. Once she confirmed that this was neither an illusion nor a dream, her heart tightened, and she demanded loudly, her beautiful face icy, "Who are you?! Why did you bring me here?! And where's Achill?! Where is Achill? Where is everyone else?!! Weren't we all supposed to have died beneath Acnologia's furious roar? How could we be..."
Her voice abruptly stopped. Dazed, Mira murmured to herself, "D-don't tell me this is the world after death... Heaven, or the realm of the gods..." Her face fell as she finished speaking.
"Rest assured, this is no realm of the gods, much less the heaven you imagine people go to after death..." The ethereal voice drifted through the pure-white space, drawing closer from afar. Under Mira's wary gaze, it then rang out from the emptiness before her. Ripples flowed, and a faint silhouette shrouded in drifting, illusory mist coalesced atop the enormous white block, taking shape...
"Welcome here, to this unique world of the king..." the silhouette said quietly. "You are the first guest to enter this world..."
"A... guest?" Mira repeated.
"Correct. Everything that originally existed in this space came