The Formless Art required a price. This was an unshakable law of the supernatural world.
But this time, everything had gone wrong.
At first, things had been normal. He had successfully completed the ritual, formed the Formless Art, and unleashed it.
But a slight deviation had occurred when it came time to pay the price.
As the art's range continued to expand, he felt his Spirit Body being steadily drawn out and compressed before leaving his body, passing through the passage torn open by the Formless Art to reach the world beneath the surface.
The world before his eyes gradually lost its stability, and all manner of bizarre sights began to appear.
Simon knew what this was. He had arrived in the Dream World.
Even mortals had one chance to enter the Dream World: the instant of death.
Life and death blurred the distinction between reality and dreams, and this was why he had fallen straight into a dream.
He fell from reality, yet floated upward within the dream, gradually ascending.
What lay above dreams?
Everyone who frequently sought answers in dreams knew that above them lay the Abodes of the Great Beings.
So that was it. Simon suddenly understood everything.
This was the price he had to pay. He would enter an Abode and become one of its bricks, a part of a Great Being. But this was where the deviation occurred.
As he gradually ascended, he suddenly felt... watched.
The gaze of some being had fallen upon him.
He looked up toward the source of that gaze, but saw nothing. All he could feel was the cold as he ascended.
No, it was not nothing. That cold felt familiar, like that coldly burning Sun he had once seen.
The being merely glanced at him before looking away, neither