Falling.
Endless falling.
There was no up or down, no light or darkness, not even the concept of "falling" itself.
Ming Xin's consciousness was like a leaf torn apart by fierce winds, tumbling and drifting through a torrent of pure Chaos.
He could not feel his body—or perhaps his body no longer existed.
He could not feel Shadow Fiend. He could not feel the "Seeker." All that remained was the most fundamental sliver of self-awareness, like a candle flame in a storm, stubbornly resisting complete dissolution.
The final resonant impact of the "Origin Resonator" had drained every last bit of his strength and nearly taken the foundation of his soul with it.
The all-out release of the "Key" frequency at that moment had felt like ripping his blood vessels and nerves out of his body together.
Then came the coordinate-less random jump triggered by the "Seeker" at the cost of its own annihilation, which had hurled him into the most violent underlying turbulence of the spacetime structure.
He should have died.
Or rather, he ought to have died.
Yet the "Key" frequency—the most essential trait linked to the origin of the "Door"—seemed to have become his final anchor.
Even though his soul was nearly shattered, that faint, stubborn "imprint of existence" simply could not be erased completely.
It drifted through Chaos like a magnet, slowly and unconsciously drawing in similarly broken spacetime fragments and free energy around it, barely keeping his consciousness from dispersing.
He did not know how long had passed.
Perhaps an instant. Perhaps eternity.
A trace of "structure" appeared within the chaotic torrent.
It was not stable spacetime. It was more like foam or scars produced by the collision and friction of different dimensions and regions governed by different laws.
Ming Xin's remaining consciousness was instinctively drawn