The sky was white.
The earth was shrouded in gloom.
For Jack Young, this was the third time he'd run into a large-scale White Night phenomenon. But this time felt nothing like the last two. The first time, he just slept through the whole thing, totally clueless. The second time, he could kinda sense the Soul Rift opening and the Void Ferry drawing near, but that was about it.
But this time, it felt completely different.
With the arrival of the White Night, the once vast world suddenly felt small and shallow. It was as if behind that white curtain of night, there was something deeper and more immense than the stars or the universe itself. The feeling was subtle, impossible to put into words.
To put it another way, people living on Earth were like a bunch of fish hanging out in a dark underground river, never seeing the sky, thinking the river was the whole world and their way of sensing things was all there was. But when the White Night hit, even though the land was pitch black, Jack Young felt like those fish suddenly got a peek at the sky!
To be precise, the White Night was like a layer of ice covering the water’s surface, with light from the sky filtering down through the ice, leaving the fish anxious, worried, and bewildered. What was beyond that layer of ice? The fish didn’t know, but instinctively, they understood that if any fish could see what lay beyond the ice, it might forever, fundamentally change its perception of the world.
But this time, it was a whole different vibe. Maybe it was because his mental strength had leveled up a ton, maybe this White Night was just a fluke, or maybe there were other reasons he couldn't figure out yet. Either way, he could feel that 'ice layer' was getting thinner.
With the help of the golden profile, he suddenly realized he could see something. Through that white curtain of night, he could just barely glimpse a corner of what lay beyond the White Night.
Just that glimpse was enough to make his heart skip a beat—literally.
Because what he saw there was the purest, most unfiltered idea of 'infinity.'
Infinite vastness, infinite depth. It was like he was walking alone into the universe, trying to touch some ultimate existence with nothing but his tiny strength, short life, and limited wisdom. There was no sound, but he could almost hear a massive symphony. No image, but he could almost see something spinning, infinitely huge, slow and unstoppable.
Suddenly, something just clicked—he got it.
Whatever was above the White Night, it was something that ruled both this world and the next, something that connected infinity, moments, and eternity—a supreme concept, the ultimate being. That was the reason Chosen Ones existed, the essence of the White Night, the real reason any of this was happening.
That was the World Axis.
"I think... I suddenly get it..." Just catching a blurry glimpse of the World Axis gave Jack Young a ton of insights he couldn't even put into words. The golden profile kept whispering to him— even though it was all hazy, he still had this epiphany: "So that's how it is! Now I finally get it, that's why I had a heart demon! Damn, I almost got wrecked for no reason!"
"I don't know what you figured out, but I realized something else." Beside him, Jasper Xiao was staring blankly at the sky, his silver warhammer glowing with light. He pointed up: "Look, those patterns—don't they look like the ones carved in the Black Death Emperor's tomb?"
That's right, the White Night wasn't just a blank expanse. Who knows if regular people could see it, but if Jack Young really looked, he could make out these patterns you couldn't even describe with any color. He suddenly realized why the markings in the Black Death Emperor's tomb seemed so familiar—because those same patterns kept popping up in the Void Ferry, every time he traveled through the Soul Rift to another world.
With Jack Young's memory, he shouldn't have forgotten—but those patterns were just too weird, like there was no way to remember them no matter how hard he tried.