Boom—Crack—Roar.
The ground trembled, and the earth surged upward.
Land, deeply embedded within the crust, erupted into the air, and what was once flat plains transformed into rugged mountains.
“People say even mountains and rivers change in ten years.”
But this took less than ten minutes.
Ancestors, your wisdom doesn’t hold up—our country is already 70% mountains, and now it’s going to have even more.
It was like watching the birth of the world itself.
No, it might even be more than that.
At least during the world’s creation, the earth didn’t come chasing after anyone as if trying to devour them.
“Ahh! What did I do wrong?!”
Before everything completely collapsed, I managed to escape the underground cavern.
I solidified the shadows within to hold back the collapse, pierced through the obstructing ground, and finally made it to the surface.
But what greeted me above was a field of sharp, towering stone pillars.
It was bad enough that each pillar was as massive as a mountain, but worse still, the earth itself moved like some kind of liquid, writhing as if trying to engulf me.
“Malevolent darkness. Are you planning to destroy the kingdoms of men again, like that day?”
“What are you even talking about?! I didn’t do anything!”
Wasn’t the Titan supposed to be a soulless machine?
It shouldn’t even have voice functions, right?
Originally, Gigantes was a weapon created for war.
Even during raids in the game, the Titan never uttered a word.
So why now?
As I tilted my head in confusion at the incomprehensible voice, the Gigantes began gathering nearby earth to form the shape of a colossal giant.
Rumble—
The ground that once supported countless buildings was lifted.
The land converged and became the hands of the Gigantes.
Boom—
Earth that had slumbered between tectonic plates for hundreds, maybe thousands of years, surged upward.
It gathered to form the feet of the Gigantes.
Using the original head as its core, the Titan’s massive body gradually took shape.
In the empty land left behind by the Gigantes, bubbling, molten red liquid surged upward.
A hand, larger than a mountain, scooped up the molten liquid.
Thick red magma dripped between the fingers.
Even a small amount of that magma caused buildings, constructed over decades by humanity, to melt away.
And yet, despite its thousands-of-degrees heat, the viscous liquid didn’t fully spill.
Instead, it coalesced in the Titan’s hand until—
“Ah, this is insane!”
I gathered the darkness and formed jet-black wings.
As if my body remembered, the wings lifted me high into the sky without a single flap.
Looking down at where I had stood moments ago, I saw a massive crater.
Smoke rose acridly from the earth, and the ground, still sizzling, radiated heat.
“If you’d stayed still, I would’ve gone easy on you!”
I just wanted a cool robot for my home!
In the shadow of the Titan’s massive form, darkness gathered.
I pointed at the shaded silhouette of the machine with my finger.
And with a slight flick of my finger—
Suddenly, pitch-black blades shot out from the shadows and severed the Titan’s right arm.
Thud.
The massive arm of the Titan crashed to the ground.
The earth quaked, and another aftershock rippled outward from the colossal impact.
“Ahh, the sound is deafening.”
It was like the roar of continents colliding.
No, considering the size and material, the Titan’s arm was practically a mountain—it might as well have been land colliding.
“Damn, it’s annoyingly tough.”
Even the original head, once part of a statue, didn’t have a single scratch despite the shadow blades.
In the game, Gigantes had some of the highest defense stats, and it seemed reality had faithfully adapted that feature.
Still, with one arm gone, I could breathe a little easier as I looked at the Titan.
Creak.
The sound echoed from the Titan’s severed arm.
“Merciless darkness…”
“Wow…”
The ground rose again, and an arm began regenerating from the severed area.
The Gigantes’ eyes, glowing with an eerie light, were peculiar for a weapon without consciousness.
“I cannot simply leave you be. I shall die here and stop you, even as a pitiful remnant.”
With black wings spreading wide, it soared high into the sky.
At that moment, sharp spikes of earth shot up from where it originally stood.
An eruption like a volcano—magma scattered above my head.
The shifting terrain of the Gigantes rose sharply, forming mountains and launching themselves to pierce me.
“Ugh, come on!”
The time was when the sun slanted low,
When darkness still lingered everywhere.
Using the surrounding darkness as energy, I flew higher, beyond the Gigantes’ reach.
***
“What the hell is happening here…”
The path where the colossus had passed.
What was once a plain had now transformed into jagged mountainous terrain, unrecognizable in its original form.
Surveyor Lee Minhyuk, dispatched by the association, let out a quiet sigh as he observed the scene.
In particular, the grotesque sight of shapes blending earth and human forms embedded in the ground was beyond words.
To make it worse…
“Ugh…”
“A person?”
People, dried up and withered as though every ounce of their vitality had been drained, barely breathed.
As a surveyor for the association, a dungeon supervisor, and an officer responsible for missing persons under a black company,
Lee Minhyuk quickly realized these people were the missing individuals who had been unaccounted for.
“They must have been hiding in dugouts.”
No wonder they evaded the mother ship’s investigation network.
Tch, Lee Minhyuk clicked his tongue and shook his head.
The Gigantes’ appearance seemed to have revealed their hiding spots, including the dugouts.
After summoning members of the association, Lee Minhyuk began rescuing those trapped in the dugouts.
‘But with such seismic activity, you’d think the dugouts would collapse…’
Surprisingly, the dugouts remained intact despite the Gigantes’ rampage, except for the area believed to have been where the colossus stood.
It was as if something inside the dugouts was stabilizing their form.
Shaking off the thought, Minhyuk focused on what mattered now.
The Gigantes, a colossus roaming South Korea, chasing after something.
Though likely unintentional, its aftermath alone had swept away countless people and structures.
If not for the early evacuation alerts and him, the death toll would have been far higher.
‘Please, hold out for longer… and survive…’
A true act of chivalry, sacrificing himself as bait to save others.
Martial artist Lee Minhyuk resolved to meet him once this ordeal was over.
Though he hadn’t seen his face, hidden by the colossal Gigantes, countless people who had already heard of his deeds were cheering him on.
His fame was inevitable.
So…
[Uh, why is that thing getting bigger?]
(Photo of the colossus advancing, turning the surrounding terrain into a wasteland.)
(Gif of the colossus growing larger as it absorbs the surrounding ground.)
Hey, you crazy colossus!
Why the hell are you getting bigger?
Who on earth is piloting this thing?
Sure, holding out for over ten minutes is impressive, but…
At this rate, he’s going to get caught.
So close, it’s nerve-wracking.
Wow, his courage is insane.
Sigh… Does that even make sense?
That level of performance from just a fragment?
Where’s the balance in this?
Dude, balance has been gone since Yggdrasil scorched Brazil to the ground.
But this is worse than a game!
At this level, isn’t it like the Earth God is piloting it?
Why would the Earth God have a grudge against us?
To bulldoze mountains for golf courses?
Hmm…
Dumping grounds?
Trash?
There’s a lot, I guess.
I just wish you’d return safely.
Lee Minhyuk earnestly prayed.
***
Time flowed, and flowed again.
The moment when the slanted sun rose to its highest peak.
In other words, noon.
Like Icarus, whose wax wings melted as he approached the sun.
The higher I flew, the stronger the light became, and the wings made of darkness grew fainter.
The upper layers of the sky, where sunlight poured down directly without clouds, were dazzlingly bright.
“How long are you planning to keep following me?”
Whoosh—
A gigantic boulder hurled by Gigantes flew toward me.
Well, I’m not sure if calling it a “boulder” does it justice.
It was massive enough that a direct hit would surely mean instant death.
Under the fierce sunlight, the shadows that barely altered its trajectory seemed faint.
I’m not exactly sure, but beneath the clouds.
Perhaps at an altitude much higher than Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world.
Even there, the land controlled by Gigantes rose like a mountain to chase me.
Gigantes, who absorbed the earth into his body to grow larger, was quietly looking up at me from just below my eye level as I flew.
I pointed at Gigantes and tried to summon shadows.
But the sky was so blindingly bright that even shadows were barely visible.
“The timing was unfortunate. It’s almost noon, and the darkness you take pride in is now useless.”
Gigantes’ outstretched hand filled my field of vision.
“You are the one who slew me. But the earth is generous; after your body is reduced to dust, I shall embrace you once more.”
A massive hand, large enough to cover dozens of mountains with just one finger, reached out to grasp me.
As the collision of mountains reverberated, the earth’s roar echoed through the heavens.
In the midst of that overwhelming noise, I quietly closed my eyes.
Crunch.
***
Before all of this became a reality.
Back to just a week ago, when I was laughing and joking at home.
I recall the time when it was just “Another World.”
Back then, or rather just before it became real, there was a boss infamous for its overwhelming difficulty.
Aria Eclipse.
There were countless reasons behind its notoriety, but apart from its sheer difficulty, the part that drew the most complaints was the first phase of Eclipse.
Eclipse’s attack skill, which could shred any character’s health bar if hit.
Eclipse’s defense skill, which surrounded it in darkness and blocked most damage unless it was a critical strike.
And lastly,
The only instant-kill skill among the three in Phase 1,
A single move that caused countless players to despair and surpassed the difficulty of most other bosses.
“Eclipse.”
Named after the phenomenon where the moon blocks the sun’s light from reaching Earth.
It had a pattern that instantly killed any character without the power of light.
Because of this, the players, including myself, used to protest, saying, “How can she have three such overpowered skills?”
We even begged them to reduce it to just one.
But now that this has become reality, now that I have become Aria Eclipse, I finally understand.
All the patterns in Phase 1 stemmed from a single skill.
[Dark Manipulation (EX)]
And to use that final pattern, rising this high into the sky was necessary.
Even in the game, Eclipse needed a preparation process to use this skill, and the same applied now that it had become reality.
A war machine of the earth, born from the remains of the gods, reaches for me beyond the clouds.
Born from the earth and surpassing the skies,
It is, truly, a sky beyond the sky, a “Heaven Beyond Heaven” (天外天).
However,
Above that so-called Heaven Beyond Heaven, there was the universe.
Far earlier than the heavens and earth had opened—
The starting point of creation,
A place with more darkness than any other space.
I reached out.
Not downward, but upward.
Not toward shadows, but toward the darkness surrounding the stars.
Light gathered to form stars, but darkness could not do the same.
The darkness that wandered without a master eagerly responded, shrouding the stars.
The sunlight illuminating Earth disappeared.
The vibrant colors decorating the Earth lost their brilliance and fell silent.
“This is… that… from back then!”
Saaaa—
Among them, the largest ochre-colored paint,
The image of a giant called Gigantes, began to be painted over by the black ink of darkness.
Within the right arm of Gigantes, obliterated without leaving even dust behind,
A girl with jet-black hair floated calmly.
“…It has become night. Now it’s time for the seeker to change, isn’t it?
Try running away as best as you can?”
With a mischievous giggle, darkness smiled brightly.
As if the entire chase so far had just been a game.
With a gaze that was both chilling and pure,
She looked down at the war machine as though it were laughable.
This Eclipse
Without even the moon, it has begun.
The eclipse.