Hill couldn't feel a thing. It was as if his nervous system had decided to completely deactivate, yet he still knew that death hadn't consumed him yet.
The reason he came to this conclusion was simple—he could think. The ability to formulate thoughts, within his understanding at least, was connected to the brain. So, biologically speaking, he wasn't dead. If he had truly died, all bodily activity would come to a halt. Blood wouldn't reach the brain and the ability to think or perceive anything would vanish. That would be a true death.
But there was another reason he knew he wasn't dead, this one more connected to recent events than to his limited biological understanding. The shimmering text that preceded the battle had stated that the vanquished would be erased. He didn't feel erased, not at all. In fact, his thoughts were crystal clear, as if a fog that had been clouding his mind had been drawn away. Obviously this fog was, in essence, his five senses—all of which were either disabled or numbed to the point that he couldn't perceive any of them.
It was honestly terrifying to feel nothing. He'd heard stories of how the deaf and blind felt incredibly disassociated with reality, and that was something to be feared. But this state of existence he was experiencing was different—akin to death, but not quite there yet. Since he had experienced death before and had accepted his death, albeit rather sorrowfully, that particular fear didn't bother him too much. Still, he felt it would have been more terrifying if only one of his senses had remained intact while the rest were disabled.
Physically, he was thankful that he had lost his senses. The vanishing of the searing pain that had engulfed his body was a mercy. Hill prided himself on his pain tolerance thanks to his immune system issues, so the pain of his torso being carved open wasn't as bad as he'd expected. But the sensation of drowning in his own blood—that was horrible. The sensation of his lungs filling with blood was horrible as well. Drowning truly was one of the worst ways to go out.
As he continued to reflect in this sensory void, his thoughts drifted back to his death on the bridge. He hadn't had the chance to ponder it much before, but his father had definitely died. And if his father had died, that meant there was a high chance everyone else on the bridge had died as well. That meant Meira and his mother had died as well. It was almost a certainty at this point, instead of the assumption it had been before.
All of a sudden, his mood was ruined. Now he desperately wanted something to distract him from these thoughts, but he was alone, stuck within true darkness with no plausible escape. This is the worst.
Before he could sink further into sorrow, he began to feel things again. Muted motes of light flickered at the edges of his consciousness. Air rushed past his skin with ferocious speed. The howling of winds reached his ears, and a biting frost enveloped his body. What is this? he wondered, struggling to reorient his senses as these new sensations came in random bursts, overwhelming him with the very distractions he had desperately sought just moments ago.
He felt himself clenching his teeth and regaining the ability to breathe. He also noticed something else—the coppery taste of blood within his mouth and the pain in his lungs were gone. The throbbing pain of the dagger slash had vanished as well.
As this realization grew more apparent, so did his senses. He felt sensation returning to his eyelids, and with great effort, he forced them open. What he saw before him immediately caused his heart rate to skyrocket to dangerous levels.
His body was shooting through some sort of tunnel at an unfathomable speed. This wasn't some underground passage, but something in outer space—or at least something of that nature. Brilliant spots of light shot past him, stretching into elongated streaks that seemed to howl like wind in the tunnel. Based on what he was seeing, he was gaining more speed by the second. The streaks became streams, the streams became beams, until the entire tunnel was engulfed in light.
He thought he was screaming, but he couldn't even hear himself over the howling that had turned into a roar so loud he thought his eardrums were going to burst.
Then, suddenly, he stopped. He continued to scream, of course, but his velocity dropped to zero almost instantly, and the roaring of the winds stopped as well.
Gathering himself, he saw that he truly was floating in outer space, suspended above a planet that looked just like Earth. It had blue oceans, green continents, and reflective ice caps, though this planet had three moons unlike Earth, and more isolated landmasses than his native planet as well. There was also a sun—though he felt it was inappropriate to call it a 'sun' since that term was exclusive to his native solar system. But he wasn't too eager to call it a 'star' either. He could see the outlines of other planets as well, though they didn't strike him as something worth his curiosity at the current moment.
That was because there was something strange about this whole situation. It didn't feel real. There was no atmosphere in space, so he shouldn't be able to breathe, but he could. In fact, he felt quite hot, which was unnatural as well—he should feel very cold.
As if confirming his suspicion, the reality around him folded in on itself just like it had in the black desert. Once again, he was submerged in darkness.
Then shimmering glyphs appeared, colliding with each other in front of him until they formed a series of readable lines.
[Welcome to Igashia, Hillel Tehom!]
[Here, a broken world lies in wait for salvation. The skies are filled with the cries of chaos, and the lands are plagued by the harbingers of destruction. The age of light has long passed, and the age of darkness rages on.]
[But every darkness has its dawn, just as every night is followed by the rising sun. And so, your arrival heralds a new era of hope.]
[The path of heroes is no easy task. You shall endure suffering and experience pain. You shall witness death and bear the burden of life.]
[But should you succeed in fulfilling your divine mission of saving this fallen world...then your greatest wish will be granted.]