Nothingness had no defining properties. It was void of all characteristics, a mere cessation of all that exists. It wasn’t empty space. It wasn’t darkness. It just… wasn’t.

  In every realm in the interspace, there was a border where reality suddenly cut off into nothingness. And while nothing itself had no properties, the edge of reality did.

  First, it was infinitely hard. There was no way to “break nothing.”

  Second—it was infinitely reflective. Things couldn’t go nowhere. Thus, they simply bounced right back. Everything—matter, force, ether, essence, light, information, it all mirrored right back without any losses, without any inefficiency.

  As Freddy walked into the pitch darkness of the portal, he appeared in the center of a small, cubic realm. Its six sides were about 10 times his height in length and width. The room was wholly empty, other than the cold, even frigid air.

  The torch helmet on his head was still glowing. And in the moment he appeared, he witnessed something truly breathtaking.

  While the space he was in was limited, it was effectively a room of perfect mirrors. The light bounced off the walls and created the illusion of an infinitely vast space with an uncountable number of differently-rotated copies of himself standing still in the middle of an eternal void, holding the large, heavy bag with all the resources he would need during his stay.

  The illusion grew dimmer with distance, given that his body absorbed a little more of the light with every reflection, making it turn darker and darker towards the edges until it finally became too dim for him to perceive.

  He gasped at the sight. The sound of his gasp echoed through the room, creating a flickering, almost buzzing noise that gradually dissipated into a dull drone.

  It was at that moment that he remembered a third property of the edge of reality. Given that it was a border with nothing—it had absolutely no friction whatsoever.

  As soon as he made the slightest of movements, this property was displayed in spectacular fashion. His feet lost all support as if he were standing on the world’s most slippery sheet of ice, and he fell on his ass, the massive bag smashing into itself, both sliding forward slightly as he tried to stabilize, but to no avail. He kept slowly gliding forward, coming closer and closer to the edge of the room.

  The sound of his fall yet again echoed through the room, and with the noise having nowhere to go, it appeared to almost accumulate, adding to the already existing drone. It was almost starting to hurt his ears.

  He thought he had considered everything. From food to water to air to the fact that this room would slowly heat up as time passed. At this point, he was hoping that he wasn’t forgetting something that might actually kill him.

  He groaned as he lifted a finger. His blood started pouring freely from the tip of his index finger. As it slid across nothing, it spread into a perfectly circular pool with uncanny efficiency, rapidly filling the whole room with a shallow pool of Freddy’s blood.

  The appearance of the liquid had a dampening effect on the noise, and the background hum finally started to weaken a bit.

  As soon as there was enough to touch all four sides, he sent a pulse of his essence through it to harden it. Given that his clothes were in contact with the blood, they were now stuck in the hardened sheet, and he had to cut them off. It was an action he wasn’t particularly fond of, given how blisteringly cold it was.

  The square sheet of blood was firmly wedged against all four sides of the room; it felt perfectly stable even though it was standing on nothing. With his clothes torn, Freddy got up to his feet and took a deep breath. He put the bag holding his supplies down beside him.

  With the appearance of a solid floor, the reflection had now been reduced to only the sides, with an infinitely vast sheet of crimson above and below, suddenly making the space feel somewhat cramped.

  Freddy sighed. “Fuck, it’s so cold!” He rubbed his shoulders and shivered a bit.

  He was already used to low temperatures, but this room was really something. He spat on the ground, and the spit made a tinkling sound when it touched the metallic floor. It had frozen before even touching the ground!

  Before keeping the room cold, it seemed he’d have to warm it up first.

  He started running in circles around the room while going through the mental checklist of chores.

  But first, he examined the space he found himself in. Although it was definitely in the smallest category of realm, the space didn’t feel cramped in the slightest. As far as A-class realms were concerned, this was on the upper end for sure. He had 400 square meters of space, and because it was all completely empty, he could make whatever he wanted of it.

  His first order of business was to organize all his infrastructure. This meant setting up the air purifier, the heat control, the waste disposal, and to set up the low-level ether generators he got his hands on.

  Ether generators could produce wisps of ether. They drastically ranged in quality, and the more useful ones were way beyond his means. Their primary purpose was to fuel gathering chambers. He needed them so he could restore his essence reserves.

  That being said, the ones he got were… underwhelming, to say the least. He only found three defective water-affinity generators for sale, and even those were overpriced as hell. They needed tzenekite to operate, and these ones clearly used impure, unrefined tzenekite ore to fuel them. As a result, they were super slow. It took them all around ten minutes to produce just a single wisp. That meant he only had one wisp every 3 minutes on average.

  He sighed at the thought. He would have to organize his training to prioritize expensive abilities first, then abilities that could be covered by his satellite, then physical exercise once he was too full of reflux essence to continue.

  Next up on his list of chores was to organize his space. Namely, he needed one area for ability training, another for physical training, and a third for a neutral living space.

  He was no fool. A century would, in one way or another, drive him insane. He was already aware of that.

  The best he could hope for was to minimize the damage.

  While he could rely on his talent to keep his brain from outright breaking, he needed something to keep him from losing himself.

  With that in mind, he had brought a massive collection of books; he had bought a headset for listening to music and a crystal with thousands of songs inscribed on it, a BC with hundreds of movies and series stored on a drive, and a number of colorful decorations which he would use to create a comfortable living space.

  And finally, his schedule.

  He made made the decision not to track the time as it passed. At all. His reasoning was that he felt that tracking the time would do nothing but hurt him. It was better not to know. Hell, it might even make the time feel like it was passing faster.

  Rather than listen to a clock, he would listen to his body. He’d sleep however long he slept; he’d train until he was tired. He’d entertain himself until he was bored of it.

  He’d brought enough cheap food pills to last him half a millennium even if he went overboard, so he wasn’t afraid of accidentally running out of resources.

  This would be an extreme marathon. Any small thing he could do to minimize stress would go a long way.

  His plan was to spend the whole time occupied with something, either training, playing, or sleeping. The less time he had to ponder the weight of the time he would spend there, the better.

  It took him quite a while to finally bring the room to a tolerable temperature. He had no idea how long, of course. He wasn’t keeping track.

  As soon as he was done with that, he got started with his work.

  First the infrastructure. He designated one specific corner for all the fragile stuff and promptly shielded it with a relatively thick barrier of blood metal, leaving just a tiny opening for the cold, fresh air to flow. This was also where his generators were. Preferably, he would stay as far away from this corner as possible.

  If he broke anything inside, he would be lucky if it wasn’t a death sentence.

  The next corner he designated for ability testing. For the time being, he couldn’t do much about this one.

  He would eventually shield it with a thick wall, but that wasn’t going to happen immediately. He didn’t exactly have infinite blood reserves available. He would also make the floor slightly thicker here. But that wasn’t exactly a priority.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Next up was the physical training area.

  He couldn’t exactly fit gym equipment into the small storage rings he bought in bulk, so he would need to rely on his blood to make all the equipment from scratch. As for the weights, he’d rely on the same trick he used for Sanguine Beheader to increase the density.

  As for the complexity of the equipment, he’d have to settle for free weights. But that was more than enough to work his whole body. He had 100 years to train here. He would see solid progress no matter what.

  He made some quick plans on where he would put what and then left the work for later.

  And last, but absolutely not least, he got started on the sleeping area.

  He didn’t want it to be too big so that it wouldn’t occupy more space than was necessary, but he wanted it to be comfortably spacious.

  He settled for a five-by-five-meter area. And then, he got started.

  Picking up the biggest storage box he brought, he started pulling out all of the stuff he would need. First, he pulled out the wooden floorboards and several buckets of adhesive. He got to work, putting together the floor of his new home. Then, he made a metallic frame with his blood and finished the walls and ceiling with large sheets of plywood.

  It didn’t need to be too sturdy. Even though it would have to last a century, it wouldn’t be subjected to the elements. But in case anything broke down, he made sure to bring extra material to fix it up.

  The storage box also contained the bed frame, which he promptly put together, and also the sheets and mattress.

  He put up a bunch of posters, paintings, a small drawer, and a couple of shelves, all scattered with a number of colorful decorations. He mounted the BC facing the bed and organized the rest of the small things he would be using during his stay in this place.

  And then, as the final touch, he pulled out the ether lamps. He dished out a crap ton of money for these. They were specifically designed to create a rich, full-bodied light that closely mimicked the composition of warm sunlight. The moment he lit them up, he noticed the difference between them and the lamp he was carrying on his head.

  All the colorful decorations instantly appeared to come to life, as if he’d turned up the saturation inside his living space. It was a comforting sight.

  There was just one thing left to do.

  Right in the middle of the room, he erected a massive pole, using up the rest of his blood reserves to conjure it. And on the top, he placed a head-sized orb. With a flick of his finger, the orb lit up.

  This one was more mid-day than the sunset sunlight of the living room, but that was exactly what he wanted. It reflected off the bare mirror ceiling, scattering evenly throughout the whole space. Suddenly, it all looked much less oppressive. It felt like he could breathe.

  With that out of the way, he headed for his bedroom.

  Suddenly, he spotted something out of the corner of his eye and instantly turned his head to face it, feeling his heartbeat speed up and fight or flight instinct go off. As soon as he realized what it was, he groaned and sighed in relief.

  It was just his reflection in the mirror wall.

  For a moment there, he thought he spotted a shadowy figure walk right by him and enter his bedroom. But luckily, it was just his mind playing tricks on him. Still, he approached the entrance with some caution. The room had no door. He only had thick hanging curtains to block the outside orb’s light so he could sleep in peace.

  With some trepidation, he pushed them aside and took a peek.

  His room was empty. There was nothing there.

  Although he was glad that it was just his imagination, he wasn’t exactly happy to already be seeing shit right from the start. But it had been a rough day, to say the least. It wasn’t surprising he was still on edge.

  He used his water manipulation skills to wash himself and then promptly slid into his bed buck naked.

  Raising his hand, he activated the Blood Ring to release Bloodshed.

  “Greetings, Master,” it said, bowing to him.

  “Hey there, buddy,” he returned the greeting. “You know the drill. We’re gonna be here for a long time. You’ll be my only company.” He smiled ruefully, offering Bloodshed a fistbump. “I’ll be relying on you not to lose my mind.”

  Bloodshed simply remained standing there, just a second longer than was comfortable. “Indeed.” It reciprocated the fistbump. “I look forward to it.”

  Freddy's smile weakened slightly. “Right. Anyway. The dungeon is empty, so there is no danger here, but I’d definitely feel more comfortable with you watching over me while I slept. Good night, Bloodshed,” he said as he pulled the blanket over his shoulder.

  After another long moment of silence, Bloodshed answered. “Good night, Freddy.”

  Freddy could feel his heartbeat speed up slightly. He thought he had gotten rather comfortable with Bloodshed. But for some reason, it felt a whole lot creepier again.

  Something about this place generally didn’t vibe with him. At first, the constant drone annoyed him, but with every new object he introduced, the noise was absorbed faster. And now… it was quiet.

  Way too quiet.

  Quiet to the point he felt an ache. The blood flowing through his body and his own breathing were the two loudest and the two only noises he heard other than the occasional rustling of his sheets.

  Even though it was still quite cold, he found himself sweating.

  Thoughts of what happened rushed through his mind.

  Thor had died. It was all still so fresh in his mind. So unbelievable. As if it would all vanish when he took a closer look, like an illusion caught in the corner of his eye. The century before him gave him a certain sense of perverted comfort.

  He could take his time. Or even indefinitely postpone processing what happened.

  Perhaps by the time he returned from this place, the wound would have thoroughly scabbed over, leaving the man’s existence as nothing but a faint, distant memory.

  But now.

  At that moment, as he lay in his bed covered in cold sweat and afraid, so deeply afraid of the solitude ahead, the wound was all too recent—all too painful—all too real.

  And it was all his fault.

  Tears streaked down the side of his face as he found himself sobbing uncontrollably.

  While he couldn’t know exactly what would have happened, a mask, a helmet—something, anything to keep his mouth protected would have allowed him to cast Leviathan’s Fury. It could have changed things. It could have helped. And the fact that it was something so small, so easy to fix had he been wiser, hurt him more than anything.

  A sudden headache crept into his skull, piercing deep and hard, burning a hole right where he could do the least to ignore it. “Oh… god… Thor… I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry…” And as his grief vaned, a deep, simmering anger rose in its stead. “I’ll find that bastard. I promise.” His eyes shone with a mad light. “He’ll pay for what he did.”

  For a while, he kept trying to force himself to fall asleep. But why should he force anything? It wasn’t like he was short on time. So he just… let it go. He let himself stay in the bed. Awake, asleep, he didn’t care. He took his time. It was a numbness. A dissociation. With his head upon a brand new pillow, he floated, detaching himself from the crushing pressure of his circumstances.

  Sleep took its sweet time to arrive. But it eventually crept up on him, and before he knew it, he woke up, naked, sweaty, and alone.

  He lunged out of bed, breathing heavily as the blanket slid off his massive muscles. He put his hand to his head and took a deep breath. He had no idea why he woke up in such a panic. It had been a dreamless, almost death-like sleep.

  Getting out of bed, he got dressed and had some breakfast. Given how hungry he felt, he could tell that it had to have already been days since he entered. Choosing not to think about it too much, he swallowed five of the cheap food pills and washed them down with some water. They were bitter as hell.

  He shook his head and pushed the curtains aside, leaving the room.

  The large orb shone brightly above, almost giving the impression of sunlight for a brief moment. Obviously, it was no star, and it was surrounded by no azure skies scattered with fluffy clouds, but it still tickled some part of his monkey brain. Shiny orb above? It was sun-like enough to at least create the illusion of “outside.”

  “Well then. Time to get started with construction.”

  The first thing he got going was the workout area. He made a bench, a large rack, and a hanging bar he could use for pull-ups. Everything was extra reinforced to ensure it lasted as long as humanly possible and to make sure it wouldn’t break under the types of loads he would put them under.

  All he needed then was a single, ridiculously thick and long barbell. And a shit ton of massive weights.

  The squat, overhead press, bench press, deadlift, and weighted pull-ups—these compound exercises were by far the most important ones to hit. As for isolating the smaller muscles, he’d figure it out. He also had the Sanguine Beheader, which he could use to train specific movements.

  Before he could finish everything, he ran out of blood. He ate some food pills and worked on Water Body and Lake of Blood while waiting for his blood reserves to replenish.

  This would be his life for a while. He didn’t have much blood, and he replenished it rather slowly, so he was constantly short on material. But it wasn’t like he was in a rush to get everything ready. He could take all the time in the world.

  For the first few days, he focused on constructing everything he would need. Well, he called them days for the sake of simplicity, but he was pretty confident that he was awake for more than a whole day at a time, and he couldn’t even begin to estimate how long he slept.

  He took things steady, indulging in the ability to move at whatever pace he pleased.

  While dread lingered at the back of his mind, he had to be honest; he didn’t exactly hate the alone time. He couldn’t even recount how many times he’d wished that the world would simply stop for a while so he could just exist in peace. Now that he finally had this wish granted, he didn’t want to waste the opportunity.

  He had brought a massive pile of books. It didn’t quite look like it could last a century, but looks were deceiving.

  The thing about archhumans was that many of them used storage rings to carry things around. And even the most expensive storage rings weren’t particularly generous with the space they provided. Thus, every bit of space inside mattered.

  This drastically affected the way products for archhumans were produced. Many things came in cubic shapes to stack nicely without wasting space. And other things were compressed to the extreme. Books were one of these things.

  The pages of most of the books he bought were extremely thin. And the print was fine. Dense. Mortals would find the tiny words challenging to read. Some might even find it impossible.

  Freddy pulled a particularly thick book out of the storage box and gave it a once-over. It was pretty heavy in his hand. That was no surprise, either. This was no ordinary book. This was actually a 27-part fantasy series, nearly three million words long.

  With this context, the mass of books in the storage box suddenly appeared as if it would be challenging to finish within a mere century of reading.

  But while he had plenty of books, he wasn’t so wealthy in regards to other content. Sure, he had thousands of songs to listen to, but he’d hear them all eventually, many times over, even. And the BC content was even less plentiful.

  The books he could read all he wanted. But the other two he saved for when the mood was right.

  Before long, he had everything he needed set up. And one day, he woke up, finally ready to get started with his training in earnest.

  His greatest priority was Ten Thousand Wet Hells.

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