"Where is this?"
"Who are you?"
The cold, sharp questions pierced the silence of the [Paths] like two ice picks.
Aeternus lay flat on his back upon the white sand. Though there was no tangible pressure at his throat, the mental force carried by the blond girl's icy blue eyes suffocated him more than any physical restraint could have.
Her knee was still pressed precisely into his abdomen. One hand gripped his shoulder joint like an iron band, while the other hung poised in the air, ready to deliver a fatal blow at any moment.
Her entire body was taut like a fully drawn bow, treating any sign of resistance as a threat that needed to be crushed at once.
The sharp pain and shock emptied Aeternus's mind. The instincts of a nine-year-old child nearly drove him to cry out.
But deeper within him, the soul called Diablo abruptly awakened in the face of mortal danger and forcibly suppressed all panic.
His thoughts raced like a precision instrument.
He could not provoke her.
She had received professional, systematic training. Her purpose was unknown, and her background suspicious.
Any wrong piece of information or excessive reaction could bring fatal consequences.
Showing weakness, stressing that he was harmless, and providing information that could not be disproved yet remained logical—those were his only means of survival.
"I... I'm Aeternus," he answered in a trembling voice suited to a child.
It was the only truth about himself that he could reveal.
He tried to make his eyes look frightened and confused—the most reasonable reaction, and the one most likely to lower her guard.
"This place... I don't know..." He panted, trying to avoid that gaze, so sharp it seemed capable of seeing through everything. Like an ordinary boy who was terrified and completely at a loss, he said, "I fell asleep... then I ended up in this strange place... It's all sand... and that light..."
He described the obvious scene incoherently, using superficial confusion and childishness to conceal the rapid thinking and analysis within.
The girl's brows knitted tightly. Clearly, she was extremely dissatisfied with such an uninformative answer.
Her fingers tightened, sending a clear stab of pain through his shoulder joint.
Her voice dropped, yet became even more dangerous, carrying the tone of an unquestionable command.
"Don't play games with me! Talk! Who sent you? What is this place?"
The pressure on his abdomen and the pain in his shoulder made Aeternus suck in a sharp breath.
He realized that merely showing weakness was not enough. He had to offer something more specific, something that might at least redirect her attention.
"I... I really don't know!" he cried, his voice on the verge of tears. Half of it was masterful acting; the other half was a genuine physiological reaction to the pressure. "My father is a farmer... My name is Aeternus Andres... Today, I only went to sleep like usual, and then in my dream..."
He repeatedly emphasized that he was the ordinary son of a farming family and knew nothing of this place.
It was his best shield.
He tentatively moved the arm pinned beneath him. Immediately, he felt the girl's grip grow stronger in warning.
"It hurts..." he whimpered, completely abandoning any posture of resistance. His body went limp against the sand, as though he had resigned himself to his fate. "What... what do you want from me? I can't beat you... I can't run away from here either..."
He said nothing more, merely looking at the girl with fearful, slightly aggrieved eyes.
At the same time, he rapidly analyzed her reaction. She was confused too, perhaps even more anxious than he was. Her aggression stemmed from fear of an unknown environment and the instinct, shaped by rigorous training, to strike first when faced with an unfamiliar threat.
Maintaining the current situation, draining her energy, and waiting for this unstable space to naturally separate them was the best strategy for now.
The girl did not question him further. Yet her cold, scrutinizing gaze was like a tangible blade, scraping over Aeternus's face, neck, and every minute movement of his body again and again.
She was trying to find the slightest trace of pretense: a flicker in his eyes, an abnormality in the rhythm of his breathing.
Silence spread between them.
Only the nearly imperceptible rustling of white grains of sand shifting beneath them accompanied the deathly stillness of this space.
He did not know how much time passed—perhaps a minute, perhaps ten. In this place where the sense of time was completely blurred, Aeternus could not tell.
He felt the force of the knee against his abdomen ease ever so slightly.
But the vigilance in those icy blue eyes had not diminished in the least.
Like the statue of the most cautious, patient jailer, she maintained her position of restraint, as though she could remain that way until the end of time.
Only waiting for him to reveal a weakness.
Aeternus made no further movements that could be misunderstood.
He even deliberately slowed his breathing, displaying an exhausted submission and the distracted attention of a child.
Occasionally, when his position became uncomfortable, he adjusted himself with extreme slowness, making every movement unmistakably clear to show that he posed no threat.
He had to make her believe that he was merely a harmless, frightened child who had been unfortunate enough to get caught up in this.
The stalemate continued in silent confrontation.
Every second felt exceptionally long.
Then, without warning, Aeternus felt an intense sensation of being torn away.
The sea of sand before him and the girl's figure, as though carved from ice, began to blur and turn transparent, like a reflection in water shattered by a tossed stone.
The girl had clearly sensed the sudden change as well.
A flash of surprise crossed her face before vanishing at once. The hand gripping his shoulder tightened instinctively, as though she wanted to seize one final clue before this sole source of information disappeared.
But it was futile.
The rules of this space stood above their will.
Darkness swept in, swallowing the sea of sand and those cold blue eyes.
Aeternus jolted upright in his own bed. Outside the window, dawn was only beginning to break.
He gasped for breath, his heart hammering as though the sensation of being pinned still lingered in his shoulder and abdomen.
Those icy blue eyes and her frighteningly sharp combat skills were branded clearly into his mind.
They carried a bone-deep chill.
It was not a dream.
The [Paths] had pulled another soul inside!
A girl full of aggression, trained to a high degree, with skills far beyond those of an ordinary child!
Who was she? Where had she come from? Was she enemy or ally? Was her appearance related to the tremor in the [Paths] he had felt the night before?
Diablo's consciousness was seized by a profound chill.
This unexpected variable had completely shattered his plan to survive quietly, observe in silence, and steadily accumulate strength.
Throughout the following day, Aeternus was restless and distracted.
While working at the pasture, Historia keenly noticed that something was wrong.
"Aeternus, are you all right?" she asked softly, handing him a washed wild berry. A faint worry filled her azure eyes. "You look... very tired. Like you didn't sleep well."
"I'm fine." Aeternus took the berry and forced out a reassuring smile, doing his best not to reveal the turmoil in his heart. "I just didn't sleep well last night. I had a... very strange dream."
He did not elaborate.
Considerately, Historia did not press him further. Yet his exhaustion was still reflected in her clear eyes.
Night fell once more.
Aeternus lay down with a mixture of tension, vigilance, and resolve.
He knew that the “dream” was very likely to continue.
This time, he had to prepare himself for a prolonged standoff and a battle of minds.
Sure enough.
When his consciousness sank into that realm once again, the short-haired blond figure was already standing there.
The girl seemed to have “arrived” before him.
She remained near the place where they had met last time, holding herself in an utterly guarded stance.
The moment she saw him appear, her eyes sharpened as if she had locked onto prey. Her body lowered slightly, entering a state of readiness once more, as though she could repeat her previous restraint at any moment.
Aeternus's heart tightened, but this time he did not panic in the slightest.
He immediately raised both hands and took half a step back, making his lack of hostile intent unmistakably clear.
He did not speak. He simply returned her stare with calm eyes touched by a hint of helplessness.
As though saying: We have met again, but I am still harmless.
She did not speak either. Her gaze remained fixed on him.
Like the most cautious jailer guarding a dangerous prisoner—the sole prisoner who might offer clues—she did not overlook the slightest change.
Aeternus adopted his previous strategy again.
Slowly, several steps away from her, he sat down and hugged his knees, deliberately turning his gaze toward the eternal giant tree of light in the distance.
As though saying: I've given up. Do as you please. We can simply wait each other out like this.
The girl remained standing, like a cold statue devoid of any emotional fluctuation.
Only those eyes continued to operate like the most precise surveillance instrument.
Time passed in silence.
Aeternus could feel that the girl's gaze had never left him.
He forced himself to adapt to the unceasing surveillance and focused instead on sensing the details of this space.
At the same time, he repeatedly ran through every possible response in his mind, considering how he might obtain information from her without exposing his own secrets.
‘The space seems to be lasting a little longer than it did last time,’ Aeternus thought as he counted the seconds.
Just before his consciousness was pulled back into reality, his researcher's keen observation allowed him to notice something—
The girl's tightly drawn jaw did not seem quite as rigid as it had been before.
Though her eyes remained as cold as ever.
The third “night.”
The fourth “night”...
The situation was changing in subtle ways.
Like trapped beasts thrown into an arena, they met punctually in the sea of sand each night.
The girl's hostility remained obvious, but the hair-trigger aggression that had once threatened to spring upon him and subdue him at once was slowly fading.
From remaining on guard the entire time, she had begun to sit down after the latter part of their prolonged standoffs.
Though she still kept what she considered a safe distance and never relaxed her scrutiny.
Until their fifth meeting.
When Aeternus's figure condensed into being, he noticed that the girl did not immediately prepare to fight as she had before.
She merely stood there with her arms folded across her chest—a typical posture of both defense and appraisal.
Her wary gaze still rested upon him, but it held less of the urge to pounce at once and more observation and evaluation.
With senses beyond those of an ordinary person, he could even tell that the spot where she stood had shifted closer to him than when he had first met her...
By roughly half a step.
Aeternus's heart stirred, but his expression did not change.
As usual, he sat in his old place and calmly met her gaze.
This time, after a shorter period of stalemate, the girl sat down as well.
She sat where she was, still separated from Aeternus by the distance that symbolized the boundary of her psychological safety.
She did not look at him. Instead, she turned her gaze toward the pillar of light in the distance.
The eternal radiance of that giant tree was reflected in her icy blue eyes.
Alongside the vigilance that would not leave her, there was a hint of something difficult to describe: confusion about her own circumstances, and a trace of...
Almost imperceptible weariness with this eternal deadlock.
Within the sea of sand, the two faced each other in silence.
The hostility had not vanished. Their vigilance remained.
But the initial atmosphere of drawn blades and mutual annihilation had finally been split by a tiny crack.
For two prisoners trapped in the gap between time and space, that silent half-step closer meant that, beneath the solid ice, there was finally the possibility of the slightest thaw.
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