Lin Gui was indeed mapping the Voiceless Rift.
To be precise, he was mapping a three-dimensional model.
The Voiceless Rift was far more terrifying than he had imagined.
That terror did not stem from the despair of facing a powerful enemy.
Rather, it was a deeper, more fundamental dread.
The horror of watching oneself gradually lose direction and vanish into nothingness.
His five senses were being stripped away bit by bit.
First was touch.
He couldn't feel himself sitting on his staff.
He couldn't feel the cool touch of the staff.
He couldn't feel his hands gripping the staff.
Those hands felt as though they no longer belonged to him.
Then came hearing.
The auditory hallucinations had long since receded.
Yet actual hearing was disappearing as well.
He couldn't hear his own incantations.
He couldn't hear his heartbeat.
He couldn't hear anything at all.
The entire world fell into dead silence.
Next was smell.
There were no scents.
None of the decaying stench that the gray mist should have possessed.
Nothing at all.
Finally, vision.
Only a faint glimmer remained from Demon Eyes.
It illuminated a distance of less than two meters ahead.
Yet even this tiny light was gradually dimming.
As if it might go out at any second.
The most terrifying part...
...was the loss of a sense of direction.
By human habit, after losing direction, a person would subconsciously maintain a general sense of orientation.
Though there might be deviations from the correct path, one wouldn't be entirely wrong about the general heading.
For instance, if someone kept walking north and suddenly lost all senses along the way...
...lacking vision, hearing, touch, and all reference points...
...they could still rely on subconscious momentum to keep heading north.
Rather than suddenly veering toward the south.
Yet inside the Voiceless Rift...
...Lin Gui experienced that very absurdity firsthand.
He tried to move forward relying on inertia.
Yet in his spatial vision, it showed that he was actually floating in the exact opposite direction.
His sense of direction was completely scrambled.
Up was no longer up.
Down was no longer down.
Forward, backward, left, right.
All of them had lost their meaning.
The Spatial Coordinates he had been setting all along began to rotate as he went deeper.
Those coordinates that should have been behind him...
...appeared on his left.
...appeared on his right.
...and even appeared below him.
...appearing in the very direction he had intended to venture deeper into.
Lin Gui had lost all reference points.
Save for those Spatial Coordinates.
To prevent himself from crashing into the cliff walls due to losing his way, he began using the Spatial Coordinates to map out the general shape of the physical Voiceless Rift.
If a Spatial Coordinate overlapped with another, there was a high probability he had hit a wall.
Yet in his consciousness, he was constantly moving straight ahead.
Without the reminder of the Spatial Coordinates...
...while his consciousness thought he was advancing forward, he would actually be repeatedly crashing into the cliff walls, potentially battering himself to death.
And so, he began mapping.
Within that empty spatial vision, a passage composed of numerous Spatial Coordinates gradually took shape.
Every coordinate was a point.
Every point marked a location he had reached.
Those points connected into lines, lines into planes, and planes into a volume.
A three-dimensional tunnel extending downward, twisting, and constantly rotating.
Between coordinates, some distances were very close.
Those were the spots where he had collided with the cliff walls.
Others were far apart.
Those were the areas he had passed through smoothly.
Thus, he ventured deeper while mapping.
Mapping while venturing deeper.
And to his surprise...
...the Messenger's Chart he had obtained from his Messenger's Advancement had actually mapped out the parts of the Voiceless Abyss he had traversed.
Upon that map, the outline of the passage was roughly sketched.
Every fork in the path could be identified.
He could see from the map that the red dot representing himself was continuously moving downward.
However, Lin Gui did not abandon mapping with Spatial Coordinates because of this discovery.
For the Messenger's Chart was too broad.
It could only tell him that there was a fork here or a turn there.
It could not truly guide him to find the correct path.
Especially when his sense of direction was completely gone.
He still needed those precise Spatial Coordinates.
He still needed to continuously use them to map out the shape of the passage.
Heading toward the Spatial Coordinates guided by Eve.
Toward that location twelve kilometers below.
Slowly pushing forward.
A distance of twelve kilometers would not take long to reach at Lin Gui's normal speed.
If it were a flying vessel at full power, it wouldn't even take a few minutes.
Here, however, he could only push forward slowly.
Lin Gui estimated that after more than an hour, he hadn't even advanced a single kilometer.
He originally thought he would continue advancing in this long, agonizing manner all the way to the location of the Demon King located by Prophecy.
He hadn't expected...
...that when he advanced to roughly five kilometers from the target...
...the change began.
His senses were returning.
First was touch.
He felt heat.
The kind of heat seeping out from deep within his skin, like being submerged in a summer afternoon.
Then came a breeze.
Gentle, carrying a familiar warmth, the wind brushed past his cheeks.
Next, he felt a hand resting on his shoulder.
A hand.
A warm hand, slightly sticky with sweat.
Lin Gui froze.
Taste followed close behind.
He tasted cheap ale.
Bitter, thin, with the sour tang of over-fermentation.
As if he had just taken a sip, the flavor lingering on the tip of his tongue.
Then, smell.
Floral scents.
The pungent stench of coal mines.
Sweat.
And... blended amid all of this, the soft fragrance of a young girl.
Faint, yet distinct enough that it couldn't be ignored.
Finally, hearing.
Cheering.
Cheering surging over like a tide.
A rough male voice, amplified by magic, shouted excitedly:
"The Alliance Council has recognized the existence of Spark! It recognizes Spark City and its republican system, and is willing to let Spark City join the City-State Alliance!"
"The revolution is victorious!"
As the words fell...
...cheering erupted like a massive wave.
People celebrated the victory of the revolution.
Celebrated the arrival of freedom.
Those voices, long suppressed, were all unleashed in this single instant.
Triumphant roars.
Tears of bittersweet joy.
Heart-wrenching cheers.
All the sounds merged together into a deafening roar.
This was an auditory hallucination, yet it felt so painfully real.
And its content caused Lin Gui's heart to sink instantly.
It was that day.
The day the victory of the Spark Revolution was proclaimed.
The nightmare he could never forget.
Suddenly, a voice echoed right beside Lin Gui's ear.
Close.
So close it felt as if she were right beside him.
"Little brat, we did it!"
There was laughter in her voice, along with the blissful thrill of relief.
Hearing that familiar voice, Lin Gui froze instantly.
Then, his fists slowly clenched tightly.
His knuckles turned white.
His fingernails dug into his palms.
Fear.
Rage.
And something else he had thought long buried.
All of it came surging up.
In the end, he sighed and released his fists.
Then, he slowly opened his eyes.
His vision gradually cleared.
He saw them.
Countless people.
Hardworking laborers whose hands still bore the calluses and scars of hard labor.
Farmers with sun-darkened skin, dressed in faded homespun clothes.
Bottom-tier adventurers still wearing worn-out leather armor.
They cheered to their hearts' content, crowding around a crude wooden stage in the center.
Standing on the stage was a bare-chested, middle-aged man.
He was laughing heartily, raising his arms and waving to the crowd.
His face was covered in sweat and beaming with smiles.
This familiar scene made Lin Gui feel as if he had returned to that very day.
Beside his ear came a young girl's happy voice.
"My, my, Comrade Little Gui! Today is a day worthy of wild celebration, a day to empty our wallets and squander freely on our success! How come you don't look very happy?"
Lin Gui turned his head.
He saw a young girl standing on a wooden bench beside him.
Her right hand was resting over his shoulder.
She was...
...an exceptionally beautiful fox-girl.
Furry ears stood erect atop her head, her pale blue fur glowing softly in the sunlight.
Behind her, a large fluffy tail swayed gently.
She wore a faded white shirt with sleeves rolled up to her elbows, exposing slender forearms.
Below, she wore shorts that showed off a pair of long, straight legs.
On her feet were worn-out boots with scuffed toes.
Her eyes were large, a clear, luminous blue.
At this moment, those eyes looked at him with laughter.
The corners of her mouth curled up, revealing a small, sharp canine.
"What's wrong?"
She tilted her head.
"Dumbstruck by joy?"
Rate on N.U.
