As Gabriel's real body was covered in the aura of darkness which was only getting stronger with each passing second, his spirit and consciousness appeared to have transcended to an entirely different place.
Gabriel felt as if he was floating in an eternal unending darkness where he couldn't sense anything. It was as if all his senses were sealed except the sense of thoughts.
The surroundings were so silent that it was scary. It was as if it was the silence after death, unlike any dreams before.
In the empty dark space, there was no semblance of time. Sometimes it felt as if only a second had passed since he arrived here while at other times, it was as if an eternity had already passed while Gabriel floated in the darkness.
After an unknown amount of time passed, Gabriel finally saw something in the unending darkness. He didn't know what it was, but in the distance, he could see a small speck of light which was shining bright in the unending darkness.
Through the speck of light in the distance, Gabriel finally realized that he wasn't stationary in space. Instead, he was floating closer to the small speck of light... Or the speck of light was floating closer to him.
Slowly, Gabriel moved closer to the speck of Light in the distance. The closer he came to the speck of light, the bigger the speck of light became. It was as if the distance between the two was just so much that it looked so small from far away yet it was actually very big in reality.
In fact, when Gabriel was close enough, he even felt as if it wasn't a small speck of light but an entire world altogether.
In the majestic world, there was no life. Gabriel could only see a strange terrain, filled with mountains, desert and sea.
The small world kept turning around its own axis while Gabriel remained stationary, unable to move. He could only watch the beautiful yet desolate world in front of him.
The world was void of all life, despite having everything that was needed to nourish life.
It was as if millions of years passed yet nothing changed in the world. Gabriel didn't understand why, but he didn't take his eyes off the world. In the vast darkness, this was the only thing that he could see. No matter how much time passed, this was the only interesting thing in the vastness.
Fortunately, after millions of years, something changed in the world... The first life was born.
With the birth of the first life form, more and more life forms were born in the world. Life flourished in the world that once used to be desolate.
Before long, humans also came into existence, even though their intelligence was barely passable, unlike the humans of this era.
More than a million years passed again. Gabriel saw life forms being and then dying. No being was eternal. Sooner or later, death caught up to every single one of them. Sometimes death was natural while at other times, it came in the form of external influences like war, accidents or even plagues.
Throughout the millions of years, death was constant.
Gabriel didn't understand why but he felt as if he was realizing something the more he watched the world. Life was what people cherished yet death was what they hated. However, it was death which gave birth to new life. Without death, all life could eventually only extinguish.
Death was the great equalizer yet it was never constant. Some lived for over a hundred years while others died in their childhood. There was no logic that could be seen from the naked eye, yet there was just something intriguing about the whole thing for Gabriel.
Gabriel didn't realize that the closer he came to the true concept of life and death, the more his aura of death was strengthening in his real body, surpassing human limits and reaching the threshold that only Karyk had surpassed in the past.
Strangely enough, he didn't have to work too hard to understand the concept of life and death. It was as if he already had great understanding and he was only remembering a fragment of that understanding again.
"Death is eternal. Death is constant. Yet even the god of death couldn't accept death." Gabriel muttered, thinking back to how Karyk did everything to reverse the death of his sister, even going as far as sacrificing others for his one desire.
For others, it was selfish. However, it was different for Gabriel. For some reason, Gabriel felt as if he could understand Karyk. No matter how great death was, at the end of the day, it could only work hand in hand with life. He knew that even if he was in Karyk's place, he would've done the same as well.
The entire thing was just too deep for his understanding.
The millions of years turned into hundreds of millions as life and death worked hand in hand until eventually the entire world embraced death and was destroyed. Death was eternal. Even the world couldn't avoid death, dying with billions of life forms in the end.
However, as the world died, after millions of years, another world came into existence and the entire cycle began again...
Gabriel just stood in silence in the emptiness, watching the new speck of light in the distance. His understanding of death and life had reached a new realm even though he didn't understand death to a greater extent.
After what seemed like an eternity, the scene about the birth and death of new worlds finally stopped, as if freeing Gabriel from its constraints.
The scene around him changed and the vast emptiness of space disappeared.
The surroundings turned bright again and Gabriel felt as if he was once again standing on solid ground again.
As far as his eyes could see, there was nothing. Not even a single leaf of grass could be seen.
Just as he was wondering where he was now, he heard cries of pain which made him tremble. The cries of pain... He recognised that voice! How could he forget that voice? He felt a chill run down his spine as he turned around in disbelief.
Not too far from him, there were hundreds of thousands of beautiful pillars. Each of the pillars was marked with identical yet different markings.
What was truly weird was that there was a person tied to each of the pillars. Moreover, the pillars were slowly destroying the spirits of the beings who were tied to it.
As for the cries of pain that he recognised, they belonged to the two people who were tied to the two leading pillars!
"No!" Gabriel's face turned pale as he flew ahead.
