Some say the universe is infinite.
I never particularly cared; I'd never get close enough to the edge for it to matter. But that wasn't the case here. During my time with the LCS, I learned that each sub-world – Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum – had a size and a boundary. The worlds were often vast, and realistically you'd never arrive at the boundary unless you put in tremendous effort to explore. But the Boundary of Miracles was finite, both in scale and power. The only reason it could be so expansive, was because Alice fed it the life force of every player who had perished within.
Doublerift's library contained detailed notes on the matter, which I helped myself to in the little time I could spare. Each sub-world was like a dome, and once you arrived at the edge, there'd be an invisible wall stopping you. Everything you could see beyond that dome was merely a projection, a magical hologram. If you journeyed far enough into the wilderness of Silver, you'd come across the invisible wall. If you left the city of Platinum and the island upon which it was built, and sailed far enough out to sea, you'd come across the invisible wall.
The wall was practically unbreakable.
And yet, here and now, out in the ocean to the east of Platinum, a massive piece of the world had been broken through. A hole stretched from the watery horizon up to the sky, jagged like a smashed mirror, and surrounded by fractures that radiated out to touch the stars.
It was a hole in the world itself. On the other side was the void.
Hei and I stood at the eastern shore of the island, upon the beach lapped by waves. Behind us sprawled the ruins of the city. We looked out towards the hole in the world, our next destination.
Sylvie walked up to us from behind, still bloodied. Her wounds did not diminish the proud swagger in her gait.
"Back so soon?" the Knight of Anomalies said to me.
"You knew I'd be." I glanced back. "Don't forget our agreement."
She raised her sword and pointed it at the dimensional hole. "Doublerift's there. He'll erase this world soon."
"Please take us to him then," I asked her. "Ensure Doublerift returns to Earth, and I will show you my full power."
Sylvie sheathed her sword. She unceremoniously grabbed me by the back of my collar.
"Hang on tight," she said, before grabbing Hei likewise. After a momentary crouch, Sylvie sprang up into the air, and she dragged us along with her. Her cape fluttered loudly in the headwind.
Among the three of us, she was the only one with unlimited flight. And she was fast. It only took a matter of seconds for us to cross miles of seawater. I had to grab on to her wrist, fearing my collar would tear off. We soon arrived at the rift, and darted headfirst into the void, leaving behind the lights of the night sky, and the sounds of the ocean and wind. There was nothing here.
Nothing except us, and a faint yet growing spot of light up ahead. As we flew toward it, I made out the light to be a glowing, iridescent rose flower, floating in the darkness. It was gigantic, easily the size of a building, and shining with a multitude of colors. Its petals had the appearance of crystal, yet bent and wavered like delicate fabric.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
"That rose there," Sylvie said, "is the image of the Boundary of Miracles."
"I see Doublerift," Hei remarked. "Set us down."
At its base stood a human, barely visible from this distance.
Sylvie slowed and descended. We landed onto an unseeable surface, yet one vaguely solid beneath our feet like ground.
Only a few yards away was Doublerift, by himself.
The petals of the flower towered above us all. Now I saw it – the crystalline rose was slowly fracturing. The fragments that flaked off were turning into pure energy and flowing into Doublerift.
Doublerift's head turned at our arrival, though not enough to see us.
"What is the meaning of this?" he asked coldly.
"We will not continue with the plan," I told him.
He slowly reached both hands into the inner pockets of his suits. "Have we brought a tyrant down, only to raise another?"
"You will not win against us," I warned him. "So let's talk it out. I am not here to take over the world. I'm here to fix it."
"There is nothing you need to fix," he enunciated, slowly. "We will send them all back. And then we will walk away."
"Send whom all back?" I interrogated.
Doublerift held his stance, his hands poised inside his suit. "Everyone from Bronze to Platinum."
"That's not everyone," I told him. "What will happen to those newcomers who are still in their first arena, before Bronze?"
"You are splitting hairs," Doublerift dismissed.
I looked up at the gigantic rose towering above us.
"You can talk, can't you?" I asked. It had talked to Alice somehow. It had run games before she arrived. There must've been some way it could communicate.
And then, it came. An unmistakable, affirmative answer that rang in my psyche. The others turned to look at the rose. Did they hear the reply too?
"How many players are there in each tier of the death games?" I asked.
The answer came to me. To us, I think.
In Bronze, 400.
In Silver, 2,300.
In Gold, 500.
In Platinum, 400.
Before Bronze, 200.
I could feel that these were approximations. But approximations sufficed.
"What will happen to them, once the world collapses?" I asked.
The rose's reply came clear as any word could: They will perish, along with me.
It was just as I anticipated.
"200 is only five percent," Doublerift pointed out. He must've heard the same answers as me.
"You cannot throw away everyone else's future for them," he continued, frustration amplifying his voice. His brows furrowed.
"You do not decide what it means for everyone to have a future," I said coldly. "Not you, who treat 200 lives as chaff. Return to Earth as a legend, Doublerift the Liberator. And trust that I will take good care of things here."
Doublerift scoffed. He brandished his twin pistols from under his suit. "I've made promises to the dead and living. I won't turn back on them now."
I loaded my final Deuterium Cell into Jormungandr. The plasma ring blazed with white heat that rivaled the luminosity of the rose.
"I know that," I said.