Inside Extras World – The Dissolution
Yoo floated in fragments.
His consciousness scattered like stars dying across an infinite night. Each piece of awareness drifted further from the others, pulled by forces he couldn't name or resist.
The ninety-three cubic meters of Extras World—his sanctuary, his achievement, his proof that he existed—collapsed inward.
Not violently. Gently. Like reality was being erased one pixel at a time.
This is death, he thought with the last coherent fragment. Real death. Final death.
"Host consciousness coherence: 6%," Akasha's voice was distant, fading. "Complete dissolution in 87 seconds. Recommend—"
The recommendation never came. Akasha itself was fragmenting, just another subroutine of his dying mind.
Yoo tried to remember why this mattered.
There was something… someone… waiting for him. A promise? A mission?
The memory dissolved before forming.
I'm forgetting who I am.
That should terrify him. But terror required enough self to feel it, and he was becoming less than self. Just data. Just noise in the cosmic static.
His apartment from the old life—the gaming chair, the desk, the coffee-stained keyboard—all of it turned to light, then less than light, then absence.
823 years he'd spent scattered the first time. Reforming had been agony and miracle.
This scattering felt permanent.
No cosmic game to pull him back together. No desperate mother's womb to anchor him. Just… ending.
"Consciousness coherence: 4%."
Let go, something whispered. You've fought enough.
He almost did.
The Witness Arrives
"How wasteful."
The voice cut through dissolution like a blade through water.
Not Akasha's clinical tone. Something older. Colder. Wrong in ways that made his fragmenting awareness recoil.
"All this potential. All this struggle. And you're simply going to… cease? How boring."
Yoo tried to perceive the speaker. His consciousness was too degraded—like trying to see through frosted glass while drowning.
But he felt it.
A presence that made his personal pocket dimension—ninety-three cubic meters of impossible space—feel like a grain of sand beside an ocean.
"I am Xe'val the Witness," the voice continued. "I observe interesting phenomena across timelines. Record them. Preserve them. And occasionally—when something threatens to become disappointingly mundane—I intervene."
The presence didn't coalesce into a form. Forms were too limiting. Instead, it existed as pure attention—the sensation of being watched from angles that shouldn't exist in normal geometry.
"You're about to bore me, Yoo Seung-yoon. That's unacceptable."
Why should I care? The thought barely formed.
"Because I'm going to offer you something. One transaction. One chance."
"Your complete death—absolute erasure—for something meaningful."
The Offer
Yoo's consciousness flickered at 2%.
Seconds from oblivion.
But some primal part of him—the part that had survived 823 years scattered, the part that had self-delivered from a dying mother's womb, the part that refused to quit—that part listened.
"Earth has sixty-one void rifts remaining," Xe'val said. "In six months, they merge. Dimensional collapse occurs. Seven billion humans die. Your species goes extinct."
"You cannot stop this. You're Iron rank 15 pretending to be stronger. Your body is destroyed. Your realm is collapsing. You are finished."
"However."
The attention intensified.
"I can use you. Your soul—scattered once, reformed through cosmic accident, familiar with void—has unique properties. You've touched nonexistence. Lived between spaces. Your consciousness resonates with rifts because you are rift-touched."
"Surrender your death to me. Completely. Permanently. Let me unmake you at the fundamental level."
"And I'll use your unmaking—the specific energy signature of a void-touched soul dissolving—to seal all sixty-one rifts simultaneously."
Yoo's awareness sharpened despite being at 2%.
All of them?
"All. Your death becomes the seal. Your dissolution becomes the suture. Reality mends itself using your erasure as thread."
"Seven billion people survive. Humanity continues. The cosmic game proceeds without dimensional collapse."
"Cost: absolute extinction. Not scattered—erased. No void. No reformation. No reincarnation cycle. True death. Final nothingness."
Silence stretched.
Yoo's fragmenting mind processed despite having almost nothing left to process with.
That's what I wanted from the start. To save people. To matter.
Images flickered through his dissolving consciousness:
Jae-sung, who'd raised him against impossible odds. Who'd fought while Yoo grew. Who'd promised protection always.
Seo-yeon, who'd tried to reach him even as his realm collapsed. Who'd forced her way in knowing it might kill her.
Mira and Min-jun. Ji-hye. Dr. Choi. The slum dwellers who'd watched him grow. Everyone who'd helped.
I won't see them again. Won't know if they're okay. Won't…
"Consciousness coherence: 1%."
No time left.
Decision required immediately.
"Choose, Yoo Seung-yoon. Die meaninglessly as you're already dying. Or die meaningfully—sacrifice yourself, save your world."
"What do you choose?"
Yoo thought of Jae-sung's face. The exhaustion. The love despite everything impossible about his son.
He'll think I abandoned him. That I was too weak. That I gave up.
But also—he'll live. They'll all live. That has to be enough.
The decision crystallized with his last coherent thought:
I accept. Take my death. Use it however you need. Seal the rifts. Save them. All of them.
"You understand this is permanent extinction? No loopholes. No resurrection. No return?"
I understand.
"Why so willing? Most beings cling to existence even when it's torture."
Yoo's consciousness was at 0.8% now.
Because I've already lived twice. Died twice. Been scattered and reformed. I've had more chances than anyone deserves.
And if I have to die anyway… might as well save the people I love.
Might as well matter.
Silence.
Then Xe'val's presence rippled with something that might have been satisfaction.
"Acceptable. Your sacrifice is witnessed. Recorded. Preserved."
"Your death will serve purpose."
"Die well, void-touched child."
"Let your erasure save millions."
The Unmaking
Xe'val reached out.
Not physically. Conceptually.
Touched the 0.8% coherent fragment that remained of Yoo's consciousness.
And began extraction.
This wasn't scattering.
This was unmaking.
Every memory ripped away and converted to pure energy:
The alley. The gunshot. The beer can rolling. His original death. → CONSUMED.
The void. 823 years scattered. Endless isolation. → CONSUMED.
Reformation. Waking in the womb. Terror and confusion. → CONSUMED.
Self-delivery. Min-ah's corpse. Blood and desperation. → CONSUMED.
Jae-sung holding him for the first time. Love despite impossibility. → CONSUMED.
First words. First steps. Akasha's guidance. → CONSUMED.
Training. Growing. Fighting. Every moment of his second life. → CONSUMED.
Seo-yeon's friendship, Training, The void rift missions. → CONSUMED.
Everything. Every moment. Every relationship. Every fragment of identity.
CONSUMED. CONSUMED. CONSUMED.
Each memory burned as fuel.
Converted to raw power that Xe'val channeled toward the rifts.
Across Earth – Simultaneously
Sixty-one void rifts began to close.
In Seoul—the massive rift above the ruined city center sealed itself. Reality knitted back together. Stable. Whole.
In Tokyo—three rifts collapsed inward, edges fusing seamlessly.
In Moscow, New York, Mumbai, São Paulo—rifts sealed one by one by one.
Humanity watched in shock as dimensional wounds threatening extinction simply… closed.
They didn't know why.
Didn't know the cost.
Didn't know that somewhere in a pocket dimension between spaces, someone was being erased absolutely so they could survive.
The Final Moment
Yoo felt it happening.
Felt himself burning away.
Not painful—he was beyond pain.
Just… aware. Of ending. Of becoming less.
His personality dissolved. The clever programmer. The desperate survivor. The child trying to hold onto humanity while gaining power.
Gone.
His skills burned next. Akasha Archive consumed. Extras World unmade. Eye of the Sage erased. Bind. Melt. Adaptive Evolution.
All converted. All used.
Finally, his core self.
The ineffable thing that made him him.
That burned last.
And brightest.
"Your sacrifice is complete," Xe'val's voice echoed from infinite distance. "The rifts are sealed. Humanity lives."
"Rest now."
The last 0.1% of Yoo's consciousness fragmented into absolute nothing.
True death.
Complete erasure.
He ceased to—
Unknown.