Will, short for William, had never expected to hear that name again, especially not in this world, nor to see a face from his past.

"Are you real? Have I gone mad?" he stammered.

"You're not mad. It's just… a really strange way to meet, isn't it?" Nui reassured him, his smile gentle.

Will's mind felt numb. Even with Nui's calm demeanor, the situation defied belief. First, the gun suddenly appeared inside his consciousness. Now, Nui stood before him. And all of this was before even considering the bizarre truth that he had died two years ago on Earth and somehow been reborn here as Liu Xing.

"What are you doing here? Are you dead, too?"

Nui had been one of Will's closest friends in high school. During their final year, Nui had vanished without a trace. Some assumed he was dead, but Will and a few others suspected something more complex.

"I'd like to know the answer to that myself, but I honestly don't," Nui admitted, his voice strangely serene. "You see, Will, this isn't really me. Just… a fragment."

"A fragment of what?" Will frowned.

"Let me show you."

Abruptly, the darkness enveloping them dissolved. They hung suspended in the open air. The sky above churned in a swirling vortex of red and black. At first, Will mistook the colors for storm clouds, then realized with a jolt they were countless snakes. Among them moved a colossal serpent, its scales so immense they could have formed the foundations of cities. The creature's red eyes locked onto his, and Will's breath hitched.

Nui gestured downwards.

On a cliff stood a man with silver hair, stone-grey eyes, and a black scar marred the stump of his severed right hand. Initially, Will felt a surge of awe for the man's courage, the man was facing a gargantuan snake and millions of smaller snakes alone. But then, a profound sense of recognition washed over him.

"That's Mamat," Nui said, his voice quiet.

Will blinked, utterly stunned.

Mamat, Joni, Nui and himself. They had been inseparable friends in high school, brought together at an international school in Indonesia. Will, the foreigner. Joni, the rich kid obsessed with Japanese culture. Mamat, the kind, hardworking scholarship student, and Nui, the enigmatic one. The man on the cliff is not the Mamat he knew. The Mamat he knew is dead. He was there when the funeral commenced. Could it be that Mamat, too, had been pulled into another world?

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The scene fractured and reformed, placing them in a sterile white room. In the center stood a purple-skinned creature with six arms and chubby, childlike nose and eyes and face. A woman in a lab coat meticulously cutting its torso with a scalpel. Beside her, a man with black hair watched in silence, his expression unreadable. He seemed unfazed, almost detached, but Will recognized that face instantly. It was Joni. After Mamat's death, Joni had been inconsolable, even vowing vengeance on the driver responsible for his death. Now, he appeared older, hardened, but undeniably Joni.

The scene blurred again, and they were plunged into the depths of the ocean. A man with long black hair was locked in ferocious combat with a colossal blue dragon. Each punch he threw sent shockwaves rippling through the water, and every breath the dragon drew made the sea around them churn and bubble as if boiling. The vision dissolved, and they were once more adrift in the darkness, suspended in a silent void.

"What the hell is going on?" Will murmured, feeling more bewildered than ever.

Mamat lived in another world, Joni observed a bizarre dissection, and that figure fought a dragon underwater, it was Nui. What did it all mean?

Nui turned to face him, his expression serious.

"William, no, Liu Xing," he said softly, "I know you have countless questions, but I don't have many answers. I'm just a fragment, a splinter of the real Nui's soul, sent to you. My purpose here is to deliver a message, not to unravel every mystery."

Liu Xing's confusion intensified, but he focused intently on Nui's words, sensing that whatever his friend said next held vital significance.

"A darkness is spreading," Nui said, his voice low and grave. "A darkness that reaches across every world. The place you are in now is crucial. If darkness triumphs here, it will grow a thousand fold and consume countless other worlds."

Liu Xing's mind raced, trying to grasp the enormity of what Nui was implying. "What do you mean, 'darkness'?"

"I don't know," Nui replied with a faint, enigmatic smile, the kind he used to wear when they were doing homework together, but Nui seemed preoccupied with matters of far greater import, as if fighting battles unseen by anyone else.

"What about the gun?" Liu Xing blurted out, the question escaping before he could fully process it.

"It's a gift." Nui raised his hands, and a sleek black handgun materialized between them, its surface shimmering with dark flames that did not consume but illuminated. Before Liu Xing could formulate another question, the darkness around them began to recede, draining away like water down a plughole. The white void reappeared, and a crushing realization struck him. Nui, his friend, his last tangible link to his former life, was about to vanish!

"Wait! Wait!" he shouted, panic rising in his chest.

Nui smiled sadly, then turned and began to walk away, fading into the white expanse. Will wanted to follow him, but his body remained rooted to the spot.

"Why me? Why did I transmigrate to this world?" Liu Xing cried out.

Nui paused, glancing back over his shoulder. "That's something I wonder about every day, Will. Why us? Why not anyone else?"

Before Liu Xing could speak again, he jolted awake, back in the cold, damp silence of his cave. He looked around wildly, hoping against hope to find Nui still there, but his friend was gone, leaving only the silence.

After two years immersed in this new world, Liu Xing felt a fresh wave of disorientation, as if it were his very first day. The crushing loneliness, the raw ache of loss for his old life, and the faces of the friends he had left behind pressed down on him with renewed force. His heart ached with a profound emptiness, and his hands trembled as the stark reality of his isolation settled over him once more.

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