Ryder sliced the lock on the coffin, splitting it into two parts. As the lock was broken, the white beam of light suddenly stopped. The shaking of the ground also stopped at the same time.
The world which looked like it was going to split apart returned to normal. Finally, the long-lasting earthquake stopped, giving people a breath of relief.
Ryder kept the Moon Scythe back in his inventory, stepping closer to the Coffin.
He touched the Coffin, feeling its soft texture. The coffin looked beautiful as well as mysterious.
He slowly opened the coffin, sliding the top.
As he opened the coffin, his lips opened slightly as a weird expression engulfed his face, making him frown.
"What the heck is this?" he asked, wondering what it was. No matter how he tried looking at it, he couldn't understand. "Why is it empty?"
He found the Coffin completely empty for some strange reason. Let alone possessing a body of a god as he expected, it didn't possess anything at all.
"If this coffin was empty, then why did it have a lock? And what was that mysterious light?" He asked, frowning.
"That light was a Warning signal to alert that person about someone entering this place," A mysterious voice fell in Ryder's ears.
"Who said it?" Ryder asked, shocked. He turned around, wondering who had spoken. Until a moment ago, this whole place was empty. He has made sure of that. Then who spoke?
As he turned around, he got an answer, but that answer raised even more questions
A shadow was standing in front of him. The shadow had no face at all. It was just a pitch-black shadow.
"What are you?" Ryder asked, bringing his Moon Scythe out, aiming it towards the shadow, threatening it.
Being aimed at the shadow, the Moon Scythe started resisting, even more, opposing Ryder's control.
"Ah, that Scythe. So that's why I felt a familiar presence when I woke up," the Shadow said, raising its head towards the Scythe.
The Scythe freed itself from Ryder's control and flew towards the shadow, landing in its hand, which further shocked Ryder.
"It has been so long since I created it for that kid. I wonder how that kid is," the Shadow muttered, observing the Scythe.
"Which kid? Are you talking about the Lord of Death? It's his Scythe, but he's dead. Are you the one who created this Scythe for him? Is that why it was behaving so badly?" Ryder asked, frowning, understanding a few things.
"Before you start misunderstanding, I simply found this Scythe after his death. I don't even know how he died. I had no hand in it. So don't blame me," he further added.
"That kid is dead? I wonder how long it has been. It mustn't have been a short time since even he died," the Shadow let out, releasing a sigh which seemed to have broken the boundaries of space and time, to bring all the sadness with it.
' He calls the God of Death a kid? Just who is this guy? From what I know, God of Death is even older than Chaos and Janus! For someone to call him a kid… Just what is the identity of this person?' Ryder thought.
He knew that whoever this shadow was, it wasn't someone he could offend.
"May I ask who you are?" Ryder asked the shadow.
"Who am I?" The shadows asked in return. "I'm a remnant of an era long forgotten."
"Are you a god?" Ryder asked.
"God? No. Instead, I'm the one who created the ones you call gods," the Shadow answered.
"You're the father of gods?" Ryder asked, shocked. "The heck!"
"So you're more powerful than anyone in existence?" he further added. "How did you end up like this then?"
"I'm not the father of Gods, but I'm one of the creators of Gods. There was one more person involved," the Shadow answered.
"Wait a minute. Are you someone who is depicted in the carvings on top? One of the two that created everything?" Ryder asked.
"Carvings?" The shadows asked. His tone sounded confused.
"Let me show you. Come after me," Ryder said, flying up. He went to the upper floor and stopped before the carving.
"This one," he said, pointing towards the first carving, which showed two beings.
"Ah, this. You're wrong. I'm not, then. They are the Almighty who created the two of us," the shadow answered, sighing.
"Hmm? They created you? Ahh, right! I saw that too!" Ryder moved slightly ahead to the carving, which showed two more beings appear.
"This?!" He asked.
"That's right. That's where we were created. The Almighty created us as their shadows, but they also sent the two of us in a parallel space so that we could form worlds of our own," the shadow answered.
The shadow moved ahead to the portion which was covered by a vague most. He casually waved his hand to remove the mist.
"We were the first beings that were created by them, in their own shadows. We were like their sons, but they sent us to create something of our own."
"At the same time, they created a border between the two spaces, so we couldn't depend on them. Because of that, we couldn't even contact them. We could still see in their worlds though. We just couldn't interfere."
"In our space, the two of us created many worlds. We made the gods, we made the humans, and we made the civilizations. In fact, we made everything. But we were just copying in reality."
"Since we could peek inside the world of Almighty, we created mostly everything they did, just with a little modification, the way we thought it would be better. They made gods; we made gods. They made humans; we made humans."
"Then how did you end up here? Did you get bored and went to sleep?" Ryder asked, frowning.
"Sleep? I wish it would've been that easy, but it wasn't," the shadow answered, sighing.
"The two of us grew up well, understanding the civilizations while trying to make them grow, but we also kept peeking at the world of Almighty since we loved seeing our fathers. Unfortunately, that is a problem since we saw something we shouldn't have," it further added.
"What did you see? Did you see something which made parents angry? Did they come here to punish you?" Ryder asked, frowning.
For him, that seemed like the most logical conclusion.
"That would've been much better if it had happened, but no. What happened was much worse.. It destroyed all our beliefs and everything we worked hard to create," the shadow replied.
