In truth, although their determination had been lukewarm, their actions were guided by a cold logic that could not be denied. Losing the "Gaze Leech" was, in their eyes, far less disastrous than witnessing the destruction of their spiritual farms—the very foundation upon which their existence rested.
They chose to preserve what they already possessed, favoring safety over a reckless gamble that might leave them broken, with no future left to claim.
But in circumstances like these, a person is forced to stand at a merciless crossroads, where difficult decisions must be made. Decisions that may become the arrow that pierces the impossible and carries you toward your goal… or the dagger that sinks into the heart of your ambition, ending your journey before it even begins.
The difference between Jumanji and the others was not ability, but the wager itself.
While the others feared falling, he had already realized something long ago—those who have nothing left to lose possess the entire world to win.
He had placed his life, and everything he owned, on one side of the scale… and the Leech on the other.
And now, amidst the ruins of illusion, his gamble had finally borne fruit.
Jumanji exhaled deeply as he felt the pulse of the new entity within his chest. Awe and dread mixed within his whisper as he muttered to himself:
"The Gaze Leech… it truly is a treasure worth dying for."
But just as he tried to gather his scattered thoughts, a question suddenly sparked within his mind.
"What was that fish I saw earlier?"
The image of the red fish struggling against its fate was still imprinted in his memory. It did not feel like a fleeting sight… but rather the echo of something deeper, something he could not yet comprehend.
If there was a mind in this world that could be described as utterly confused, it would be Jumanji's.
He was still walking through the darkness of the unknown, carrying one of the greatest secrets in the world while understanding nothing about it.
"Now… what should I do?"
He wondered silently as he attempted to explore the power that had settled within him.
Closing his eyes with intense concentration, he directed his consciousness toward the depths of his spiritual farm, searching for the Leech… seeking the black monarch that had taken its throne within his inner domain.
Yet the moment his awareness approached the center, his entire being trembled.
Without warning, the eternal chill vanished.
The trace of the viscous entity disappeared completely.
There was nothing but silence.
It was as if the Leech that had pierced his soul moments ago had never existed at all.
He searched desperately, but found nothing.
In the midst of his frantic search, the features of that white void suddenly dissolved without warning… and his consciousness was violently forced back into his physical body.
At that moment, the eight of them were still suspended among the branches of the enormous tree. Their bodies floated in the air, their eyes closed with deceptive serenity, as though they were trapped within an eternal sleep.
Suddenly, the branches trembled violently.
It was as if the tree had expelled something alien that had infiltrated its depths, throwing the eight of them into the air at once.
Jumanji was hurled violently onto the rocky ground. His body rolled helplessly until it crashed against the trunk of a tree near the mountain's edge.
Although the illusory fog had expelled the others before Jumanji at different moments within that white world, reality followed a different scale of time.
Only a fleeting instant had passed between the first and the last being expelled.
It was as though time itself had compressed, ejecting them all into the same moment.
Confusion spread through the area.
The boys stood up, brushing the dust of defeat from their clothes as they stared blankly at the silent tree.
Among them stood the white-haired boy, frozen in stunned silence.
Despite the vast experience he had brought with him from the future, he found himself unable to comprehend what had just happened. With bitter clarity, he realized he had failed to decipher the secret of this trial.
The Gaze Leech remained beyond his grasp.
Yet no anger appeared on his face.
He remained calm… disturbingly calm.
What use was anger to a man who carried within his mind a map of the next thousand years?
Who in this world could surpass him in a race against time?
He clenched his fist silently, his crimson eyes piercing the silent giant tree.
"Well… you're still here," he whispered to himself. "There's no need to rush."
"One day, I will obtain you… no matter how long it takes."
"The future belongs to me alone."
Meanwhile, Kairos overflowed with childish excitement.
Despite having no understanding of the immense treasure that had slipped through his fingers within that illusion, he believed he had gained something far greater.
His spiritual farm had finally awakened.
He had no idea how or when it happened, but the exhilaration of success filled his entire being. The other boys shared the same joy.
Although they had forgotten the secrets of the white world the moment their feet touched the ground, the awakening of their farms was reward enough.
Had Kairos or the others realized what they had truly lost within the depths of that tree, they would have lamented their misfortune for the rest of their lives.
It was a mythical opportunity—one that would never knock twice.
They had been granted the keys to grasp the unknown itself…
Yet through ignorance, they had chosen to settle for crumbs.
The opportunity had crawled toward them willingly, yet they lacked the vision to seize it.
If anyone in this world were forced to choose between preserving the foundation of their spiritual farm and gambling it for the sake of the Leech, they would choose the farm without hesitation.
After all, what use was possessing the "Gaze" without a spiritual land to sustain it?
But Jumanji's scale had been entirely different.
He had nothing to lose but himself.
To him, sacrifice was a small price to pay for possessing the impossible.
Jumanji remained seated beneath the tree's trunk, wrapped in silent bewilderment.
Although the details of the white world and his acquisition of the Gaze Leech remained engraved in his memory with terrifying clarity, his frantic search within his spiritual farm yielded nothing.
The entity had vanished completely.
It was as though it had never existed.
"Where did it go?" Jumanji wondered, confusion hammering against his heart as he searched the corners of his soul for any trace of that eternal chill.
The others gathered themselves together, standing in a line.
Jumanji alone remained lying on the ground… like a corpse washed ashore by the sea.
At that moment, the white-haired boy's crimson eyes swept across the celebrating faces… before finally landing on Jumanji.
Blood trickled from Jumanji's head, drawing crooked lines across his exhausted face.
The boy began walking toward him with calm, measured steps.
Although the memories he had brought from the future described Jumanji as nothing more than a spoiled bastard, another image overlapped that description.
The image of the boy who would one day become a ray of hope in humanity's darkest hour.
A hero who had fought desperately to defend the tribe until his final breath on the battlefield.
It was respect for that "past which had not yet come" that compelled him to move.
He stopped above Jumanji, his long shadow covering the exhausted figure beneath him.
The fall had been brutal.
The tree's branches had hurled Jumanji with such force that his impact left a deep pain within his body, and a splitting headache that threatened to crack his skull apart.
Jumanji clutched his throbbing forehead.
His palm came away stained with dark blood that began to flow down his face, covering his eyes entirely.
He tried to stand weakly.
As he struggled against the pull of pain, a firm hand extended before him.
Jumanji slowly lifted his head, looking through the haze of blood and dust.
The white-haired boy stood above him.
Without hesitation, Jumanji grasped the offered hand and used it to pull himself up.
But the moment his body straightened—
A volcano erupted within his mind.
It felt as if a dam had collapsed deep within his consciousness, unleashing a torrent of strange memories like a roaring waterfall of images and emotions he had never experienced before.
Wave after wave crashed into his mind, fighting violently for a place within his memory.
It was as though another soul was being constructed within him in a single instant.
Jumanji dropped to his knees again, clutching his head as though trying to prevent his skull from exploding.
A scream tore through the silence of the forest.
It was not a scream of physical pain…
But of unbearable truth flooding into his mind.
Everyone froze.
Even the white-haired boy stepped back, his crimson eyes observing Jumanji carefully, trying to determine whether the cause was the head wound… or something far stranger.
"What's wrong with him?!" one of the boys asked nervously.
But Jumanji was drowning in memories that were not his.
They belonged to the being standing before him.
The moment their hands touched, a wormhole opened between their souls.
And through that fleeting physical contact, the secrets of the white-haired boy were dragged into Jumanji's mind.
He saw beyond the mask.
He saw tribes burning that had not yet been built.
He saw battles fought in a future that had not yet arrived.
He felt the bitterness of a thousand years of schemes, hatred, and regret.
Without warning—and completely beyond Jumanji's control—the Gaze Leech activated for the first time.
Not to see the future…
But to pierce the present and read the true essence of the man hiding inside a child's body.
The masks of time fell away before Jumanji's bleeding eyes.
In that moment, he no longer saw a boy helping him stand.
He saw the monster that had returned from the depths of oblivion to change the course of history.
Time itself twisted beneath the dominance of the Gaze Leech.
These visions were not mere memories—they were something deeper, something that seeped into the pores of his consciousness.
Instead of fading, the pain only intensified.
It became whips lashing against his soul from within.
Jumanji collapsed to the ground, writhing like a worm crushed beneath someone's foot, muffled screams echoing through the corridors of his mind.
He was not merely seeing images.
He was experiencing the emotional flood carried by the white-haired boy across centuries.
Hatred that burned through the chest.
The bitterness of betrayal.
The hollow thrill of false happiness.
The endless cold of sorrow.
Within a single heartbeat, Jumanji lived entire lifetimes.
Amid this hell, the boys had no idea what was truly happening.
Mocking laughter began to rise among them.
"What's wrong with him? Did he go crazy?" one of them sneered.
Kairos responded with an arrogant grin.
"Looks like the spiritual farm he awakened turned out weak and pathetic," he said proudly. "That's why he's crying like this."
"Hehehe!" another boy laughed. "Come on, let's go. We don't have time to waste on this spoiled failure."
"We need to find a fetus for our farms before they collapse."
The boys quickly agreed and left without hesitation, abandoning Jumanji to struggle against the tidal wave of memories threatening to swallow him whole.
Only one person remained.
The white-haired boy stood silently like a statue of stone, his crimson eyes fixed on Jumanji with suspicion.
He remembered this day perfectly.
In the "past" he had lived a thousand years ago, Jumanji had awakened his spiritual farm and left immediately in pride.
There had been no screams.
No convulsions.
No blood revealing hidden truths.
"What is happening?" he murmured quietly.
Had the flow of time already begun to change?
Was his mere return to this era enough to distort events he once believed were fixed?
A thin thread of unease crept into his cold heart.
Within the thousand-year map stored in his mind, this scene had never existed.
Yet he quickly brushed away the doubt.
What use were centuries of experience and cunning if he could not handle such a minor irregularity?
"Well… it doesn't matter," he muttered coldly.
"It's not as though something so trivial could truly alter the grand design of fate I have already drawn."
"Let Jumanji writhe in pain… or drown in madness."
"In the end, the world will remain nothing more than a chessboard beneath my fingers."
He turned and walked away to join the others.
Behind him, Jumanji continued to struggle against the crushing waves of truth.
And the monster who had returned from oblivion never realized that his most dangerous secret had just slipped from his grasp through that single fleeting touch.
End of Chapter