Chapter 41
This world is divided into two mutually binding sides, two forces that cannot exist without the presence of the other.
He called this system absolute balance.
Everything that exists has its opposite; every meaning carries a shadow that opposes it.
No concept stands alone without opposition.
Just as light only has significance because darkness exists, every principle in this world is always divided into two.
A and not-A.B and not-B.Love and everything that opposes love.
Yet love here is not merely human emotion; it is the most ancient symbol of connection, of the will to unite and protect.
Meanwhile, the opposition to love is not hatred in a simple sense, but a force that rejects attachment, that denies meaning itself.
Theo wrote that the world does not turn because of affection, but because of the eternal clash between "love" and all forms of its denial.
In that clash, life is created, destruction is born, and meaning is constantly rewritten whenever someone chooses one side over the other.
To maintain the balance of this concept, Theo named the two poles that support the Flo Viva Mythology universe.
The first pole, representing A—love, order, unity, and the will to live—was called Shi.
It is the source that nurtures, the force that gives shape to everything.
The opposite pole, the opposition to Shi, is known as Ramsh—not-A, a symbol of rejection, inversion, and emptiness.
Ramsh is not simply evil.
It is the empty space that allows Shi to exist.
Without Ramsh, Shi loses meaning.
Without Shi, Ramsh loses form.
Thus, despite being opposites, they need each other to maintain the balance of this fragile world.
This concept did not emerge without trace.
In Theo's legendary work, Last Prayer, the eternal conflict between the Cursed One and his creations—the satanic and the Hierarchs—becomes the throbbing heart of a dark story.
That conflict manifests as an endless tug-of-war between prayers offered and curses uttered, between the instinct to survive and the shadows of death that refuse to fade.
In that world, duality is not merely a thematic ornament, but a curse that corrodes fate, repeating its cycle of suffering without end.
And now, in Flo Viva Mythology, Theo finds himself once again caught in a similar pattern.
The dualism he created has become an absolute law, splitting the world between Shi and Ramsh, between lovers and the rejecters of love, between existence and nonexistence staring at each other from two sides of the same mirror.
Ironically, the harder I search for the dividing line between the two sides, the more I realize that line never exists.
The Core Lu branches of Shi and Ramsh—two opposing poles, yet both endless.
They expand, branch, and multiply until I—the creator of their fundamental law in Last Prayer—can no longer measure how far their networks have grown.
Wuuuuuh!
Erietta intends to enter the shadowed realm.
The Realm of Gloom—that is what I have assigned to her.
A small fragment of Ramsh, a piece of "not-A."
A point that teaches the meaning of endurance when calamity becomes an everyday companion, when a smile is nothing but a buried memory.
Fuuuuh!
Many think the Realm of Gloom is a curse.
In truth, it is only a reflection of Joy that cannot exist on its own.
Its oppositions are not just two, nor three—but countless.
For every sorrow, every wound, every lost joy is a new form of "not-A."
For Theo, speaking of the positions of power in the Flo Viva Mythology world is like trying to count the stars behind the cosmic mist.
Each side, both Shi and Ramsh, has branches, descendants, and twigs that continue to stretch endlessly.
The knowledge of Core Lu—the essence of life flowing in every being—becomes a foundation that cannot be measured by ordinary human reasoning.
Because among the powers originating from Shi and Ramsh, each expands like a universe giving birth to another universe, infinite in direction, form, and meaning.
Theo once wrote in his book, "Every spark of power is a root growing toward the void."
And in that void lies the true balance, hidden.
From all those endless branches, what Theo teaches Erietta is neither brilliant nor radiant.
He instead brings her into the darkest realm, where light no longer knows direction, where the soul learns to endure when everything stops.
That realm is called the Realm of Gloom—a shard of Ramsh, a fragment of "not-A," part of the opposition that rejects the light yet still breathes within it.
In this realm, power is not measured by how brightly one shines, but by how deeply one can gaze into darkness without losing oneself.
Theo explains that the Realm of Gloom does not only teach how to accept disaster, calamity, or emptiness, but how to find meaning in life amidst it all.
For in the world he created, suffering is not the end, but the beginning of a second life.
Gloom is a teacher that never speaks, yet makes its students understand the meaning of a smile precisely through its absence.
With every breath of dark-brown energy wrapping around Erietta during meditation, Theo knows he is letting the girl learn to make peace with emptiness, with loss, with every form of absence.
Above all, Theo also knows that the Realm of Gloom is only one of many oppositions to Joy, one among thousands, perhaps millions, or even infinite forms of "not-A" that resist the light yet cannot escape it.
For in this world, every darkness is not merely a shadow.
It is a space where the light is tested, and where the true meaning of love—and its denial—takes the purest form.
I understand perfectly why she must study the Realm of Gloom now.
But no. This is not the time to reveal it to you.
Tsuuuuf!
The point is, Erietta must succeed.
Her failure could lead to the impossibility for Ilux to resist.
Theo, with his head slightly bowed beneath the golden light filtering through the ruins' window, gazes at his book pages now filled with scribbles.
His hand still moves, noting things that only he knows the importance of, even though his mind has already drifted far away.
He knows there is a great reason why Erietta must master the Realm of Gloom as soon as possible, yet as usual, Theo refrains from explaining anything.
He is not merely unwilling to give hints to others—even to himself, as if intentionally hiding pieces of the secret between breaths and drying ink.
He knows the time to unlock it has not yet come, and the readers are not yet ready to know.
The only thing he is certain of is that Erietta's success in mastering the Realm of Gloom will mark the beginning of something monumental.
Theo understands that the world of Flo Viva Mythology is not merely a game.
It is a living manuscript, a space where characters must grow according to the rhythm of their own suffering.
And if Erietta fails here, it is not just the scenario that will collapse—the entire foundation of the story, the whole path to the twelfth episode, could crumble.
There, Theo places the unseen burden—a form of responsibility of a writer who is also a witness to the adaptation of his creation, trapped within a manuscript others write with the blood of time.
Erietta, with her green hair swaying amid the storm of energy, still sits in silence, submerged in meditation that deepens with each passing moment.
To be continued…