Chapter 125: Struggles in the Soul

’This part... must go here!’ It had been days since he began his project, or was it weeks? Months... maybe? Years? He didn’t know. Didn’t care, either. None of that mattered, none of it at all. The only thing that mattered was his goal. It was right in front of him, after all. This was why he was here: to accomplish this for... some reason. The why was unimportant. Nothing else mattered. Was there even a life outside this? Surely there must have been, but as far as he was concerned, it was inconsequential. ’Except what if it could help with the puzzle?’ That thought stopped him mid stroke, his finger moving a segment across a board that never existed. ’No, no time for distractions. There must be completion. Only completion. Nothing else matters.’ He leaned closer to the shimmering fragments, his eyes burning with their reflected light. They hung all around him, thousands, millions, an infinite number. They weren’t pieces of glass, nor were they secret jewels, but slivers of something greater. Memories, emotions, echoes of himself that had been shattered and scattered into the abyss, forced into seclusion by a pain he had never known possible, yet was forced to cope with regardless. There were so many that he didn’t know what all of them meant. Some even felt foreign, as if they weren’t his own. Many felt that way. ’Why do so many feel that way?’ That thought, like so many others, vanished as soon as it appeared. He pressed another shard into place, feeling the rush of energy that accompanied it, the same as all the others. The sensation was exquisite, sharp, and unyielding, and it anchored him. Every occurrence was proof he was still there, still capable of fitting the puzzle together. Some fragments resisted. They flickered and blurred, slipping from his hands like oil as if to mock his efforts. He would chase them, again and again, his hands moving in frantic circles until he caught one between his fingers. The most recent one pulsed with heat, almost too hot to hold, and for an instant, he thought he heard laughter. ’Is that... my own voice?’ It was distant, impossible to discern. He felt a sense of longing within it, and he had the idea to keep it. He shoved it into place anyway. More cracks sealed throughout him, and he welcomed the repairs. The puzzle was not just about reclamation, but perfection. But with every piece that settled, new questions surfaced. He saw flashes of the orphanage, children running across the dirt yard, their voices bright. He saw Emerius, sword raised against a tide of shadows. He saw the Mistress, her expression unreadable, poised between love and uncertainty. These were not just inane objects, but parts of himself that didn’t exist in this place until he welded them onto the greater whole. He froze, hand hovering over the next fragment. Not for the first time, he wondered about their purpose. Was he piecing together his soul, or was he struggling against the unending tide of eternal damnation? The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. He nearly faltered, nearly let the shard slip back into the abyss. Then the cold touched him again, brushing against his arm, coaxing him onward. ’There is no turning back now. It has already begun. We all have our burdens to carry, and this one is mine.’ He pressed the fragment home, and the board that wasn’t a board blazed with light, casting shadows of a thousand selves across the void, like reflections across the remnants of a shattered mirror. Charon gasped, his eyes locking on the closest apparition. It stared back, a perfect copy of who he was, down to the small scar on his face. He had never known where it came from, and he seldom thought of it, but it was still there. Then he blinked, and it all faded, sucked back into the void from whence they came. ’That’s weird, I feel a connection still.’ His brow furrowed as he considered that strange realization. Normally, whenever he put a piece back in place, he felt momentary satisfaction and sometimes a lingering sense of pride, but it never remained. This time, however, it was still there. His eyes widened. The connection attached itself to him, pulling tight across his chest. For a heartbeat, he thought it might strengthen him, possibly to add substance to this monotone realm. But he was wrong. The next instant, it became twisted, jagged, tearing through the fragile seams he had just restored. The puzzle he had painstakingly created burst apart, the fragments remaining close to each other, yet their connection points were irrevocably damaged. Then the pain came without warning. It did not creep in gradually like before, nor did it blaze steadily like fire in his veins. It struck like a hammer into his skull, drilling into his brain and shocking his nervous system. His entire body convulsed, his hands clawing at imagined fragments that weren’t truly there, scattering the pieces he had just begun to memorize. He screamed in his own mind, reality returning to him as he realized he had never regained use of his limbs. It was all a lie, a dream built to distract him from reality. Just like before, the pain scoured his entire body, giving him no room to breathe as it broke through every mental and physical barrier he had ever made. ’No! I was just making progress! I was almost finished with this section, then I could have done the rest! Why is it breaking now?’ It made no sense to him why this world was turning against him after he had done what it had requested, although truthfully, no request was ever made. It was simply the answer Charon found when he went looking for one, a purpose to find in a place without meaning. Or so he thought. The remaining shards all around him fluttered away, exiling themselves from his sight as he learned new methods of describing agony. From his toes to his forehead, his body ravaged itself. In the mire, it had done so to rebuild the muscles, tendons, and bones, but in this place, it had an entirely different objective. Rebuild his soul. The core in his chest became an opponent unlike anything Charon had ever seen before. His own mana shot through his veins, following magical channels he had no knowledge of before. They wound like snakes, infecting him with the poison of pain. Darkness dissipated around him, replaced with an eerie purple that pulsed rhythmically like the cores in the very machines he worked to destroy. Like the mist Achlys commanded, it drifted closer and closer towards him. Soon, it was as if the sun had turned violet, looming above him to bear down with all of its might. A series of small motes of light fluttered from its center, zipping around his head before embedding themselves in his chest, reigniting the awful sensations. They swirled into his core, landing in his boiling sea of mana before beginning to float. Charon’s consciousness returned in waves, his knowledge, memories, and ambitions all coming together to rebuild the person he once was. ’Did... I do it? Did I die and come back to life?’ But if this was a rebirth, it was a cruel one. Forgotten by Charon in his suffering, more motes of light drifted down, his eyes knitting together in confusion as he studied them with his proper faculties in order. ’More? The others felt familiar, but these? I don’t know these at all!’ His uncertainty became useless as the strange new additions sharpened themselves like daggers, their tips pointing towards his chest. There must have been thousands, all waiting, silent fangs ready to bite down. With a shaky breath, Charon fought against the scream filling his throat. ’Please don’t! Whatever god will listen, stop this madness!’ His prayers fell on deaf ears, as every weapon shot for his soul, piercing his body and digging through his chest until they found his core. Only then did they dissipate, allowing more to take their place. It must have only been a few minutes, but it felt like hours, each strike a renewal of everything he had suffered through. Only once the last piece had entered, the onslaught finished, was he able to collapse, his body falling forward in a space without borders. Without gravity, he floated forward without control, one end flipping over the other over and over. ’When... when will this end...’ He did not have to wait long for the answer, as the violet sun grew closer and closer, growing in size until it was all he could see. A voice called out to him from all around, echoing in his ears. It was familiar, but also forgotten, comforting and distant, caring, yet at the same time, unforgiving. It was full of power, a testament to millennia of strength and weakness that no mortal mind could truly comprehend. ’You... have done well... my champion...’ And then he woke up.