Eventually, he started to remember. Sometimes he’d know the name of the victim and remember how they had died, how he had killed them, and how he would kill himself. That was the worst, he would try to avoid it and somehow change the past, but he would always fail.

Always.

Then came the wars. In one war he had killed thousands and in another millions, and he would live through those deaths in painful agonizing detail.

At first, during those final moments of realization, he would be angry or hateful. He cursed Dane, the man who had damned him to this suffering over and over and over again. He would spit and scream and damned him with his final breath.

Then came regret. It was slow but it was there. He regretted killing. He regretted taking unjustly. He did not have empathy of course, his Dao was far too strong for that, but he regretted being such a beast.

Then when he saw a child being ripped to pieces for the hundredth time in front of his eyes, when he wailed over the corpses of his children with the tears of a mortal man, that was when he started to hate.

That was when his past self turned from memory to stranger. He noticed the grin on his face, the lust in his eyes, and the joy in his voice. How? How could this man find joy in such suffering? How could he do this over and over again and smile through it all?

It was as if he were killing insects as if the people didn’t matter to him at all.

How?

That was when the hatred started. After that he did not flee, instead, he ran toward the man swinging with fury and rage. He knew he couldn’t kill him, but he had to try.

Foreign thoughts like justice came into his head and strange things like empathy flowered in his mind. Now not only would he feel the suffering of his past victims but he would feel the suffering of those around them as well.

He saw one of his old followers stomp a baby to death and he saw the mother scream while clenching his bloody foot and he knew. He knew what she felt. He felt what she felt. He cried for her as well as himself.

That was when the sadness came.

Fury, the man learned, was the armor the heart wore, and once that had failed came sorrow.

He did not beg. He did not fight. Now, he wept. He wept at his own feet, looking that stranger in the eyes.

But the man just smiled all the brighter as he cut him down.

A thousand, a million, ten million.

It didn’t matter. The pain didn’t fade or become more bearable.

He would suffer, as he should. As he deserved to.

Hell was the home of devils after all.

Then he was a cultivator, one of the many eighth ranks he had killed. He waited, slumped upon the floor waiting for his past self to cut him down.

A man stood over him, eyes blank and uncaring.

That was strange, normally he was giddy to kill.

But the man didn’t move and the man’s eyes were not his own.

“Dane,” he whispered. “It’s over?”

The array master nodded and the man slumped closing his eyes as tears flowed from them.

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“You’re not going to kill yourself?” Dane asked.

The man looked at him and shook his head.

“I am not worthy of death. That would be far too kind a fate.”

Dane’s eyes seemed to shine at that statement.

“Interesting,” he replied.

“Why?” The man asked. He didn’t know why he asked. The why had stopped mattering long ago.

“I wanted to see if karmic retribution was possible for someone so evil.”

Karma. The stains souls left on each other. He knew it was real but it was a rare law to meet. Karma was one of those laws that danced between a dao and a law. It was ethereal, not physical, yet it was as real as fire or water.

“Did it work?”

“Well your past is on your soul and every action you take is recorded by it, though I wouldn’t know if that would change once you leave this realm,” Dane shrugged.

All of that for a shrug. All of that suffering for such useless results. The man laughed, he howled into the sky for a moment, and then he stopped.

What should he do? Should he die? No. That would be the easy way out.

He wasn’t worthy of such a thing.

Then what? Seek redemption?

Not even the Buhdda could redeem him now.

Rot? No, for him that would be easier than death. He would sit here, believing his suffering to be enough to pay for all that he had done.

It wasn’t enough, it would never be enough.

“Again,” he muttered.

“What?” Dane asked.

“Cast the array again.”

Dane obliged.

And the man suffered once more.

“Again.”

And he did.

“Again.”

He’d barely spoken this time.

He cycled through his own suffering over and over again and at one point.

The array had been changed, it was now something automatic, recycling his suffering countless times over.

Hundreds of millions of lifetimes relived in a moment. Thousands of moments. Hundreds of days. Years. Decades. Centuries. Eons. Epochs.

He noticed the mountains around him withering away and he saw the horizon change as the moon slowly retreated from the earth. People came sometimes, but none saw him, he was cloaked in eternal suffering.

Every blink came with millions of lives and every moment came with regret.

Penance.

The stars faded away. He could see them die in the distance.

Penance.

The land around became valleys, mountains, deserts, oceans, and then valleys again.

Penance.

He should have died by now. He had used up his innate qi against Dane. He should be dead by now.

Penance.

Why wasn’t he dead?

Penance.

The sky broke, the stars screamed, and the world was swallowed by the sun. The people of this world had moved to a new one, but he remained.

Penance.

Why?

Penance.

Because he must. He must suffer. That was his place.

Penance.

The realm withered and the laws that bound the universe started to break.

Penance.

The void swallowed him whole. The universe collapsed and reality turned to dust. But somehow, this array still persisted. Was that man truly only at the eighth rank? To have created something so powerful?

Penance.

Oh well, it didn’t matter now. He didn’t remember that man’s name and he had long since forgotten his own.

Penance.

All he was now was

Penance.

Then, he was free. There wasn’t enough qi anymore. The world had broken and the array could only do the same.

It didn’t matter. He remembered. He knew every detail, every smell, every person, and every ounce of pain he had caused. And he would never forget.

“I will seek redemption,” the man said to the void. “I will not find it, but I will seek it nonetheless.”

Yes. He would pay Penance.

He wandered the void for some time, and though time didn’t exist here, it existed within him. He had crossed over into the tenth rank at some point. He hadn’t noticed it, he was too busy, too concerned with the memories.

Still, he couldn’t whether the void. The lack of laws was enough to rip his body to shreds and for an instant, he wanted that. He wanted the void to take him, but that would be death, and he was unworthy of that.

But he was unworthy of life as well.

Penance, his soul sang.

Yes. He would pay Penance, but how?

Time surrounded him and with it came space. A voidwalker technique, one of his own construction. He was back. The array was gone but its nature had long since been imprinted onto his soul.

The pain surrounded him. It protected him. Penance. Yes, that was his Dao, that was his being.

He would suffer for his actions and he would bring suffering to those who sought to do the same.

Penance.

He trespassed through the void, surrounded by his sins. The sins that protected him and tormented him. The sins that had given him meaning and taken it as well.

He wondered if he could ever find mercey if he could ever be complete. He wondered if there was someone out there who could free him from this suffering.

Not someone with power but someone with virtue, a being worthy of setting him free.

And even if there was, was it right to seek them out?