Between all things exists a land of darkness. Ever so expensive it had no end.

Though populated by a myriad of creatures hidden behind the darkness, it experienced little violence. These creatures preferred to close their eyes and revel in the darkness. 

They did not need to eat. So they did not hunt.

They had no interest in anything outside themselves. So they slept in contentment.

But one day, a pair of rounded eyes popped into existence. A new existence formed, much smaller than any of those that dwell in the darkness.

Its form was undefined outside of a floating blob, drifting with the wind.

“Uuu?” 

Its voice pierced the calm and empty darkness and a dozen creatures awoke from their slumber.

Ten eyes.

Three eyes.

A hundred eyes.

A thousand eyes.

Red eyes, blue eyes, yellow eyes, all sorts of eyes that float over the little newborn creature dozens of meters big. 

Different creatures with different eyes. Looking only at the tiny pair that had awoken them.

The little pair of eyes looked at them.

“Uu-oo!” The little one greeted them. Shaking its tiny hands even when no one could see.

“Snort” a snort that both warned the little one to mind its business, and a welcome to another being in their midst.

One by one their eyes closed. One by one, the light of the darkness was only the little one’s two headlights.

Only the eyes of this mysterious creature could be seen reflected in that darkness.

Its body could not be seen just like the others. But its only means of movement was drifting in the air like soot.

In that darkness it floated freely without end. It would bump into the other creatures, but the Soot was nothing in their presence. 

Even when he climbed over a creature that brought him hundreds of meters from the ground. Nothing happened. Even if it accidentally enters a mouth, it would come out to the other end.

It saw nothing thus it learned nothing. Yet it knew something was missing.

Then one day, the soot heard something.

An echo from a distance. A cacophonous trill that transformed into a symphony. 

At times they were violent echoes of a rumbling march. Screeching and screaming that made the soot uncomfortable.

The soot did not like this sound. 

Other times there would be soft whispers and the sound of gentle steps.

“UUUU!!!”

The soot was enthralled by this unknown symphony.

An infallible sense of joy and delight roused from its boy. The soot did not know what they were exactly. Where did they come from? No question like such was ever spoken. 

How could it? 

The noises were nothing but rabbles to the ears of a creature such as it. No better than the echo of a falling stone in a ravine.

A complete and utter mystery to the soot. But it liked them because it made its insides dance and jump.

But the longer the soot listened. The more it started feeling different sensations it did not consider possible.

A feeling that made its inside curl. And for desires from within to rise.

Its envy grew towards the being beyond its scope of reality. And it started wanting to experience what lies beyond its world of darkness.

So the Soot started moving in the darkness with a cause. Following the loudest sound to see where it had come from. Floating in the darkness, tumbling up and down as it did.

How long did it take? No one knew for such a concept like time did not exist for the Soot to explore. It just existed and moved, towards a desire it once did not have.

One day, a light appeared in front of the Soot. A crack in the darkness where light flickered..

“UUUUUUU!!!!!”

The Soot screamed in fear of the light and it ran away.

But it was not just the Soot. But everyone in the darkness was beginning to scream and growl in irritation and increasing anger. 

One by one they all awoke. The creatures of the darkness could not sit still. It was but a trickle of insignificance. They too began hearing what Soot heard. At first, it was insignificant, but it grew to be deafening to those who dwell in the dark. And was increasingly becoming louder.

The beings that had been asleep for millenia roused from their slumber. Stampeding and thrashing the darkness, in a desperation to plug the light and silence the noise. But unlike them, the Soot was in a trance.

“Uuu~?” It had gotten over its fears. And it noticed that the sound it yearned for came from the light. The Soot had to approach the light to confirm its desires.

Just a few more tumbles and it would be able to peer into what generated such wondrous sounds. It was indecisive, but, soon the Soot knew it had to move because the other creatures in the dark were beginning to make their move. The lights that pierced their domain. 

The Soot knew that even the crack it found would soon disappear by the way of the other creatures. The Soot knew this because it too was the same. It liked the darkness better, where it could live in comfort. But its curiosity of the light and the sound pushed it forward.

The tremors in the darkness were encroaching to its direction. So it steeled its resolve.

“Umu!”

The Soot made a decision. This was the only way it could see where it had come from. To cover the void in its body.

The Soot charged into the light and its body basked in the light before disappearing from the darkness. 

===

When he was a wee lad, he wished for a good life. But life was hard, so it was natural for him to lead a good life; to get there, the number of challenges he would be facing would be many.

Nevertheless, despite the trials of life, he smiled and continued walking forward. He took it one step at a time, trying to see if he could reach further into life.

At the age of fifteen he  fell in love. This love ended in pain and heartache but soon faded as his family and friends consoled him.

At age twenty, he pursued his dreams. He failed but got back up. Once again, he fell in love and finally succeeded. Pursuing his dreams for another time, and there, too - he succeeded.

He did not reach old age; neither did he achieve grand success. He was going to die young, but still, he was satisfied.

A smile blossomed from his lips; he recollected the past and held the hands of his wife. An end called death was coming to embrace him.

Smiling, he could hear the light sound of the life support echoing in his ears, and the sound of his family crying for him, tears fell, and his heart tightened as he felt their emotions.

He, too, didn't want to die. But as he held his wife's hand, he could feel that this life was nearing its end. Slowly, he lost strength, his senses fading, but he didn't want to let go.

A beautiful life had been lived, he faced many hardships, and he cried when he was sad. He smiled when he was happy, just like the smile he had this time.

He was beaten, but he stood back up, he crawled when he couldn't walk, and fought when being dragged to the mud.

But he too was human, and as he embraced his mistakes and emotions, he managed to live a fulfilling life. He cried when he was sad, smiled when happy, and got tired when overworked, but never did he despair.

Such was life; struggle was its essence, and once you see the light of your end, accept and embrace it. He embraced life even though it was flawed. He embraced it and enjoyed being alive.

And as his family's wails echoed, death finally embraced him and welcomed him to the other side. He was dragged away; he could feel his senses living him.

He waited for what was to come. He had heard of two places he could go to, but never wished to go to either two.

But a third option opened up for him, a twist of fate played and cursed him. After embracing the ultimate end, that is death, he once again opened his eyes.

===

“UUUUUUUUUUUUU~~~~~”

A cry of despair wailed across the darkness. Soot's eyes reflected what he experienced. The regret and pain of that person lived was now etched in Soot’s existence. What he learned. What he experienced. The pain, anguish, and the joy. All of it was carved to Soot when the human’s end came.

Soot was no human so Soot was flung back into the darkness after “his” life came to an abrupt end.

GRRRR~

The other creatures of darkness were quickly approaching to cover the crack that had appeared upon Soot’s return.

Soot tried entering the light again. But he was spat back out. Without any use for the crack of light, Soot escaped in order to find another crack of light in the sea of darkness.

Luckily, the light infecting the darkness had grown brighter since Soot left. 

Finding another life became easier and in its greed, it quickly tried entering a light. 

===

A boy was chained on both wrists and ankles dragged by men and women, being directed through a forest. 

The boy was gaunt and had a frail body that would collapse at the heat of the sun.

He was a prospect slave, captured to be sold for someone to use. The boy stumbled on the floor; headache filled his head. Memories of the past, bursting like a dam.

Like a gong reminding him that it was who he was, he retrieved his name from the river of memories - it was Bell.

Born from a prostitute and a noble, Bell was persecuted. His mother's body changed after having him and lost her regulars. She hated him, and in the end, tried to kill him. She failed, and he had to run away.

Bell found himself running, running until his feet could no longer support his body. Devoid of strength, he continued to crawl. Finding his way to a village where an elderly couple rescued and adopted him as their grandchild.

He lived there happily, securing a life of normalcy, but peace never lasted. Bandits raided that village; the elderly couple who saved him was beheaded right in front of his eyes.

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“Kill the useless ones!” they shouted.

Everyone who can be sold was sold, and the women above the age of six were raped without remorse. Their cries still echo in Bell’s ears.

"Get up, you useless cur!"

The sound of a man's angered voice sounded in his ears, and the crack of the whip shortly followed.

Bell heard but failed to respond. The whipping struck him by the head; it cracked his skin and skull. He thereupon began bleeding out on the rough earth. Slowly losing what little strength he had left.

Cold wrapped around him, death was coming to take him away.

"Huh? Are you dying already? Hmph, what a fragile dog. Tsk, well less mouth to feed, I suppose. Can someone throw him out!"

He was thrown like a scrap of meat behind the bushes in a forest. Where he watched them disappear into the distance.

Bell wanted to get revenge. He hated them, how they destroyed what life he scrounge off the ground. But he had no strength. 

No matter how much he clung to a rope. Sometimes, it is the rope that breaks before the person.

And as a pack of wild dogs picked his body apart, the embers of hatred were snuffed as the flames of his life were blown.

====

“uuu~ “

Soot felt another emotion. It hurt… how the Bell died without being able to achieve he 

Unlike the first life where the old man let go of everything as he found his death as satisfying. It was different as he desperately clung to life. In the end, however, he failed and died once again.

Soot met his end as Bell.

Another light cracked into the distance and this light allowed Soot to travel to another life, but once again, the life was about to end.

===

"Burn down the witch and her child! He is the son of the accursed Demon! Kill him! Kill him!"

A child born of a werewolf and a human woman, they loved each other, but none accepted their union. Pure their love may be. Their end was clear. 

The father was beheaded and the woman who was regarded as a heretic witch was sentenced to death by fire at a podium for everyone to see; with chains on her ankles and her child in her bosom she cried out pleas to save not her but another's life.

"Please, have compassion! The child is innocent; he can be a warrior who will serve and protect, please, give him a chance–ACK!"

A stone hit her near her right eye. Blood, flowing out, blinding her.

"Shut up, witch!"

"How dare you speak of letting such venom in our midst? You must be wishing for that child to become humanity's vain! Everyone, do not be fooled by the witch's words, burn her and the child!"

"Exterminate them!"

"Burn them!"

They loathed the idea of letting something like that pollute their way of living.

The woman they called witch was well aware of what would happen if she leaves her son with them. He would be discriminated against. 

Hated 

Ridiculed. 

But he would also be alive.

“Please! I beg of you! This child! Save this child!” so she begged.

“Kill the witch and her abomination!”

“Kill her!”

But they didn’t listen.

“I beg… of you… my son! He’s… innocent!”  she pleaded as she coughed. Even when the smog suffocated her, she screamed, “Please! I—beg!” 

She was crying, not for her life, but for the life that failed to blossom merely because he was born from her and her lover's union.

She cried and begged for the child to be given a chance. But all she received was the abusive cries of the furious rabble.

Stones and bottles were thrown at the condemned human who once was a part of their race.

She did no wrong, merely loving a man who was not of her race. They treated her worse than the demons they loathed so much.

Soot, who had awoken in another life for the third time could feel the tightness of her mother's embrace. She cried as she pleaded for her child to be spared.

Her skin started to burn; she lost her voice as her lungs filled with smoke. Her blood boiled, and then her 

Soot saw this; he could feel her pain. And he could also see her memories. Was it the connection between mother and child? He did not know, but he cried, seeing the memories of this woman.

Uwaaa!

The cries of the child echoed; it was loud and powerful. It should have been pitiful, but the rabble feared the cry of this baby.

"Hurry! Increase the fire! We do not know what kind of magic he can cast at such an age! He may be a child, but he is still a demon!"

“I beg! I… beg!” 

Just like his mother, he was smoldered and too died in the fire.

Once more, he died, it was short just like life before. But, unlike the second life, it felt longer than it should have.

The fire, the pain, and the emotions drowned him more than it had before.

The mother and her son died. Burnt to ashes. 

===

“UUWAAAHHH!”

Soot cried witnessing the third life’s end.

Soot died for the third time. Though the first life Soot experience had a colorful hue. Soot soon realized life was not fair.

Soot had thought one only needed to work hard to overcome adversities. But Soot was wrong. Some were just placed in a position where life will be extinguished no matter how much one struggles.

But despite this realization, Soot chose to find the next crack. 

Even knowing what was about to come, Soot sought out to experience living.

Soot understood it would be painful. That it would not always be a beautiful light surrounded by that light sensation he felt from the first. 

Soot had always felt that there was something missing in the darkness. Unlike the other creatures of the never ending darkness, Soot did not like to sleep. No, Soot did not even attempt to sleep.

It walked and traveled through the darkness. Seeking something… a meaning.

So it sought out the crack of light. Fill the void that living had left behind. Seeking these lights all so Soot could live vicariously through these flashes of life and death. 

***

One life, two lives, seven lives, twenty lives. Soot relived the lives of tens of beings, and yet he was only there for the briefest moment of their life.

He was only there to feel their emotion to relieve them of the pain they will experience.

There were lives where the end came without anger. A peaceful life, coming to meet an end. Sometimes alone, sometimes with others.

At times, and more often would be a painful experience. Where Soot would scream in pain by the end of it. 

Not one end was the same. Not even one kind of life. There was a life with power. Another without. A life with wings. A life with claws. Varied and not the same. 

The more Soot lived. The more he began to understand about the beings of the light. That they were not like those in the darkness. That they were not born the same way. That they did not simply exist.

A being that can split itself gives life to another with himself as the mother.

A being born from a mother is created from the union of a male and a female.

A genetic monster is birthed through the live cells of other beings.

All life does not come from death; it comes from life.

A life will blossom from someone else's life. But, there were times when death paved the way for life.

A dead dog would be absorbed by the ground thus creating a fertile land for the plants to thrive.

With tens, no, hundreds of lives, Soot’s well of knowledge became fertile.

"Life has meaning because of death.” This was Soot’s belief after witnessing so many passing.

A true cycle that never ends. A continuous flow. A beautiful balance unlike in the stagnant darkness where everything simply exists.

“But death is only meaningful with life. Therefore, if one lives because there is death, is he living for death or through death?"

The ignorant being of the dark blossomed to something more than anyone or anything in the darkness could’ve fathomed.

The light wished to whisk Soot away. It could have very well been its delusions. But before he was taken away by the light for who knows how many times now, Soot heard a voice.

But he disregarded its words and disappeared into the light like he had done so many times before.

He traveled through the light, spiraling around, trying to reach the next body he would possess.

However, this time, there is a difference, for he now wishes to live.

Light drowned Soot’s eyes. 

Soot felt a semblance to pain before fully recognizing the situation. The pain started from the neck, and when Soot became aware of the situation, a knife was already on his neck.

The pain settled in, but it was not normal, the pain was scorching. Spreading like a disease, it traveled throughout his body and reached every corner.

Soot’s veins burned and twitched because of the searing pain.

There were masked people garbed in all-black around Soot.

From what Soot could gather, they were a ground of people known by the name of Grimas.

The name of the man he was possessing was Helios; a Knight. 

Having protected millions when war broke out, he was hailed as a hero only to be framed and named a traitor.

Cheers were replaced with jeers, his family killed, and he was chased by the people sent by the Kingdom he swore to protect.

"Oh, Great Knight Helios, forgive me. I do not hate you, but I cannot refuse my orders. The Royal Family can't tolerate your existence; your existence causes instability. So, for the peace of the Kingdom, die!"

The knife on his neck stabbed deeper. But by the time the man in black attempted to take the knife out, it would not even budge from Helios' neck.

"…I…want to…live."

Weak, that voice of his was soft, but the flames in his eyes were a mighty blaze. It was so strong that it was burning.

Helios' experience flowed in his head, it was painful, and he could not process it completely. But, with the help of his other lives, with the experiences of assassins, warriors, cultivators, mages, monsters, and more, combined into one, it was sufficient for Helios to attempt living.

'The arteries are severed, if the knife is taken out, I will die from blood loss, if I don't kill them, I'll die…I will live!'

For so long, Soot just watched. Experienced life and let it all be. Live through their memories. That should have been more than enough to Soot of the past. 

Soot had seen so many lives that it was not just their memories that remained. He learned more than words. 

To live free and experience the world for himself. There was only one way he could achieve this and Soot knew it… and that’s to live.

He stopped wanting to recall. He wanted to experience them first hand. To live a life of his own once.

With every life, Soot’s desires grew. He started clinging to the wisp of life. 

The more he became obsessed. The more energy he could exude.

As Helios, he once again clung to another chance. 

Using the hands of the hero who swore to protect the land. He would grab hold of his chance to live. 

“Look out!” one of them warned.

But Helios had already made his move.

He grabbed the face of a masked assailant and dragged his head to the ground.

Boom!

The man's head exploded into a bloody pulp. He was freed and with a knife stuck to his neck, Helios formed a fist.

He summoned his power, a power called 'Hewa'.

BOOM!

He struck the ground creating a smokescreen.

Channeling it to his feet, Helios disappeared from sight. The trained body of Helios granted him enough ability to try the impossible – defy fate.

'I need to finish this quickly.' He was losing his strength from the poison. Once it does, it would make him incapable of movement.

He needed to kill them. To kill everyone in order for him to live.

He was beginning to lose the feeling of his body. Like a ghost, he beheaded two more men, and when he was about to make his next move, the poison in his system settled in, and he lost all motor controls.

Seven men with swords dropped from the skies and plunged their swords in his chest and abdomen.

“Die, already!”

“Die with honor, oh Hero! Do not make this anymore disgraceful!”

Skewered, but still standing, Helios stretched his hand. To the path behind the assassins, to a life outside of danger. 

A land where he would live. Stroll along the meadows and bask in the sun outside of harm’s way.

He struggled and struggled to stay alive, he wished to live, but these people would not let him.

Tears fell as he realized his struggles were in vain. He started crying for both himself and the Hero who could not live in the peace he blessed unto the land.

“Tired….” he whispered under his breath.

His body was collapsing and with his end, the Hewa gathered at a single location. In his heart.

He was tired of living and suppressing the power that dwells within. Letting it all go, the fire within burned brighter and brighter as it went out of control.

The masked assailants had their eyes twitching, seeing the immense inner strength gathering onto his core. Their covered faces warped in fear.

"Helios, have you gone mad?"

One of them screamed in terror. Their hearts were in trepidation.

"This… not his doing…” Soot answered for Helios, “This boy’s power has always been immense. It would… have dissipated upon his death. Returning to the world… but with this death, no more. You… have cursed… your own fates." 

Soot looked up at the beautiful blue skies. Shedding a tear for Helios, “...he just wanted to go back to his mother’s embrace.”

The masked assailant wished to stop Helios, but, in the end, the core overloaded, starting from Helios, everything burned to ashes. The mountain he was in was carved, and eventually dissipated with the white light.

Scorching the land and turning everything to ashes.

From the mountains, it began to expand. Swallowing everything that got near. No one could run from it. The expansion was far too quick.

In a manner of minutes, Seven Cities were engulfed until finally arriving at the Kingdom that betrayed Helios.

In the world of Helios, a part of the continent was carved, the man who stopped the war and saved millions died with so many.

Helios was a boy conscripted to war because of a God’s decision. Spending his life chained to the title of Hero. Spending day and night living with the Continent’s freedom and survival on his shoulders.

His comrades dying time and again. Leaving a dying wish for Helios to live a life for them in the Era he would bring.

He was in constant despair. He had to learn how to numb himself. To smile even when he couldn’t. 

At his final moments, he was crying incapable of even accomplishing his comrade’s requests.

Soot returned to the dark. 

The crack would soon be closed by the others. 

Floating and tumbling away, Soot set out to find another crack. 

Though he was the same size as before, he was different. For Soot had become more. 

Yes, Soot wanted to live. But was it truly his own decision or the influence of the hundreds of lives he lived through.

Soot had become a collection of desires. 

This wish, this desire, this greed, was it truly his own?

Whatever the truth was. Soot would continue seeking the light.

Because no matter if it was his or another.

Soot wanted to live.

So that he could experience a proper death dictated not by others but his own decision.