Chapter 5

Just when his new found love for his mother was realized, the system ended the connection. The entire planet, his mother who was still hugging her, all disappeared. He was now back in the place he was earlier. It was similar to a void location where moderators had summoned him.

But it was still a lot different.

This was a gray area representing a place between life and death, light and darkness or heaven and hell.

But these thoughts were just in back of Sikandar’s head. Right now, the fallen dictator was emotional. Tears were dripping down his eyes. The [trial of banished souls] was not just a test of his wits or decisions. It was also a punishment. If only level 1 left a toll on his mind, mentally breaking him apart.

One would only frown at how difficult the oncoming levels were going to be.

[Trial of the banished level 2: Teleportation will commence in 5…4…3…2…1]

Sikandar now opened his eyes, but he couldn’t see anything. It was a total darkness and total silence. He felt like he was suffocating. He knew he was alive; he could touch and could feel his body. But when he tried to speak, he couldn’t.

As per his understanding, he felt like he was lying somewhere. Judging by the surface on which he lay, he concluded that it was a bed.

He felt like he should get up to explore more about his surroundings. After he sat, he now tried to stand up. However, his feet never touched the ground. Not being able to understand just how high the bed really was.

He picked the pillow on bed and tried to use it to identify the depth. To his surprise only half way through the end of the pillow touched the ground.

Sikandar now furrowed his eyebrows intensely. What kind of trial is this? Not only did he not have three main senses. Where he could neither speak nor see nor  hear. He was even crippled.

What a suffocating and depressing life this was. The toll on his mind this time was so much that even a minute felt like an eternity. He even started getting ideas of committing suicide.

But because he got such ideas, he understood he must do the opposite to complete the trial successfully.

Suddenly, someone pushed him back towards his bed. As he lay, a hand pressed his chest. He caught the hand and now felt like it was a woman’s hand. With other hand she pressed on Sikandar’s face with a pillow.

With a grim expression, Sikandar understood what was going on. Immediately he tried to push the woman off but his hand landed on her face.

The region he touched was probably cheeks and he could feel his fingers get wet. This made him conclude, the woman was crying as she was trying to kill him.

Of all things, Sikandar was not naive. He understood the emotions behind her actions immediately. But his job here was survival. With combat experience of six lives, it was a piece of cake for Sikandar to knock off the woman, but he wanted to do it the right way.

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Turning his face to the side, he secured a path for breathing. He took a deep breath and held the hands that were pushing the pillow on his face. Slowly sliding his hand, he reached hers and held it comfortably.

With this, the force behind her hands started reducing. With now minimal strength in her hands, he felt that she tried to retract them.

Although he wasn’t holding them tightly, he knew the woman felt he was suffering in such a life. She felt like she should help him get rid of the suffocating experience. To some extent, he could understand.

He sat again with all his remaining strength and held the woman’s hand tightly. The woman now crying silently broke down further. It was as if the boy was assuring, whatever suffocating life he was living, it was enough. To continue to exist was more important than such a depression.

The will to keep existing.

Sikandar could only smile internally as he understood, that regardless of the situation one is in, somewhere deep within one would still want to continue to live. Or so he thought. His trial was temporary suffering. He knew the way out. He could speak for those that were doomed to this fate for their whole lives.

The woman who appear to be convinced that the boy whom she was going to kill, wanted to live, sighed in relief. Breaking down further, she cried loudly while hugging the boy tightly.

[Congratulations, you have completed level 2 of the trial. Click [Continue] to proceed.

With a wry smile, Sikandar could only recall how he had killed one of his deformed children in his second life. He had felt he done the child a favor. Now he simply felt like shit.

The trial was getting too personal with every level.

[Trial of the banished level 3: Teleportation will commence in 5…4…3…2…1]

Of all lives Sikandar had lived, he found himself in a similar but a lot stranger surrounding. He stood among foot soldiers, wearing full body plate armor. Holding a greatsword in his hand, he notices that he is swinging it overhead.

As he looked around, everyone was doing the same.

Sikandar wanted to look around, break out of the parade to which he had no emotional attachment. He found he did not have free will in this one.

Instead, he found his thoughts secluded in the eyes of the being. It was as if he was just inside someone else’s head.

Concluding the scenario, he tried to access the memories of the foot soldier. To his surprise, it only took his will to unlock everything the foot soldier, whose name is Mathew.

Mathew was born to a very poor family, he never saw his father. His poor mother had raised him along with his three sisters. His mother was a good weaver and would weave silk and cotton clothes.

Due to poverty, two of his sisters were sold to slavery by his uncle. This had crushed Mathew’s heart. He confronted his uncle but he was the powerful human trafficker. He was beaten by his men. Due to this shock, his mother turned mad when she came to know about it. While looking for their missing sisters, Mathew had more to worry about.

One morning, Mathew woke up only to find his mother missing. He looked everywhere to no avail. He and his sister then even approached city guards, only to have their mother pronounced dead without a body to be found.

He knew the lazy guards were never going to be helpful. Disappointed with the actions done by such guards, the poor siblings then returned to their ordinary lives.

If all of this was not enough torture for the poor boy, one night the city which was near the border of the Holy Kingdom was attacked by neighboring Kingdom. After taking over the city, the foreign soldiers started killing every male in the village and enslaved women.

Mathew who was still a boy was then hidden by his sister who had forced him to wear her clothes. Acting as a woman, the siblings decided to flee.

At late night, the siblings made their move. Walking on toes, they slipped past all foreign guards. Just when they had escaped their city, they were caught.

Captured by unknown people, they were placed in a wagon.

Sikandar tried to appraise the fat man that was sitting in the wagon and was looking at the siblings with red eyes. Smiling like a perverted human who could see nothing beyond lust.

Unfortunately his [appraisal] did not work. There were three possibilities to this. First was that he couldn’t appraise inside someone’s memory. Second possibility was that Mathew lacked appraisal hence he couldn’t see either and third possibility was that if the man had [appraisal resistance].

Sikandar could only narrow his eyes as he continued looking at the memory. It was as if watching a movie and knowing where the plot was going to, he could only chew his nails.

***