Even as Inero-ie tried to think how he would about actually apply the Law he had gained enlightenment on, his thoughts wavered toward a different direction. The things he had always tried to forget, but the more he made an effort of dismissing these thoughts, the clearer they became until they made their way into the forefront of his thoughts.

He had always thought they had died from the epidemic that had spread throughout the sub-section, something that seemed to be untrue if what the serpent-like being told him was the truth, ‘Why would such a powerful existence lie to me though?’ It had saved him twice now. He did not remember what had really happened back then. There was only one thing he was certain of, they had forced him to promise to do anything to survive. That was the only thing that was clear, a thing he made sure not to forget. Anything else, he was unsure of. 'How had he escaped from there?' It was a question he had never really thought about. Instead, he had thrown it in the back of his mind because connected to it were the memories of the orphanage.

'Orphanage?' Inero-ie thought as a wave of intense fear overtook him. As far back as he could remember, he had always been with Fria-al. Suddenly the trembling intensified, and a terror gripped his heart. He hastily emptied his mind, gathering and dumping all these thoughts and emotions in the back of his mind, repressing them further. It was only then that he regained control.

The only way out of his current predicament was to achieve enough mastery of the Law that he could start using it. To do that though, he had to first repair his cracked core. He could not waste his time like the last time so he started working on speeding up the natural healing process. While he was doing so, the repressed thoughts and emotions in the back of his mind kept fermenting, just like they had been fermenting for dozens of cycles.

The flow of time did not stop and it made the insidious thoughts and emotions spill out. Unbeknownst to him, the moment the being trapping him here had said that his parents had been killed, the seal had painstakingly maintained, was removed.

Slowly, quietly, these things that had been kept bottled up spilled into his thoughts. Emotions slowly died his usually desolate mental landscape, something that he was unaware of, focused on manipulating the Qi to heal the core. 'Why do I have to do this?' a thought sneaked its way into his mind, bringing with it a wave of anger.

He did not notice the flow of time as he entered the zone. It seemed like the core was visibly healing. The new cracks he had sustained while trying to escape from the abductors seemed to have healed in a blink of an eye. As time went on, the flow of his Qi became smoother, his control over it growing even firmer, a sign that even the bigger cracks had started recovering.

His focus elsewhere, he failed to notice and thus, to respond. The pot of repressed thoughts and emotions came like a tsunami. It corroded his mental strength with a speed that allowed him no chance to resist. In the zone, he had been working on the core for weeks, dividing the Qi into fine threads, weaving them in the cracks to make it easier for the natural healing process. It had been an exhausting endeavor that left him with no strength to resist.

He stood in the safe space, a refuge within his mind he had meticulously crafted, a bastion that protected him from anything he wanted to forget. The thoughts, the feelings, anything he wanted to avoid would not be able to enter this space. He would be safe. It should have been devoid of everything, memories, emotions. It should have been empty because he lived to die. Yet, it was not empty this time.

Against his volition, those suppressed thoughts took corporeal form, manifesting as a mirror image of himself. A doppelgänger, born of his repressed psyche, "Just rest now. You don't even want to live anyway. It would be better for me to be in control unlike a coward like you who does not have the guts to even remember what had actually happened. A coward hiding away from reality." Each of its words sent a wave of pain through his head.

The doppelganger just stood there and stared at Inero-ie, judging and finding him pathetic.

"Even now you refuse to acknowledge, refuse to remember. Until when will you continue to delude yourself? When are you going to take any action? Or will you not? Will you just wander like a soulless vessel just seeking an easy death even though mother and father were unjustly killed? Why did they sacrifice themselves for a pathetic thing like you?"

Each successive word brought with it a heightened sense of pain, a pain he should be able to endure better than anything. This time though, he could not endure it.

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The mental space quaked with each accusation, as though what it uttered were not words but sharp jabs.

"Stop."

"Not this time, I will not allow myself to remain this pathetic thing. If you just want to die then let go and sleep, I will avenge them."

"No. No! I just…"

"Was what happened in the orphanage so traumatic? Enough to be reduced to this state? No. If losing limbs is bearable, if the agony of a cracked core is bearable, if wandering through the frozen, desolate wastelands alone is bearable, then what happened at that orphanage too is bearable. It is nothing compared to other things."

"Stop it," Inero-ie shouted at his mirror image, desperately attempting to regain control. But his voice seemed to be swallowed by the emptiness of his mental landscape that had once been soothing. It shuddered, cracks spread across it.

"Aware but acting ignorant. Remember but acting amnestic. Have the guts to kill yourself but not to face the truth. Not to seek revenge. Content to let them go?"

"But what could I have done against them?!"

"Of all people who could question that… absurd…," suddenly its face twisted with anger and along with it the mental space that was already on the verge of collapse.

"Just hallucinations–"

"Still running away… but let's see how long you can continue doing so "

He wanted to deny the apparition as mere fragments conjured from stress yet each of its words caused more pain than any physical injury. Its words pierced his consciousness, digging into memories and emotions he never wanted to face.

"Agggg!!," He screamed and for a moment his mental space overpowered the apparition. Mustering every ounce of willpower, he extricated himself from the safe space that had instead become a prison. A bone-deep weariness overtook him but he could not rest, lest his mind wandered into things he desperately wanted to forget. He flung himself back to the task of repairing his core, every single drop of focus gather on the task.

It was in moments like these he yearned to escape to the frozen, empty, desolate wastelands. There was nothing complicated there, a sole focus on survival. The cruel irony was that he was always stuck in times like these, unable to escape. Though he could no longer see the doppelganger, it felt like he could hear it, its haunting whispers intertwining with his thoughts, poisoning them.

"Just hallucinations…," he repeated like a mantra that would save him from the things that had been repressed for dozens of cycles. Yet, it proved to be ineffective, instead, as time wore on the whispers gave way to a headache. For a few days, he felt happy. Enduring physical pain was one thing he was confident at, even more than his control over the Qi. If pain could be exchanged for quietness, he was more than happy to do so.

While enduring everything, he kept working on the core, Qi flowed with a smoothness he had forgotten over the past cycle. But now, with every passing day his control improved, with every passing day it neared the level of control he had once possessed, when his core had been whole.

Once again he absorbed Qi from his surrounding, something that should have been impossible. The Qi, just like everything else that roamed on this frozen planet, was laced with hostility. Even Qi inside the Mid Barrier was dangerous to absorb and less needed to be said about the chaotic Qi outside the Grand Formation. But he was not as much surprised, the being in front of him had already shattered his preconceived notions of what was possible. Multiple times at that.

Headache intensified. He endured. It was a spiral with seemingly no end. Finally, his senses started getting affected, then his control over Qi slipped, slowly, over time. Tears gushed out of his eyes, uncontrollably. His white head gained a red tint due to the temperature. Despite the pain, he uttered not a single noise, he could still endure. His willpower was still unbroken. But though the soul could persist, the body could not.

His Path was of relentless struggle, embracing the challenges head on, doing whatever it took to survive. He could not turn away no matter the circumstances. This was his Path, his Dao. In return, it allowed him the ability to survive even the bleakest of circumstances. Even when his core was cracked. Even when most of his body was destroyed. He would have died long ago without it. For that, he hated this Path, hated himself.

What if he had not made that promise?

Suddenly, a surge of excruciating pain swept over him, leaving him disoriented and devoid of coherent thought. His body curled up.

At that moment, Inero-ie found himself at the crossroad once again. Either to succumb at this moment, let his Path unravel and with it his body as it was torn apart. He could die. He could finally gain eternal rest. But. It had always come to a but.

But he had made the promise to do everything to survive. If it meant he had to face this he would rather not remember. if it meant he had to visit places whose name alone made him tremble. He would do that.

All because he could not betray the promise.