Meanwhile, Jin absorbed the element of Fear and strived for the breakthrough to the 30th stage.
He appeared once more in the darkness, alone.
Then, a copy of himself seemed to walk out of the darkness in front of him. It was the representation of Fear that he got accustomed to.
The being that Jin was not even sure what it was laughed in a terrifying way as he stopped a few meters away.
He welcomed Jin: “Welcome back, Jin. It has not been long and yet we meet again. I do wonder what brought you to actually come back for my power”
“No, never mind, don’t answer, I know. You are quite interesting, truly. Unbefitting as you might still be, you are getting closer. Closer to me. Few have come closer than you and lived to tell the tale”
“So, how should we do this, this time? Putting you in different situations where you will experience different amounts of Fear? Having you doubt your reality and yourself? Simply pushing you to experience primal unending fear?”
“Ah~ None of it seems entertaining enough… Even though you have developed new fears since the last time we met…It likely would no longer be able to erode your mental state”
“…You did come a long way…”
“Well, then, since you’ve had enough of experiencing it…How about inflicting it?”
Jin’s double grinned madly.
It clapped its hand as it began to laugh and the darkness distorted.
…
Jin opened his eyes.
In front of him was someone tied to a chair.
It was Ame.
She was bound and gagged. There were restrictive spiritual formations engraved on some bracelets she wore.
Jin tried to move but could not.
He was a passenger in his own body. Then, he watched as he began to torture the love of his life in all kinds of ways, again and again.
He killed her extremely painfully countless times only to return to the beginning to do it once more. In different ways.
The first few times, he felt as if he was the one being tortured while he inflicted such pain upon her. Being forced to act like that to her… He was dying inside.
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However, as it continued, again and again, he began to lose connection to that pain. He began to lose his emotions.
He watched himself cut, stab, burn, freeze… without a care anymore.
He was cold.
He was emotionless.
He was detached.
An uncountable amount of time passed in this weird realm where the only sounds were screams of agony and terror, mad laughter and device noises.
And then, it warped.
Jin could finally move but he was unable to. He had forgotten how. His body stood there motionless within the darkness as his copy walked out of it.
It laughed as it observed him.
It stated: “To think that you would end up in such a state from this”
“Oh~ How you changed through the years~ I never thought that someone like you would one day be more frightened about inflicting Fear than experiencing it”
“Well, it’s not quite like that to be fair but, for what’s it’s worth, I am far more delighted by the result this time”
It laughed.
“Nothing more than a shell…I wonder how long you will live after leaving our realm?”
“No, forget it, I do not care. While our meeting was short and nothing in the face of the never-ending heavens, it has been very enjoyable. For me!”
“Farewell, pitiful and greedy one”
Everything warped.
…
Still in the darkness, an enormous number of red lights appeared.
Jin remained motionless.
The lights disappeared at once as sound began to be heard.
Clin, clank, clink, clank
Something was walking. Approaching closer and closer.
Then, it came out of the darkness in front of him.
It was not another him this time.
It was a pale man with peerless white pupils wearing a robe made from eyeballs of all sorts. He gazed at Jin with a sad smile.
It said: “Was the third one too much?”
Jin did not react.
The pale man sighed as he watched the motionless Jin. It continued: “I thought you had what it took. I really did…But to think you would lose yourself from this… You got attached to someone, didn’t you, pitiful one?”
“Getting attached…To a cultivator, it is not always a good thing. Or rather, it always ends up badly”
“You have to walk your own path, alone, undisturbed and forcefully”
“Yet, here we are, with you in such a state. Who did you inflict it upon? Family? Friends? Innocents?”
Tears kept streaming down Jin’s cheeks.
He still was not able to move.
The pale man walked closer as he muttered ‘interesting’ a few times.
He stated: “You are still there, right? Within this broken husk, you remain…Fascinating. I guess you might be worth it in the end”
“I will give you this advice, young one, switch the point of view of what you experienced. Turn that pain into drive to never see it happen”
“There is no shame in fearing things. There is shame only in letting that fear prevent you from moving forward”
The pale man tapped Jin’s shoulder and gave a slight smile. Then, it turned and walked to the darkness before disappearing within.
As the sounds of his footsteps rang out, a last sentence was heard: “We shall meet again, my disciple”
Everything warped.
Jin opened his eyes within the warehouse.
The first things he felt were immense pains all over his body. Instinctively, his body contorted as he screamed with no conscious act of his own.
It continued for hours.
Then, it stopped.
He was panting on the ground, coiled in a ball, trembling and without any ability to move by himself.
He was still traumatized by the experience.
He focused on the small stranger’s voice that kept sounding within his mind: “There is no shame in fearing things. There is shame only in letting that fear prevents you from moving forward”
The sentence was put on repeat within his head as slowly but surely, he refocused himself.
“…Forward…”
“…Move forward…”
“…Move Forward”
“Move Forward”
“MOVE FORWARD!”