The next section was something a bit confusing for me. Hate. Stepping onto it, I felt a bit thrown by the sensation. I wasn't a hateful person. I disliked people, was annoyed by people, even got violently angry at people, but hate...I'd only hated one or two people. Pietro, the brat from the Black Sorrow Cult. Aiden, for what he'd done to Cass and the other kids. Even then I hadn't dwelled on it.

But as I took the next step, the sensation grew. I hated. Hated so many things. I hated the feel of air on my skin, hated the weight of my armor, hated the creak of the leather as I took a step. Hate hate hate. It was deeply unsettling. I couldn't imagine being this kind of person, the kind of person who felt this disgusted at each and every experience in their life, who looked at the world like this.

Most of all, I hated the idea of continuing. I wanted to stop, wanted to go back, wanted to give up and stop feeling like this. I paused, breathing deeply as I tried to come to terms with the sick churning awfulness in my gut. I'd assumed hate would come with anger, but this was so much worse. This sort of infected rotting emptiness inside me, like nothing would ever make me happy again.

I glanced across the stairs, my eyes landing on Callie, though, and suddenly, the burden lessened. My girl. There was no way to feel the way I felt looking at her and that creeping nothingness at the same time. It was like someone lit a candle in the abyss that had been consuming my gut, and the light was driving away all that darkness. Not completely, I still felt it around the edges, but it helped. Helped remind me who I was.

Despite that, I forced myself to look away after I was stable. Love helped more than I could say, but I needed to get through this. I needed to be able to survive this kind of experience on my own. That was why we'd come up onto the steps separately. To show we had what it took.

I stepped again, and then again, resuming my climb. I was already ten steps up, but it was getting harder. The disgust and loathing were back, growing inside me, and as it grew worse I started to worry. It felt like it was hollowing me out, consuming me. If I kept going there might be nothing left of me.

That feeling got worse as I stepped, but I ignored it. Pain, misery, this was all temporary. I could take anything for a little while, I knew it would pass, the clouds would part and the sun would come out again. The positive imagery sadly faded after a few more steps. The shine came off the apple, but I focused on the practical facts. I was going to make it. This feeling was awful, but I'd get through it. It couldn't do anything to me I didn't let it.

Emotions can be tough to deal with. Even if you know what you're feeling isn't rational or logical, that doesn't make it go away. Pain is pain, hurt is hurt. But people can adapt, they can adjust. I stopped at step twenty five, ready to just about collapse. I focused on the sensations hurting me. I felt the pain, the hate, the disgust. Then I felt it again. And again. And again.

I beat myself over the head with it, forced myself to live in that terrible loathing. The more I experienced it, the less it hurt. It had less power over me as I got used to it. Then I took another step, and did the same thing again. The tricky part wasn't becoming accustomed to it, it was not letting it change me as I did.

Making that hate a part of me was awful, adapting felt like it was bringing me closer and closer to the worst version of myself. Terrible thoughts about everyone I loved, about people who didn't deserve it, started to seep into my head. Questioning their intentions, why I needed them, whether they were waiting to betray me. I felt like my heart was a raw open wound weeping with infection.

Still I walked on. Every step made life worse. The world was disgusting. I felt like I was moving through sandpaper and razor wire. I was halfway up now, and the thought that it would keep getting worse made me want to die, but I kept going. My emotions were a mess, every positive thing I had ever experienced seemed sinister and awful.

So I focused on things that weren't positive. Things that were just true. My strength, my effort, the pain I'd been through. I needed a reason to keep going, and I forced myself to make power that reason. Strength for the sake of strength felt hollow most of the time, but right now hollow was what I needed. It was safe, and selfish, and I couldn't hate it. I needed so badly not to hate something.

That helped, the focus on pragmatic power growth, for the moment. But it made me reevaluate myself in so many ways, these steps stripped you bare one emotion at a time, they showed you things about yourself you'd never see normally. I could feel myself becoming more real too, more parts of me becoming solid and factual.

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I looked around in shock as I got to the seventy fifth step, I didn't see anyone but Callie, who wasn't paying attention to me, nearby. There were others but they were further down. Unlike the greed steps, they weren't tearing into each other like I'd expected, they were just trying to move forward, and they were going a lot slower than before. The hate steps were harder for most people I think, and it was definitely showing. I turned back, focusing on moving forward again.

Focusing on the top of the steps, I looked for Billy. He'd already passed the section and started the next. Looking at him actually kind of helped, because all the hate focused on him and that drove me forward somewhat. Fuck that guy. But it didn't last, I had to bring my mind back to the neutral place I'd found in my path to power to continue, letting the hate wash off me like water off a ducks back.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, I stepped onto the second platform, looking back to make sure I was alone before sitting down to pull in soul energy. I was still damaged from the fight, and the destabilizing influence of the steps didn't help so I had some mending to do before I started improving my soul past where it was.

I used that as an opportunity to smooth over the jagged edges of the emotional damage. The hate was gone, but the influence it had on me persisted. Callie was behind me, and made it up to the platform to stand guard over me, but I ignored her as I focused on myself. Let go of the disgust, the fear, the despair that the hatred had ground into me, let myself feel happiness again, feel joy.

Hate was so much more destructive than greed, at least to me. I slowly sifted through my memories, rediscovering the good, finding my loved ones, the happy times in my life, reminding myself of who and what I was. The soul crushing stair was aptly named. These emotions it forced on us were poison, a creeping destructive venom of our own making that would twist and warp us if we let it.

The feeling of becoming real as it happened just pushed it deeper, made it matter more. These platforms were necessary to find yourself after and remember what you're supposed to be like. Oddly, I felt more like me when I was done than I ever had. I had a new perspective on my life, on my heart and the way I saw things. I felt like I'd touched even more deeply on my heart shackle, though I still didn't know what it was in a way I could articulate.

Stripping yourself down and rebuilding yourself let you remove the poisons that were already there. The few bits of hate that had been in me before had been sanded down, made smooth and simple by the experience. I could think about Aiden, and about Pietro, without getting angry or agitated. They were truly behind me.

Once that was past, I started pulling in the energy from the platform, siphoning it into me. It spilled into my soul, infusing and filling me. Maybe because I was partially real at this point, it felt different. More profound. It started at the bottom of my feet and slowly rose, washing through my muscles and bones, reinforcing the me inside my skin without affecting my body at all.

This was my first time experiencing the soul refinement energy of the Ruined Soul Temple with my physical form, or at least part of it. After probably twenty minutes though, my body reached saturation. Just like with Callie on the first platform the energy had filled my body to the brim. I could still take more in but most of it would just overflow, there would barely be an effect.

Feeling the energy, I could understand how the stairs worked. The damage I'd been undergoing from the emotions of the soul crushing steps was a type of sublimation, and the process would use up the energy, transforming it into refinement. It was much more effective than just bashing my soul up and using the energy to patch the damage.

I opened my eyes, glancing at Callie, who was standing guard nearby. "Hey." I said softly. She jumped, whirling around from where she'd been eyeing a few people who had just arrived. "You want to take a turn? I imagine you've been pulling a little, but you need to fill up before the next section if you want the full effect of the steps."

She waved me off. "Nah, it's fine. I don't think we're expected to fill up completely. I still have leftover energy from the first platform. I can fill up on the next one again and be fine." She grimaced. "What is the next one anyway? That was...bad. It wasn't as insidious for me as the first section, but it made me feel sick."

Climbing to my feet, I held out a hand and pulled Callie tight against me. "I know. I felt it too. It was a really unpleasant sensation. Next section is Delusion, and I have absolutely no clue what that even entails. Getting lost in heartbreaking daydreams? Who knows. I'm kind of worried about that one too."

"It'll be ok." She said with a soft smile. "We'll be fine. This is how we get stronger. Before you know it we'll have broken our second shackle and be on our way to an Azure soul body. I'm thinking of trying to train my Shadow Manipulation to Master level. I have to keep it ahead of my ability to rank up now that I've synergized anyway, and having a Master rank Skill would be pretty neat."

I grinned. "It would, or you could try to go the Path route like I did, and turn your Path into a Skill." I wasn't sure how hard it would be, but it would give her a good leg up on reaching D-rank.

"We'll see." She giggled. "The point is, we'll be fine and we're looking out for each other. Now, let's split up again and walk up another flight of stairs terrified and alone." I could tell from her flippant tone that she was trying to be lighthearted, but I could feel her worry through the bond. Still, I nodded to her gently, gave her hand a squeeze, then dropped it. We still had five more flights to go. Time to get moving.