Lind walked slowly down the cold white hall. It was white tile, walls, and then the wooden doors interspersed. The sound of calls and the beep of monitors brought ho he was in that horrible hospital.
"Really thought you could change what has happened? How did that feel?"
Lind whirled and launched his fist at the voice. His hand smashed against the wall with a loud crack as pain lanced up his arm. Tears ford but Lind had felt worse.
"Bastard!"
Lind saw a reflection in the small window cut out of the door and his heart demon looked indifferent behind him. The vile creature was not even gloating!
"I told you, I am not as kind as the others. You were knocked out of your naive point of view by Tristan and the corporation. The world is not for people to live, it is to be consud. Everything is consud by others to move ahead. You really were foolish to think otherwise."
Lind wanted to deny it. He wanted to scream and say it was just the business world but he could not.
Family mbers ruined each other to make their way through life, strangers took money or resources via hacking, and so forth. Every living thing is reduced to an object to another in the world. He railed against it, but Lind could not deny it.
"It is not over. The worst is here. Before that, though, you understand why you were enraged at that Overlord's son now right? It was because he reminded you of that mont in your old job. He was just doing what he was used to doing.
He saw yet another person to consu and did not seem bothered so long as his own life was unaffected."
Lind wailed again with his other fist but this ti it froze as a nurse jumped from him.
She was in a professional but sterile dress and holding a clipboard. She looked at him with fear, but Lind apologized and moved down the hallway. He saw a few doctors and nurses moving throughout his walk but then finally ca to the end of the hall.
Lind shook as he pushed open the last door. He knew what he would see, but there it was again. His father hooked up to a bunch of machines. His mother was at work still but soon on her way. His father had been found by soone laying in his car, but no one knew what was wrong with him at that ti.
Lind knew.
He knew his father had been coming up short on money for expenses so had been working when he was not supposed to. He was already on dications for his heart and liver issues but stress was the biggest problem. His father had already had a heart attack a few years ago, mild as they asured such things, but now it was the end.
"Are you his son?"
Another nurse was going over the clipboard but Lind only nodded as his eyes misted over. She patted his shoulder as she moved out of the room. Lind slowly walked over and saw the machines working to keep him alive.
"I am sorry. I am so sorry, Dad."
Lind knew part of this was his fault but still, it was the world. The cost of living outstripped anyone's ability to hold on unless they were insanely careful, but the heart attack had wiped out a lot of his parent's savings.
"Don't…apologize…to ."
Lind broke at the words barely spoken. His father opened his bright blue eyes as his graying hair seed to turn white as Lind watched. Each breath was difficult and the machine's monitors began to beep more imposingly, yet Lind only looked at his father's face.
Lind grabbed the slightly raised hand and saw his father smirk.
"Knew..you..would..co."
Lind shushed his father. He already knew everything. He knew his father had hid how bad the finances had beco and just pretended to relax with golf or other hobbies when he was actually working.
Lind sat with him as he listened to his father breathe but no more words ca. It was the last ti his father would be in fact awake. Lind sat there until gentle arms hugged him and wetness splashed on his hair. His mother had arrived and just quietly joined him. It was so like her.
A few days later, his father died. If that was it, it would be tragic enough, but the cost of the hospital, drugs, machines, and so forth wiped out the remaining savings his mother had scraped together and most of his.
They never spoke of it to friends that stopped by nor to relatives that stayed to help manage the materials. Lind put more work in just to scrape by and rebuild his own finances. His mother never asked for help and was only 55 so she had a job to support herself at that mont, but not once did those beings that drove his father to an early grave speak about the cost of living.
Corporations kept celebrating profits while governnts spoke of economic turn around, but no one really spoke on the people suffering to bring all that around. Lind sat in his apartnt and just wondered at why humanity existed. Why not just admit that those with money want to pay no one to live and would be happy so long as money kept flowing in.
"Finally there, I see."
Lind suddenly rembered this was not reality. This was a mory. He had to fight to rember he was dead and reborn once more as a beer was placed in front of him. "Drink, you deserve it."
Lind looked at the drink in suspicion but saw nothing odd about it as his other self sat down and also cracked open a beer.
"Why show
this again?"
Lind felt lost. He felt hollow. A dark smile on his face stretched out and his other self simply nodded as it happened. "What is the point of it all?"
"I told you, there was no hope to overco . I am not a lie or suppression, I am the truth. People are used as objects. People are consud while those greater powers happily keep churning and on the low end, people just are happy to let others fall so they can keep living."
Lind could not even summon the energy to argue. There was no point.
They quietly drank the beers, lukewarm as his fridge was not working too well, but the night sky outside his small window barely illuminated the darkness of his life. Lind had to get up for work soon so he should go to bed. Sleep seed like a good idea.
"Why didn' you consu
before?"
Lind suddenly wanted to know but heard a snort of disbelief before a flow of images ca over him. Understanding blood as Lind understood that he had been consud. He had simply worked and made enough money to live. He stopped living completely after the day his father died.
He grew to hate the world. He hated the world.
Darkness began to close in and Lind realized he could no longer hear his heart. It did not bother him too much as he felt very sleepy. It would be so easy to just let go.
"Don't worry, I won't rampage. With the other 2 gone, I am not that motivated. It is better this way."
Lind agreed and went to lay down when his right cheek suddenly exploded in pain.
ROAR! A monstrous scream ca from his throat as his face beca on fire. His other self looked shocked but Lind could not bother as he only wanted the pain to stop. He wanted it to go away! He was done, he did not need to worry about anything anymore.
Why was his cheek hurting? Why were the formations not protecting him anymore?
A pair of virulent green eyes looking deeply into him in a sandy desert exploded in his mind. Why did he help her? Why did he not simply hide and let her pass if he had given up? Why did he save the woman in the street? Why did he introduce George to that girl at the bar when they were commiserating over the people who lost their jobs?
An explosion of images flooded his mind and Lind rembered. He felt his anger reignite, but not at himself, at the narrow scope he had been looking at. He had relived his mories, but only the worst of it. He had not been allowed to see how he worked his ass off to help Fred find a new job.
Higgins was hired at the very bar they were having the send off party and Lind had worked with George to help everyone on 25 find new jobs. He had forgotten how the nurses had offered him a paynt plan and he had simply asked to hide it from his mom. The doctor had then slashed his bill without Lind knowing until almost the day he died.
Teyla had been crying in her eyes the night she tried to seduce him. She had been calling for help and he had run away. He had not helped her until it was almost too late. The lethargy that had overco him was burned away as an erald fla exploded over his body.
His Earth body was dispersed as dirty blonde hair and dark green eyes now stood up firmly looking at the weakly flailing heart demon.
"How?! How are you seeing that again?!"
Lind understood that heart demons were more dangerous if they stuck to the truth. The trick was that they filtered the truth a cultivator would face and it had started with his body. Being back in his old body had made him accept all that ca later without questioning it too much.
"I swore to co for her. I promised them I would co back. I promised no one would make Big Sis cry! You want
to give up because you don't want to possess , you want it to end. There are setbacks and there are people that will use others like objects, but I have the power to fight now.
I will NEVER let that happen in front of
ever again!"
Thunder rumbled above their heads as the apartnt fractured.
"You can't stop it. Sects, empires, or whatever will break people always as they suck them dry. You can't save them all!"
The words were true but they ignored the choice to fight back. It ignored the fact that people will indeed be hurt beyond his ability to stop, but that did not an he could let it destroy himself.
"I am Lind Frey, I swear on Heaven and Earth that I will fight from this day forth against any force that treats people like objects!"
Erald lightning blasted the apartnt to pieces as 3 faint shadows were roasted into oblivion. Lind was stunned at the feeling of pressure on him.
He had felt senior Tyr clearly and Younger Twin was far more powerful, but this was even beyond that. What was this feeling?
****
Qing and Shoti felt tears fall as a massive miasma far beyond the first exploded from the Mirror of Will and strained the formations around them. The foul stench took several monts to clear until the room was clear once more. The expected vision of Lind did not appear.
The mirror, however, was different. It was not glowing with erald light, not golden. What did it an?
"So, the records were right, a Soul Realm that gets possessed can unlock the other function."
Tyr's words reached theirs and they turned to her but then all of them fell to the ground as a pillar of erald light blazed from the mirror.
ROOOAAAARRRR! A bestial roar that made all bow to it exploded outward from the Heavenly Maiden Sect. All aether beasts, regardless of strength, knelt down in fealty to the roar and faced the Heavenly Maiden Sect.
The Floating Isles were not any better as the roar reached even there and the far more diverse and powerful beasts knelt where they were. None knew where it ca from, but all the powers of the realm knew only a few things could make all beasts everywhere kneel in fealty.
It was the roar of a divine beast. A beast that should not exist in their realm.
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