The Soul Keeper Chapter 23: The Path Ahead

Chapter 23: The Path Ahead

I had no strength left in my arms. I laid there, motionless. A smile appeared on my lips, then slowly turned into a grin. I chuckled, then started laughing.

I only stopped when I inhaled sothing between my laughing fits and started coughing. "I did it!" I whispered with a dry, cracked voice. I couldn't believe it!

I slowly rose to my feet and put my sword back into my inventory. The massive corpse lay motionless before . Blood flowing from its wounds was slowly being absorbed by the dry earth. With uneven, tired steps I circled around the body.

I would have liked to take its fur with , it was soft and would surely keep warm over the coming winter. But the creature was so large that skinning it would take days and it would start decomposing by then, not to ntion all the scavengers the sll would attract.

It was kind of disappointing, it almost felt as if I wasn't getting any reward out of killing this beast. At the very least, I wanted to get a handful of its mane as a nto. And as a reminder to myself. I took the sharp knife out of my inventory and approached the beast's head. Taking a handful of its mane in hand, I carefully cut it as closely to the skin as I could.

The result was a handful of over one ter long horned lion mane. I chuckled as I tied it together with a piece of cloth and placed it in my inventory, along with the knife. I had finally accomplished my goal. I was free to go east and find Erik and the others.

I took my first step towards the narrow mountain path before and imdiately stopped. Sothing was stuck in the beast's fur. Curious, I approached its back, where a tallic object was just barely visible.

I leaned forward and pushed the fur to the side. As I saw the object, I gasped. It was a scythe. Its shaft was made of a dark tal and the curved blade was made of a crystalline material. Hesitant, I grabbed the shaft and pulled the weapon out of the corpse.

It was a beautifully crafted weapon and a very unique one. It looked like the scythes the grim reaper would use. I hesitantly touched its blade. It was cold to the touch. I felt a shiver down my spine as I noticed how it wasn't reflecting the sunlight. I hesitated, was it ok if I took this with ? Sothing about it felt just... off. Wrong. Whatever it was, I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

After so thinking, I put it in my inventory. Worst case scenario, I wouldn't be able to find a place to sell it to and I'd just... throw it away, I guess. While the thought of walking around carrying an aweso scythe was fun, I had no idea on how to wield one.

With that decided, I once again looked at the mountain path. After a short mont, I walked up to the nearest tree, sat down on the ground, and leaned my back to it. Before I did anything else, I wanted to rest a little. My hands were still shaky from the sheer intensity of the fight.

I watched the mountain range stretching before a while, then drew the symbol on the air to summon my status panel.

'Kai Friseal – Level 30 Soul Keeper | Exp: 100/11000 - - Souls 100/100 - - Mana: 480'

I stared at the numbers a mont. Killing just that massive creature had given two whole levels. A smile flashed across my face. Maybe the reward for killing it wasn't too bad after all. A new text caught my attention.

'Required amount of Souls acquired.' Curious, I touched the text. I flinched as all other panels in my peripheral vision dimd and a new, large panel appeared.

'Please choose a developnt path.'

Under the header, I saw three symbols. There was no explanation, no description and, worse of all, no way to back off. The interface refused to close.

One of the symbols reminded of two fish, swimming around each other. Wasn't there an eastern myth about sothing like this?

The other looked like a path, leading up a mountain. It didn't really remind of anything.

The last one was that of a feather in a broken circle. I hesitated, how was I supposed to choose anything without knowing what they did? How was that fair? I felt my resentnt towards Erik's dad grow. He may be a brilliant scientist and engineer, but he was certainly not a fair ga designer.

This ga, no – this world, was trapping again. Forcing into a choice I knew nothing of. I was sick of constantly being at the rcy of this system. Yet, it was what granted power and it was the only thing that proved that this world wasn't real. Even with the interface, I sotis had a hard ti rembering that this world was fake. Virtual. Nothing more than a man-made program.

With a sigh, I relented and chose the feather symbol for no particular reason other than the fact that I liked how it looked. A notification popped up.

'Path Chosen. Please note that this process will take ti. Do not attempt any strenuous activities until the process is completed.'

"What process?" I shouted, but the system didn't respond. Instead, the panel flickered as the text changed.

'In Progress' was all that was written on the large panel. I checked my status panel and my inventory, even my skills for an answer or clue as to what all this was about. Naturally, there were no answers or clues, because why would there be?

With a deep sigh and so internal swearing, I pushed myself on my feet and set out to the mountain path. The land seed barren past this point. The mountain range that stretched on both sides of the pass were tall, they blocked all but the mid day sunlight. There was a harsh wind and I couldn't spot much in the na of water.

I thought of turning back, but if I did and so other massive creature ca to take the horned lion's place, I didn't think I had the ntal fortitude to take it on. Not after today's battle. With steady steps, I set off towards the other side of the mountain pass.

To where Erik and the others had gone. To where hopefully so answers lay. I could already picture the group losing their minds when they saw . They surely thought of as dead by now. I felt a little guilty – Vincent must have felt especially bad considering the conversation we had. And Erik was surely feeling sowhat responsible. At least I had kept my promise to Samantha. I'm sure she'd be happy to see too.

As my steps carried through the dry, cracked lands with the howling winds twisting and turning around , I couldn't help but feel... sothing. This want to... shout at them. For leaving behind to fend for myself. My steps ca to a halt as I realised – I resented them for abandoning .