Arden saw nothing.

  Arden felt nothing.

  From his perspective, he was now nothing.

  But from the fact that he still had a perspective, he could tell that he wasn't quite dead, but he wasn't really alive either.

  In this infinite blackness that surrounded him, he could do nothing. Nothing but wait.

  His mind was intact. That was the only part of him that was after a fall like that. He didn't want to think about the fall, or its consequences.

  He had done that once already and it had done nothing but fill him with an indescribable amount of horror.

  He didn't know how long he'd been here. Time was as unknowable as the space here. It was just a construct of his mind.

  In the darkness he drifted. Wondering where it went wrong.

  He wasn't one to normally focus on his failures, but there wouldn't be much else to do for his foreseeable future. Certainly no more failures.

  That stunt was going to be the last failure of his very very very long undying life.

  He felt it again. That dread. The dread that told him that he would be here for an eternity. The reason for that pessimism was simple.

  Arden’s body had not survived the fall. And now only his spirit remained. A spirit inhabiting a corpse with a destroyed head and broken spine.

  He wasn't sure if the head being destroyed mattered or not when it came to spirits. His brain was destroyed but he could still think. It didn’t seem to matter that much. But could his spiritual brain send signals through his body and make it move?

  Arden wasn’t sure.

  What didn’t make his job any easier was his shattered spine. Even if he could somehow transmit his spiritual mind’s signals to his physical body, it didn't change the fact that his physical body was now disabled.

  Even when Arden was escaping as a walking corpse, the damage he received would always affect him. He wouldn’t die, but his body received mechanical damage.

  His left hand couldn't properly function after breaking it. Nocturne’s knives in his shoulders caused him to lose strength in his arms.

  The Stonelord shattering his spine was the end of being able to move at all.

  Arden’s spirit floated through the emptiness. A disembodied consciousness floating through the ether, bound forever to a broken body.

  This was his greatest fear.

  And it happened. It was real.

  He should have listened to Sya’s and Vera’s advice more. He shouldn't have regressed back to his unsafe fighting style.

  He should have done so much more. So much different.

  The void suddenly changed. All of the oppressive nothing was replaced with a vibrant something.

  Arden was standing in the doorway of a small comfortable house. A shaggy carpet lay out in front of him.

  Behind him, he felt a cozy warmth. It was holding his hand that had been manifested with the rest of his body. Before he could marvel at having a body again, he looked at the source of the warmth.

  He gasped when he saw a pale little girl with black hair holding his hand and looking up at him with a smile.

  “S-Sya?” He whispered.

  He fell to his knees and embraced the child. His heart started to ache with so much pain that it was almost impossible to breathe. Tears rolled out of his eyes, but he didn't care.

  He could see her again.

  Arden broke away and looked at the child. He realized his body was smaller after the embrace.

  His mind raced to find out what was happening. It only took a few seconds before he was paralyzed with fear.

  “No…” he muttered.

  “Arden?” Sya asked. “What’s wrong? You're scaring me.”

  Arden’s face went white as he opened his mouth to speak again. Sweat rolled off his forehead.

  “Nothing, Sya,” he lied. “Can you please wait here? I need to tell mom and dad something.”

  “What is it?”

  “Uh… Its a surprise. For your birthday.”

  “Okay! I’ll wait right here!”

  Arden gave her a weak smile and entered the house. He didn't want to see her witness the scene again. Even he didn't want to, but he recognized that whatever was happening here was happening for him.

  The sun was hanging low in the sky, and the orange light of evening was shining into the house from the doorway in which Arden stood.

  Only the entryway was visible as the rest of the house was obscured by a strange black mist. Even then, the entryway to the house looked exactly as it always did. He would never forget how it looked. He couldn't.

  It was the house he grew up in. With Sya. With their parents.

  He stepped through the doorway and the next room's blackness vanished, revealing brown hardwood floors stained red and the coppery stench of blood.

  Arden’s breathing quickened. He saw the next part of the house, the kitchen still covered in the black mist. His hands shook, and he tried to take a few calming breaths. It didn't work.

  “Why are you making me go through this again?” He muttered softly.

  No response.

  Arden approached the fog, and it dispersed.

  His heart beat was going a mile a minute. He felt like it would explode.

  Lying in the middle of the kitchen in a mutilated mess were the strewn corpses of his mother and father. They were brutally ripped apart lying in a heap of their own viscera.

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  Once again, Arden saw the back of the celestial rummaging through the desecrated bodies of his parents.

  It was a gray humanoid thing with skin that appeared to be flowing like liquid metal. Its thin limbs ended in bony claws instead of fingers.

  It slowly turned its head towards Arden and the amorphous mass that was its face morphed into a mocking smile.

  Color washed out of everything, save for the blood.

  A shrill cry came from Arden’s side.

  “Mom! Dad!”

  Arden whirled around to find Sya standing next to him. Tears streamed down her pale face as she started going into shock.

  “Don't look at it, Sya!” Arden urged, grabbing her face to make her only look at him. “Just look at me!”

  Sya screamed once again.

  Arden knew what was happening and his instincts kicked in. He pushed Sya away from him, moments before the celestial pounced on top of him.

  Arden was forced on his stomach and looked at Sya staring at him with terrified eyes. That sight hurt Arden as much as watching Vera die in front of him.

  “Run!”

  The Celestial raked its claws across Arden’s back, causing him to scream in pain. Fresh blood poured from his wounds and through his clothes for the first time since being bled out by the prince.

  It grabbed Arden by the neck and threw him against the wall. He gasped for air and looked on in horror as the Celestial stood over him with malice shining in its dead eyes. Arden looked past the monstrous features and towards Sya who had fallen to the ground in terror.

  The celestial’s smile widened, and its face split in half with glee.

  Arden saw the smile and felt true terror.

  “Don’t do it!”

  No sooner had Arden said those words than the Celestial disengaged from him and pounced on top of Sya with a flurry of claws and gore. Her screams of terror giving way to screams of pain in an instant.

  This wasn't how it happened in the past.

  Arden started crawling towards them. He forced himself forward inch by inch, hoping to make it to the Celestial, knowing that every second counted. He needed to kill it. He needed to save Sya.

  “You’re weak,” came a whisper. “How can you hope to save her?”

  The Celestial stopped attacking Sya. At some point the screaming stopped. It turned around to give Arden one last lingering look of glee before it vanished into smoke.

  “No. No, no, no, no,” Arden mumbled as he approached the corpse of his sister.

  He wrapped his arms around the bloody mess of Sya. Warm blood spilled all over him as the lifeless eyes stared into Arden’s.

  Arden broke down.

  And so did the illusion. It cracked with a sound similar to shattering glass and crumbled to nothing.

  “Why!?”

  The whisper gave a response.

  “Because you are weak. You have always been weak.”

  Arden felt rage, white and hot. It threatened to burn through the very nothing that he Found himself in once again

  “Nothing has changed. You made a friend. You defeated an enemy. But you've stayed the same. Inferior.”

  Arden shouted into the void as tears streamed down his spiritual face.

  “What do you know!?”

  The whispers rose in volume into shouts, also filled with rage. The sheer magnitude of the shouts immediately snuffed out Arden’s.

  Arden covered his ears, but it did nothing. He could still hear the voice.

  “Everything! Everything you've ever seen! Everything you've ever felt! Every thought you ever had, and the thoughts that strayed off from them!”

  The shouts rose to the point where Arden could feel it in his very soul. It was too much.

  “I am you! I see the fear inside of you! The grief of never making it back! And it is pathetic!”

  Arden clutched his head.

  “Shut the hell up!”

  The voices did not.

  “You have every advantage you can ask for, and you still failed. You were trained! You have experience! You even have an immortal soul! But it wasn't enough, apparently!”

  “Stop it!”

  “Do you think Vera would fall to this level!? She would survive and soar without anything! Sya would perform better than you, and she is chronically ill!”

  ‘No more!’

  “Compared to us, they are way stronger! You couldn't even save Sya in your own head, so what do you think you can possibly do!?”

  Arden's hands fell from his head. He didn't say anything. He just looked down at the ground.

  Time passed.

  Arden wanted to deny it.

  Even more time passed. An eternity in a moment.

  But he couldn't deny it.

  After forever passed, Arden opened his mouth and spoke softly.

  “You're right,” he whispered. “I'm weak. I never grew stronger.”

  His voice slowly grew louder until it was a shout.

  “I haven't changed at all! I met new people who decided I was worth improving because they saw potential! Vera said that I was worth teaching, and I squandered it! Everything about me is the same as before I met her! Just a hateful slum rat who thinks he will survive one way or another! But I can't! This is the end of the road! I only relied on the power that wasn't even mine to begin with, and now I'm paying the price! They even warned me about how dangerous it was to continue, but I didn't listen! I just saw an opportunity for me to get out of that hell! Like a fool, I thought I was gifted, when in reality I was only lucky! I don't deserve the people around me! They were too good to me, and all I did was get them hurt and cause them to worry! Back on Earth, I nearly got Vera killed from my over reliance on Beyond’s ability! Frozhe had her dead to rights because of my mistake! I refused to give the doppelganger the legacy that was originally his, and he almost killed Sya when he brought down the building! Even in this world, I can’t protect them! I will do nothing but get them hurt, but I don't want to give them up! Sya is my sister! Vera and Cirai are my friends! And now I won't be able to see them again! Because I'm weak! I wasn't strong enough or brave enough to complete the trial from the start! I hoped that the trial would play out around and let me get an easy win, even though I knew it was going to be hell! I didn’t do anything for several days of an impossibly tough trial! I waited and waited, when I should have been running round like a madman trying to stop the StarFall! When Nux and Bellum started attacking me, I didn’t retaliate for fear of getting hurt more! The whole point of the trial is to test your mettle, and I showed my true colors as soon as the swords came out! I can’t die, and I was horrified by a little bit of pain that was nothing compared to the Maverick's attacks or the activation of Beyond's legacy! I relied on trickery and schemes, and none of it worked! I was too scared to do anything with a fragile, mortal body, so I waited, hoping for an opening that didn't exist! I didn't even escape the carriage on my own! The assassins gave me the chance, all I did was capitalize on their opening! Even at the end, all I could do was run away, and all that accomplished was dragging in an even more dangerous threat! And you know the funny part?! Most of the people I killed weren't even red-tier! They were all mundane with a little more juice, and I still fucked it up! I had the Godstone with me, and the most I could do with it was use it as a bargaining chip! Swallowing that rock was about the bravest and strongest thing I've done in the trial, and it was a last resort that didn't pan out! I could have done that as soon as I broke free, but I kept it with me because I was scared to follow through! I've only gotten weaker! I couldn't save Vera, and I couldn't save Sya! They are both far stronger than me! They deserve the world, and they're shackled to me! They won't get anything that they want because of me! It wasn't my achievements that brought me this far! It was the legacy's progenitor! Now that it's gone, all I have left is a vessel damaged by powers beyond imagination and my soul! I'm nothing without the legacy! I'm worthless! I’m…weak.”

  For a long moment, there was no response. Silence hung in the void after Arden’s outburst. After what could have been a few seconds or a few days, the voice spoke again. This time, in a level tone with a voice that Arden recognized as his own.

  “Then what will you do? Are you going to wallow in your grief until the end of time? Or are you going to do what Vera told you to do from the start? Survive and grow strong.”

  Arden opened his eyes for the first time in a long time. Memories of everyone flashed through his mind. Tears still flowed, but there was something else in his eyes.

  Resolution.

  The voice spoke again.

  “The most important thing in a fight is mentality. Will. You have it again. We have it again. The fact that you are perceiving this means you are alive. You aren't dead yet. That means there is still a way. You have the puzzle pieces to escape. You just need to put them together.”

  Arden stood up and looked up into the void. There was still nothing. The voice of his consciousness had gone silent. It had talked to him and given him something he needed most. Hope.

  Now it was up to Arden. To either rise from the deep, or drown in it. All he needed to do was piece everything together.