Acceptance

The darkness around me pulsed, the world once again beginning to morph. That strange hum had become a companion by now, a brief premonition of impending death that greeted me in every loop. Overhead, the ceiling split open, flooding the scene with a strong orange glow. Heat poured down, almost tangible, as the walls collapsed and shifted into vague, broken shapes scattered across my vision. Colors sharpened, forming clear outlines until I finally understood where I was.
A barren wasteland.
The temperature spiked, every degree of heat from the sun pressing down on me with a relentless intensity. The terrain beneath my feet was utterly parched, dry and rocky, not a hint of moisture anywhere. Cracks and crevices crisscrossed the ground, each one deep and ominous, as though hiding darkness in their shadows.
I barely had time to react before my legs failed me, and I collapsed onto the blistering, uneven earth. My knees scraped the jagged terrain, and my entire body felt weighed down, drained of strength. It was almost ethereal, like every sensation had been leeched out of me after so many deaths, leaving just this faint awareness of my body, suspended between worlds, drifting without resistance through the void.
My mind wasn’t spared either. Thoughts came sluggishly, dissolving before I could fully grasp them. Even memory itself unravelled before I could even grasp it. Yet, I knew what was coming. I always knew. It was already here.
I forced my gaze upward and saw it again: a pool of darkness forming before me. Tendrils emerged from the thousands of cracks in the ground, slowly crawling, joining and twisting together, gathering mass until they shaped themselves into a hulking figure.
Come at me. Kill me, you bastard.
I extended my hand, not in defiance, but in acceptance. There was no fear left in me. My heartbeat had slowed, my breathing was deep and even. I closed my eyes, not bracing for pain, but waiting for it to begin its familiar work, for darkness to sweep over me once more. But this time, I was not afraid. If I were to die, then I would die accepting it. That was all I had left to give.
I listened as something slithered closer, the sound of it dragging across hot, broken stone. A cool sensation grazed my skin, a sharp contrast to the relentless heat. It was the touch of the darkness, liquid, icy, creeping up through my arms, spreading toward my chest.
Still, my composure remained unshaken. I did not resist, did not even tense. I let the coldness seep into me, feeling it crawl over my skin, up my neck, across my face. The darkness wrapped around me, coiling up my arms, my torso, my legs, and finally my head. Even as it covered my mouth and nose, I did not panic. I waited for the suffocation I’d expected, the desperation for breath that always signalled the end.
But it never came. Instead, the darkness held me, not with malice, but with a strange, enveloping comfort. I felt, for the first time, as if I belonged within it. The shadows gripped me tightly, almost pulling at my skin, but there was no pain, just an odd sense of being drawn inward. Gradually, the cold faded, replaced by the gentle warmth of the sun, and I realised the darkness was seeping inside my body, pooling within me. It slid deeper, a slow invasion, settling in the centre of my abdomen. It didn’t stop as it kept pouring in, layer after layer, until it felt like it was filling my very soul.
I could not say how long I remained in that state. Minutes, hours, perhaps even days as time seemed meaningless. The endless darkness kept flowing into me, burrowing deeper, becoming part of me. At last, when I was almost ready to surrender to the exhaustion, I noticed something. The darkness was gone. The oppressive dread that had accompanied it was nowhere to be found. In its place was only the gentle warmth of the sun on my skin. The strange, flowing sound of the darkness had faded, replaced by serene silence.
I lay there, savoring the quiet. It was liberating, no more pain, no more slaughter, just tranquillity. For the first time, I had a moment to breathe, to exist without fear or struggle, to take in the peace I had never known before.
Finally, I opened my eyes. I was still in the wasteland, still kneeling on the ground, but something was different. I lifted my arms to inspect them, searching for any sign of what had happened. That’s when I saw it: the mark on my left forearm. Two deep gashes, blacker than the void, darker than any ink. They seemed to pulse with the same dread I’d felt from the darkness, and when I touched them, my fingers met a strange, inky texture, almost liquid, almost alive. Before the trial, they had just seemed like any other mark, but now they seemed almost alive.
I stared, mesmerised, trying to understand, but before I could investigate further, the world around me began to stir.
Wait, I’m not dead.
The landscape pulsed, the very foundation of the scenery trembling. The realisation hit me: I’d done it. The trial was over. The darkness hadn’t killed me. I’d survived by accepting it rather than resisting it.
Fragments of the world around me began to peel away, chipping and floating into the void beyond. The walls closed in, inching nearer until they folded above me. The last thing I saw was the darkness descending from all sides, my vision finally fading to black.
***
With a sudden jolt, I sat upright, my eyes assaulted by a harsh, blinding light. I rubbed them, trying to adjust, only to realise I was back in my room, lying in bed. The familiar chill of the air returned, brushing across my skin.
It’s over.
I looked around. It seemed as though only a few minutes had passed in the real world, the darkness still pooling beyond the window. That was always the cruel joke of the soul forge trials; their hellish tasks felt like weeks or months for the challenger, but in reality, they lasted only moments.
I couldn’t even process how much time had truly passed. At first, I’d tried to keep count of my deaths, but eventually, my mind gave up. Now, the memories of the trial’s brutality were burned into me, impossible to ignore, even if I wanted to. They had changed me in ways I couldn’t yet understand.
I fell back onto the bed, staring up at the ornate ceiling. A deep lethargy crept over me, mingling with the relief and disbelief of survival. The realisation settled over me like a heavy blanket.
To think, all the trial wanted was for me to accept the onslaught of darkness. To let go, to die without resistance. What a fucking joke. I could have finished it so much sooner if I’d just stopped fighting back, instead of dying like a rat, over and over, god knows how many times.
But I had completed the trial, and I could feel the change inside me. The darkness churned deep within, pooling near my abdomen where my first nexus core had formed. My connection to darkness had deepened, my body tingling wildly, being both sluggish and invigorated all at once.
Cores played a crucial role for an Ascendant, acting as conduits to channel the pulse around them. The pulse was the energy that permeated the world, ever-present but mysterious. Some believed it emerged when the rifts first appeared, interacting with a chosen few and granting them the opportunity to grow stronger. The true origins were unknown; no one really understood why the rifts existed, or how pulse and the nexus affinity had come to be humanity’s last saving grace.
Now, I could feel it, a strange rhythm in the air, perhaps due to my new connection with darkness. It all felt foreign, uncanny, yet the memories of this body made it easier to accept.
It was as if I were both myself and the original owner of this body. After all, it was the experiences and memories that defined a person, and now, with both sets of memories living within me, it felt like we were one and the same.
The energy was strange, almost tangible, like invisible syrup blanketing everything. My core seemed to draw some of it inside, creating a subtle suction, leaving a lingering warmth in my torso.
Cores had one fundamental use: they absorbed pulse from the air, fuelling the nexus affinity and enabling abilities. Using an ability would drain the flux in my core, which would slowly fill again by pulling from the dormant pulse in the air. To increase a core’s capacity, however, required killing entities from the void. These entities carried a purer form of pulse, and every kill allowed my core to absorb their energy, permanently expanding my reserves.
That was how Ascendants grew stronger, maximising the efficiency of their core, then challenging the next trial in the soul forge to build another core within themselves. Only by repeating this cycle could they hope to climb the tiers, gaining power and standing in a world that grew more dangerous by the day.
For now, I was just an Awakened, my ability with pulse limited to using basic powers. But higher tiers brought new possibilities, empowering, emitting, even shaping the pulse around and within you. The path ahead would not be easy.
I needed to check my soul forge. The coming days would be harsh. From the memories, I already knew that to survive here, strength and status were everything. The rifts were spreading, their influence growing, and humanity’s margin for error shrinking every day. If I wanted to live in this world, I had to grow stronger. I’d already wasted one life, drifting without purpose. This time, I wanted to live, truly live. To find someone to care for, to discover a goal worth dreaming of, to forge a reason to keep moving forward.
As I stared up at the ceiling, I made a vow to myself: I would become stronger, not just for survival, but to honour the original Yun whose body I now inhabited. I would find out why I ended up here, why that weird other me had appeared out of nowhere. Most of all, I would find a reason to live, to exist rather than to just endure.

Chapter end