Chapter 34: Impossible Trial

Chapter Thirty Four

This is impossible...

This trial is impossible.

Orion’s shattered mind desperately struggled to form that thought. The urge to simply give up flashed through his mind, and honestly, he couldn’t even blame himself for thinking that way. After all, that was exactly what the trial itself was asking of him. He should just quit.

He had taken only about ten or so steps, and to end this trial, he would need to walk nothing short of millions of steps. When viewed from that perspective, giving up was literally the best decision any rational person could make.

Why struggle meaninglessly and suffer endlessly when he could simply end everything by dying... by being erased?

Orion nearly opened his mouth to declare that he had given up, but he stopped himself. His body exploded and reformed several more times before he finally did what he needed to do.

He slapped himself across the face, violently driving away the comforting thought of simply dying. That wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to survive, not die. He wanted to live, not be erased.

It couldn’t be helped. Dying more than a million times in less than a second was truly beyond what any being could simply shrug off. Orion remained collapsed on one knee, desperately thinking about how on earth he was supposed to complete and pass this trial so that he could reach the 50th floor.

His teeth gritted together as he fought against the urge to simply give up and seek comfort in the cold embrace of death.

I have to push on...

I can’t give up yet.

I will never give in.

It is just pain... nothing more.

Before he could fully motivate himself, his body exploded and reformed another thousand times in the blink of an eye. Orion groaned as his mind teetered on the very edge of being shattered apart, yet somehow, it remained sturdy.

It didn’t shatter apart in the slightest.

That alone overwhelmed him in ways he could neither explain nor spare the brainpower to contemplate. Just then, he noticed a hand stretched out directly in front of him.

Orion looked up.

Sir Dwaine stood there, looking down at him. His blindfold had been pulled off, revealing a pair of sky-blue eyes staring directly at him. The old man was blind, and most people would have expected his eyes to be pure white. Who would have thought that they were actually such a beautiful shade of sky blue?

"Kid... come on."

Dwaine’s voice was filled with pain, but there was still concern within it. "There are more steps to go. Don’t forget... only by taking the next step can we win. So why have you been kneeling there for several days already?"

He asked with a pained smile on his face.

Orion stared at the old man. Seeing Sir Dwaine smiling despite the pain, despite the agony, and despite everything they had been enduring, while still worrying about him made Orion feel a strange mixture of emotions.

He shook his head, and a helpless chuckle escaped his mouth. To think that someone would still be looking out for him in a situation like this... There was no doubt that they were both suffering. They were both being subjected to the same harsh pain over and over again, enduring the same deadly, nightmarish torture of suffering, death, and reformation multiple times within a single second.

And yet, why was Orion finding it so difficult to continue? Why was he the one feeling the urge to give up on himself?

Sir Dwaine, his only partner in this endless world of torment and pain, was still looking out for him while undergoing the exact same torment.

That realization made Orion disgusted with himself. It stirred several other complicated emotions within him, emotions he couldn’t properly identify even if he had possessed the clarity to do so.

"Pah... pah... pah..."

His body exploded and reformed a thousand more times, yet before long, Orion smiled.

He reached out and took the man’s hand.

"You are right."

His voice was weak, but there was determination hidden beneath the exhaustion. "We can only survive this by continuing to walk forward, one step at a time."

He repeated the words slowly, as though engraving them into his shattered mind.

"That is the only way to win this trial. As long as we don’t stop walking, we won’t lose."

Sir Dwaine nodded. His body exploded a couple more times before he finally completed the motion.

"Let’s conquer this trial, then."

With those words, he continued forward, and Orion followed after him.

The more they walked, the more they exploded and reformed. Wave after wave of pain wrapped around them like a cocoon, but the duo didn’t stop walking. They continued even as their bodies exploded, their legs trembled, and their consciousness was overwhelmed by pain.

The pain kept coming, growing more intense with every passing moment, yet their legs continued moving.

At one point, the pain suddenly intensified to an even greater level, overwhelming Sir Dwaine. The old man’s face immediately turned ashen, his body stumbled, and he struggled desperately to get back up.

Before he could, however, a hand reached out toward him.

Sir Dwaine knew who it was without needing to see.

He nodded and calmly took the offered hand. Orion pulled the old man back up and flashed him a smile through his pale, sorrowful, helpless face.

Even after everything he had endured, despite all the suffering that had nearly crushed his mind, his smile remained nothing short of captivating. It was gentle, warm, and almost angelic.

Although, sadly, the old man was blind.

He couldn’t see it.

"Let’s continue."

"One step at a time," Orion said.

And the old man continued.

"As long as we keep walking, we haven’t lost."

The duo chuckled at their own words. By now, those words had begun to sound almost like a chant, a strange little chant that kept their minds from falling completely into the abyss of despair.

And so, they continued walking forward.

The clashes between the two armies continued, filling the air and the space around them with endless chaos. The catastrophic battle devastated the land, causing countless deaths, and all those deaths were turned into pain before being multiplied a thousandfold and transferred directly into the duo.

How many times had they shattered?

Probably a couple of billion times or so.

Who was counting?

The pain each time was daunting, to say the very least. Yet through it all, the duo served as each other’s support. Whenever one of them was knocked down, the other helped pull him back up. Whenever one stumbled, the other was there, and whenever one nearly lost himself to the pain, the other reminded him to take the next step.

Through the chaos and endless agony, it was almost as if the duo had been friends for ages.

They smiled at the silliest of jokes and even made strange comments about the war they were in the middle of, despite the fact that every second of that war was killing them again and again.

At times, they simply sat there in silence, back to back, watching the ongoing war. There was nothing they could say and nothing they needed to say. They simply sat there together, quietly watching the endless battle unfold before them.

The war continued before them. Several decades had now passed, yet the warriors still seemed endless.

Just what kind of armies were those two? How could they possibly possess so many soldiers?

At times, the duo completely relaxed even as their bodies exploded and reformed. The pain remained and became more and more daunting, yet with time, and with each other’s support, they found it barely bearable.

It wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t wanted, and it wasn’t something they could ever accept as normal, but it was at least enough to get by.

Days turned to weeks, weeks moved into months, months flowed into years, and years blurred into decades.

Walking through this war-torn hell while constantly enduring overwhelming pain and agony, the duo gradually became the best of buddies. They always helped each other, and they always had each other’s backs.

Even at the deepest point of this nightmare, they continued walking, continued talking, and continued taking one step forward.

After all these years, they had taken several million steps over and over again, yet they still hadn’t crossed over to the next floor. This should have disturbed the duo.

After all, the steps seemed endless. The war seemed endless. The pain seemed endless, and the suffering seemed endless.

Yet over the years, they had come up with a motto.

"As long as we don’t stop walking, we won’t lose."

That motto remained with them. It guarded them through everything: through every shattered body, every death, and every moment when their minds nearly collapsed. It remained with them through every moment when giving up seemed like the only reasonable choice.

They kept walking until, on one lucky... or unlucky... day, who knew?

They took one step, and the war-torn world vanished.

The grey and white armies that had continued killing each other for what seemed like eternity disappeared as well. The endless battlefield vanished, along with the countless warriors and their ceaseless screams.

The pain disappeared, and finally, they found themselves in a familiar place.

Orion collapsed onto his butt, exhaling heavily. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, he could breathe without immediately being drowned in agony.

He turned to face Dwaine.

The old man was standing there, his blue eyes showing a forlorn expression.

"Hey, pal..."

Orion’s lips curved into a small smile.

"Told you we would make it."

Dwaine shook his head.

"I knew we would make it. You are the one who had no belief."

He said that before sitting next to Orion.

Orion simply grinned and didn’t comment. He remained silent as his grey eyes slowly lifted, locking onto the number written above them.

50th Floor.

A smile appeared on his face.

"At least that damn trial is finally over."

He exhaled deeply.

"We can relax for now."

Orion closed his eyes.

He didn’t finish the second part of his sentence, but Dwaine could guess it without needing him to say it.

Before we dive into yet another hellish trial...

Dwaine sighed.

He felt the same way.

Who knew what other trials awaited them? For now, perhaps they could simply enjoy the peace and quiet.

With that thought, Dwaine’s blue eyes slowly closed as well.