Chapter 37: Karmic Torture

Chapter Thirty Seven

"Ready to face another exciting journey?"

Orion turned back to face Dwaine, a small smile plastered across his face as he said so. If one were to see that bright, almost angelic smile of his, they would probably think he was planning on heading to a nice family picnic instead of walking into a nightmare capable of scaring other nightmares into panic mode.

Dwaine shook his head as he stood up.

"Sometimes, I seem to overlook the fact that you are a psycho." He sighed. "When we get out of here, you should really go and have your health checked to see if anything is wrong with you."

Orion didn’t respond to the taunt. He had been called a psycho by too many people already for the word to have any effect on him. In fact, most of the time, it sounded more like a compliment than an insult.

Orion simply shrugged before pulling Dwaine to his side.

"Alright, calm your nerves." He gave him a reassuring smile. "I know it is all stirred up and churning, but I am here. There is nothing to worry about."

Dwaine raised an eyebrow.

Among the duo, he was actually the more relaxed one, after all. And yet Orion, who was clearly a little nervous...

Never mind.

There was no point trying to understand the strange way this kid’s mind worked.

Orion continued fooling around for a while. This had become his way of calming his nerves. He would joke, tease, and act as though the next trial was nothing more than another exciting adventure. It was how he had learned to mentally prepare himself.

After a while, he was finally ready.

"Alright." Orion took a breath. "Let’s continue."

With that, the duo stepped forward.

As usual, the world warped. Reality twisted around them, and space distorted until, before long, they found themselves standing in what seemed to be a vast canvas of space. Several starry lights spread out around them, shining with dim illumination and giving the endless darkness a faint glow.

Without those scattered stars, the entire place would have been swallowed by total darkness.

The duo took another step forward, and immediately, their gazes changed.

The reason was simple. As usual, they once more understood what this trial was about. They understood what they were meant to do, and more importantly, they understood what they needed to endure in order to survive.

As always, to survive, they would need to keep moving forward.

But that wasn’t what worried Orion.

It wasn’t even the fact that they would need to cross several tens of millions of steps before arriving at the 100th floor. No. What truly worried him was that the trial and burden they would need to carry this time were worse than those of every trial that had preceded it.

The name of this trial was...

Karmic Torture.

Its effect was nothing short of catastrophic, to say the least.

Karmic Torture was a punishment in which every negative consequence they had caused throughout their existence would be gathered and returned to them in the form of pain. It wasn’t ordinary pain. It wasn’t physical pain, mental pain, or even soul pain.

It was pain that struck at the deepest foundation of their being, causing a level of torture and suffering that, when compared to all the soul-rending, body-shredding, and mind-shattering pain they had already faced, made those previous tortures feel like nothing more than something menial and insignificant, almost laughable.

This was what one could only call the highest form of torture imaginable.

Orion immediately felt the insurmountable weight and pain descend upon his core of existence. His entire being trembled, overwhelmed in more ways than he could possibly comprehend.

Yet this trial didn’t cause any physical, mental, or soul-type pain. The pain it caused went far deeper than all of that.

Karmic Torture attacked the very foundation beneath one’s existence.

It went deeper than body pain, deeper than mind pain, and deeper than soul pain. It reached the absolute root of one’s existence, the very foundation upon which one’s existence stood.

It was absolute pain.

Pain so great, so vast, and so incomprehensible that the duo would have been dead in less than a microsecond. Their existences would have been completely wiped out, erased and reduced to nothing, if not for the laws of this trial world that were keeping them alive.

Judging by that alone, one could begin to understand just how much pain the duo were experiencing.

Although no one except the duo could truly understand it, because no one else had faced this kind of pain. Those who had were either long erased or dead.

Either way, no one remained.

And the worst thing about this trial was that with each and every step they took forward, the torture increased by 1%.

One percent.

That might have sounded insignificant, but regarding the kind of torture they were being forced to survive, one percent was enormous.

Orion and Dwaine didn’t remain still for too long. They had suffered too many daunting and terrifying trials to allow their advancement to be halted by this. Instead, they followed their motto, the motto they had created together.

Take one step at a time.

As long as we don’t stop walking, we haven’t lost yet.

With that, they took another step, walking side by side.

The pain the duo were undergoing was beyond immense, beyond the boundaries of possibility. Their bodies had no wounds or cuts, and they weren’t even fatigued. In fact, their bodies, minds, and souls were perfectly fine.

And yet, through it all, they were experiencing the highest level of pain they had ever faced.

That alone was terrifying.

But the fact that they had literally walked through more than eighty hellish trials, survived more than eighty nightmarish tortures, and endured more than eighty worlds designed to break them was enough to say a lot about just how terrifying this Karmic Torture truly was.

And as if all of that wasn’t enough, every person they shared karma with would also be factored into the Karmic Torture.

If those they shared karma with had caused pain and accumulated negative karma, the Karmic Torture would become worse and worse as more karma was pulled into the punishment.

If it was the other way around, if the karma they shared was positive or carried less negativity, then they would feel it less and less.

The karmic weight depended on everything connected to them.

Orion took another step.

His body shuddered, and his fist clenched tightly. This kind of torture was truly beyond the realm of what could be considered normal.

He would probably be dead already if the laws of this trial weren’t making absolutely sure that they would never die, that they would remain alive and experience every single bit of this deadly, existential-level torture and pain.

And to think there were still 900 more trials to cross after all this.

A small chuckle escaped Orion’s mouth as he took another step.

"Whoever designed this trial..."

His voice was strained.

"Must be an existential psychopath who loves playing with human hope and embracing despair."

Hope or despair... it didn’t matter much. Whether it was a psycho god who created this trial or not didn’t matter either.

What mattered was the fact that, through it all, they were advancing.

Sincerely, for about two months now since this trial had started, they had only managed to take around ten or so steps. But based on what they were undergoing, that pace was understandable.

Taking one step here was the equivalent of what they needed to take a million or so steps in the previous trial of pain. That alone showed just how horrifying the pain was.

It was a pain that passed beyond screams, beyond curses, and beyond anything they could use to express just how much agony they were in.

They couldn’t even cry.

Instead, the ones doing the crying were their very existences.

"This is too much..."

Orion’s voice was barely above a whisper as he came to a stop. His eyes closed tightly while he tried to suppress the pain his very being was being subjected to.

Although it wasn’t working.

For some reason, the pain simply couldn’t be suppressed. It was unquenchable, unavoidable, and impossible to numb.

They were forced to feel and experience every single bit of it, every fraction, every layer, every increase, and every terrible sensation.

And yet, they continued.

The Karmic Torture overwhelming Orion could be said to be only Level One in comparison to his partner.

Unlike Orion, who had only met very few people in his life, most of those people weren’t warriors or hardened fighters, meaning they hadn’t caused much pain.

His karmic burden was therefore relatively low. Instead of increasing dramatically, his Karmic Torture was reduced.

Dwaine’s situation was the complete opposite.

Because of his origin, because of his history, and because of how battle-hardened his clan was, his karmic burden was monstrous.

And speaking of pain and death, there were few people Dwaine knew who could come close to the Blade Clan. As a member of the Blade Clan, he shared karma with the entire clan.

A clan that had caused endless pain.

A clan that had amassed countless negative karma.

And all of that, every single bit of it, was being fed into Dwaine’s Karmic Torture.

The result was a burden so overwhelming that Dwaine knew, without anyone needing to tell him, that this trial would be where he made his final stop.

He would die here.

There was no surviving it.

He simply couldn’t see how he was supposed to survive.

Even though he knew that, even though his mind had already accepted the possibility of his death, a part of him still didn’t want to give up and die just like that.

Because if he did, who would accompany his friend, Orion?

Who would pull him up whenever he slipped?

Who would serve as his chat partner?

Who would knock some sense into him whenever he became overwhelmed and wanted to give up?

Who would accompany him through the endless hellish trials?

If he wasn’t there...

Who would?

Dwaine refused to accept that.

And so, he pushed forward.

One step, then another.

His Karmic Torture grew more and more overwhelming with every microsecond, but Dwaine didn’t pull up. He kept going and kept pushing forward, even as his teeth gritted together, even as his body remained perfectly unharmed while his very existence screamed in agony.

Even as every instinct inside him told him to stop, he kept going.

And going.

And going.

Until finally, he was unable to push forward anymore.

Dwaine’s hand clenched tightly. His breathing became heavy, and his face was filled with sorrow, carrying the weight of someone who had reached the absolute limit of what he could endure.

He stood there for a long moment.

Then he sighed.

"I can’t go on."