Promotion

Every time Ray had an exam, I spent my days in the Library. There is no way I can relax in his head with all that worry filling each thought he gets. It's really weird that his thoughts are not this complex and clouded when he is in a life-threatening situation.

Even now, when I am separated from his mind, I can still feel the worry that he feels. It's really irritating, but I am used to it now. enough about that, let me tell you about what I am doing.

There is this file that I am interested in now. It tells a tale about a soul that lived a life full of all seven sins. Usually, a soul gets exhausted after it has experienced each sin for a long time. Each creature that holds the soul keeps living a life that has one sin reaching its peak.

Normally, the peak for each sin is not that high, and most people reach their peak before they live out half of their lifetime. That is when their body starts withering away, and along with that, so does their soul.

Each sin has its own genre of stories that they tell. Greed, Lust, and Wrath are sins that make up most basic stories. Chase for power and money, for love, or revenge, all are similar tales. They are boring at their core. unoriginal writing. and at the end, it's always a simple shitty ending. "they lived happily ever after" my ass. No ending like that is a good ending. There is no 'ever after', not on the grand scale of things. and as for the lives that are bound to greed and wrath, the ending is never happy. Lust-centric stories are bland.

pride and envy are tightly intertwined and no one ever reached the peak of one alone as it's always both or neither. Being proud of one's self is a good thing, but pride is when it is taken to extremes. and the root of that pride somehow always resides in envy toward someone else. These stories are like swimming in somewhat dirty water. it seems bad at first, gets better as you get settled into it, and when you get out, you regret getting into it. It always has a bitter aftertaste with a weird feeling regarding the characters.

As for the last remaining sins, Sloth and Gluttony, they are not very easy to get to the peak of. souls usually experience these sins in all of their lifetimes, which is taken slightly above average in the last lives. and thus, the soul is exhausted completely by the time it finishes its eighth life.

Having said that, this particular soul has a story that caught my attention. it had such a weird cycle that it was exhausted before it got to complete its seventh life.

Being lazy is one thing, but being so slothful that even interference from gods was not enough to make you move, now that's the peak of sloth alright. gaining all the power in the world, just to be lazy, and not giving up after losing it all. It was a very weird tale to read, mostly because nothing really happened in it. The gain of power was by chance, the loss of power was by divine authority, and the death was underwhelming to say the most. It was a unique life, albeit very uninteresting.

The last life it lived was one of the most interesting stories I ever read. The last life it lived took the form of a creature that was gluttonous enough to consume everything it could sense. an entire section of the universe now lies dormant because of it. a whole solar system, all consumed by one entity. It was a thrilling tale indeed. I spent the entire week reading it, consuming all the experiences and feelings that the soul went through. The anger it felt when it was stopped, the sadness when it realized its limits, and the relief it felt when it got everything it hungered for.

the story was an inspiration and a threat at the same time. an inspiring tale about a soul that rose to power, and a threat to never seek power without a goal in mind. I stared at the closed file before getting up to put it back.

"What have you been reading all this time?" Otin asked as I handed him the sorted files. "you have not gone back to your human body, have you?"

"Yeah, this case was intriguing, so I got a bit lost in it. How did you deal with this soul? it's not in this record."

"I used my authority to extinguish it, erase it from existence, albeit prematurely. The record is empty because it still had one life left, but we had to extinguish it before it became a threat to other living creatures outside its containment zone." he stopped for a second, "Have you already finished all the tasks I gave you?"

"yes."

"How can a soul so young be so capable?" he said, looking kind of gloomy, as if looking back at some sort of long-lost past life.

"I just like doing this, the stories interest me," I replied, sitting down on the chair in front of him. "and I am still trying to find which sin I lived through before I died."

Otin stared at me for a few seconds, as if contemplating what to say. He relaxed for a moment and tapped his pen on the desk four times, "Well, then I suppose you have earned this."

I felt something change, a weird kind of power filled my body and then subsided just as fast. "What did you do to me?"

He looked at me with a smile that contained hope, "Nathaniel Harmonia, I see great potential in you. There are times, although very rarely, when a soul achieves its own authority, much like mine. but there is a slight problem with that process, not for those souls, but for us. As you know, it might seem a little arrogant, but we like to control the part of the universe we can reach as much as possible." he closed the file that he was working on and started walking around the table. "You are one of those. so, in order to make sure you don't gain authority over a random aspect, I gave you a proper one."

"So I don't become a threat?"

"Precisely." he put one hand on my shoulder, "I like you being here, so it would be very hard for me to extinguish you. i don't want you to be wasted, so keep up the image that you have."

"I see." This was the first time that Otin wasn't monotone, and that is exactly why it felt sinister.

"You must be wondering what authority I gave you." he went back to his monotone way of talking. "It's the authority over souls. I am not sure what extent of control you will have over them, so be sure to know the responsibility that comes with this authority."

"Yes, I know." a chill went down my spine. It was the first time in a long time that I felt fear. "I suppose I am still not allowed to know what sin I was associated with."

"you will know that when you need to. you never even started ascending the stairs that would have taken you to the peak while you lived," he said that in a straightforward manner.

"Do you mean that it is possible that I-"

"Yes Nate, it's possible." Otin interrupted me, "But do not go looking for it. your destiny will catch up to you, no matter where you are. but if you go looking for it, you will keep running in circles like an animal chasing its own tail."

"So it's destiny that is chasing you, and not the other way around?"

"Yes. most creatures often confuse that and end up never reaching what their destiny had going for them." Otin drew a line in the air, then branched out multiple lines from one end. a few branches ended at random intervals, some branches went back into the line, while others dissolved into nothing, creating a very weird messed-up tree diagram.

"Imagine this is the path your destiny has set for you. It has a starting point, right here. but if you try to find a way out," his finger traced the line until it reached one of the branches that were looping back into the line. "you will keep going down this same path, never reaching the exit. To find the exit, you have to try different paths. if the path you took is the right one, you will find the exit. If it's the wrong one, all you have to do is retrace your steps."

That sounds so profound and stupid at the same time, that it makes me question if I should keep talking or start reading another file. there was a third option as well, and it called me there myself. Ray called my name several times before I could even respond.

(What is going on?) I asked.

"I thought you died." Ray sighed in relief, "where have you been for the past week?"

(First, I am dead, and unfortunately, unable to move on. and as for where I have been all week, I was busy reading soul records.)

"whole week?"

(yes, and as you are going to ask, I read about three hundred records, give or take fifty.) I settled in my study chair. (where are you? How can you speak to me openly without looking like a weirdo? I can't see shit in this darkness.)

I could have looked back into his memory, but that would be a pain to search through. but he replied before I could even start looking, "It's the last test, a practical exam conducted by Robert to test the level of each student."

(to test the level of what?)

"Survival instincts." Ray replied in a tired tone. "he wants to see who survives the longest in a closed box before breaking out. The only problem is that this box is flimsy as hell, and I have been here for god knows how long. I was bored so I called you here to chat."

"So you are going insane." I switched my voice to better suit him. "I am out of here. keep talking to the void, hopefully, it will answer back."

Ray tried to stop me from leaving, but it didn't work. The scribe's authority was preventing me from being controlled. I blocked him out and let him go through the test as he should. Now that he couldn't access my presence, I started to see what he was going through.