Souls Online: Mythic Ascension
Chapter 180: Truth and a Choice

Chapter 180: Truth and a Choice

The candle had melted down to a stub. Rachel had filled six pages, each line pulling more from instinct than thought. Her wrist ached. Her eyes burned.

She was reaching for the ink again when the voice came.

"It’s not enough to look at what’s there."

It was dry and hoarse, the kind of voice that came from a throat lined with ash and memory. Male, old, unhurried. It didn’t echo. It simply existed, as though it had always been there, waiting for her to quiet down.

Rachel froze, hand hovering over the ink vial. Her fingers curled back.

"You’ve taken in what your eyes could offer," the voice said. "Now it’s time to see without them."

She stayed seated. Her gaze swept the room, but nothing moved. None of the silent figures acknowledged her. The room was still thick with smoke and shadows. Nothing had changed.

Except everything had.

"This is your second test," the voice said. "Look again. But not with your sight."

Rachel didn’t speak. She closed the book. Folded her hands. Slowed her breath.

Nothing happened at first.

Then, slowly, the smoke seemed to shift around her, not drifting randomly but responding to her presence. The light from the candle flickered and leaned. Shapes formed in the haze, edges where none should be, patterns moving along the grain of the floor that didn’t belong.

She blinked.

The girl with the silver chain was no longer leaning against the wall. The chain itself had dissolved into a coil of vines. Pulsing, faintly. Like veins.

The man with the scar now had no mouth at all. Just a smooth patch of skin. The laughter she thought she’d heard earlier had not come from him.

She opened her eyes wider. The scar moved.

No, not the scar. Something beneath it. A second face. Watching.

Rachel’s chest tightened.

"I don’t get it,"

she muttered.

"You will,"

the old voice replied.

"The shadows do not lie. They only wait."

The smoke curled tighter, forming a circle around her once more. She could feel it now, not just smell or see it. It was alive, or close enough.

Rachel stood slowly.

The candle guttered low.

The voice spoke again.

"Close your eyes. And look."

She hesitated, then obeyed.

At first, darkness.

And then there was something more, like hungry mouths reaching out from the abyss. Each mouth didn’t have eyes but she could feel the insatiable greed for material objects, be it drugs, alcohol, women or even food.

That’s when it hit her. What she was ’seeing’ now was desires!

Rachel’s breath caught. She could feel the weight of those mouths, their hunger, their endless craving, stretching toward her like black tendrils. Not just empty voids but desperate needs shaped like shadows.

She clenched her fists beneath the table, trying to anchor herself. The darkness whispered, pressing closer, showing her things she had never noticed before.

The man with the scar was not laughing at nothing. He was haunted by the memory of a lost love, a failure he kept feeding with lies and drink. The girl with the silver chain was tangled in regret, each link a promise she had broken to herself.

The shadows flickered again and the voices came through faintly, desperate murmurs tangled with sobs and curses.

Rachel opened her eyes slowly. The smoke no longer obscured the room. It had pulled back like a veil, revealing the raw edges beneath.

She looked at the figures not as people, but as collections of need and sorrow and broken dreams. The shadows clung to them, reflecting what they hid even from themselves.

The old voice spoke once more, softer this time.

"This is the truth you must learn to see. Not just with your eyes but with what lies beneath. The shadows hold more than darkness. They hold what people refuse to face."

Rachel wasn’t sure what she was supposed to feel. She was amazed by the sight the shadows provided but horrified by what it revealed. She was afraid to even look at her own shadow, afraid to see the desires that even she did not know.

"You have passed the 2nd Trial. You have proven that you can see beyond the light. However, I am but an old man. The only rewards I can provide you are two and two alone in this moment.

The voice lingered in the air like the last breath of dying embers. Rachel stayed still, heart pounding as the smoke curled inward, forming a ring that throbbed in time with her pulse.

"Two and two alone," the old man said again. "The first is a truth. The second is a choice."

Rachel felt the weight of those words settle on her shoulders. The candle let out a final hiss and died. The room remained lit, but not by fire. The shadows were glowing now, ever so faintly, as if lit from within.

"The truth,"

he said,

"is this. Desire is not evil. It is not good. It is the shape of the soul before it chooses what to become. Those who deny it become hollow. Those who are ruled by it become lost. Those who see it... can begin to wield it."

Rachel’s breath caught again. She felt something stir deep inside her, a warmth in the center of her chest, not comforting but electric.

"The second,"

the voice continued,

"is a choice."

The smoke rose in front of her like a curtain parting. Two figures emerged, shaped from shadow but clear in form.

The first was herself. But not quite. This version of Rachel stood tall and commanding, her gaze sharp, her presence like a blade wrapped in silk. From her shoulders stretched a cloak of writhing black tendrils, and her hand held a quill made of bone. She radiated authority. Power through understanding.

The second was also Rachel. But younger, gentler. Her hair was loose, her clothes plain, and she carried a lantern that burned with pure white light. Her face held sadness, but also peace. The shadows bowed before her, but did not cling to her.

"These are not your future,"

the voice said.

"They are your potential. One sees and bends shadow. The other walks with it, never becoming it. Neither is wrong. Both are real."

Rachel looked between them. One called to the part of her that wanted to know everything, to master the hidden parts of the world and herself. The other reached the part that still wanted to heal, to guide, to carry light through the dark rather than become it.

She stepped forward. Her voice barely rose above a whisper.

"What happens if I don’t choose?"

The old man’s voice was quiet now.

"Then you will walk blind until you do."

Rachel’s fingers twitched at her side.

She looked once more at the two shadows. Then at her own. It pulsed beneath her feet, a coiled thing waiting to be shaped.

She breathed in.

And she chose.

"Then I choose both. I will tread the third path, the one not laid out for me. You taught me to see without my eyes so walking blind is no big deal~!"

There was a moment of silence before a soft chuckle echoed in the darkness in response to Rachel’s playfully defiant voice.

"Your choice is the wisest one you could make. Never conform to fate."

As soon as the word fate was spoken, Rachel felt a black fog rise from the ground and within seconds completely swallowed up her body.

Moments later, the shadows receded and she found herself back on the street, the Heathens Shadow however had disappeared as if it had never been there in the first place.

Rachel had goosebumps as she slowly walked away with more questions than answers.

"This is all sorts of creepy"

She mumbled under her breath, swearing to herself that what just happened was something she would never tell a living soul. Not that many people would believe her anyways.