Shock!


    That was exactly what Nn felt within him.


    A shock so monumental that his aching body seemed topletely fade away into nothing as he looked at the two dark orbs.


    Slowly, his eyes turned ssy before a single line of tears dropped from his face.


    He knew well who they were.


    How couldn''t he?


    How could he forget the two people who made his life turn to hell?


    How could he forget those who abandoned him when he needed them the most?


    They were none other than his bastard of a father and his whore of a mother.


    They were the two dark orbs out of the millions of others.


    As if understanding what was in Nn''s mind, the man''s apathetic voice continued.


    "If you listened to what I said before, you''ll know what''s to befall them. The soul that goes to that realm will remain there eternally, suffering the most hellish of pains they could ever endure."


    "Compared to the torment of going through hell, what you felt before reaching here could bepared to being dipped in a bathpared to being dipped inva."


    "It is simply iparable."


    "But you have a way to save them, Nn," the man whispered as Nn''s eyes shed and he turned to look at him.


    "What do you mean?"


    "You have the opportunity to save them both, to give them a single more chance at reincarnation. In exchange for such, you would need something with an unparalleled amount of power.


    "One of those things is this crown, which is rightfully yours."


    "So there are two choices you can make, Nn."


    "Take the crown and wear it on your head, earning what you came here to do in the first ce and making all your suffering worth it, or you can sacrifice it to help the parents of your past life enter into the path of reincarnation and save them from eternal torment…"


    "You can only choose one, Nn, and you have all the time in the world to make your decision," the man said as he walked to the far side of the fallen mountain''s edge, turning his back to Nn with his gaze staring into the far distance.


    And Nn couldn''t help but look in front of him, where he could see the intensely powerful crown he had suffered so much to possess.


    His only way out, but just behind it were the long stairs where the two dark souls had already separated from the remaining white souls and were currently traversing a darker path.


    Nn knew this time, this was no illusion. This couldn''t be more real.


    He had no idea about anything beyond the cycle of Samsara, but he could at least be sure that those two dark souls belonged to people he once loved and cherished.


    Yet, he also hated them with the same fiery passion.


    Growing up, one could say Nn lived quite the good life and had quite the blessed childhood experience.


    Being the only child in the family, his father was a hardworking coal miner with quite a reputable standard in the organization, and his mother was a beautiful housewife focused on doing nothing but catering to his needs.


    This had continued smoothly until Nn reached the age of 8.


    The change was quick and abrupt as he found his own fathering home, all drunk, and he could see the various condoms in his mom''s bag, anytime she went to ''work''.


    It had been less than a yearter when his father was said to have embezzled funds from the organization and ran away with it, leaving only him and his mother—the only pir he thought had left.


    But that pir also soon left after dering in the coldest way possible that she had no rtion to Nn nor his father himself.


    His world hade crashing down since then on, and ever since, he had been alone until he was 25, working in eternal solitude and very.


    Instead of seeking revenge or ming them for all his troubles, Nn had simply moved on and epted his fate.


    He neither hated nor loved them, and he saw them as nothing more than people who had once stayed with him before leaving.


    But now, here they were in this new life of his, but their fate was nothing he could have imagined.


    ''They deserved it. For all the trouble they caused me in my previous life. They deserved it...'' The thoughts echoed in Nn''s head.


    And truly, nothing in him could refute that.


    They were only suffering the karma of what they did in their past lives.


    What has that got to do with him?


    They had abandoned him when he needed them the most, so why should he care if they ended up in hell or got reincarnated?


    What does it have to do with him?


    The belief kept solidifying in his heart until eventually, Nn''s hand slowly stretched towards the crown.


    Yet he had no idea why, but the tears in his eyes wouldn''t stop rushing out the closer his hand got to the crown.


    And just an inch before he could feel it within his grasp, his fingers halted themselves, as Nn paused in the same emotion.


    Seconds turned to minutes, and minutes turned to hours, yet he remained there, unmoving as his eyes stared nkly at the two floating orbs until eventually, Nn''s outstretched fingers slowly folded and he took his hand off the crown before backing away from it slowly, wiping away the tears in his eyes.


    "What is your choice?" The voice resounded as the man who was at the edge of the mountain appeared right in front of him in less than a blink, but Nn wasn''t in the mood to appreciate it.


    "So, what do you choose, Nn?" it asked him once more.


    "If I sacrifice the crown, does that mean failing the trial and therefore dying here?" he asked in reply.


    "No. If you sacrifice the crown, you fail the trial, but you would still wake up in the real world, in the same position and power as you were formerly in."


    "You would gain no power, and all your previous actions will be for naught."


    "Now, make your choice..."