"Ruined you?" The Bishop scoffed, "I wasn’t the one who ruined you... I didn’t care for you or your parents. You possessed a treasure I dearly needed... do I need any other reason to do what I did? Don’t be a crybaby... this is the life of mortals; weak, helpless, and just lambs waiting for slaughter."

"True..." Darius chuckled, "Can you imagine their greatest wish to live a short, normal life? To know that anything and anyone can kill you at any time... isn’t that the life of livestock? Born as food for superior lifeforms."

Hearing this, Levi could only tighten his grip until his nails pierced his palms... he knew that they were taunting him to kill them, but this time, he truly fought hard against the black hatred consuming his heart and mind.

"You speak high and mighty for someone in the same boat as us," Levi uttered coldly, gazing at Darius.

"Hahaha, not really..." Darius smirked mockingly, "Unlike you, I have already accepted and embraced it... Whatever happens to me or my loved ones happens because I am too weak to stop it... end of discussion. You will never catch me bitching about it, but you will find me working my hardest to reach the necessary strength to murder anyone daring to do the same."

"Oh, don’t you worry, I am doing just that... and the two of you are the first on my list." Levi narrowed his eyes frigidly.

The Bishop broke into a short-lived, ridiculing laughter... then, his laugh turned into a menacing glare.

"You should thank me, you’re still alive. I was being merciful by sparing you that night... if I wasn’t in a good mood, you would have joined your family on the other side... Yet, this is my thanks? Tsk... as expected, mercy is nothing but leaving the problems of the past to fester into a sickness that looks like you."

The Bishop lifted his foot and showed it to Levi... the sole was filthy, crusted with dirt and something darker. Just the stench alone made Levi’s grimace turn unholy.

But, when he heard the next part...

"You should be kissing the bottom of my feet to show your gratitude... come on, do it, I still have some faint in y..."

Before he could finish his sentence, Levi started laughing with his head lowered... at first, it was soft, almost like in disbelief of hearing what he said. Then, it broke into a laugh that sounded like a growl of a dormant beast.

A moment later, Levi threw himself off the bed and grabbed the Bishop by his extended leg, flinging him toward the rusty blue door.

TING!

The Bishop smashed against it and slid down to the floor... blood stained his busted lips. Yet, he only turned his head to Levi and grinned in amusement as he spat out in Levi’s direction.

Seeing this, Levi rushed in his direction with a cruel look, his leg raised to the limit like he was about to kick a ball.

He knew it would feel good to smash the Bishop’s head against the metal gate.

He knew this was what he always wanted.

But, at the same time... he knew that going for it was going to achieve nothing but repeat the loop.

TING!

In the end, he lifted his foot slightly and smashed it against the metal gate; the pain came in waves instantly, but Levi didn’t feel a thing... he just held the small metal bars on the gate and started banging his foot on the door while roaring curses at the top of his lungs.

And yet, it wasn’t as satisfying as killing those two animals... this left him to ignore them and start pacing in a circle... His breaths were fast, and he kept tearing his hair apart, resembling a true asylum madman.

While Levi was fighting with every ounce of his being to keep his sanity somewhat intact and avoid slaughtering them, the Bishop and Darius were unfortunately... still there.

Darius lay on the bed and yawned while turning his face to the wall, "If you aren’t going to finish us, stop pacing and let me sleep."

The moment Levi heard this, a faint, crazed crackle escaped his lips as he slowly peeked at the chilling Darius.

At that moment, he knew... he wasn’t finishing this trial any time soon.

***

Six months passed during the trial... Time had no voice there; it was a construct Levi had to make for himself to not lose his mind.

Right now... he was sitting on his bed, legs crossed, hands on his knees. His eyes were closed shut, lost deep within his own subconsciousness. He embraced his hatred, rage, and every dark thought that had been consuming him for the past months and just meditated.

Nothing more, nothing less...

After killing the Bishop and Darius over a thousand times in so many ways, the repetition, the loop, made him understand one hidden truth.

It came to him after the hundredth kill.

He stopped seeing this as a spiritual trial to prove a point to the Ancestral Trees... no, it became a test and more than that, an opening for greater things.

This trial was meant to break him and make him accept the folly of what he preached to the Ancestral Trees... instead, Levi started using it to train his mind and regain control over his emotions... to treat the instability at its core.

This didn’t mean that he was seeking a holy redemption to forgive those two animals... not in a million years. He sought the cold steadiness that would allow him to take revenge and not ruin it by losing himself to his emotions.

Thus, he kept meditating in silence for days... forcing himself to listen to their voices, their curses, their taunts, and live amidst their presence that felt like an unclean stain.

He could sense them breathing, could hear the small movements they made in their straps... For days, for weeks, they tormented him until they pushed every soft place on him.

Levi wasn’t perfect... as much as he tried his best to keep his meditation uninterrupted, they got to him more times than he would like to accept. And yet... every time the loop started, he meditated in silence.

He kept doing this over and over again, each time it took longer to break his peace... After three months, Levi finally reached the mental state to remove their straps and conclude the trial.

But, he didn’t... he felt like he wasn’t ready yet... like if he went for it, he’d do it just to conclude the trial and be done with it.

No, no, no... Levi no longer felt or thought this way. The moment his perspective changed, so did everything else.

Thus, he refused to leave this place until he reached the mental fortitude necessary to survive through anything.

In his eyes, he had already survived the torment of the Nightcrawlers, which strengthened his mental fortitude...But clearly, it wasn’t enough.

He wanted to be able to see the Bishop and Darius’s faces and smile without skipping a beat, while at the same time having what it took to slaughter them.

Pure controlled hatred and coldness... Only then could he avenge his parents successfully.

After an entire month of Levi sitting in silence... unmoving, unblinking, and terrifyingly calm... both Darius and the Bishop began to feel something they hadn’t before: unease.

"What is this brat doing... does he really think he can conquer his hatred?" Darius scoffed, but his voice came out uncertain.

He was sitting there, strapped next to the wall, eyes half-open, pretending to be bored... but he kept stealing glances in Levi’s direction, feeling the unease mounting up each second.

The silence was no longer expressing peace... it made him feel like he was staring at a boulder.

The way Levi sat there, breathing slowly, without moving an inch, made him sense that it was no longer a meditation for restraint. He looked like he had gone beyond rage, beyond pain, and beyond hate.

Sometimes Darius felt like Levi was staring at them with eyes wide open, but when he looked at him, he found them still closed.

This feeling made his skin crawl, like he was no longer staring at an orphan child they could abuse.

"He is not the same... don’t waste your breath, he isn’t even here anymore." The Bishop said calmly.

The Bishop was right... Levi’s soul might be here, but his mind, his emotions, were channeled somewhere else.

Somewhere dark and quiet.

The place where he hid the part that had never healed.

The part that had watched his parents being murdered.

The little child in him that he hid in the darkest corners of his heart.