21 - Smoke and mirrors

Su Tao woke up in an endless void. This was the dimension of his eyes, and he had been here before. In front of him floated the two marbles that contained all of the power of his eyes.

At this moment, both of them were completely dark and contained not a single bit of light. They looked just like balls of glass at this point, and his improved vision had even completely vanished.

This was because he had used all of the power of both of his eyes, leaving him suspended in the dark with no way to see anything at all. At this point, he was confused as to why he was here. He had been dragged here after the first trial at one point, but that was it.

That weird voice had said that the dimension of his eyes stored the power of his eyes and his soul as well as all his soul's power. He did not know what the voice meant by the soul's power, but he chose not to worry about it right now.

Suddenly, there was a tiny little bit of light that came from both of the marbles. It was not a lot, but it was enough to see them. He was surprised to see this, as it had not been even close to long enough for even a little bit of the power to have recovered.

But suddenly, the marbles started to grow brighter. They got brighter at an extremely rapid pace, being half full within only a few seconds. But it was at this point that he suddenly felt something was gravely wrong.

He felt his body grow weak and his mind become muddled. It felt like the life was being drained out of him. His skin grew pale and his heart slowed down. His body was physically getting colder, and it was only getting worse as time went on.

It was as if his vitality and life, which he was previously bursting with, was being siphoned out of him to fill the power of his eyes. He began to be concerned, because if it really was his vitality being drained to fill the power of his eyes, he could not even imagine the detrimental effect it would have on him in the future.

Luckily, it stopped before he felt that it was extremely dangerous, and he was only completely exhausted while being a bit cold and pale.

He looked at the two marbles floating in the air, only to see that they were glowing brighter than he had ever seen before, and much more brilliantly as well. He was happy about this, but he could not figure out why his vitality had been drained to do so.

But the next moment, he completely dropped all his questions as he saw the two marbles in front of him move towards each other. This was the first time they had ever moved, and it scared him. He did not know what would happen if these two marbles, which contained completely opposite powers, touched each other.

Opposites would not mix, and he knew this well. Especially so for something as opposite each other as wickedness and holiness. He quickly tried to reach out and grab them, but when he did, his hands simply could not stop them at all.

The marbles were originally about four feet away from each other, but now they were only two feet away from each other, and there was already a reaction between them. The air grew turbulent and a few rogue sparks of the green lightning flashed and a small agitated purple mist formed in the air.

At the same time, his eyes started to hurt. The marbles were the source of his eyes' power after all, and they were currently agitated from being close to each other. It felt like a pounding headache but only in his eyes. At the same time, his mind started to hurt as well.

He put his whole body's strength into stopping the marbles from getting closer to each other as he physically placed himself between them, but nothing he did stopped them from slowly getting closer to each other.

He was forced to come out from between them and stop trying to stop them as if he did not stop he would be pierced through by the two small two inch marbles which would not stop moving towards each other no matter what.

He could do nothing but watch groggily as the air became filled with torrents of purple droplets and thousands of flashes of green lightning. It looked like the world's most bizarre storm, and it was only getting stronger as the moments passed.

Finally, the two marbles touched, and the moment they did, Su Tao felt a wave of intense pain coming from his eyes, which was even more powerful than the pain he felt when his body was being changed by the eyes for the first time. He instantly felt like his mind was being broken apart and shattered.

But it only continued to get worse as the two marbles started to meld into each other, with the storm around him raging like nothing he had ever seen.

At this point, his vision itself fractured like a mirror, like looking through a broken telescope. Everything around him was in utter chaos, and it seemed like it was the end of the world.

If this storm was to be placed in the City of Silver Sparrow, it would without a doubt destroy every single thing that it touched without the slightest bit of resistance, but the laws of the dimension of his eyes was of course different from reality, meaning it would be many times weaker in real life than here.

At this point, the lightning in the air was tearing his body apart, while the purple mist was instantly healing it. It was a state of total chaos, with his entire body being destroyed and remade in a moment constantly, while his mind was hurting more and more by the moment with it starting to develop small cracks.

It was like looking at the reflection of a fractured mirror, seeing all the different reflections but never the full picture of the original reflection before it was broken. This was how his mind was starting to feel at this moment.

He felt that no matter what he did, it made no difference. He felt his mind continue to crack more and more, and it was only so long before it completely cracked and started to break more. The pain he felt was so overwhelming that his body would not even listen to what he wanted it to do, and he could not move at all.

He looked around in hopes of finding a solution, but he could barely see anything through his eyes anymore, and from the outside, his eyes looked like cracked glass balls that were barely holding together. There were even small chunks of them that were floating off. There was no gravity in this dimension, and therefore the chunks would just float off into space.

Suddenly, the two marbles finally completely merged into each other. In an instant, everything got much more chaotic and his mind hurt more and more, with the cracks spreading quickly and starting to branch out.

He began trying to think of solutions, as his eyes were cracked at this point and were just barely keeping from breaking, while the pain didn't allow him to move his body at all. On top of that, there was nothing to physically do anyway.

But suddenly he had a thought. This was the power of his eyes which was causing this, but they were his own eyes, he owned them, at least he was pretty sure he did. He thought that maybe he could command the marbles to settle down.

But when he tried to do this, he succeeded, but not in the way he wanted to. He was able to control a bit of the power of the marbles, but it did not settle like he wanted it to. Instead, it got even more chaotic and the storm got ever stronger.

Suddenly he remembered the weird last line from the purple book he had read, "Balance the chaos. Settle the scales."

He finally thought about what it meant, because at the time it was irrelevant and he had no way to figure out what it meant, but now that he was here, he figured it out. The chaos that he had to balance was the chaotic storm and the power of his eyes which were rejecting each other, and he had to do it before they destroyed themselves.

He looked around, hoping to see something, but at this point, the storm was so strong that it was all he could see. But as he looked at the storm, he slowly started to realize something. The green lightning and the purple mist was not all mixed together, but they were in large chunks of one or the other which were rapidly moving around.

Seeing this, he had an idea. What if he could make the powers of his eyes not settle, but rather, mix into each other and balance each other out. At this moment, he finally made sense of the line fully. This would be exactly following what the book said, to "balance the chaos," which was to have the two elements causing the chaos balance each other out.

As such, he instantly started to try to manipulate the power of his eyes and force it to follow his will. He saw some of the power in the air slow down a little, but it did not do anything other than that. It was at this point that Su Tao finally realized that this was not as simple as it seemed.

He once again willed the power of his eyes to do what he wanted it to do, yet it once again only slightly slowed down the flow of the powers by a completely imperceptible amount, not impacting them in the slightest. He tried again and again with every ounce of his will, yet all it ever did was slow it down a little, and it was nowhere near close to enough to make even the slightest difference.

Meanwhile, the cracks in both his mind and his eyes were getting bigger, and if enough time passed, they would shatter. As such, he knew that this approach was not going to work, so he tried something else.

He found that he was only able to barely slow down all of the power all at once, but what if he focused on one specific area and spread out from there? He then tried this, and it worked much better, with him being able to slow down the power of his eyes around his head and mix some of the two different powers together, cancelling each other out slightly.

But this did not work super well and only barely managed to stabilize the energy around his head and stop it from completely destroying him and rebuilding him every second. It was now much slower and the cracks in his mind and his eyes also slowed down significantly.

He specifically focused on the area around his head because he could tell that the constant chaos from around his head was partially what was causing or worsening the cracks in his mind and eyes. As such, it was much slower now, which meant that he had more time to think of a solution.

He noticed that no matter how much he focused or how small the area, he could not fully balance it out and it would not stop moving entirely, even on an area as small as just his head. As such, he tried to think of another solution.

*CRACK!* *SNAP!*

But it was at this point that he finally started to feel the effects of his mind cracking under the pressure. His mind instantly slowed down a bit when the first crack finally spread across the entirety of his mind. This also happened to his eyes, and his vision was cracked in half.

But he pushed through the pain and did what he wanted to. He was now using his fear to push his body through the pain and force it to do what he wanted it to do no matter what. Yet the pain was still so intense that it was a major reason his mind was cracking and breaking.

Although he could push through it with fear due to the trial of his left eye, he could not just ignore the pain, just like one could not simply ignore their emotions even if they weren't effected by them like him. This was why his mind was still cracking even though he was capable of pushing through it.

As Su Tao tried his third method, he felt that he would not be able to survive if this method did not work. As such, he put all the energy that he had in his body into controlling the power of his eyes that was in the air around him.

As soon as he did, he instantly felt the difference. In a moment, all the power around his body balanced out as portions of the power from nearby air flowed into this area to balance it out. Su Tao made no attempt to slow down or stop the power due to the results of his previous attempt showing that it was impossible to slow it down.

As such, he figured that the only solution must be to constantly balance out the area rather than keep a certain portion of the power contained and balanced. Of course, constantly balancing it out took a massive amount of focus, but he was managing to do it well enough that it made a massive difference.

As such, the pressure on his mind was lessened and the cracks slowed down significantly once again.

*CRACK!*

But it was still not enough to stop the second crack from spanning the entirety of his mind. His mind once again slowed down significantly as he felt his thoughts break a little bit as well. But he still just barely managed to control the power of his eyes around his body and prevent his body from being constantly torn apart and healed.

It was balanced out, with the amount of green lightning being exactly the same as the amount of purple mist, and they cancelled each other out and prevented each other from doing their job. This meant that the green lightning would no longer destroy Su Tao's body, while the purple mist would no longer forcefully heal it.

But the pain that Su Tao felt did not lessen in the slightest, while the pressure on his eyes only increased. As such, another crack spread across his eyes, once again breaking his vision.

But with the area around Su Tao now balanced out, he started to spread out from his body, and within a few seconds, the area of about five feet around his body was balanced while the area of his body was now perfectly balanced. But another crack had spread across his eyes, and his vision had split again.

Also, the storm was absolutely massive, being at least a few hundred feet across from end to end. He was trying his hardest, but he could tell that he would not be able to make it quick enough to prevent his mind from being destroyed.

As such, he quickly shrunk the area he was balancing to only around his head and chest, leaving his limbs to to be destroyed and forcefully healed once again. Then, he redirected his attention to the two marbles in front of him.

When he looked at the marbles, they were split into multiple different fragments in his vision due to the cracks in his eyes. Then, he forced himself to put all the effort he possibly could into trying to balance out the marbles in front of him which were still extremely turbulent and completely rejecting each other.

The marbles were only about two inches on their own, and together they were about three inches plus a bit in diameter in the shape of a perfect ball, while the bright glow of green and purple were swirling around violently and endlessly.

As he tried to balance them out, he found that it was nearly impossible, and that what progress he did make was completely lost the moment he lost his focus, which was quite often due to his mind starting to fracture.

But he knew that this was his only chance at survival at this point, and it was all or nothing. As such, he continued to do it more and more again and again. He had no more methods to balance the power of his eyes out and he could no longer think of any more due to the quickly multiplying fractures to his mind.

Just when he was about to stop, he suddenly saw a small change. There was a small black spot on the ball of his eyes' power. He quickly focused on this black spot, and tried with his absolute all to balance the power of his eyes only around that spot, and he was extremely happy to see that it started to grow in size.

Within another couple seconds, the ball of eye power was about half black, and the storm around Su Tao had died down to not even a tenth of its previous power. The pressure on his eyes as well as the pain he was feeling had also died down to half of its previous strength, making it harder for more cracks to form in his mind and eyes.

However, it was already too late as his eyes were mostly shattered while his mind was only able to think of a single thing, which was the last thing he was already doing, balancing the power of his eyes around the black chunk of the eye power ball.

After another couple seconds, finally, the ball of the power of his eyes was almost completely black. But suddenly there was one singular final crack that was spreading through his mind. It was moving extremely slowly, but it seemed to be the deciding crack whether or not his mind would fall apart. But at the same time, there was only a small part of the three and some inch ball of power that was not black left.

The next moment, the final part of the ball turned black, and the cracks stopped spreading. But it was too late. The final crack had spanned the entirety of his mind, just barely reaching all the way. But that was enough, and his mind started to break apart.

He no longer had any pressure from his body, eyes, mind, or any pain, but his mind was now collapsing. It had sustained too much damage from what had just happened, and it could no longer support itself. At the same time, small chunks started to float off of his eyes as they were shattered now as well.

Finally, Su Tao's mind fell apart. It collapsed like a broken mirror, with him no longer being able to think at all, with his mind losing control of his body as he stopped breathing and his heart stopped beating.

In the real world, he also stopped breathing and his heart stopped beating. He was still lying inside the doorway because Su Xue was not aware that he was there since he fell unconscious from the poison and the residual inner energy in his body from the fight.

Because he was in the dimension of his eyes, time passed like normal and every second that passed in the dimension of his eyes was equal to the time that passed in the real world.

Yet weirdly enough, his body did not die despite having no heartbeat or breath. Within his mind, the fragments of consciousness were floating around shattered with no correlation to each other.

Suddenly, a small bit of the power of his eyes contained within the black ball floated out and went into his head. It went directly into his shattered mind and did something weird. It did not repair his mind at all, but instead it surrounded the fragments of his mind and protected them.

As time passed, nothing happened, not even a single heartbeat, yet Su Tao did not die. That was because not only did a bit of the black power from the ball protect the fragments of his mind, it also spread out into his body and kept it not alive, but not dead either.

Then, slowly, those fragments started to move. They did not move to their original places, however. Instead, they recombined in a weird pattern that was not the original mind, but it was whole nonetheless. In the end, it would not likely make an impact on him down the line except his personality would be slightly different.

His eyes, which had shattered at this point, then also came back together under the influence of the weird black power. But they did not have their color anymore when they came together.

His eyes were now completely pitch black. They didn't have even the slightest bit of light in them, and they looked dead. But still he was in the half dead state.

He did not wake up, nor did his heart start beating. Instead, that weird black power seeped into every part of his body, changing it. His skin hardened, his bones strengthened, and his muscles grew.

But still, his body did not die. It continued to grow stronger and stronger, with it getting more alive by the moment. Suddenly, his mind was thrown out of the dimension of his eyes and back into his body in the real world as his heart beat once again.

At the same time, that weird black power seemed to turn into a weird blood like substance, which went into his body, and circulated a couple times before eventually congealing into a ball inside his heart. At the same time, it started to emit that same black blood which made up the black blood congealed ball in his heart.

Then, the marbles of his eyes' original power marbles separated and started to regain strength slowly. They were currently completely drained of power, but this was currently not why his eyes were black.

His eyes suddenly snapped open violently and he stood up. His wounds had not healed and they were bleeding, but they suddenly almost instantly scabbed up and stopped the bleeding.

At the same time, all the remaining inner energy from the fight was completely gone already as it had worn off, but there was still poison in his body.

He stood there with a blank stare and an expressionless face. His now pitch black eyes seemed to be focused yet unfocused, and they seemed both full of life and completely dead at the same time.

His thoughts were whole, however, as although his mind had shattered, it had been rebuilt by that weird black power and put back together wholly although it was different from before.

All the tattoos that were across his body previously were still there, but now they were completely black, just like his eyes.

He had on instinct stepped inside and shut the door when suddenly, Su Xue came out of her room. She had heard the door close and came out to see what had happened to Su Tao.

But the moment she did so, she felt something was different about him. She could not see his eyes, but she could see his tattoos, and she felt an extreme danger from him the likes of which she had never felt before.

Then, Su Tao looked at her. But weirdly enough she felt absolutely nothing from his gaze. Previously it was strong enough that even a normal person would almost be able to sense it, but now there was nothing.

It was a feeling she had never felt before, a feeling of complete emptiness. Never before had she felt such an emptiness in a gaze.

But the next moment she was scared out of her mind as Su Tao suddenly launched towards her faster than she could even react. His hand wrapped around her throat and she was slammed against the wall.

She didn't even have time to react before she was gasping for air. She didn't know what he was doing, but she desperately tried to break free of his grip. But no matter what she did, his arm barely budged, and even her inner energy did not do a lot since it was a speed type inner energy.

His eyes were locked onto hers, but they completely lacked any emotion at all. It seemed to just be completely blank, as if he did not know what he was doing.

"Wh... Why?" she managed to get out in a raspy stifled voice that was quieter than a mouse.

Yet he did not react at all. It seemed as if her plea had fallen on deaf ears. She could not even scream because of how tight he was holding her neck.

She was still thrashing about, trying to break free, but no matter what she did, she simply couldn't. She felt her consciousness started to fade as she choked.

But then, just when she was about to pass out, she suddenly felt him release his grip around her throat. She desperately gasped in mouthfuls of air and scrambled away from him in panic as she looked at him.

Her whole neck had a very clear hand print all the way around it that was quickly blackening into a deep purple bruise. There were tears streaming down her face and her eyes were slightly bloodshot. She had lost the ability to scream and she could barely even breathe due to her throat being crushed and swollen at this point.

He did this all within only a couple moments, and it seemed like he was not in control of his own body, as if it was acting without his consent. His eyes were completely vacant, and they contained no life whatsoever. It seemed he was a prisoner in his own mind.

Su Xue stared at him in fear as she continued to back away from him. Never before had she been so terrified for her life. She was still not capable of screaming and could do nothing but scramble to get away.

But he completely stopped. He didn't go back to choking her or even just moving at all. He simply stood there with a blank expression on his face and empty eyes.

It was a truly bizarre and terrifying series of events, and Su Xue simply could not make sense of it. She could see that Su Tao was mumbling something, and she tried to hear.

"The scales of light and dark, shattered. An endless abyss of broken mirrors." He spoke as he creepily turned his head towards Su Xue. He then started to move towards her, but his movements were erratic and random, with him looking like a hobbling broken robot.

She then turned to her side and went into the bathroom next to her and shut the door and locked it. She sat with her back to the door, bracing it. She had never been more scared than she was right now, and there were tears flowing down her face as she quietly sobbed in a wheezing manner.

Behind her she could hear Su Tao creeping over slowly. Then, right as he was directly on the other side of the door, he went completely silent. It was dead silent, with not a single noise even outside. The only sound that could be heard was Su Xue's light wheezing sobs.

Meanwhile within Su Tao's mind, he was trapped within a prison of infinite broken mirrors. He could not see or hear what was happening, and his body was running without his own control. In the prison was a small scale, and it was shattered. His mind had been taken to this prison the moment his consciousness left the dimension of his eyes.

The pieces of the small scale were floating all around him, and he was desperately trying to put them together. He tried all sorts of combinations, but no matter what he did, they did not fit together.

He had no clue what his body was doing, but he had a very bad feeling, and this was very much true as his body was currently trying to kill Su Xue.

For him, there was no noise whatsoever aside from one thing. There was the sound of a clock ticking. It was oddly slow, and it seemed to be just the slightest bit inconsistent. Each tock of the clock filled his mind, echoing for what seemed an eternity.

It was a maddening sound, and it seemed to be testing his patience as he tried to put the scale together.

No matter how he tried, however, the pieces would not go together, and soon, he had tried every combination with every piece in every possible way and nothing would work. He tried to think of and try other solutions, but nothing would work at all.

Meanwhile outside of his mind, his body was standing on the opposite side of the door as Su Xue. His blank and dead eyes were looking seemingly straight through the door at Su Xue as he moved slowly and silently.

He then grabbed the door handle and slowly rotated it, rattling it a little bit with erratic, odd, and unnatural movements. The door was locked, but he was forcefully rotating it, almost managing to break the handle.

Hearing this, Su Xue grabbed the handle and tried to stop him from turning it, but after his body had changed from the power of his eyes merging, he was much much stronger than her and she was not able to stop him from turning the handle.

She desperately clung to it, but she could not get a good grip due to a lack of oxygen in her body from her throat being swollen. Her whole body felt weak and she was barely staying awake. Her whole body was being pumped full of adrenaline and was working as fast as it could.

And yet the handle continued to turn, and it suddenly reached the limit of what it could turn with the lock turned. Su Xue was hoping that the lock would be able to keep him out, but her hopes were crushed when she heard the handle start to creak and screech as the metal started to bend.

Meanwhile Su Tao was still trying to figure out how to put together the scale within his mind.

The door handle then started to screech horribly as the metal bent unnaturally, followed by the sounds of the door starting to crack. Su Xue was desperately trying to stop the handle from turning, but nothing she did worked at all.

After a few moments, she gave up and she braced against the door with her whole body after making small holes in the ground with her inner energy as footholds to brace with. A moment later, the handle broke and it fell to the ground. The whole area around the handle was broken as well, and there were splinters everywhere.

Then, suddenly, Su Tao's body slammed into the door, and Su Xue, who had been bracing the door, was knocked back onto the floor. Her ankles had been awkwardly bent backwards from the pure force, and she was once again crawling backwards to get away from Su Tao.

Meanwhile in Su Tao's mind, he managed to figure out something that somewhat worked for assembling the scale. He then quickly tried to assemble it, and managed to do so, yet nothing happened. The pieces were assembled just floating in space in front of him since there was no gravity, and he could tell that they were properly assembled, but nothing happened.

He then started to look around for something else he might need to do, yet he could find nothing.

As Su Xue scooted back on the floor, her eyes once again met with Su Tao's empty eyes. She felt an immense horror the moment her eyes met his once again, and she tried to scream, but only a raspy low whimper came out.

Then, Su Tao once again hobbled towards her with erratic movements that did not look natural. She knew at this point that something was very wrong with him, but she had no clue what, and she was just trying to survive through it for now.

Suddenly, a small puddle appeared below Su Xue. She had peed from fear, and it left a long puddle behind her as she scooted back.

The reason she was barely able to fight back at all with her inner energy was because of its type. She had a speed type inner energy, which was perfect for the bow and assassination, but was not up to par when it came to damage and power.

As such, there was currently nothing that she could do to fight her way out of this situation against Su Tao who was much more experienced than her as well as stronger than her physically. It was in rare cases like these that rank was nearly irrelevant and it came down to pure skill and strength.

As such, all she could do was try to get away, but there was nowhere left to go. The bathroom had no windows and the walls were solid.

Within a few moments, she was backed up against the wall, while Su Tao was only a few feet in front of her and walking towards her in that same weird hobbling walk. And although it seemed that he was not capable of moving quickly, it was very clear that that was not the case based on the speed which he displayed a couple minutes ago.

A few seconds later, Su Tao finally reached Su Xue, who was against the wall in a corner with tears streaming down her face. Her throat was black and swollen, while her breathing was forced and ragged.

There was a small puddle below her developed from her peeing her pants, and there was blood from her nose bleeding. Her heart felt like it was going to pound out of her chest at any moment, and her whole body was coursing with adrenaline and shaking visibly.

At this moment, Su Tao was only a few inches from her face, as he had bent down to face her. His eyes were still completely dead and empty, and his gaze contained nothing at all. His black eyes looked directly into her own, and saw her fear.

Suddenly, she remembered one of the things that he said. 'The scales of light and dark, shattered. An endless abyss of broken mirrors.'

She had this thought as her mind was racing, and with such a lack of options, she grabbed her mirror which she used to apply beauty products from the side of the sink next to her, and punched it and broke it. She then put the mirror in front of her face and right in front of Su Tao's eyes.

As soon as she did, Su Tao suddenly backed up. His eyes looked lost and his body wobbled unstably. His eyes were locked onto the mirror, while his mind became chaotic.

Within his mind, Su Tao finally had the final piece of the puzzle. As soon as Su Xue showed him the broken mirror in real life, two final pieces appeared in the prison in his mind. One was a ball of bright wicked green lightning, while the other was a ball of calm and holy purple water.

Without hesitation, Su Tao put these two balls onto each end of the weird scale made of broken pieces, and he waited, but what happened next astonished him. Instead of being brought out of this prison of broken mirrors, the scale started to shift, slowly at first, but slowly speeding up into a violent shake.

The scale's movement became violent and erratic with flickering shapes and lights spreading from it of every color. The scale itself suddenly became rainbow colored and was constantly shifting color, never settling at all.

Instantly, he remembered the words of the book. "Balance the chaos. Settle the scales." And he instantly knew that he had to settle the scales.

At first, the words made no sense, but as soon as he saw the situation in which both were applied, the context revealed itself and allowed him to complete the test.

He started to grab both sides of the scales, trying to forcefully stabilize it, but it did not work. No matter how strong he was, the scales were still moving chaotically and randomly.

As such, he tried to once again distribute the power, but that did not work either as he did not have any more control over them unlike before which he could feel was because this dimension was cut off from his eyes even though their power was represented here.

He kept experimenting hoping that something would work, but nothing did. Until he had one idea. He realized something. One did not have to balance both sides of a scale to settle it. All they had to do was get control of one side, and the other side would move with it.

As such, he tried everything he possibly could to get control of the side with the purple ball of water. Instantly, it started to work more than before, but it was still not enough. He was not strong enough to physically stabilize it, and he did not have control over the powers contained within the two balls.

He racked through his mind to think of solutions, and he felt like it was on the tip of his tongue, like something he knew but couldn't figure out.

Then, he thought of it. Memories. They were the core of a person's soul, and they decided whether that person was good or evil. They decided a person's whole fate, their whole existence. Without memories, the body could not even move. Without memories, a person could not be wicked or holy.

He suddenly tried to recall every good moment that he had had in his life, and every good thing he had done. Thousands of memories flashed by in his mind and the scale started to dip. Memories of his sister, his mother, of the good times that they shared together. The good things that they had done for him before they died.

But even more than that was all the good things he had done in his life, the way they made him feel, and the effect that they had on those around him.

Suddenly, the scale started to tip. It tipped and weighed down on the side with the purple liquid ball. It completely outweighed the green ball of lightning, and it sank to the ground like a rock. The scale completely stopped moving, but it was not done yet.

Su Tao then felt like he had completed the test halfway, and he then realized what he had to do. With a thought, all the most horrid memories passed through his mind, ever single bad thing that had happened in this life to him, as well as every bad thing he had ever done.

From memories like his sister's death and his mother's brutal torture to him killing that man who was spying on Su Xue and him. His vicious murder of every person in every village he came across in the trial of his right eye.

Then, slowly, the side with the chaotic lightning ball became heavier and started to lift up the holy purple water ball. They were both pulling as hard as they possibly could, and they were both equally as strong, making them both cancel the other one out.

At this moment, the scale was being pulled from both sides so hard that even with the chaos from before, it could not overcome the balance that there now was between them. The scale had settled.

He had balanced the chaos and settled the scales.