Chapter 22:
A Thousand lifes relived
The wind howled through the void, whispering secrets from forgotten realms. Errin stood amidst the storm of memories, neither fighting them nor submitting to them.
He witnessed them.
A child running through golden fields, chasing the wind.
A scholar poring over ancient texts, searching for a truth he could never grasp.
A warrior on a battlefield, standing atop a mountain of corpses, wondering why he had fought in the first place.
A beggar at the gates of a city, looking up at the stars and finding comfort in their distance.
Each life had been real. Each life had been his.
Yet, when pieced together, did they amount to wisdom? Or were they merely scattered fragments of a dream?
Errin sighed.
"What am I supposed to do with all of this?"
For a moment, doubt crept in. Were these memories a gift or a burden? Was he truly forging his own path, or was he merely another wanderer, doomed to repeat the mistakes of his past selves?
Then, like a glimmer of light in the abyss, he recalled something simple.
A book in a sect library.
He had once spent years studying its words, convinced that within its pages lay the ultimate secret to ascension. He had followed its teachings, shaped his life around its principles.
Only later did he realize—he had misunderstood it entirely.
Yet that misinterpretation had still led him forward.
Had still given him purpose.
Had still shaped him.
The truth was this: meaning was not absolute. It was not handed down from the heavens, nor written in stone. It was something that became true the moment one chose to believe in it.
And that meant he was free.
Free to shape his destiny, free to make mistakes, free to chase meaning even if it changed with each step.
The weight of a thousand lives no longer burdened him.
It lifted him.
With newfound resolve, Errin turned away from the past and gazed toward the horizon.
The road ahead was unknown.
But he no longer feared it.
For he had finally understood—
It was not the answers that shaped him.
It was the journey itself.