Gleam - Chapter 124 (Patreon)

Bella stood at a beach. The warm sand shifted between her toes and the sun caressed her face, its orange-pink hue lighting the sky in brilliant sunset. The dirt and weariness from weeks of travel was gone, replaced only by comfort.

Gentle waves lapped against the shore before Bella before receding back into the sea, their white frothy caps mixing into the deep, seamless blue.

It was peaceful.

Bella felt at home, and that was rather odd. She’d never been to a beach before, and she only knew what one looked like from descriptions in books and from what others had told her.

Another wave lapped against the sand, this one pushing far enough to nip at her feet. She hopped back at the slight chill of the water. A soft laugh echoed out from behind Bella and she turned, raising her hands defensively.

Standing before her was a tall woman, her hands braced against the hilt of a massive, crystal sword. Glistening blue and green armor made of jagged gemstone covered her body, segmented at the joints to allow for movement while not leaving a single opening.

Her face was covered by a slanted visor that only revealed only her lips. Her hair hung damp over her shoulders like a mat of seaweed, and she smelled faintly of salt and fruit.

“Who are you? Where am I?” Bella asked.

“I trust you would be displeased if I said that you were at the beach?”

Bella sent the woman a flat stare. “Yes. I would. I already gathered that much. But I don’t think I’m actually at a beach.”

“Then where do you think you are?” The woman tilted her head to the side, and one corner of her lips quirked up in an amused grin.

“My mind, maybe? Rilu did something to me. I assume that I’m somehow looking into my own mind… or something like that?”

“Very astute! That was actually quite fast.”

“So I am?”

“Oh, no. You’re completely wrong. But you came to a conclusion quickly. That’s good. Confidence will take you a great distance, and you can bluff your way through many things.”

Bella scrunched her nose. A wave caught the back of her heels and she yelped, jumping into the air before she realized what it had been. The woman laughed again.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Bella asked, edging away from the water to avoid getting surprised again.

“You should learn to enjoy the moment more,” the woman suggested. “Take some advice from Chance. Your mind dwells only on the future, and it stops you from enjoying what already is. Don’t you realize that, if you only look to tomorrow, then you will forget to see today?”

Bella rubbed her brow and let out a sigh. “I understand you’re trying to be deep and philosophical because you’re… I don’t know, but probably someone important. I’m really not in the mood for it, though. I’m trying to fix my Essence, and I don’t know if I’m on a time limit.”

“Impatient. Can’t say I blame you, though. Your instincts are correct. In that case, we can speak more plainly.” The woman’s sword sank into the ground and the sand closed in over it. She raised her hands in greeting, inclining her head. “Greetings, Bella. You may call me Merim.”

“I take it that you’re who Rilu sent me to see, then?”

Merim nodded. “I am the one you came to see, yes. You seek to fix your Path.”

“I do. It’s damaged, and I’ve done my best to repair it before, but I think Rilu is right. I’ve swapped and modified things too many times, and Vex’s influence hasn’t helped at all. If I don’t repair things now, then I might never get another chance.”

Merim walked past Bella and stepped into the sea. The waves passed around her, frothing as they swirled around her armor. “You are not incorrect. Your Path is gravely damaged.”

“So then you understand–”

“However,” Merim raised a finger, cutting Bella off. “The reason your Path is damaged is none of the ones that you have stated.”

“What?”

“The only one in control of your Path is you, Bella. You asked me to speak plainly, so I will. Vex did horrible things to you, but he did not choose your Path for you. You chose your Path. Perhaps that was the right decision, perhaps it was not. But you chose it. Then, when you decided to change the direction in which you went, it was not Vex’s influence that weakened your Path.”

Bella’s brow creased in confusion. “I don’t understand. You’re telling me the reason my Path is completely screwed up is because… what, I’m just terrible at cultivating?”

“It is not your skill with cultivation that is causing your difficulty. It is you.”

“Wow,” Bella said dryly. “That was really kind of you. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Merim replied, not a single trace of sarcasm in her voice. “You did come here for help, yes?”

“I – well, yeah. I did. How’s this meant to help, though?”

“Understanding is the key to all things. If you understood your Path perfectly, then you would already be a god.”

“Well, there’s an exaggeration if I ever heard one.”

Merim turned back to look at Bella. “Am I wrong?”

“I guess not, but you can’t just completely comprehend a Path out of nowhere. Even if someone showed up and told you every single bit of it, you wouldn’t truly understand. All that information would probably just make things harder, actually.”

“Precisely. Your Path is yours. Others may walk a similar one, but it is not the same. And, if you attempt to follow the Path of another, you will invariably run into the same eventual end. Failure.”

“What about what Vex forced me to do? My Path wasn’t what he made it. That wasn’t me.”

Merim was silent for several seconds. Then she turned back to the sea. “When you look at the ocean, what do you see?”

“Water.”

“A very superficial answer, lacking in depth or thought. You seem to think that I am asking these questions of you pointlessly, Bella. There is a reason, just as there is in all things. You must learn to value the journey equally to the end.”

“What point is there of a journey if there’s no end in sight?” Bella demanded. “I know I’m supposed to say something like, ‘oh, the water represents life and potential because it’s full of living creatures’ or some crap like that, but I really don’t care. I just want to unscrew my life and live the way I want to.”

To Bella’s surprise, that made Merim start to laugh again. Faint flickers of light danced within the woman’s armor, bouncing around it like a kaleidoscope.

“Well said. This is your Path. If you do not wish to be philosophical, then why should you be? What is the sea to you, Bella? Don’t give me the answer you think I want to hear, and don’t give me the one that you put no thought into. Give me the truth.”

Bella’s eyes lifted, passing over the shimmering waves and into the beautiful sky beyond it. A crisp breeze rolled by, rustling her hair and sending a faint shiver down her spine. Merim’s voice held no more room for casual conversation.

“Something I want to share,” Bella said softly. “I don’t want to be alone here. I want to share it with my friends. But, with how weak we are right now, I can’t. There’s no way we can sit down and relax like this. That’s why I need to fix my Path and start getting stronger again.”

Merim smiled. “You’ve changed your Path multiple times already. Why not just do it again?”

“Because I can’t just keep changing it like that. If it was that easy, Rilu would have helped me do it already. He’s a powerful Karma cultivator. Just the fact that I’m here instead of sitting around with him means that this isn’t something so simple.”

“People have such a way of complicating things,” Merim said with an amused sigh. “It is your Path, Bella. Not Rilu’s. Karma is powerful, but it is just another form of Essence. He is only the one that sent you here, not the one that will make decisions.”

“Rilu also said I’d meet my True Soul or something, but you claim that you aren’t that. He also said that I’d have a limited amount of time. It seems like he might have been wrong about a lot of things – or you’re lying.”

“He was not wrong. He simply did not expect any interference,” Merim said. She paused for a moment, then grinned. “Or perhaps he did, and simply chose not to mention it. It doesn’t matter. Forget what he told you, Bella. You’ve already rushed through fixing your Path before. How much good has that done you?”

Bella pressed her lips together. She wasn’t sure why, but everything about the beach made her want to slow down and relax, just like Merim was asking her to do. Rilu’s order to move quickly was fighting a losing battle.

“Not much,” Bella admitted. “What am I to do, then? Are you going to tell me, or are you just going to keep asking me leading questions?”

“You are to decide,” Merim said simply. “As I said, it was never external forces that caused your Path to falter. It was you. You stand on a precipice and teeter back and forth, refusing to take the plunge but also not stepping back onto solid land. This is why your Path eludes you. You do not trust yourself.”

“That’s it? I just don’t understand how I feel?”

“Well, there’s an exaggeration if I ever heard one.”

Bella glared at Merim, who just grinned in response.

“How do I figure it out, then?” Bella asked.

“By making a decision,” Merim replied with a shrug. “There is no wrong decision other than to not make a decision at all.”

“I don’t even know what damn decision I’m making,” Bella snapped. “I just want to be with the people I care about and not have to deal with a bunch of assholes trying to kill us constantly. Is that too much to ask?”

Bella couldn’t see Merim’s face, but she would have bet everything she owned that Merim was cocking an eyebrow in her direction.

“Yes,” Merim said.

“I figured,” Bella grumbled. “Can you tell me what the thing I need to make a decision about is, at least?”

“No. Part of the decision is figuring out what it is that you lack.”

“That’s a stupid rule.”

Merim shrugged. “It is not a rule, but it is the truth. There is little I can do to help you beyond provide a companion with which to speak. My only suggestion is to think deeply and reach within yourself. Once you know your true feelings, then the rest will fall into place.”

Bella didn’t respond. The world felt hazy around her. A strange heaviness started to set into her limbs, pulling Bella toward the sand. Rilu’s warning still rung in her head. There was only a limited amount of time that she could be – well, wherever she was.

What in the world is the question, though? It’s got to be something to do with my Path, right?

Bella dug furiously through her mind in search of whatever it was she was meant to figure out. Her body continued to grow heavier, and the warm sand quickly lost its comfort as it dug into her knees painfully.

Seconds ticked by. Time felt like it had slowed to a crawl. Dozens of thoughts flashed through Bella’s mind, each one vanishing as soon as it appeared. The haze crept further and further, encroaching into her thoughts and pulling them into the blur.

Something tells me that I’m dead for good if I let this get much worse.

Perhaps it was the thick haze, or maybe it was just desperation. Something sparked in Bella’s mind, and that tiny flash of inspiration in the thick fog delivered with it the question – which was so obvious that it actually managed to annoy Bella even further. Merim had already told her what it was, even though she claimed that she hadn’t.

I need to decide what the ocean means to me. That stupid ass philosophical question is meant to represent cultivation. The ocean is my Path – the one that Vex has screwed with. The one that I’ve desperately tried to change.

The proper answer was completely obvious. Accepting the ocean as it was and running into it, embracing her Essence properly would solve everything. And yet…

Bella’s lips pressed together so tightly that they turned white. She pushed herself upright, and the weight pressing down on her relented, almost as if it sensed that she had come to a conclusion.

“I have the answer to your question,” Bella ground out.

Merim smiled. “What is it?”

“You asked what the ocean was.”

“And?”

“It’s fucking water,” Bella said. “I don’t give a shit about any of this garbage. You know what I care about? Protecting my friends. I’m not the monster that Vex wanted me to be, even if that’s my true Path or whatever. I’ll be what I want to be.”

The weight enveloping Bella vanished. At the same time, a loud crack split the beach. Merim’s armor shattered, falling away from her body and into the sea to reveal the tanned skin beneath it. Her helmet split down the center and the weeds enveloping her hair slithered away, revealing soft, golden locks.

Bella stared into a perfect reflection of herself.

“That,” Merim said, her smile growing wider. “Is a real decision.”

The sand parted before Bella, and the crystal sword that Merim had been leaning on rose up from within it, grinding to a halt just before Bella’s chest. Merim nodded to the blade.

“Take it.”

“I… I’m not sure I understand what’s going on,” Bella said. “You’re me?”

“No. I’m your Essence,” Merim said, letting out a pealing laugh. “And you said it yourself. It’s crazy to expect to understand everything this early on. You aren’t a god yet. Just remember what your Path is. It’s not just protecting others. It’s not just being a deadly warrior. It’s being what you want to be. You don’t have to compromise your desires.”

Bella looked down at the sword. Then a smile passed over her own features.

She reached out and wrapped her hand around the hilt of the blade.

The world shattered in a roar of Essence.