Jake couldn't take the pain anymore. It was too much—far beyond what any mind could endure. His consciousness quivered, stretched thin, and then—snapped.
Everything went black.
The agony vanished.
Silence swallowed him whole.
When he opened his eyes—if he still had any—he found himself adrift in a place that was neither life nor death.
It was cold. Endless. Empty.
Darkness surrounded him like an ocean made of ink. There was no sound, no air, no sense of body—only the faint echo of his fading thoughts.
Am I… dead?
The words formed weakly in his mind as he sank deeper, slower, endlessly downward—like a soul falling into the depths of a bottomless sea.
His thoughts grew sluggish, heavy.
I lost, he realized dimly. If only… if only I had mastered all three phases. Maybe then I could've resisted longer.
A faint tremor of regret flickered through him. If I had stopped at the Second Phase… maybe there was still time. But now…
He exhaled mentally, his fading awareness whispering one last surrender.
The predator got me. This is it. I'm going to disappear forever.
His emotions dulled. The fear, the pain, the struggle—everything drained away.
He gave up. Completely.
He stopped fighting.
He let the darkness take him.
And in that exact moment—
—the falling stopped.
A small light flickered deep inside his core, faint and silver like moonlight reflected on still water.
It wasn't hot, it wasn't fierce—it was calm.
Peaceful.
The light grew, spreading through him like ripples across a quiet lake. The darkness around him began to retreat, unable to cling to that gentle radiance.
Then he saw it—a mirror.
It wasn't made of glass or metal, but of pure tranquility. It floated within him, perfectly still, perfectly silent, reflecting not the world—but himself.
Jake didn't understand it. He couldn't name what was happening… but his soul knew.
This was the awakening of the Third Phase of the Ethereal Mind Scripture—
The Mirror of Tranquility.
The cold vanished.
The fear dissolved.
Every emotion, every thought that once clawed at him simply slid away, erased by the mirror's serene glow.
It wasn't pulling him upward—but it was pulling him together.
His fragmented mind began to reassemble, the chaos of pain smoothing into clarity. The mirror's light wrapped around his soul, soothing it like a divine hand restoring something precious that had been broken.
And then—
FLASH.
The darkness shattered.
Jake's eyes snapped open. His soul pulsed with renewed energy, radiant and complete. The death that had swallowed him moments ago was gone, replaced by a blinding sea of light.
He was awake.
When Jake's awareness fully returned, the brilliance around him slowly dimmed—settling into that familiar, endless white ocean.
It was the same scene he had witnessed long ago, back when he had first awakened as nothing more than a fragmented soul—adrift, fragile, and broken.
The vast expanse of shimmering white energy stretched infinitely in every direction, flowing and folding like waves of living light.
This time, though, it felt different.
The emptiness didn't terrify him. The whiteness didn't blind him. Instead, it felt… warm.
The soft currents of ethereal energy brushed against his form like the whisper of wind over still water.
Jake blinked—or whatever the soul-equivalent of blinking was—and then, for the first time in what felt like eternity, he smiled.
"Yes… I did it," he breathed, his voice trembling with relief and wonder.
"I was able to wake up early… that white energy couldn't consume me this time."
His laughter echoed faintly through the vast void, a sound pure and free. It wasn't loud, but it carried the joy of someone who had walked through death's shadow and returned alive.
His entire being glowed with a soft silver hue, the afterglow of the Mirror of Tranquility still lingering around his soul.
The waves of white energy around him no longer clashed violently—they flowed in harmony with his presence, bending and softening as if acknowledging his survival.
For a long while, Jake simply floated there, letting the silence wrap around him.
He didn't check his condition, didn't analyze his state, didn't think about what came next.
He just existed.
Because this moment—this breath between death and life—was precious beyond measure.
He knew what it meant to lose everything, to feel himself fading into nothingness. And now, standing again at the edge of consciousness, he understood the value of even a single heartbeat of awareness.
"This…" he whispered, closing his eyes, "this is what it means to live again."
The white ocean shimmered softly in response, as if smiling back at him.
As Jake's joy slowly settled into calm, a quiet stillness returned to the white ocean around him. The waves of energy shimmered gently, reflecting his silver glow.
He took a deep breath—or whatever counted as breathing for a soul—and finally decided to check himself.
And the moment he looked inward… his entire being froze.
His eyes widened. His thoughts stopped.
For a long, trembling moment, he couldn't even speak.
What he saw was beyond belief.
His soul—once cracked, dim, and incomplete—was now whole.
The fissures that had once split his essence were gone. The dull glow that had flickered uncertainly before now radiated with steady, vibrant light.
It wasn't just healed—it was transformed.
The gentle silver aura around him pulsed with life, blending perfectly with the surrounding white energy.
He could feel every strand of his soul weaving together seamlessly, no longer fragmented or drifting apart.
It was as if every lost piece of him—every memory, every ounce of strength, every pain—had come home at last.
Jake's lips curved into a trembling smile.
"This… this is me," he whispered, voice breaking with emotion. "Whole again… after everything."
He lifted his hands, staring at their transparent glow. They no longer trembled, no longer bled light from invisible wounds.
He clenched them into fists, feeling the power hum through him.
Jake blinked twice, rubbed his glowing, transparent hands over his equally glowing face, and muttered in disbelief—
"Wait… wait, hold on. I'm… shiny?!"
He twisted left, then right, trying to catch his reflection in the endless white void. "Oh-ho-ho, look at that glow! I look like a limited-edition spirit now!"
He poked his own chest and grinned. "No cracks, no leaks, no flickering—ha! Guess I'm finally running on a full battery again!"
Then, with a shaky laugh, he said softly,
"I'm finally… complete. Hah… no, not just complete—I'm alive again!"
The laughter that followed was pure, unrestrained, and overflowing with relief.
It echoed through the void, merging with the white waves that rippled in resonance—as if the entire ocean celebrated with him.
Jake's happiness had no measure.
It was the kind of joy that words couldn't capture—the joy of someone who had touched death and returned, not as what he was, but as something greater.
He closed his eyes, feeling the calm light around him.
After all this time, the fractured soul named Jake had finally become whole again.