Suffering was a constant. You could not escape it, this was what Dane had learned in his ten years of cultivation.

  He looked to his left and saw the numerous bodies sprawled out in a line.

  They had died.

  He had killed them.

  He hadn’t meant for that to happen. He hadn’t wanted it. It was just… a byproduct. An unfortunate result.

  His stomach pushed and hurled out its contents onto the floor. Dane collapsed, trying, begging his insides to stay together.

  He was strong in the small moments of war. He was able to kill, to cut, to raze his opponents low.

  It was always easier then, in those moments to cut down thinking flesh into unthinking things. It felt inevitable. It felt like a certainty. It was him or them. Death had come and it would not leave empty-handed, so Dane clenched his sword and offered up a sacrifice.

  He puked.

  His stomach was empty. He tried not to eat much before a fight, but this one had surprised him. They were assassins hired to specifically take him out.

  Their bodies were cut with precision and the blood spray hit the walls and the outer carpets of the room, but had stayed clear of Dane’s area. In a neat oval circle in the center of the room squatted Dane, holding his stomach and begging for reprieve. He could see the blood leaking closer from the corner of his eyes.

  The human body contains about one to two gallons of blood. There had been ten opponents. They had each been cut open and blood was running from their bodies like red from a broken wine sack.

  An oil of regret surrounded by a growing ocean of death.

  He stumbled around his pockets, searching for something. He tried to stay clean, making sure the still slimy spit from his mouth stayed off his clothes. A moment later, he found it.

  A ring.

  With slightly trembling fingers, he grabbed the metallic thing and put it on, and finally-

  Silence.

  Apathy consumed him. Desire fell into nothingness and the disgust he felt mere moments ago turned foreign.

  Killing had always sat wrong with him. He hated it. Even now, when he was devoid of feeling at this moment, it still felt like a waste. Seconds ago he had slaughtered and a few seconds after that he had hated it.

  Now, even with a treasured artifact made for a fifth-rank being, he still felt distaste. Dane told himself that it was mere disgust at the sight of wasted lives, but a part of him, the small, screaming, caring part of his soul cried out in sadness.

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  These were people, it would have said. They were alive and they cared and they thought, kill if you must but mourn their deaths.

  Dane frowned. This had always been an issue, something he could never overcome. In the moment of battle, it was easy, but inside, he was still a boy, a child. Every man he killed broke him a little, every mortal he saw in distress hurt him a little.

  One should care, it was human. One should love as well, but this? This bleeding heart of his would get him killed one day. That was a fact.

  Why should he cry for those who tried to kill him? Why should he suffer over others' misfortunes? Pain was a constant in this world, it had always been and would always be.

  For him to care so much, for him to feel, it didn’t make sense. It wasn’t practical.

  He felt different now. With the ring on, the feelings he had felt mere moments ago felt strange. The person he had been without the ring felt broken.

  How did he ever manage to take it off last time?

  Dane, the past Dane, that is, was a scholar. He was a man who sought knowledge on enchantments and array. He sought to understand the world and marvel at its beauty. He was young, only nineteen or so, and already at the third rank.

  That might have been common throughout the empire, but for a village orphan with no family or support, it was almost a miracle. Many wanted him in their sects and many had tried to kill him.

  Each time he evaded them, each time he fought them off.

  Dane looked towards the corpses. They had been cut with kindness. His past self had aimed for an immediate death, cutting at their most vital organs, causing as little pain as he could, and making sure not to damage their face for identification.

  They had family after all. They had people who cared for them back in their sects, and though he had to kill them he could at least spare their families the trauma of seeing their pierced through face.

  He had stabbed them through their hearts, organs, arteries, and any other thing that would do them in quickly. He was stronger than them, but not so much stronger that he could shatter their cultivation.

  They had overwhelmed him, attacked him from all angels and he could only wave his sword and cut them down.

  Dane scoffed.

  Unnecessary kindness. All of it. They were the enemy, why spare them? Why be kind?

  That was what the current Dane thought. That was what he saw when he stared at the nearly empty corpses near him.

  His hand moved and a gust of flames devoured the vomit in the middle of the room.

  He thought about burning the bodies and the building entirely, but he still felt some level of disgust at the unnecessary waste. He didn’t like killing, even if it was needed. And even if he burned the building down the sects that had sent those men would know who was responsible.

  There would be no confusion about their deaths.

  He took a step and he leaped through the window, then he took another and ran through the village in silence. He was a cold wind in the night, moving unnoticed.

  The ring felt like a stone on his finger, like a weight on his soul. It kept something at bay, something that had poisoned him and kept his mind polluted for far too long.

  He would not take it off take it off easily this time.

  Empathy, it had its place. It was natural, good even. But Dane was smart, if he cared for something, then he would do so with his whole being. If he had to be good, he would be so with his whole being.

  What use was a life lived in half deceits? What use was a heart that chose when it felt? If he wanted the world to be better, then he would have to make it so with all of his being. If he cared for one man he would care for all, that was the nature of Dane.

  This was an illness, a heart so big it would devour all the other organs and let itself die. Dane did not seek the burdens of the righteous path nor was he one of the demonic. He wanted to live tempering his knowledge and caring for his art.

  At least he wanted that now. Dao knew what would happen if Dane took off the ring. He might hate it, he might throw it away.

  Dane couldn’t allow that. He had to stop this mindset. He had to fix his soul.

  He looked and turned to the mountains in the distance.

  Soul arts, something of the demonic sects. He would find them and he would take their cold nature. Bit by bit, he would temper his heart.

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