Chapter 241: Questioning The Heavens Fighting soul debts required immense willpower. You had to acknowledge the darkness without becoming it. Accept the impulses of a chaotic soul mass while refusing to be defined by them, maintaining your own sanity. This trial was the same. The same principle, but magnified to an extreme degree. The pressure wasn’t just testing physical endurance. It was testing whether they could face their own darkness, the beast within every human, and still choose to stand upright. Finn forced his head up, looking at the descending pillar. His neck screamed in protest against the crushing weight. His vision swam. Every muscle in his body burned with the effort. But he looked up. At the pillar that was the representation of the heavens. At the force trying to push him down. Trying to tell him to know his place. To remain on his knees. To give in to base instinct and darkness. "Fuck. That." He snarled through clenched teeth. Finn planted one foot on the ground, his leg shaking violently from the strain. The pressure fought every centimeter of him, trying to force him back down. His base desires screamed at him to stop struggling, to just give in and join the sailors in their mindless indulgence. He ignored it all and pushed. His leg straightened. He was kneeling now instead of on all fours. Beside him, Althea made a similar attempt. She let go of his shirt and planted her own foot, her teeth bared in a grimace of absolute determination. Blood dripped from where she’d bitten through her own lip in the effort to maintain control. The pillar descended further. Maybe five meters above them now. The pressure became truly unbearable. Finn felt something in his chest crack, a rib, maybe, from the sheer compression. His lungs struggled to expand against the weight. His heart labored to pump blood through vessels being crushed. And the darkness in his mind reached a crescendo. Every vile urge, every suppressed desire, every dark impulse he’d ever had exploded to the surface simultaneously. It was overwhelming. Drowning. All-consuming. For a moment, Finn lost himself completely in it. Lost track of who he was beneath the crushing weight and erupting darkness. Lost any sense of purpose or reason or control. Then, through the chaos, a memory surfaced. The Crimson Fist Baboon. The way it felt when he’d embodied it in the first trial. The absolute refusal to accept limitations. The defiant roar against the universe itself. The Baboon hadn’t raged against its physical form because it was weak. It had raged because it knew it was more than that form. It possessed a soul that transcended the limitations of flesh and instinct. It was trapped in a body that the world deemed "lesser," but its soul refused to accept that definition. This trial wasn’t about denying the beast within. It wasn’t about pretending the darkness didn’t exist. It was about acknowledging all of it, the base desires, the animal instincts, the physical limitations, and choosing to stand upright anyway. Accepting what you are while refusing to be defined by it. Finn planted his other foot and pushed with everything he had. His body screamed in protest. His bones felt like they would shatter. The pressure was trying to crush him flat against the stone, to reduce him to nothing. But he pushed anyway. Centimeter by agonizing centimeter, he rose. The darkness in his mind raged, trying to pull him back down, but he acknowledged it without surrendering to it. Yes, those impulses existed. Yes, he was capable of terrible things. Yes, he was mortal and limited and flawed. And he was standing anyway. His legs straightened. His spine uncompressed. His head lifted. He stood upright, looking directly at the pillar descending above him. The pressure intensified even further, trying to force him back down. His body was at its absolute limit. Blood ran from his nose and ears from the strain. His vision had narrowed to a tunnel. But he remained standing. Beside him, Althea had also managed to stand, though barely. She swayed like she might collapse at any moment, her face a mask of agony and determination. But she was upright. Refusing to submit. The pillar was perhaps three meters above them now, still descending. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢 Finn knew instinctively that standing wasn’t enough. The first trial had required action — running across the bridge with absolute conviction. This trial required something similar. Not just passive resistance but active defiance. The Crimson Fist. He couldn’t throw a physical punch. His body was too damaged and too compressed under the impossible weight to throw an actual strike. But the principle remained the same. He needed to make a declaration. A refusal. A psychic strike against the very concept of being "put in your place." Finn raised his right arm. The motion was agonizingly slow, like moving through thick sludge. The pressure fought him every millimeter. His shoulder joint felt like it would dislocate from the strain. But he raised it anyway. Raised it until his fist was level with his chest, pointed at the descending pillar. Then he channeled everything into it. All his defiance. All his refusal to submit. All his rage against limitations and expectations and the universe itself for daring to tell him what he could or couldn’t be. He channeled the Crimson Fist Tyrant’s fury at being born in a form deemed lesser. Its absolute conviction that it was more than what others defined it as. Its soul’s rebellion against the shell it was born into. Finn channeled his own rage too. At being transmigrated without consent. At being made a pawn in games played by beings beyond his comprehension. At every force that had tried to control or define or limit him since he’d arrived in this world. All of it went into his raised fist. A manifestation of pure will. Of his soul asserting itself against every constraint placed upon it. His fist trembled. Blood vessels burst in his arm, painting it red. The bones creaked under the pressure. Then suddenly there was a feedback. The pressure lessened to merely unbearable instead of completely impossible. The pillar stopped descending. For a long moment, nothing happened. Finn stood there with his fist raised, barely conscious, his body beyond its limits, held upright by will alone. Then the voice returned. [Congratulations. You have passed the second phase of the Crimson Fist Tyrant’s trial] The pressure vanished instantly, and Finn collapsed. His legs gave out completely, his body unable to support itself without the adrenaline and absolute determination that had kept him standing. He hit the ground hard but barely felt it through the exhaustion and pain. Beside him, Althea had also collapsed, breathing in ragged gasps, her entire body trembling from the effort she’d expended. Behind them, the three sailors lay in a heap. They’d stopped their horrific display, unconscious now, their bodies and minds broken by the trial they’d failed. Whether they were alive or dead, Finn couldn’t tell and was too exhausted to check. The Blessed stood exactly where she’d been the entire time, untouched and unaffected, looking down at Finn in what was this time, clearly approval and even satisfaction. "The Tyrant recognized your soul," the Blessed said quietly, her voice still reaching Finn clearly despite his damaged hearing. "You acknowledged the beast while refusing to become it. You stood upright when the heavens themselves pressed down. You struck back with will alone." She paused, tilting her head slightly. "Few have done what you just did, Errant. Very few." Finn tried to respond but found he couldn’t form words. His body was shutting down, overwhelmed by the damage and exhaustion. His vision darkened at the edges, consciousness slipping away. The last thing he heard before passing out completely was the voice again. [Preparing the third phase of the...] Then darkness claimed him entirely.