My vision was black, but my awareness never left me. I knew for a fact I died; I made no attempt to avoid my impending doom and felt my life dwindle to darkness the moment I was stabbed.

It was the finest moment in my history of depravity.

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Using my own life to close the curtain on my best friend's mental stability. Could I still call him my best friend?

…probably not. I didn't deserve that t.i.tle after what I'd done.

[Welcome {Soul} Julius R. Krishna; 3,475,604th soul of year XX20, {Star System} Milky Way, {Domain} Earth.]

An echo, reminiscent of an aged old man, boomed in my surroundings. The voice held no emotion in the words, almost mechanical in nature. Every word sent a ripple in s.p.a.ce, pulsing with powerful vibrations I felt down to my core.

It wasn't long, before an orb of pale purple light appeared before me. It was small, no larger than a globe, but radiated…something. I couldn't understand what it was exactly, but it felt like an invisible force weighing on my very existence.

I tried to reach out; to make contact with it, but I couldn't move any limbs. I checked to see what was wrong, and realized I also was nothing more than an orb of light; a pale white and very dim in comparison to the one before me.

Many thoughts swam through my mind at that moment, but my curiosity outweighed them all.

"What are you?" I asked.

My voice seemed to vibrate from my luminescent body.

There was a pause before the orb answered.

[We are

ORDER

]

Its ethereal glow would flicker in sync with every word it spoke.

The answer didn't do much to sate my curiosity, so I tried to be more specific.

"What is your purpose, and why are you here? Where am I?"

It paused again.

It appeared that would be a common theme for this ent.i.ty. It felt like it was processing my words, akin to a computer, before calculating a response I could understand.

[The purpose of

ORDER

is to a.n.a.lyze the karma of souls that pa.s.s and determine their fate.]

[Your life has pa.s.sed, so we are here. "Here" is Limbo; the s.p.a.ce where souls await judgement.]

The logic was familiar, considering earth had many books detailing things like karma, limbo, souls, etc. My curiosity was piqued: How could humanity know what the afterlife was like without ever having died?

Well, it seemed the answer found its way to my doorstep at that moment.

I clearly died, and this was some form of afterlife called "Limbo."

Karma was a familiar term in Buddhist practices; essentially meaning your future existence is decided based on the actions of your previous life/lives.

Following the understanding that this "Limbo" followed principles similar to Buddhism, I a.s.sumed that reincarnation was a thing. That would explain a lot, actually; about how humans somehow knew so much about what comes after death.

Did they possess residual memories? Were they previous reincarnates?

Why were there so many different takes on the afterlife?

Well, it was all irrelevant by this point.

Piecing this together, I nodded.

"If that is the case, how do you 'a.n.a.lyze' karma?"

[There is no numerical value for the quant.i.ty of karma; only {Tiers}.]

"Tiers..." I parroted, to better understand what it meant.

[Yes. Your {Tier} will rank 1-9 based on the quality of positive karma in your most recent life.]

"I see…What if I received negative karma?"

[Your soul will be cleansed and enter the cycle of reincarnation with no merit.]

Now that caught my attention.

"Merit?"

[Depending on the {Tier} of your positive karma, you may reincarnate with added benefits.]

That was definitely interesting. I wondered what kind of benefits you could gain from doing "good" in a past life. This thought, however, didn't last any longer than a few seconds.

I understood exactly what kind of person I was. A man who enjoyed the mental and physical destruction of people. I knew I wouldn't be very high tiered, all things considered.

Thinking this, I came to terms with my fate.

"So, how painful is it? The cleansing I mean; will it last very long?"

I wasn't exactly happy that I would be the one to suffer this time around, but I deserved it. I just hoped it wasn't something like eternal d.a.m.nation or a punishment of suffering for X amount of years.

I waited for an answer, but the…G.o.d? Orb? Whatever this ent.i.ty was, still hadn't responded to me.

It made me a bit nervous. I must've been a pretty evil person in the eyes of their system.

[…]

The silence dragged on for a while as I waited patiently.

It wasn't like there was anything else I could've done.

[{Soul} Julius, you seem to misunderstand. You do not have negative karma.]

"…huh?"

My mind was blank. Confusion took precedence over any other emotion I felt, something the orb seemed to understand as it continued to explain.

[{Soul} Julius, think of karma in terms of addition and subtraction. If positive karma outweighs the negative, it will still be positive; just not nearly as much.]

I shook my…well, I would've shook my head if I had a body.

"I understand how math works. What I don't understand is how my positive outweighs the negative? I'm sure you noticed, but I'm not exactly a kind soul."

That was the understatement of the century.

[Emotions and intent play no role in the calculations of your deeds. Karma is the measure of your actions, not the reason why you did them. It a.n.a.lyzes the relations.h.i.+p of your conduct with the principle of "cause and effect" to your system.]

I sent it the best deadpan stare an expressionless, inanimate sphere could possibly have.

"Before coming here, I completely broke down the character of my best friend. Is that not enough to send me into oblivion?"

[No, your actions only affected 37 individuals.]

"37?"

That caught me off guard.

[{Soul} Richard Harrison proceeded to rampage in {Soul} Katherine Puening's home district, taking 37 lives including his own in the process.]

"I had a feeling that would be the case. Did they pa.s.s through here already?"

[Their lives were extinguished following after you, but have already finished their calculations as {Tier: 1} with another

ORDER

]

So there was more of these things, I gathered. Interesting to know, but I didn't really care.

"Tier 1, huh? In that case, what tier am I? He wasn't the only one I harmed, after all."

[Calculating your actions, we have judged your soul: {Tier: 5}]

…

"…Huh?"