I held onto my mind with hands made from iron; none of that was real. This was just my fears expressing themselves, and if I allowed this thought to infect my mind, then with my enhanced soul, it would drive me mad because I would not be able to tell real from fake anymore.
It was as if I had held onto a bolt of lightning, and it was dragging me through the sky. If I let go, then I would fall safely to earth, the memories would stop, and my fear and trauma would no longer have teeth, but that would mean that I would not be able to claim this soul as my own, and my ascension to the rank of Adept would be stalled forever.
If this were the Elric of the past, then he would not have hesitated to let go. The power that I had now was what the past me had imagined he would gain after a century of life, and there was no way to reach for more, but I knew that if I let go, all of this nightmare would become real.
I did not go through all of this hell to allow myself to fall at this moment.
