Chapter 176 Volume IV - Chapter 21: The End of a Hidden Family
I heard a voice, a loud voice, directed straight at us, not caring about anything in its path.
"Sophia! Adrian! Watc-"
My father's worried voice echoed in my ears. Then an intense light followed the sound and covered everything. My mother crouched over me, protecting my tiny body, while a shockwave spread around.
I felt nothing except a slight warmth and the floor rattling. My mother's body was on top of me, protecting me.
After a short while, the light slowly receded and my vision returned.
"M- Mom?"
When I saw that my mother was still breathing above me, a wave of joy rose inside me.
"Mom!"
"Ad... -rian..."
Although I was worried when I heard my mother's weak voice, I was convinced that she was all right. I quickly tried to get to grips with it, and I did. However, what I expected to happen next... did not happen.
Mum collapsed to the floor, exposing her back. Her completely burnt clothes revealed her back, which was also completely burnt and deformed. If it had been worn a little more, perhaps her bones would have been visible.
The sight made my blood run cold.
No words came out of my mouth. I just stared at my mother's deformed back, at her face, which was obviously in incredible pain.
Something moved inside me, something I had never even realized existed before. Emotions, different emotions that I had never felt before.
Meanwhile, other explosions and the sounds of the ongoing conflict continued to echo. My father continued to fight the man who had come to our house. Trees were falling, and the charred remains of our house were slowly disappearing around us.
My memories, my past was slowly being erased from the face of the earth.
And yet... I didn't care.
"Mom?"
I just looked at my mother, completely frozen.
"Mom..."
I took a small step, approached her, and bent down.
"Mom!"
I shook her weak body, waiting for her to respond... but apart from her irregular breathing, I got no answer. In response to my desperate cries, my mother finally turned her head slightly to look at me.
She smiled, and even though her eyes were black and blue underneath and she looked like she was already dead from pallor, she did not shed a single tear.
She opened her mouth and mumbled something, but I couldn't hear her. The noise of the battle, my own desperation, and my tearful voice made it impossible for me to hear my mother, who was already unable to speak properly.
Still, I could make out a single word in between.
After my mother's effort to speak, a single word rang in my ears.
"... run."
Then another smile... and another word, or rather three words, that I managed to understand.
"... I love you."
Just five minutes ago... Everything was as it always was just five minutes ago.
Another explosion echoed and light spread everywhere.
Why? Why did this happen?
With my child's mind, tears slowly welled up in my eyes.
I started to cry even more. I was beginning to think that this was a nightmare, that my usual happy life couldn't end like this. Something so absurd could not be real.
Then a purple light covered the whole area. Flames of the same color suddenly rose upward and literally roared majestically. My eyes shifted to the point where the flames were rising. I saw two people there.
One of them was standing, and he was also the source of the purple flames. He had a soulless, emotionless look.
Purple eyes that resembled emptiness and smoke-colored, shoulder-length messy hair. The more I looked at him, the more I felt like I was looking into the void, like he was someone who shouldn't be in this world.
The other person was leaning against a tree. His emerald-like green eyes were focused on the sky, which had begun to lose focus with the red liquid oozing from between his lips. He looked lonely, but also regretful. There was a red stain on the abdomen of his clothes, growing bigger by the second.
And that person... was my father.
I cried even more. I kept thinking that this was a nightmare and adrenaline ran through my body. I stood up and ran over to him so that our eyes met. Unlike all those moments when I had seen him, when he was resisting despite the 'emptiness' in his expression, at this particular moment I really felt myself looking into that emptiness.
As if all my senses had suddenly disappeared, as if the connection between my body and my soul had been lost and both had fallen to the bottom of a deep well.
It didn't last long, though.
"Oh... Are you nine?"
The darkness dissipated in an instant. I found myself kneeling in front of him, clenching my teeth, trying to lunge at him, but my body wouldn't let me.
The best way to wake up from a nightmare was always to jump off a cliff, to die.
I couldn't do that by running away.
I had to wake up, no matter what. After all, this was just a nightmare, a bad one at that.
"Do you want revenge?"
No... I was doing nothing but trying to die to wake up from my nightmare.
"I did what I was told, nothing was said about you... What should I do?"
The man put his hand on his chin and began to think. Meanwhile, I was trying to move in a fit of anger, but my body was failing me again.
"Then let's play a game between us."
Without changing his expression in the slightest, the man bent down next to my father and then pulled something from his neck. I heard a very low, metallic sound, but I couldn't think too much about it, because it was remarkable how my father's body changed after this procedure, especially the fact that he became even more handsome than before. He looked slender and his ears became pointed.
I already knew, after all, I had pointed ears too, but it was almost the first time I had seen him like this.
"Take this."
The man threw the necklace in front of me and my vision shifted to it. I remembered again what had happened, a wave of great anger swept through my body again, but this man didn't care in the slightest.
"Get stronger and then find me, maybe then you can give my life some meaning. Sure, it might be a bit of fun."
A very small smile appeared on the man's face. It was really momentary, it was surprising that I even noticed it, but behind that soulless, emotionless expression I saw a glimpse of anticipation, of excitement. It was like a smile that was contrary to the man's existence, like something that shouldn't be there.
"Whatever."
The man sighed deeply and closed his eyes as if nothing had happened.
When he opened his eyes again, his eye color was no longer purple. They were dark brown and, frankly, he looked a little ordinary. Yet he retained the same emotionlessness, that emptiness that felt counter to being.
"I'll be waiting for you, so don't disappoint me."
The man turned and walked off into the trees, leaving this place, my mother, my father, our house... everything.
I tried to follow him, but I failed, I couldn't. I collapsed, buried my head in my arms, and screamed, my voice echoing through the lonely, silent forest. My whole body shivered, chilled by a momentary breeze.
I kept shouting.
My vision suddenly darkened, and a voice echoed in my mind. The light slowly filled my field of vision and I jumped up, tripping over my comforter, landing face down on the floor, a sharp pain spreading from my jaw to my whole body.
A gentle breeze passed right next to me, touching my face through my slightly open window, and my eyes opened wide. My breathing was so irregular that I could practically feel my lungs straining against my rib cage.
I was sweaty, my world was spinning and even the mana inside me began to stir. My passive skill was working, the mana around me was accompanying my emotions as if they were its own.
'Calm down Adrian, or you'll blow up the room.'
Lithoa's voice echoed in my mind, a voice whose wisdom I could never deny, no matter how annoying it was.
I closed my eyes first, then I checked my jaw, the source of the pain in my body, and it didn't seem to have a problem. In contrast, my mana and passive skill had already begun to calm down.
My breathing was also improving.
'You've been doing this a lot lately.'
I took a deep breath and let myself fall on my back, clutching my necklace tightly as I looked up at the ceiling of my room.
"It's not something I can help."
'You're too affected by your dreams or nightmares, whatever they are.'
I gripped my necklace even tighter.
"As I said, it's not something I can help."
I sat up, ignoring Lithoa. Everything on my bed had been thrown aside and all of it needed to be washed because of the sweat on it.
"Haaa..."
I stood up, went to the bathroom, washed up, and looked at myself in the mirror, something I hadn't done in a long time.
My mind suddenly filled with images of my father... wounded, leaning against that tree, and I felt something rising in my stomach.
Yet I restrained myself, swallowed, and sighed again.
Revenge... How strong can I be to take revenge?
It is impossible unless you are God himself.
I remembered Alice's words and waited for a while.
God... a being above everything. Everyone knows about the Lords, but is there a being above them too? Yes, they are all beings of unimaginable power, capable of manipulating the laws of the universe, and there are even worshippers, but none of them is the true, supreme, and creator of everything.
I let go of my necklace and opened my eyes.
I stood up again and quickly changed my clothes, and ran outside. I didn't care about the classes. I just kept running.
I must be much stronger. No one must stop me. I must never go through the tragedy of that day again. I will never feel the helplessness that I have been feeling lately.
If I have to leave for that, fine.
I will leave.
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