Chapter 533: Why must I suffer?

Julian swallowed hard, his heart hammering against his ribs. Despite everything, he understood that rage. It was not pointless.

"They fight among themselves, these so-called gods," the Patriarch continued, his words now laced with venom and sorrow.

"The three hypocrites, drunk with power, clawing at each other for the upper hand. The guardian families, pathetic lapdogs, bending their knees to whichever tyrant might rise. And the Overseer of Fate—ha! However mighty he pretends to be, he too is a prisoner, bound by the very fate he oversees. He too longs to be free, to seize absolute control over his destiny."

His burning eyes turned back toward Julian with laser focus, and Julian felt as though his soul was being weighed on a scale.

"So tell me," he said. "If

they

can fight for their selfish dreams... why can I not fight for mine? Why must I bow my head? Why must I accept a system designed only to enslave me?"

The question hung heavily in the air, and for a long moment no one dared to break the silence. The chaos still continued around them, but even that seemed distant compared to the profound quiet that had engulfed the two figures.

Annie’s gaze shifted frantically between the Patriarch and Rael, her mind spinning as it failed to piece together the puzzle unfolding before her eyes.

But then she saw it—the expression on Rael’s face. Calm, composed, yet filled with a weight far too deep for the boy she thought she knew. His eyes weren’t just answering the Patriarch’s accusations; they were answering

as someone else

. It was as though the Patriarch wasn’t speaking to Rael at all, but to another identity hidden within him.

Julian.

The name slipped into her thoughts like a poison she didn’t want to swallow. The Patriarch had called him that, and Rael hadn’t denied it. Worse—he had responded as though it were true.

Her chest tightened as fear crawled up her spine.

Who is he, really? Is he not my son? Then what is this creature I’ve been living with? What has been wearing my child’s face?

The questions tumbled in her head, clawing at her sanity.

She had raised him, watched him grow, felt the warmth of his laughter and the sting of his tears. That Rael was real, wasn’t he? But now... now she was staring at a stranger who wore her son’s face.

The Patriarch, either oblivious or perhaps uncaring about the personal turmoil unraveling in Annie’s heart, continued to loom with his godlike presence. But Annie couldn’t look away from the boy beside her. His eyes, his posture, even the way he held himself—none of it belonged to Rael, the village boy. It was Julian, whoever that truly was, preparing to answer the challenge of a fallen titan.

After what felt like an eternity, Julian finally spoke, his voice cutting through the trembling silence with unexpected calmness.

"But what can you do?" His words carried a weight that seemed to surprise even the Patriarch. He paused, his gaze locked on the monstrous figure above, measuring every flicker of rage and conviction in those burning eyes.

"No matter how much you hate the system... no matter how badly you want to escape it—what can you

actually

do?"

The Patriarch’s cruel smile faltered slightly, a crack appearing in his absolute confidence.

"They might be hypocrites. They might be corrupt. They might twist fate to serve their own desires. But they are powerful nonetheless. Unimaginably, impossibly powerful. And you..." Julian’s eyes narrowed, darting between the Patriarch’s twisted new form and the abyssal dragon looming behind him.

"You talk of freedom, of justice, of revenge. You speak of rejecting their system and forging your own path. But tell me—are you truly free? Or are you still just another pawn dancing in their shadow, playing right into the very game you claim to despise?"

His words seemed to echo, heavy and profound, as if even the heavens above paused to listen. The Patriarch’s aura flared violently, the air thickening with hostility, but there was no denying the sting in Julian’s question.

From the corner of his vision, Julian could see Annie staring at him, confusion and fear carved into her face. To her, every word he spoke was another piece of evidence confirming her suspicion—that the one she thought of as Rael was not her son at all.

"You don’t know anything, Julian!" the Patriarch roared, his voice cracking like thunder. His eyes began bleeding crimson tears that slowly flowed down his scaled cheeks. "You don’t know anything!"

The pain in his voice was raw—the accumulated suffering of centuries condensed into a single cry of anguish. His aura warped violently, twisting the air as though reality itself recoiled from his grief and rage.

"You speak of games and pawns as if you understand the cosmic order!" he continued, his voice rising in a pitch. "But you have never suffered as much as I. You have never watched your children suffer for sins they never committed! You have never been forced to kneel before beings who claim righteousness while drowning worlds in blood!"

He raised his clawed hand toward the sky, and immediately the space around his palm began to break. Dark energy gathered in his grasp—not the familiar red of his transformation, but something darker, more menacing. A sphere of pure void materialized above his palm, growing larger with each passing second as it devoured the patriarch’s fury.

Within moments, it had grown so massive that it began to destroy everything around the Patriarch’s hand. Cracks appeared in reality itself, spreading outward like a spider’s web.

"If you cannot sympathize with my pain," the Patriarch declared, his voice now carrying the finality of absolute judgment, "then you do not need to live!"

With a motion that seemed to split the world in two, he hurled the sphere of concentrated destruction directly at Julian. The orb tore through the air, leaving a trail of shattered reality in its wake. Space folded and collapsed around it as it hurtled toward its target, carrying with it enough power to unmake existence itself.