Vol. 6 Ch. 121

Leon slowly opened his eyes. What he saw was no longer the dim stone cave, but a clean, orderly ceiling. A soft white blanket covered his body.

Turning his head, he saw a silver-haired beauty sleeping beside the bed. Leon reached out and gently patted her wrist.

“Rosvisser… Rosvisser…”

“Mmm…”

The queen stirred, then slowly sat up. The drowsiness in her eyes vanished in an instant when she saw Leon awake.

“Leon! You’re finally awake.”

She took his hand and held it firmly, only relaxing once she felt the pressure of his fingers respond.

Leon gave a tired smile. “I… passed out in the cave, didn’t I?”

Rosvisser nodded. “When our team found you, Elusa and Safina were shouting your name as loud as they could, but no matter how much they yelled, you wouldn’t wake up. What happened to you?”

“I…”

Leon looked up at the ceiling, trying to recall what he had felt.

“It was like I saw Hera’s memories—or rather than ‘seeing,’ it was more like… reliving.”

Because to Leon, the entire experience had felt too vivid, too familiar, as if he had lived through it himself.

And at the end of that stream of fragmented memories… was the truth behind a mystery that had plagued him for thirty years.

But under the sheer mental pressure and emotional shock of it all, Leon had lost consciousness without even realizing it.

“I just need… a moment to breathe.”

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to share the truth of that secret with Rosvisser right away—

he simply needed time to stabilize himself emotionally.

And if he blurted it all out now, both of them would be overwhelmed.

He had to make sure that when Rosvisser broke down, he was composed enough to support her.

“Alright. You can tell me whenever you’re ready,” the queen said gently.

Thankfully, his wife was an understanding and thoughtful partner.

“Right… how long was I out?”

“More than two days. Today’s the third.”

Leon nodded slowly. “That crystal—and the woman inside it. Did you bring her back?”

“We did. Safina said she’s Hera. Is that true, Leon?”

“It is.

Thirty years ago, she was the one who stole the Lightning Spirit Core from the Golden Scale Tribe.”

Rosvisser pursed her lips and murmured, “The traitor… Hera.”

…

Leon’s gaze lifted slightly, and he said softly,

“She’s not a traitor, Rosvisser. She’s the true descendant of Reiss… The only guardian of the god’s legacy.”

Rosvisser instinctively wanted to ask more. But when she looked at Leon, she noticed the faint shimmer at the corner of his eye.

A tear slid slowly down his face.

All her questions lodged in her throat and were swallowed back down.

She knew Leon was a deeply emotional man, but he almost never cried.

And for him to look this sorrowful, this defeated—he must have learned something. Or seen something…

Rosvisser didn’t ask again. She simply lowered her gaze and gently caressed the back of Leon’s hand, offering what comfort she could.

…

Inside the Imperial clocktower, Safina and Kaiser met face to face. Behind the massive clock face, the siblings leaned against opposite walls.

“Leon’s awake,” Safina said. “That woman in the crystal must have some connection to him.”

“Could she be related to the Spirit Core we’re looking for?” Kaiser asked quietly.

Safina shook her head. “I’m not sure.”

She paused, then added, “But I do hope this leads to the Core.”

Kaiser raised his head and looked at his sister. “Why?”

“Over a year ago, Atos told me that clues to the Lightning Spirit Core could be found in the Human Empire. So I was sent here to investigate.”

Safina spoke slowly,

“But all this time, I’ve found nothing. Then came the Fire Core’s appearance, the so-called trial of that disguised queen of mankind’s miraculous clan. Your coordinated two-pronged mission with the others.

And now, more time has passed. If we still can’t find the Lightning Core soon, I’m worried Atos will order us to follow the same path as Keikal and Talos...”

…

She didn’t finish.

Crossing her arms, she gripped her elbows tightly, like the words she wanted to say were too awful to speak aloud.

But Kaiser understood what she meant.

“To massacre the entire Human Empire… until the Spirit Core is found.”

That was the “plan” his sister couldn’t bring herself to say aloud.

Safina took a deep breath and nodded.

She raised a hand to cover her face, visibly resisting the future she feared.

“Atos is growing more extreme. To escape the Void, he’ll do anything,”

Safina said.

“This is nothing like what we imagined in the beginning. Kaiser, if we really become Atos's weapons, if we one day begin slaughtering the people of Samael, that’s… the last thing I ever want to see.”

She leaned against the icy inner wall of the tower, her arms falling limply at her sides. Her violet eyes brimmed with helplessness and grief.

“All these years, we’ve done so many things we didn’t believe in, just to break the seal on the Gate of the Void. So many of them already crossed our moral line. Kaiser… we can’t keep going like this…”

Safina slowly slid down the wall, hugging herself. Her fingers dug into her hair as she crouched low.

“Isn’t there any way for us to coexist with the people of Samael…? Must it really end with only one world surviving…?”

…

The desolation of the Void was the main reason Atos wanted to conquer the Samael continent.

But if he had ever been willing to open dialogue with those on the other side—then perhaps, in the beginning, what Safina hoped for—coexistence—might have been possible.

Unfortunately, Atos’s first “shortcut” had already destroyed the new life born of Samael’s chaos energy. And with that, any chance for negotiation or peace was killed.

He was the ruler of the Void—of a world born from mutation and disorder. In Atos’s eyes, there was never any such thing as “sitting down to talk.”

It was only ever:

Let me conquer your world.

Or I’ll kill you all—and then conquer it.

Only those two options. Nothing else.

And so, the conflict between the two worlds had been doomed from the start. Samael and the Void—only one could survive.

But just because the Void’s master was insane didn’t mean all Void warriors were.

Every world has its monsters. And every world has those with justice and conscience in their hearts.

Safina and Kaiser were the latter.

It wasn’t their fault they were born into a mad world. Their only “mistake” was that their sense of justice clashed with the ideology of their ruler.

Those who walk against the current always face hardship. But the two of them had long prepared their hearts before stepping onto this path.

Kaiser stepped forward to his sister, crouched beside her, and gently lifted her chin.

Their ghostly purple eyes met. In Kaiser’s typically cold gaze, there was a rare flicker of something else.

“We’ve been hesitating between our principles and Atos’s ambition for so long. Even back when we stole the Wind Spirit Core from him… we didn’t destroy it, because I truly didn’t know whether what we ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ were doing was right.”

“So I’m just as lost as you are now, Sis.”

“But… you’ve always been the one who made decisions for us since we were young. This time—let me be the one to decide.”

Safina’s eyes widened. “What are you going to do, Kaiser…”

“We don’t have much time left to choose,” Kaiser said.

“The Lightning Spirit Core, the Crown, and the Sacred Spear—those are the last three chances.”

“If we can’t find a way for both worlds to coexist before those three chances run out…

then...”

“Let’s follow the will within our hearts, and make our choice.”