“That was easier than I thought it’d be.” I muttered under my breath, retrieving my implanted sword from the massive cave lizard's skull. I slashed the blade in the air, getting rid of the excess blood and sheathing it back at my waist.

I then slowly made my way to the monster's stomach and conjured two earth pillars to uphold its ponderous weight. Naturally the contents of it spilled from the previous cuts I made and I slid my hand in and rummaged around. Eventually when I did release my hand from the blanket of gelatinous flesh that slowly lost its temperature, a bright blue crux found its way in my hand. The mana riveting inside glowed in a dazzlingly wild temperament, and huffed deep mana vibrations so minimal I barely heard it in the bleak silence of this solitary chamber.

I opened my storage bag and gently disposed of it inside. “This should fetch a hefty price. I have enough food as well now to last my family for the next month or so. I guess I should be able to get back to the house early next morning if I set off now.”

My mind still deliberated on the events that shortly followed each other whilst I ventured in this cave. The three brothers that I decided to try to study, the bandits I ruthlessly killed, and the families they had. “How does this feeling come so naturally to them? Maybe it’s something rather than having to search for, is something you experience when letting your guard down? Instinct that prevails over thought, huh?”

I shook my head side to side and began venturing out. “It’s about time I leave. I wonder…how are they holding up?”

Upon reaching the outside, the small roof of the cavern reaching deep underground extended further outwards into the cold atramentous sky lit up lightly by a few sprinkled stars glittering down, lighting the covered path concealed by compact white flakes massing together. Joining on instinct and huddling around each other. My footsteps trampled over the vivid nothingness, only the crunching under my boot raising any of my attention as my breath rose in hot vapour and whistled away by the gale.

“I suppose I should head to the town and sell these things. Shame the market only opens in the morning. It will unfortunately delay my travels.” I talked to myself at night. An occurrence that became quite usual for me in the later stages in my life. Well, previous life. Most of the time, the only consolation I got was from the mirror. I deeply relied on myself and had none to support me. I ended up as someone more twisted than I could have imagined.

“Hopefully these chats I’m having right now won't become a frequent occurrence in this life as well. That’d be…too sad.” A small tear sculpted in my eye, ready to burst at any time and fall at incredible speeds down my cheek. But I firmed it. I had to.

The next morning, I had finally begun walking around the market in a busy town, somewhere around the midpoint between my house and the caverns. The disproportionate cobblestone path tripped me along the journey as my heavy body seemed to fall onto nothing. People merely looked at me as a poor child and whispered about my situation, making assumptions and commenting on how poor I was, yet none actually did something about it. I guess it is in human nature to make observations yet ignore them simultaneously. As long as it doesn’t affect them and their closest ones, they don’t care. But that’s still much more.

I remember the orphans I would see, holding their lifeless, dismembered and faceless parents whilst they wept. All looked toward me who passed through the scene without a second glance, only focused on further destruction and death. I did not even once think about their poor situation and moved along.

Another lifeless sigh escaped me, like my soul was about to be sucked from me. My tyrannical scarlet eyes now sat desolate, darkened without an ounce of light in them and my body swung from side to side.

I stumbled about further, until I was able to find a merchant willing to high ball the price for everything I had, most likely to scam others for an even higher price.

“Finally, I’m done. Now to go home and rest. My young body still can’t operate on such a level for a long duration. How it sucks to have such a useless cage of flesh keeping me captive.” I moaned pointlessly to myself. Nothing would change with these complaints, but it felt easier getting it off my chest. I swiftly found an easier mode of transport and decided to buy a horse, since the wealth I accumulated was much greater than the price of even ten horses.

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The salesman seemed rather concerned about how a child got his hands on that amount of money, before promptly trying to scam me out of it. Nevertheless, it didn’t work and I set off. The soothing noise of hooves knocking against the ground after dismembering the snow beneath it with its powerful movements, lit me up and eased my tensed face. The scene around me, completely, looked almost too poetic, yet clashed with the images that I would see in the wars and other battles I thought previously.

“Why do I keep thinking of my past life? I guess trauma is hard to get rid of. Fortunately, I haven’t had many nightmares of him…well I’ll soon rest. This isn’t Milo anymore, this is Eli. My life will be different. I, after all, have someone waiting for me…”

“Why? Why? Why?” An echo of painful words choked from my mouth. I had finally made it back…to my house. Where I would be greeted by my parents and we would enjoy a meal together. “So…why?”

Our small wooden house, demolished and levelled to the ground. Smoke was still rising from the building where parts had burned. Nothing was left standing. Nothing but an open space with ruined furniture and destroyed wooden infrastructure layed gently in the comfort of snow.

My eyes darted around, looking for any signs of life. The scarlet in them desperately jumped at any small noise I heard. Surely…they had to be alive.

Soon, however, I realised. The same crimson colour soiling the ground. The same colour that drenched my thoughts, nightmares, clothes, soul and heart. I couldn’t escape, the ever-bleeding mountain of bodies that seemed to pile up near me.

“I found…y-y-you.” My voice shook. The same image I witnessed when I first embarked in this world for the second time. Pristinely laid onyx locks, now tattered and withered, laying deathly still on the ground. The colour from the scarlet eyes that brimmed with such life vanished and her dimples faded with her previously worsening condition.

I moved the rubble covering the rest of her body only to reveal her plain white dress, the one me and my father had saved up for, drenched in the hatred of red. Her hand was mostly crushed, but it still looked outstretched, like her palm yearned for help.

I fell to my knee, and my shaking hands gently raised hers and held them tightly. “I’m…s-o-sorry.” My words seemed to get stuck in my throat and my heartbeat in an unsteady rhythm. I gasped for air and it would only barely come.

I quickly twisted my head around, trying to find the other. “FATHERRRRR!!!!” I yelled in a desperate tone. My voice rippled and reverberated through the nothingness that surrounded us.

Then a falling stone alerted my attention. I snapped and immediately jumped to it and began upheaving anything and everything in my way. My hands didn’t even properly pick anything up, they just froze in one place and I scraped away at the wood and stone, my hands bleeding. Finally I moved it.

His argent hair seemed so different from before. Longer now, and much, much more messier. His beard had now sprouted into an unruly mess, but added softness to his harsh look from before. His brows no longer glided like a rainbow, but rested in a fixed position instead. His endlessly deep blue sea that bathed me in its royal colour, now just a dry creek devoid of life. His chest pierced and his heart gouged out alongside his crux which were both missing in his chest.

“Why, why, why, why, why, why, why?WHYYYYY!!!?? My tears flowed and rage seeped from my voice. I was visibly upset. I turned to his stump of an arm and noticed a strange mark. A cross in a circle with chains binding it. That’s when everything became clear.

The ones who chopped of my fathers arm, the ones who were the owners of that box and who were there in the temple and the murders of my parents.

“Angel? HOW ARE THEY STILL OPERATING!?” My lip bled from the pressure I applied with my teeth. The terrorist group which turned me and Evert against each other and wreaked havoc across the world for some twisted goal yet unknown. I thought I had gotten rid of them alongside Evert.

I grasped my father in my arms and pressed close to him. “I’m sorry…for being such an awful son.”

Once the sun began settling, I had mostly cleaned the destruction, burning the remains of my house and burying a grave for my parents by the fire. A stern look on my face remained.

I clasped my hands together in prayer and began speaking. “Sorry, mother, father. Sorry for not being here with you in your most desperate moment. Sorry for not being there when you were screaming in pain. When you were in a dire situation and left helpless. I’m sorry. However sorry isn’t all I’d like to say. There’s a lot, actually, that I want to say. But I’ll try to keep it brief. Thank you for loving me. I am the proof you two were joined together and the proof of your lives that will forever be remembered in my heart. Thank you for dedicating so much of your time to someone as undeserving as me. Thank you for not isolating me. I’m sorry for not being a simpler child. Sorry for giving you such a weird parenting experience.

“Thank you for everything you gave me and thank you for all you taught me. Though I haven’t felt love towards you, at least properly, I have definitely come to some sort of understanding. I know it was in the moment you were already gone and couldn’t see it, but I showed my real emotions. You are the first people to ever bring out such an emotion from me. Now though it was most likely grief, I will wait for the day I learn to love you and I hope you accept me on that day. With my life that you have bestowed on me, I will not sink into revenge or the same isolated place. I will strive to live a better life and start a family with a woman as beautiful as you mother. I will try to be as good of a father as you were to me, Aldir.

“Finally, I want to promise you here that I will live as I intended. For your sake and my own. These next few years may look a bit difficult and maybe lonely, but I promise to surround myself with people who love me and who I also love. For you two, I will make the name Ashburn known throughout the lands and I will create the incredible bloodline you guys founded. I will eventually enrol in the prestigious academy in the capital and will make sure to establish our name into the hearts of everyone in this world. Once more, thank you.”

Though you may be gone…thank you for the love, the joy, the time, the smiles, the encouragement, the wisdom. Now rest peacefully. Rest assured.