TO HIS KNEES
Elorin froze.
He was too powerful by this point; their teeth couldn't even penetrate his skin. In fact, his father ended up shattering his own, seemingly having awakened a kind of broken strength Ability Index.
However, his father, the man he thought about almost every day without rest or pause, didn't seem to notice this pain. It was a pain that should have put even elite warriors at bay, and yet he didn't even pause before he moved to chomp down again.
The second one hurt. Not to Elorin's father, or even in terms of physically for Elorin, but rather to the very depths of the latter's soul.
There was no humanity left. Even pain wasn't any sort of barrier. All his father wanted to do was to shred him apart and use him as a step ladder to increase his evolution.
And then there was his mother. She didn't awaken any sort of strength at all, and seemingly not knowing how to use her Ability Index, she instead began to scratch and claw at him, gnawing into his skin for any hope of breaking free or just the slightest taste of blood.
Aina looked away, burying her head into Leonel's chest and silently sobbing.
She had thought of so many things, but she didn't even consider this route. She didn't even think of the possibility of what if… her mother wasn't even able to make it through the Metamorphosis in the first place.
Her mother was just a normal woman. Until the end, she probably didn't even have a full appreciation for the kind of man her husband was, or the woman her daughter would be able to become in the future.
She didn't even come from a particularly powerful family and could only stay on the Paradise Islands along with everyone else. Ironically, had Aina not been an orphan who gained a scholarship to go to Royal Blue Academy and stay on their campus, she would have been on those Paradise Islands too.
In all these years, she never even considered the fact that she might have lost her mother long ago one way or another, and right now… she had no willingness to find out.
She could practically see Elorin's heart breaking through his eyes. Even now, he continued to hold his parents in place, hugging them tightly as they tried to rip him to pieces.
Aina didn't know what would happen to her mind or psyche if she ever were to see her mother in such a state. She simply couldn't do it.
At that moment, Leonel's words seemed to have a different sort of connotation to them, a different sort of weight, and it formed a lump in her chest that just sat there, unwilling to move.
Leonel sighed inwardly, gently stroking Aina's hair. He held her close, giving her the only comfort that he could.
As for Elorin, he seemed frozen in his own time. It didn't seem like he had any ability to move at all. The daze in his eyes was deep.
But eventually, he simply broke down, unable to hold it in any longer.
Tears streamed down his face and pooled toward the ground. His heart thumped madly as he knew what he would have to do.
He unleashed a roar of agony and suddenly squeezed down on his last hug to both of his parents.
They shattered beneath his strength, becoming motes of light that descended and entered his body.
By this point, the strength that such Invalids could give him was next to nothing at all. It hardly even gave him any warmth. In fact, they felt almost shockingly cold and his body couldn't help but shiver on impact.
With red eyes, he stared down toward the ground, his lips trembling.
He knew that his grandfather had already known about all of this. There was a reason that his grandfather had taken him away from that Paradise Island, but made no attempt to do the same for his parents.
They had already deduced what would happen and his grandfather had saved him from this fate.
The worst part was that his grandfather had already explained all of this to him, but he just didn't believe it. Even now, he didn't want to believe it.
There was no blood left, no bones, not even the faintest wisp of a scent. The irony was that the only thing that was left was the saliva his parents had left on his neck while trying to bite through it. It was such a pitiful remnant that he almost laughed like a maniac.
He had done all of this. It was all his fault. His grandfather had been right from the very start, but he had ended up killing his only family remaining with his own hands.
His grandfather hadn't even fought back, letting him do it. Not once did he blame him, not once did he show the slightest hint of unwillingness. All there was… was a hope that Elorin would one day find what he needed.
Elorin fell to his knees, practically burying his head into the ground as he sobbed like a weeping child.
Not once during the course of these years did he regret what he had done to his grandfather. He thought that old man was brainwashed, forced into duty and indoctrinated until he could think for no one other than Gervaise Fawkes.
He had hated everyone in the Fawkes family to the bone, and had sworn that he would one day rip them down from the throne and destroy them to the last man, woman, and child.
But now he knew that he had been fishing for nothing more than fool's gold. He was the fool in this situation, and he had lost everything. Content provided by .
Aina's shoulders quaked as well, feeling at just as much of a loss. Her heart shattered into countless pieces and she didn't even know if she could pick them back up again.
In the end, these weren't things that anyone else could help them through.