“Ah! Ghost!” Lucky shouted, reacting in a panic.
He quickly pushed himself away from the glowing figure in a diagonally, forgetting that he was on the bed. This resulted in him reaching the edge of it, and trying to find support with his hand and failing, he keeled over.
“Ouch!” He cried out in pain when his back hit the ground and his legs stuck up in the air.
“Are you okay?” The floating figure asked him, hovering above him with a worried look on its face. “Also, I’m not a ghost.”
Lucky rubbed the back of his head and looked up at the floating figure, and widened his eyes in shock. He quickly pushed himself backward and got his feet to land on the floor. From there, he quickly edged away from the bed before pushing himself to his feet.
“Stay away from me, evil spirit!” He exclaimed, looking like he was going to fight it.
The glowing man stared at him with a half-smile and replied, “I’m not an evil spirit.”
“Like I can believe you!”
“Look,” the ghost said, floating down and appearing to sit on the bed. “If I am a evil spirit, why would you still retain consciousness and are still able to speak to me so rudely?”
“I don’t know,” replied Lucky, looking cautiously at him. “You’re probably waiting for the right chance to take over my body!”
“And what would I gain by taking over the body of a child?” The glowing man challenged.
“You could use my body to do whatever bad things! Mariana said evil spirits are dangerous and that we need to stay away from the like of you!”
“And did she tell you exactly where one would usually encounter an evil spirit?”
At the man’s question, Lucky looked stumped before he replied, “Um… in forests and haunted buildings.”
“Yes. Inside of forests and haunted buildings,” the man replied, nodding in agreement. “Last time I checked, this is not a forest or a haunted building; it’s a normal building.”
Lucky looked stumped for a moment before he recovered and said, “Then, you must be a vengeful spirit!” As he shouted those words, he instantly became worried and said, “What are you going to do?! Attack my family?! What did they ever do to you?!”
“You have the craziest imagination, Lucky,” the man commented with a chuckle. Then he looked seriously at the kid and said, “And, no, I’m not a vengeful spirit either, and I have no grudge against your family. In fact, I am grateful for them to shower you with such affection and care over these years, Lucky”
“What do you mean?” Lucky asked cautiously. “In fact, how do you even know my nickname?”
“I’ve been with you throughout your life,” the man replied with a pleasant smile. “I just couldn’t interact with you because of some restriction that was finally removed when you used your magic for the first time.”
Lucky stared at the floating man and said, “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to understand it right now,” the man said, and pointed his finger at him. “What you should understand is the goal you set yourself is too vague.”
“Huh? What about my goal?”
“Being strong so that you don’t have to rely on others and have to be a burden on others is a great thought,” the man said with a smile. “However, it is too vague and could fall apart very easily.”
“How is it vague?!” Lucky demanded furiously, hurt that his goal was being criticised. “I protected Sumara today, but in actual truth, my dad protected me from those men because I didn’t have the strength to fight them, let alone defend myself against their attack! So, what’s so wrong about setting myself a goal like that to be truly strong in the future!”
“Cool down, Lucky,” the man said, realising he had struck a nerve in the kid. “I wanted to say that your goal is strong, but too vague because there is no real achievement in it. Like, what will you do after you become so strong that all it takes is one punch to defeat your enemies? What will you do then?”
Lucky remained silent, trying to think of an answer to reply and eventually put on a blank face.
“I… have no idea,” he admitted.
“Exactly,” said the man, nodding with a smile. “Your goal will lead you to becoming strong, but one needs to succeed in life as well, and for that, you need a vision that you should aim towards. That’s where, I come in.”
“You come in? I don’t understand.”
The man pointed his finger at Lucky and said, “Lucky, you are the Phoenix Titan!”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
There was a moment of silence before Lucky asked, “Huh?”
“You’re the Phoenix Titan.”
“I heard you the first time!” Lucky said, looking surprised and confused. “You think I’m the Phoenix Titan, the most powerful person alive in the Nine Pillars of Power?”
The Nine Pillars of Power was a group of warriors from different races possessing powers that were beyond the comprehension of anyone else. They were so powerful, it would take them an hour to capture a continent, and even less time to destroy one if they chose. Currently, the group were separated with many of their members spread out around the world.
“Yes, you are, and I have proof to back it up.”
“Proof? What proof?”
The floating figure pointed his hand towards the young boy and said, “Memory Road.”
In an instant, Lucky felt his feet give way and felt himself falling down a long tunnel with no end. He tried looking around and found only darkness, making him feel shocked because he was sure he was in his room seconds before. Like that, he continued to fall for a few seconds before he found solid ground and landed gently.
“What just happened?” He asked, looking shocked and a little shaken.
“I’ve brought you onto the Memory Road,” the man said, floating down and stood facing him from the front.
Lucky looked at the man and then at the frames composing of moving pictures past where the man stood. He was surprised because the pictures were moving, showing different things continuously in an endless loop.
“Now, watch as I show you the proof that you truly are the Phoenix Titan.”
The man turned towards them and waved his hand, causing the screens to go black and flitter for a few seconds. A moment later, new moving images appeared on the screen depicting someone addressing a large audience. It looked very important, but Lucky did not care about any of that because he was shocked when the picture zoomed in on the man’s face.
“What?!” He exclaimed in disbelief. “He looks just like me!”
“No. It’s the other way around,” the man explained. “You look like him because you are him. You are the Phoenix Titan.”
With that said, the man moved his hand in an upward gesture and caused the volume of the moving picture to become loud.
“Today is the day of our final conquest, to take back our world and unite it as one! No longer separated by differences, no longer suppressed by different clans, and it’s time to look towards the future!”
The man, who looked like an older version of Lucky, was addressing the audience in a strong voice.
“My comrades,” he said, and his voice became softer all of a sudden as he looked emotionally at them from side to side. “I don’t know if we’ll see each other again, if we’ll survive this battle, but know that each sacrifice you made led us closer to our goal of uniting the world! Be proud of your achievements, but let us not forget! We won’t be dying! Let’s fight to live without dying!”
The audience screamed their joy at his words and began to chant his name repeatedly.
“Phoenix Titan! Phoenix Titan! Phoenix Titan!”
The man looked around at them all with a serious expression on his face and then punched his fist into the air.
“Towards unity!” He shouted.
“Towards unity!” They shouted, punching their own fists into the air with great confidence.
As they chanted those two words, the volume suddenly decreased until everything became silent and still in there.
“Now do you believe me when I say you’re the Phoenix Titan?” The glowing person asked, who was responsible for muting the volume of his memories.
“But,” began Lucky looking troubled, “you’re just basing this off the notion that he looked like me. I mean, sure, he looks like what I might look as I grow older, but it could just be coincidental.”
“It’s not,” the man replied, and he seemed to look seriously at the boy. “Want to hear a little story to convince you?”
“Go on.”
“Okay,” the man nodded and smiled as he began to tell his story.
“I am neither an evil spirit, nor a vengeful spirit; I am a wandering spirit. It is a spirit that is both alive and dead because the body was destroyed prematurely before it reached its allowed lifespan.”
“What?” Lucky asked, looking confused.
“Let me explain it all in one go,” the man said, and Lucky nodded in understanding.
“Anyway, an individual truly dies when their body stops functioning completely and they reach the end of their allocated lifespan. However, if one of those two conditions are not met, then you have a wandering spirit that is very much alive but without a body to roam around in. Do you understand now?”
“So, basically, you’re not dead, but you’re not alive either because you don’t have a body of your own?”
“Pretty much,” replied the man, and he smiled at him. “Glad you understood that quickly.”
“So, when my body got destroyed for… reasons, the original Phoenix Titan rescued me and placed me inside his own body before I was completely erased from existence.”
“Whom did you anger for that to happen?” Lucky asked, looking shocked.
The man laughed and said, “I didn’t anger him. That person was a prideful man, and because of a small setback, he came down hard on me, and the result is what became of me.”
There was a moment of silence as he brooded over the past before he shrugged it aside and spoke again.
“Anyway, ever since then, I’ve been with the Phoenix Titan through each and every reincarnation as if I had become a part of him, but, strangely, I still maintained my own will. Though I didn’t know why, I felt glad that I have because I witnessed each and every Phoenix Titan’s life with my own eyes.”
He had been pacing around while speaking, but he stopped and turned to look directly at the kid.
“I am the evidence that you are the Phoenix Titan because I reincarnated in you. There is no bigger proof than that.”
Lucky looked at him for a moment in silence as he contemplated everything he just heard. He did accept that he was the Phoenix Titan, but something was bothering him because some things did not make sense to him.
“But, if that’s the case, how come I don’t have any kind of memory of my past lives?” He asked as doubts formed in his mind. “Since I’ve reincarnated multiple times over the years, I expected that I’d have memories of the past, or maybe a link to the consciousness of my past selves.”
“That…” The man began and looked troubled before admitting, “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?!” Lucky asked, looking shocked. “Why?! You said you had witnessed all of my past lives, right? Were you lying?”
“I’m not lying!” The man said, looking firmly at him. “Believe me, Lucky. I am telling the truth!”
“But you said you don’t know! That doesn’t make sense!”
There was a moment of silence as the man thought back to what had happened in the past for that to happen. He turned towards his memories and waved his hand. In an instant, the picture changed to show them a scene of where they were looking at someone in front of them, with a strong physique and looking like they were about to do battle.
“It was three years after the Emperor of the World disappeared from the world. Wars broke out around the world, and everything was headed towards destruction. The Phoenix Titan wanted to stop it all somehow, but couldn’t because this man got in our way; the Calamity Titan!”