Chapter 1765: Caroline’s Breakdown!
Chapter 1765: Caroline’s Breakdown!
The words struck Caroline like a bolt of lightning.
For a moment, she forgot the pain in her body.
She forgot the wounds left by Fin’s sword.
She forgot Seraphine, the second faction, Witch God Valley, and even the danger still lurking around them.
Her eyes slowly widened, and her gaze moved back to Max as if she was seeing him for the first time.
"What?" Caroline whispered.
Jessica took a shaky breath. "He is Divine Queen Caelira’s son."
Caroline’s lips trembled.
"WHAT?!" she finally shouted, her voice breaking under the weight of disbelief. "My sister’s son?!"
She stared at Max with wide, trembling eyes.
It was impossible.
It should have been impossible.
For years, Caroline had believed that her sister’s children had died during that calamity. She remembered the day the news reached the imprisoned members of the third faction. She remembered the silence that had fallen over the Elf Prison.
She remembered how the older elves had lowered their heads, how the younger ones had cried, and how she herself had broken down after hearing that Caelira’s son and daughter had supposedly been killed.
Those children had not merely been her sister’s children. They had been the last living proof that Caelira had found happiness beyond the throne, beyond bloodline duty, and beyond the cruel politics of the elf race.
Caroline had mourned them.
She had shed tears for them.
She had hated herself for being unable to protect them.
And now Jessica was telling her that one of them was standing right in front of her.
Max looked at her silently.
He did not know what to say. The Emotion Severing Path was still affecting him faintly and he found himself unable to come out of this state for some unknown reason. It was the first time Max found himself in such a state.
Never ever was there a moment he would be in the Emotion Severing Path state without his consent and his will but now that he wanted to desperately came out of this state, he found himself unable to do so.
Caroline took one step toward him.
Then another.
Her body swayed slightly because of her injuries, but she did not stop. Her eyes moved over Max’s face, searching for traces of her sister, and the more she looked, the more her expression changed.
It was not obvious at first glance, but in the line of his eyes, in the faint golden glow of his bloodline, and in the cold strength that seemed to refuse to bend no matter what stood before him, she could see pieces of Caelira.
"Caelira..." Caroline whispered, and tears immediately filled her eyes.
Max’s lips parted slightly. "I..."
Before he could finish, Caroline stepped forward and hugged him.
The movement was sudden.
Max froze.
Caroline wrapped her arms around him tightly, burying her face against his shoulder as tears finally broke free. She was still bleeding, still exhausted, and still trembling from the battle, but in that moment, none of that mattered to her.
She held Max as if she was afraid he would vanish if she let go, as if the nephew she had thought dead for so many years might disappear like another cruel illusion of Witch God Valley.
"You are alive," Caroline cried, her voice muffled against him. "You are really alive."
Max stood still, his hand still holding Dragonheart loosely at his side.
The Emotion Severing Path around him flickered.
Caroline’s tears fell onto his clothes, and the warmth of her embrace reached him through the coldness of his Pseudo Cosmic Path. It was a strange feeling. A moment ago, he didn’t feel much about her. It was like he didn’t care whether Caroline was his mother’s sister or not.
Yet now, because Caroline was crying while holding him, that deathly stillness inside him began to loosen little by little.
"You and your sister..." Caroline said between sobs. "We thought both of you were dead. I thought I had lost the last pieces of my sister forever."
Max’s eyes moved slightly.
His Pseudo Cosmic Path trembled again.
The sharp aura around Max was fading.
The invisible blade that had pressed against everyone’s hearts slowly withdrew, and the suffocating stillness that had covered the battlefield began to melt away.
The cursed mist, which had been split apart by the Emotion Severing Path, started drifting again. The air grew less heavy. Dragonheart’s hum became softer, and the cold line across Max’s expression slowly disappeared.
Jessica watched this scene with red eyes.
She had seen Max as terrifying, powerful, and almost emotionless, but now, seeing Caroline hug him and cry like this, she suddenly remembered that he was not only a monster who could kill Seraphine and Fin. He was Caelira’s son. He was family to the woman who had suffered for years because of loyalty to her sister. He was someone the third faction had believed lost forever.
Max slowly raised his free hand.
For a brief moment, he seemed unsure of what to do.
Then he placed his hand lightly on Caroline’s back.
The moment he did, the last trace of his Emotion Severing Path quietly faded from his body.
His eyes returned to normal.
The deathly calm disappeared.
What remained was a young man standing silently while his aunt cried against him.
Caroline tightened her hold on him even more. "I am sorry," she whispered. "I am so sorry. I could not protect your mother. I could not protect you. I could not protect anyone."
Max’s expression changed slightly.
He looked down at her and said softly, "You do not need to apologize."
Caroline shook her head, still crying. "I do. I was her sister. I should have been there."
Max was silent for a moment.
Then his voice became quieter. "I came here to find you."
Caroline slowly lifted her head, tears still flowing down her face.
Max looked at her and continued, "I found out you were being hunted, so I came to save you.."
Caroline stared at him, and the emotions she had barely managed to hold back burst out again.
She hugged him once more, this time even tighter.
"My sister’s son," she whispered, her voice shaking with both grief and joy. "You are really my sister’s son."
Nancy stood quietly nearby, while Jessica lowered her head, tears slipping down her own face.
For the first time since entering Witch God Valley, the battlefield no longer felt like a place of death.
Seraphine and Fin were gone.
The second faction’s hunters had been cut down.
And in the middle of the broken valley, surrounded by cursed mist and shattered remnants of battle, Caroline held Max and cried for the family she had thought lost forever.