Chapter 1573: Stay

Aesa was ready to show mercy to these... phantoms... once more. She knew that what she had done in the past was the best choice she could make at that moment, even if it was far from perfect.

After all, she was not a perfect person. She had spent so long trying to distance herself from the emotions that constantly dragged her into sadness.

She had forced herself to become cold and detached because she believed that suppressing those feelings would make the pain easier to bear.

Now she understood that it had only been another form of escape.

She could not force herself to stop feeling. She could not erase her emotions or bury the memories that followed her wherever she went.

Her feelings, emotions, and memories would continue to haunt her for the rest of her life, and Aesa finally accepted that.

She could not change what had already happened. She could not bring her kingdom back or undo the choices she had made when there was no other path left.

All she could do was move forward and face those memories instead of running from them.

The pain might never disappear completely, but she no longer needed to spend the rest of her life hiding from it.

But one thing remained clear to her now. She was inside a Trial, and everything she saw existed to test her. The people standing below her were not truly the people she had lost. They were phantoms created to drag her back into the emotions she had spent so long trying to escape.

She needed to pass the Trial. After Krono’s soul fragment reached her and helped her remember the truth, something inside Aesa finally became clear.

She was ready to move forward. She needed to begin by facing the phantoms of the people whose lives she had already left behind.

Aesa raised one hand and gathered her Ice Magic. Cold energy spread around her body and filled the air with a sharp chill. Frost formed across her skin, countless fragments of ice gathered around her.

Her wings beat against the air and kept her several meters above the ground. She no longer wanted to become trapped among the phantoms and their endless anger.

She would face them from above and finish this Trial on her own terms.

The ice fragments shot down. Countless ice spears formed high above the battlefield before raining toward the figures below.

They fell like a frozen storm and struck the phantoms one after another. Ice pierced their bodies and shattered their bodies.

The figures screamed as they were struck. Some of them cried out her name. Others cursed her. Others repeated the same accusations that had tormented her only moments earlier.

"You killed us again!"

"Why did you abandon us again?"

"Why did you do this to us again?"

Their voices filled the world as more ice spears descended.

Aesa clenched her teeth and held back her tears. Every scream still hurts, all familiar faces reminded her of the people she had once sworn to protect. Seeing them die again felt like reopening terrible wounds.

Her heart still ached when she watched their bodies break apart beneath the storm of ice.

But she continued.

She continued even when tears gathered in her eyes, even when her memories returned with every face that disappeared, because this time she understood what she was doing.

She was not killing her people again. She was letting go of the phantoms that represented the pain she had carried for so long.

The ice storm grew stronger. Spears struck the ground and shattered into countless fragments while the phantoms slowly disappeared beneath the relentless assault.

Their screams became weaker. Their accusations faded one by one. Aesa watched them vanish through the tears that finally escaped her eyes.

It hurt, more than she wanted to admit, yet she did not stop.

This was painful, but it was a necessary step. If she wanted to move forward, she could not keep allowing the past to hold her in place.

She had accepted that her memories would remain with her. She had accepted that the pain might never completely disappear.

Now she needed to accept that she could still continue living despite carrying that pain.

Aesa kept her wings spread as the last of the phantoms disappeared beneath the falling ice. She lowered her hand slowly while the remaining shards of Ice Magic drifted through the air around her.

She no longer felt like she was fighting against her own memories.

She was finally facing them.

—

Sylven was still frozen in his place.

The voices of the plants continued echoing inside his mind. His mother’s disappointed face was still in front of him. The sorrow, helplessness, anger, guilt, and despair all swirling together until he could no longer separate one emotion from another.

His every thought collided with the next and left him unable to understand what he should do.

He could only stand there, could not move, could not fight.

He could not even bring himself to carry out the one desperate escape his mind had considered, which was killing himself.

He wanted the pain to stop, wanted everything inside his head to become silent. But even when the thought of ending his own life entered his mind, his body refused to move.

The Trial had trapped him inside his own emotions.

The worst part was that Sylven had no one to pull him out of it.

Eccar had nearly lost himself to guilt before Krono’s soul fragment reached him and reminded him of who he truly was. Aesa had also received Krono’s guidance when the Trial twisted her memories and forced her to question the decision she had made.

Sylven had none of that. No voice called his name, a familiar presence reached through the darkness in his mind, or a fragment of a wise Dragon soul remained inside him to remind him that the Trial was manipulating his emotions.

Sylven truly stood alone, and had no idea how to escape.

—