Chapter 1834: So... you chose HIM

"He is... an empty vessel."

Ba-dump!

The black armour’s head lowered slightly.

Something was wrong.

He could feel it.

Her words affected the one that was hiding inside the armour.

His chains suddenly erupted again as he attempted to destroy every mirror within his sight.

CRASH!

CRASH!

CRASH!

But they kept appearing.

No matter how many he destroyed, more emerged.

Instead of fighting him, she decided to fight the person who was inside him!

"They labelled you as defective..."

"Huh? Again with defective? Hah... He has long passed that. He ain’t falling for it, bitch"

"I know" She smirked.

The mirrors shifted.

The child was now watching different movies.

Different movies.

Different cartoons.

Different characters.

Different personalities.

Different ways of being loved.

He carefully studied their expressions.

He watched how they behaved when they were loved.

He watched how children spoke to their parents.

He watched how parents comforted their children.

He watched what made people smile.

He watched everything.

And... He learned.

"You were a cluster of everything that shaped you."

Prophetess’s voice echoed through the countless mirrors.

"Every person you admired became another fragment. Every character you watched became another possibility."

The child continued watching.

He was learning what expressions were acceptable.

He was learning which words made people smile.

He was learning which emotions were welcomed and which ones were punished.

Prophetess’s voice softened.

"The child wanted to be loved... to be happy."

His chains stopped moving for a fraction of a second.

The black armour frowned and immediately understood where she was touching and... it would definitely affect him after all... He knew him more than any bitches in these worlds!!

"The child wanted his family to be proud of him."

The mirrors showed the boy changing.

His weird laughing... stopped.

One should know... what makes Aether... The Aether?

That weird laugh!

That’s the start of everything... The person he was NOW because of that uncanny laugh.

And to hide it, he changed... he became something else to please others.

To please his parents!

So the moment he learned to control his laugh... the moment something deeper inside was changing.

His mannerisms.

His expressions.

His voice.

The way he reacted.

He was slowly becoming whatever the people around him wanted to see.

"And yet..."

Prophetess looked at him.

"All he received was pain."

In the end, that child received nothing but pain for being defective!

Prophetess’s eyes became sorrowful.

"And somehow... The child learned to smile through that pain."

The child turned to fake characters that showed on the television; he observed them and tried to become like them so the people... or his family would accept him.

"He kept changing himself because he believed that perhaps the next version of him would finally be accepted."

Prophetess’s gaze slowly lowered.

"But every time the world rejected that version of him, he buried another piece of himself and created another one."

Her voice trembled.

"Can you understand how lonely that child must have been?"

The mirrors showed him sitting alone in front of the television, surrounded by the faint light of the screen while the rest of the room remained dark.

Aether was not just defective... he also lost himself during the process of hiding his defectiveness.

That’s something nobody realised... they thought he was who he was now because he worked up without giving up, but in reality... no!

It’s just a fake one that was created by the very Aether himself!

Yes... Aether created himself.

Prophetess slowly looked back toward Aether.

"And every time someone said, ’I love you,’ he wondered whether they loved him..."

She swallowed.

"...or merely the version of himself that he had created for them."

Ba-dump!

It was something that nobody, not even Nyx, could understand. He showed different sides to everyone, from friends to his wives.

This wasn’t about him being defective... It’s more about him.

She was talking about him... Not the pain that was caused by the world, but the pain he inflicted upon himself due to his expectation.

"He wanted something so simple... his parents’ love"

The black armour killed her, and yet, she appeared back and continued as if nothing happened.

"He wanted to be able to cry without laughing."

"He wanted to laugh without worrying if this laugh is true or not."

"He wanted to make mistakes without believing that every mistake made him less worthy of being loved."

Her voice trembled more strongly.

"He wanted to hear someone say, ’You don’t have to change anymore. You can stay exactly as you are, and I will still be here.’"

The Prophetess looked at the child within the mirrors.

"But nobody said it."

The mirrors slowly shifted again.

The child looked at himself through the dark reflection of the television screen.

He could barely recognise the face staring back at him.

"He began believing that his true self was the problem."

Prophetess’s voice became painfully gentle.

"So.... he erased it."

"He surrendered his preferences."

"He surrendered his identity."

"And eventually..."

Prophetess’s eyes filled with tears.

"...he surrendered the right to ask who he really was."

The mirrors surrounded the black amrour completely.

"And that is the cruellest part, Aether."

She looked at him with sorrow rather than accusation.

"The child did not disappear because someone destroyed him."

"He disappeared because he kept sacrificing himself, piece by piece, hoping that one day someone would finally love what remained."

"And after enough pieces were erased..."

Her voice broke slightly.

"There... There was no longer a child asking who he was."

The mirrors slowly darkened.

"Only a vessel asking what it needed to become next."

She lowered her staff.

"And perhaps that is why you have spent your entire life becoming everyone except yourself.... I am... I am sorry, child"

The final mirror displayed the child’s face.

The black armour stared at the child... both of them stared at each other

And for the first time, the figure inside the mirror looked at the black armour as if... asking...

’Do you remember me? The one you had abandoned.’

Ba-dump!!

The black armour’s heart skipped a beat as he instantly shattered the mirror.

SHATTTTERRRRR!!!

The mirrors shattered violently as the chain erupted before surging toward Prophetess.

"This changes nothing!!"

They wrapped around her body, trapping her limbs and torso before black armour violently yanked them backwards.

Her body was dragged through the air and slammed into the remaining mirrors with enough force to shatter them instantly.

Yet even as the glass-like fragments scattered around her, Prophetess continued speaking.

"The child took everything he learned from a false world and convinced himself that those lessons would protect him."

"And eventually, he hid himself behind the mask of a good chi—"

The black armour tore her body like paper... and yet, she appeared again.

"A good child... What a cruel little name to give someone who was simply desperate to be loved."

She looked toward the child inside the mirrors.

Her expression became sorrowful.

"But was it ever really love if he had to disappear before anyone could give it to him?"

Before she could finish, a sharp metallic sound tore through the air.

CHUCKK!!

One of the remaining mirrors suddenly shifted.

Its razor-sharp edge sliced directly through Prophetess’s neck.

Blood splattered across the mirror’s surface.

Her body immediately began disintegrating into particles before completely disappearing.

The chain snapped through the empty space where she had been standing.

But she appeared again several metres away.

Her wooden staff travelled through the air and landed firmly in her hand.

She stood upon the remains of a broken signboard, her white robes fluttering in the wind as the countless mirrors behind her suddenly illuminated once more.

Their surfaces displayed the black-haired boy.

He was acting.

Changing his expressions.

Changing his posture.

Changing his words.

Becoming someone else whenever the situation demanded it.

The prophetess watched him with an expression filled with sorrow.

"That child was forgotten by time as well as... Himself."

She stared at the boy’s reflection.

"After becoming so many different people for everyone else, who was he supposed to be when he was finally alone?"

The mirrors changed.

The boy was now staring at his own reflection.

He remained silent.

There was something strange in his eyes.

Something painfully empty.

He looked at his reflection as though he were searching for someone.

But the person staring back at him felt unfamiliar.

He could see his own face.

He could recognise his own body.

Yet somewhere inside, he knew something was missing.

The boy’s expression slowly became sad.

A cluster of borrowed identities that had slowly buried the child underneath them.

"..."

The black armour slightly vibrated.

It was almost imperceptible.

Yet something beneath the armour had reacted.

The black armour’s gaze remained fixed upon the reflection for another moment... not because he wanted to, but something inside him pushed.

’Stop it! No.28. She is trying to confuse you!!! Let me handle it!!’ The black armour shouted inwardly at someone.

Then he suddenly turned away.

With one violent movement, he seized a broken bus from the ruined landscape and hurled it toward the mirrors.

BOOOOM!!

The enormous wreckage smashed through the reflections, destroying them in a storm of shattered glass and twisted metal.

But Prophetess continued her storytelling,

"Even after everything you endured..."

More mirrors began rising from the ground.

"Even after losing almost everything that once mattered to you..."

This time, the images showed a fractured family.

A father who left for another woman.

A mother who had been abandoned.

A home where affection had become distant and conditional.

A relationship that had fallen apart.

People treating him as though his feelings were worthless.

Every image showed another wound.

Another moment where he learned that the world could take something from him without caring about what it left behind.

The mirrors multiplied.

The boy stood in the centre of them all.

Alone!

Prophetess’s grip tightened around her staff.

"The world was not kind to you."

"It kept taking from you while giving you nothing in return."

"You gave it your obedience."

"It gave you pain."

"You gave it your affection."

"It gave you abandonment."

"You gave it every version of yourself that you could create."

"And after everything you sacrificed..."

"What did the world give you?"

There was no answer.

After all... he himself abandoned that child!

What can one expect from the world itself?!

The prophetess continued with certainty,

"You hated this. You hated the world that taught you nothing except pain—"

He killed her, "Bitch, why don’t you fight instead of running your mouth?!"

The prophetess appeared a little away as she continued as if nothing had happened, though one could see her body getting weaker and her voice was a little bit trembling.

"Y-Y...You hated the people who kept demanding pieces of you while never bothering to ask whether there was anything left to give."

"You hated everything that lived within this world because everything you loved seemed capable of hurting you again."

"You changed yourself for this world."

Her gaze hardened.

"And yet not a single thing changed for you."

"You want to destroy it."

The mirrors behind her displayed ruined cities and burning landscapes.

"You want to obliterate everything that made you suffer until nothing remains."

"You want to tear down the entire world that taught you to hate yourself."

"But there is one thing stopping you."

The black armour’s eyes narrowed... of course he knew what she was about to say.

"He cannot do it himself."

"You cannot do it yourself."

Prophetess was slightly surprised before continuing,

"Because you deceived yourself from the very beginning... ever since childhood, you kept telling yourself that you were a good person."

"Aether is a good and obedient boy. Aether comes when someone needs him. Aether saves others when they cry for help. When someone reaches out their hand, he will always be there..."

"Like a hero."

"And NO! Don’t you dare compare yourself to 25, The Only Saint!"

Her voice grew colder as she slowly raised her staff toward him.

"A Saint never asked for love. He never asked for acceptance. He never demanded recognition, praise, wealth, or power. He gave everything without expecting anything in return... and he remained that way until the very end. Even died by the hands he swore to protect and..." her throat turned teary, "And... Never hated them"

"A truly selfless One."

"You, however..."

The tip of her staff pointed directly at the black armour.

"You were never truly selfless."

"You were just a good little boy who desperately needed to be acknowledged. Someone who wanted to be accepted. Someone who wanted to be loved. Someone who wanted money, power, admiration..."

"...and whenever you did something good, you needed someone to tell you that you were good."

"..."

The black armour fell silent.

But beneath that motionless shell, something was trembling.

He could feel it.

The person hidden inside the armour was trembling.

Every word she spoke was striking somewhere he had spent his entire life trying to bury.

"You knew it, didn’t you?"

She tilted her head slightly.

"That every good deed you performed was also a way of proving something to yourself."

"That you were worthy."

"That you were needed."

"That you were someone worth loving."

"STOP IT!!"

Aether suddenly erupted forward.

In an instant, his hand seized her by the head.

"STOP!!"

BANG!

Her skull struck the wall.

BANG!

Again.

BANG!

Again and again, the impact echoing through the world as Aether slammed her against the stone with desperate, uncontrollable fury.

"SHUT UP!"

BANG!

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

Until Aether felt nothing, he didn’t stop and,

"You do not want to be labelled the bad guy."

She appeared behind him with a pitiful tone,

"Because that is something you never wanted to become."

The chain suddenly shot toward her.

Clang!

But Prophetess moved.

This time, the attack did not catch her completely... or the force slowed down?

She twisted her body aside as the chain passed dangerously close to her shoulder.

"So... you chose HIM."