Chapter 272: Dream

Asher was already heading toward the door to leave when Eldric suddenly spoke.

"What about your family and friends?"

Eldric asked the question because he was curious about the answer himself. At the same time, he wanted to see how Asher would react to being asked about something so personal.

But Asher simply turned back toward him without showing any surprise.

For a moment, he remained silent. Then he thought about it, almost as if he was trying to remember something from a very distant past.

Finally, he said, his tone completely calm,

"If you mean my real family, the ones I actually considered my family... they’re dead. I killed all of them with my own hands."

...

Eldric went silent for a moment, simply trying to process Asher’s words.

But Asher didn’t wait for Eldric’s response. He simply left the room and headed toward the cafeteria to have dinner, leaving Eldric behind in a state of confusion.

After eating his dinner and taking a bath, Asher went to sleep as usual, seemingly unaffected by the conversation he had just had with Eldric.

Meanwhile, at the Church Headquarters...

Solarius was choosing the people who would be in charge of protecting Saintness Cassie and her daughter from tomorrow onward. At the same time, he was making sure that a suitable place was prepared for them to stay, somewhere that no one outside the Church should know about.

He also needed to make sure that the place was protected by a barrier strong enough that even an Immortal Rank couldn’t forcefully teleport inside, even if they wanted to.

Since Asher knew the Spatial Element, that was the main thing Solarius had to focus on. If Asher decided to attack them personally, ordinary barriers would be almost useless.

By now, Solarius would normally be Though after reaching Immortal Rank, sleeping was no longer necessary, since the entire concept of the physical body had been completely removed. However, Immortal Ranks still slept, not because they needed to, but simply because they wanted to.

After all, what better time was there to have some peace than while sleeping?

Solarius looked at the names displayed on the screen in front of him. There were a total of 30 candidates on the list. All of them were from different branches of the Church, and Solarius had already sent an order instructing them to report to the Main Branch.

There wasn’t any place safer than where the main forces of the Church were gathered. Even then, Solarius knew that these people would still have other responsibilities once the war began.

That was why these 30 people would be in charge of solely protecting Cassie and her daughter from tomorrow onward. Their only responsibility would be to make sure that nothing happened to them, no matter what happened outside.

After doing everything he needed to do, Solarius finally walked out of his office and entered the garden.

The night was quiet, and the dark sky stretched endlessly above him.

Solarius looked toward the sky for a moment before muttering,

"I will be the first one you will kill?’ I wonder how you will do that."

He remained there for a few moments, silently looking into the darkness before finally turning around and leaving the garden.

Tomorrow Morning.

Aetherium Academy, Asher’s Room.

Asher was sleeping quietly on his bed, his eyes closed.

Everything seemed peaceful, but he was actually having a dream right now.

Inside the dream, Asher found himself standing in a garden.

There was a large tree in the middle of the garden, surrounded by various flowers. Near the tree, there was also a small building. The building looked a little worn out, as if it had been there for a very long time. Despite its old appearance, the garden itself felt strangely peaceful, almost like a place that had been untouched by the outside world.

And then, the scene suddenly changed.

Now, inside the same garden, there were five children playing with each other without a single worry in the world. They were laughing and running around the garden, completely unaware of anything beyond their small world.

Asher looked at the scene for a moment before saying,

"Why am I even seeing this now?"

He continued looking at the children for a few seconds, but there was no particular emotion on his face. He simply watched them as if he were looking at something that belonged to a distant memory.

And then, once again, the scene changed.

This time, it was still the same place, but the sky had turned dark.

The peaceful garden from before was now completely different. There were bloodstains across the ground, and four bodies were lying there. They belonged to the same children who had been playing together earlier.

The fifth boy was still there.

The four children were already badly injured and barely able to move. The boy had no weapon with him, so he slowly strangled them one by one until all four of them were dead.

The garden became completely silent afterward.

Asher looked at the entire scene without showing much reaction. He simply stood there, watching everything as if it were a scene from a story he had already seen countless times before.

Then he simply sighed from boredom.

"That’s enough. Now I’m bored. Let’s just wake up."

The moment he finished speaking, the entire dream began to fade away, and the garden slowly disappeared into darkness.

And then, Asher finally woke up from the dream.

After waking up, he slowly sat on his bed and muttered in an annoyed tone,

"That old bastard had to remind me of this, just to ruin my peaceful sleep."

He rubbed his eyes for a moment before getting out of bed.

After that, Asher started getting ready for class because today he had something he needed to do.

After getting ready, he went to the cafeteria for breakfast.

When he reached the cafeteria, Aria was already there because he was late today due to that stupid dream about the past.