ALERT! Master, I am detecting a life sign signature rapidly approaching your location on the exterior. Analysis of the mana pattern indicates it is your half-sister, Liana von Eldoria.]
The name hit me like a physical blow. Liana. The architect of this misery.
[She is not alone. The second signature is stronger, more oppressive. Mana Core analysis suggests a rank of at least Blue. It is your father, Duke Valerius von Eldoria.]
The world, which had been dissolving back into reality, sharpened with the icy clarity of pure hatred. Time stretched and warped. The seconds in the countdown felt like an eternity. My mother was dying, and her tormentors were standing right outside the door. My month of brutal, solitary training, my newfound power thrumming in my veins—it all coalesced into a single, primal thought.
'Fuck it. Let me out. NOW!'
[…Synchronization complete. Exiting Chamber.]
The sterile white of the Chamber vanished, replaced instantly by the grim, familiar reality of the storeroom. The shift in gravity was the most jarring sensation. The 1.5g that had been my constant oppressor was gone. In the standard gravity of the world, my body felt impossibly light, as if my bones were hollow and my muscles were springs of coiled steel. I felt like I could leap through the ceiling. The air, thick with the scent of dust and mildew, filled my lungs. It was foul, but it was real.
A heavy, scraping sound echoed from the other side of the door. The thick iron bar was being lifted.
'Akira,' I thought, my mind a whirlwind of cold calculation, 'Time check. How long was I gone?'
[You were in the Chamber of Ascendance for exactly one month. The time passed in the exterior world is one hour and fifty-two minutes. The Urgent Quest timer for "A Mother's Tears" now stands at 70 hours, 8 minutes.]
Seventy hours. It was still a desperately tight schedule, but far better than nothing. My month of hell had bought me time. It had bought me a chance.
KRR-SCHHHUNK.
The bolt slid free. The heavy wooden door groaned open, flooding the dark room with the bright, painful light of a hallway illuminated by magic lamps. My new eyes, accustomed to the dim moonlight and the sterile white, narrowed to slits.
Two figures were silhouetted in the doorway. One was small and slender, the other tall and broad-shouldered.
The smaller figure skipped into the room, her movements a mockery of cheerful innocence. It was Liana. She was the picture of a doll, with the same midnight-blue hair as me, but styled in elaborate, bouncy curls. Her dress was a confection of silk and lace, a stark contrast to my own filthy, tattered rags. Her eyes, however, were not a doll's. They were the same golden color as mine, but where mine now held a cold fire, hers held a chilling, gleeful cruelty.
"Oh, big sister!" she chirped, her voice dripping with fake, saccharine sympathy. She clasped her hands before her chest. "I was so worried! Papa said he was just teaching you a lesson, but you've been in here for a whole week! You look awful."
She took a step closer, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, a disgusting, venomous smile playing on her perfect lips.
"I have some news, though. I thought you should be the first to know." She leaned in, her breath smelling of sweet cakes. "I'm telling you this because I love you, sister. Your mother… our father has grown tired of her insolence. She's going to be publicly executed tomorrow at dawn. Isn't that just terrible?"
She punctuated the sentence with a delighted, tinkling laugh that grated against my very soul.
The rage inside me, the white-hot inferno I'd been nursing, threatened to explode. My newly strengthened muscles tensed, my fingers curling into fists so tight my knuckles cracked. I wanted to lunge. I wanted to feel her throat crush under my hands.
But before I could move, the second figure stepped into the room, his presence sucking all the warmth from the air.
Duke Valerius von Eldoria.
He was a handsome man, in the way a marble statue is handsome. Cold, perfect, and utterly devoid of life. His jaw was sharp, his hair the color of polished silver, and his eyes were a piercing, glacial blue. He wore the immaculate uniform of a high-ranking noble, not a single crease or speck of dust on him. He looked at the squalid room with disdain, his gaze eventually landing on me as if I were a piece of filth he'd found on his boot.
This was the man whose memories haunted Kalyth's soul. The man who had ordered his own wife whipped.
"So, the little rat is still alive," he said, his voice a low, rumbling baritone that held no emotion whatsoever. It was the voice of a man giving a weather report. "Disappointing."
The sheer, unadulterated coldness of his words struck a strange chord within me. The fiery, chaotic rage of Kalyth's seven years of pain, and the cold, logical fury of Miku's twenty-one years of life, which had been swirling together like oil and water, suddenly slammed into each other. They didn't mix. They fused.
In that instant, a profound change rippled through my very being. The feeling of being two souls in one body—Miku the operator, Kalyth the vessel—vanished. The memories, the pain, the love for a woman named Anastarka, the hatred for the man and girl standing before me… they were no longer borrowed. They were mine. All of it.
A serene, blue window popped into existence in my mind, a confirmation of what I already felt in the core of my soul.
[Soul convergence has reached 100%. The consciousness of 'Fujiwara Miku' and the remnant soul of 'Kalyth von Eldoria' have fully integrated. A new, singular identity has been forged. The life of Kalyth von Eldoria is saved. You are Kalyth. You are whole.]
I was Kalyth.
And this man was my father.
He took another step, his shadow falling over me. He looked down, and for the first time, a flicker of something registered in his icy eyes. Annoyance.
"Look at you," he scoffed. "Not even crying. Not begging for forgiveness. Just staring with those vulgar, commoner eyes. You truly are your mother's daughter. Defiant to the last."
He adjusted the cuff of his pristine white glove. "Let me be clear, because I do not wish to waste any more of my time on this matter. Your mother, Anastarka, was a political marriage. A tool to secure a territory. She served her purpose by birthing you, another potential tool. But she was flawed. Sentimental. Weak. She thought love was a currency in this house. She filled your head with worthless fairy tales and foolish notions of affection."
Every word was a hammer blow, not of pain, but of reinforcement, forging my resolve into something harder than steel.
"I never loved her," he stated, the words utterly flat, utterly sincere. "Her existence was a mild inconvenience I tolerated for the sake of stability. Your existence," he gestured dismissively at me, "is a disgrace. You have no talent for mana, no noble bearing. You are a failed product. A stain on the Eldoria name."
Liana watched from the side, her golden eyes wide with adoration for her father and sick pleasure at my humiliation.
"The lie Liana told was a convenience," the Duke continued, his voice dropping even lower. "It gave me the justification I needed to dispose of you both. Anastarka's execution will serve as a message to the other branch families about the price of defiance. You… you I was simply going to let rot. But your sister," he glanced at Liana with the barest hint of paternal acknowledgement, "suggested a more… poetic punishment."
His glacial gaze returned to me. He saw my clenched fists, the silent fury in my eyes, and he smirked. It was the first real expression I had seen from him, and it was hideous. It was the expression of a man crushing a bug and enjoying the crunch.
"You hate me, don't you?" he mused. "Good. Let that hatred fester. It will be all you have to keep you company in the dark."
He turned on his heel, his cloak swirling around him.
"Guards," he called out into the hallway, his voice booming with authority. "Take this scum to the dungeons. Throw her in the same cell as Anastarka. She can watch her mother's last hours. It will be her final, and most important, lesson."
Two figures, clad in full plate armor emblazoned with the Eldoria crest of a silver wolf, stepped into the doorway, their faces hidden behind grilled visors. They were huge, easily over six feet tall, their presence filling the small room. The metallic scent of polished steel and faint sweat reached me.
One of them started towards me, his gauntleted hand outstretched to grab my arm.
In that moment, everything slowed down.
The world wasn't a chaotic mess of rage and fear anymore. It was a problem to be solved. An equation to be calculated. The urgent quest timer pulsed in the corner of my vision. 70 hours. The face of my mother, gentle and kind, flashed in my mind. The taunting laugh of Liana. The dead, cold eyes of the man I called father.
This wasn't just a rescue mission anymore. This was the beginning of a war. And you don't go to war without knowing your enemy.
As the guard's gauntlet, each finger a thick bar of steel, reached for my small shoulder, my mind was perfectly, terrifyingly calm. I didn't flinch. I didn't scream. I didn't even breathe.
I watched them all—the smug, cruel girl, the monstrously indifferent man, and the two armored puppets coming to drag me away. I watched them, and I gave my first true command as the new Kalyth von Eldoria.
'Akira. Scan them. Analyze every detail.'
My voice was a razor blade in the quiet of my own mind.
'Show me their status. All of them.'