A year had passed.
Aeren was sitting on the couch, staring at the chandelier, while Quella lay sleeping on his lap, playing with her mobile. Aeren looked down at her, his eyes locking onto hers.
"I'm done, Quella."
Quella shivered at his tone. She turned her head toward Aeren's stomach, grabbed his waist, and said in a quiet voice, "Can't we stay like this?"
Aeren was silent briefly. "No."
Quella stood up from his lap and locked her gaze onto Aeren. She looked at him for a few seconds. "Can you do me a favor?"
Aeren stared at Quella and went silent briefly before asking, "What is it?"
Quella went silent, not having expected this from Aeren. Her eyes didn't waver as she continued looking at him.
"Can you take my heart with you?"
Aeren was silent and didn't respond at first, but a few seconds later said, "Sure."
Aeren put his hand on her chest and pressed it slowly. His hand gradually went into her chest, and she puked blood from her mouth, but she didn't cry or scream. She just stared at Aeren with her soft blue eyes.
Aeren said nothing as he slowly and surely grabbed her heart. Quella was crying inside—It hurts—but she didn't show it on her face.
Aeren started pulling her heart from her chest, slowly extracting it while her heart still thumped. He could see her beating heart.
After that, Aeren removed his own heart and placed hers in his chest. Quella saw this, and no smile came to her face—nor sadness, but emptiness. She started to drop to the ground, but Aeren grabbed her shoulder and picked her up.
Aeren looked at her again. "You're free now."
Aeren picked her up like a princess and carried her out of the mansion. He looked at the sky and floated upward, flying above the earth. Aeren stood in space and looked down at the earth, announcing to the planet and all around space, void, and universe:
"Hear me, all of you. I, freedom, want to show my freedom to myself. You all have my freedom within you."
Aeren paused briefly, and everyone hearing his words was confused but didn't understand him, so they started ignoring him.
"Today, I'm taking my freedom from you all. You have used my freedom for years, and today is the day I will reclaim what's mine."
Aeren continued staring at earth with his cold eyes. All around space, the world, universe, and void heard Aeren and ignored his threat.
First, people on earth started crumbling to the ground without warning. In an instant, billions of people died without knowing what happened.
After that, the space around Aeren began to be destroyed. The universe started to shatter, but when one universe shattered, another was born the next instant.
Aeren watched all of this with cold eyes as it happened repeatedly. This occurred for almost a trillion cycles—space shattering, void shattering, universe shattering, galaxy shattering, and worlds shattering.
Aeren watched all of this and saw his body begin to shatter. Quella's dead body started to shatter too.
Nothing died—everything shattered.
Quella's body shattered completely, and Aeren whispered, "I found freedom from my home."
"A home that taught me slavery."
"A home that described slavery to me."
"A home that wanted to be enslaved."
"A home that made me a slave."
"A home that wanted to see me as the best slave in the world."
"I freed myself from my home that attached to me like a leech for years."
"I will never return home again, because there is no home left for me to return to. I erased all the homes I had."
"A home where I was born as a slave and found my freedom for myself."
Aeren watched the shattering around him as everything completely shattered with him. Aeren whispered to the shattering:
"Second freedom has been written... Free from home."
Aeren disappeared... with space's illusion...
Aeren opened his eyes and saw the new world. He gained a skill from this world.
Aeren didn't cry when he was born. He looked left and right, then looked at his new mother and father, but Aeren didn't feel attachment to them.
Aeren learned about his skill and thought, Odd skill, and useless. If someone else had this skill, they would have died the next moment. Because if your vital organs were destroyed, you would die instantly—so how would you survive after death?
Aeren didn't care about his skill, but he found that this place had little freedom for its people.
Aeren looked at the sky and still felt he was captured. He knew this would take time, and he needed to understand this world's concepts first.
Aeren read all the books his family could provide. He sometimes noticed that his family wasn't satisfied with him and didn't want him. Aeren didn't care about those things either.
Aeren read all types of books, but they were all limited—too limited to help him at all.
Aeren learned about everything around his territory and understood it all. He didn't try to grow his territory and not thought about expanding it either.
His family started ignoring him completely, and Aeren ignored them back. Aeren learned everything, but he wasn't able to learn about mana.
Aeren's talent could barely sense mana, so he started researching mana through books.
He learned through books, but those books had limited understanding about mana.
Aeren thought, If I can't learn through theory, then let me start with practice.
After that, Aeren started to understand and learn something he had never read in books.
And present...
Aeren came to the Elves continent. He looked at the continent—mountains and forests everywhere.
The mana here was much denser and still increasing around this continent.
The most surprising thing was that the outside continent didn't affect this continent. Aeren looked at the beautiful continent of this world.
Aeren took a step forward.