"What an injustice."
That was the last murmur that escaped the boy's lips before meeting his end at the hands of Tang San and his ruthless hidden weapons.
Tang San observed the still-warm corpse with cold indifference. His eyes, hard as steel, fixed on the crystalline glow emanating from the boy's leg. He recognized it immediately. It was the 100,000-year soul bone that his mother had released.
A sigh escaped his lips.
"Do you see? This is justice. You, who did not even deserve to touch a fragment of my mother's sacrifice, much less approach Xiao Wu, tried to take what was mine. You weren't even a common thief, you were worse. And for what? To end up dying in the blink of an eye."
Calmly, he turned his gaze away.
"Many would call me cruel for ending you so quickly, but I call it compassion. You should never have kept, or even approached, something that did not belong to you."
The words faded into the air as the boy's body, nameless to history, slowly grew cold.
…
At Wheat Manor, located in the northern part of Orario, the soft groans of a woman in labor broke the stillness of the early morning. In one of its rooms, lit by lamps and the timid glow of dawn.
"Even if he doesn't cry loudly, there's no need for alarm." The midwife, a woman of imposing beauty, spoke with a serene voice as she examined the newborn with expert hands. Her long golden hair cascaded in waves over her shoulders, and her amber eyes conveyed an almost maternal tranquility. "He is a strong and healthy baby. He has good color and breathes without difficulty."
On the bed, a sweaty and exhausted woman barely managed to lift her gaze. With effort, she murmured:
"...Thank you very much, Lady Demeter… I don't know what would have become of me without your help."
Demeter, goddess of fertile earth and harvest, smiled gently. Her lips curved with a calm gesture, and in that moment it seemed as though the entire room was filled with a warm, comforting light.
"There is nothing to thank me for, dear," she replied in a melodious voice. "Bringing life into this world is always a reason for hope and joy, especially now, when Orario seems to be drowning in so much chaos."
The mother, with tears in her eyes, weakly pressed the child to her chest. Her breathing was faint, but relief shone in her gaze.
"Then… do you think he will be alright?" she asked in a faint voice, trembling between exhaustion and guilt, for she would have to raise him without a father in the worst time for children, due to the chaos caused by the dissolution of Orario's main familias.
Demeter leaned in delicately. She placed one hand on the woman's forehead and gently stroked the newborn's cheek with the other.
"Of course he will," she affirmed firmly. "This little one was born strong, and that is already a blessing. Do not let worries overshadow this moment. Rest, regain your strength, and trust that the future still holds light for him… and for you."
The room fell silent for a few seconds, broken only by the calm breathing of the baby.
…
'Am I not dead?'
Confusion gripped the baby's mind. He still felt the weight of his previous life fresh in his memory, the blood, the defeat, the coldness in Tang San's eyes. And yet, here he was, breathing again.
The strange sound of unfamiliar voices surrounded him. He could not understand the words, but he grasped the intention in their tones: calm, relief, tenderness. Though it was mostly because he did not know the language, and the voices belonged to women.
'Another language…?' he thought with resignation. In Soul Land it had already been torture to learn the local tongue because of how quickly they spoke, and now he would have to go through it all again, trapped in the body of a baby unable to express himself.
Even so, amid the confusion and anxiety, a firmer thought broke through:
'I was given another chance… this time I cannot waste it.'
He did not want to repeat the same fate as in Soul Land. From the beginning, everything had been a curse: he had been born with Blue Silver Grass, with barely an innate level of spiritual power and no cheat to back him up. No matter how hard he tried, he always advanced at a desperately slow pace, as if the world itself insisted on reminding him how weak he was.
The truth was cruel. The only reason he had reached level 39 was not his talent or discipline, but that spirit bone stolen from Ah Yin. Without it, he would have stagnated much earlier, condemned to live as a nobody. Even so, he never had fortuitous encounters, never received the blessing of luck… he only survived out of desperation and both good and bad decisions.
Now, feeling the fragility of his new body, just a newborn in an unfamiliar place, he understood that he had to change everything. If before he had worked ten times harder than others, this time he would have to work twenty. There would be no shortcuts, no easy luck. If he wanted to survive and go further, he would have to fight fate again, taking every step with his own hands.
Exhausted, his thoughts slowly dissolved until he completely fell asleep.
…
Demeter watched the child sleep in his mother's arms. His expression was calm, unaware of the world's turmoil.
"He still doesn't have a name, does he?" Demeter asked softly.
The mother shook her head, too tired to speak, and she had not thought of one due to the death of the boy's father.
Demeter lowered her gaze toward the little one. The dawn bathed his skin in a golden glow. In that instant, she wanted to call him Triptolemus.
But she could not give him that name because it was a bit too complicated, and she wanted to give him something simpler and easier to remember.
"Lemos," she said at last. "He will be called Lemos, in honor of abundance and harvest, a symbol that even in the darkest times life always finds a way to bloom."
The mother weakly nodded, repeating the name in a whisper: "Lemos… it's a beautiful name."
Demeter observed him a moment longer, with that divine intuition whispering to her that this child would not be like the others. Then, silently, she rose and left the room accompanied by the woman who had assisted during the birth, leaving behind an exhausted mother and a sleeping child.