Chapter 2758: Story 2759: The Heart of the First Father

Ronan stared at the ancient face before him. It was his own face, stripped of warmth and mercy, as though centuries of suffering had carved every trace of humanity away.

“You’re lying,” Ronan said.

The figure tilted his head. “Your mother said the same thing when she first saw me.”

Suspended above the floor, the white-haired woman struggled against invisible chains. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.

“Ronan, listen to me!”

The figure tightened his fist. She gasped, and the chains around her throat glowed red.

“Speak again,” he warned, “and I will erase every memory your sons possess of you.”

Ronan’s sword trembled.

“Let her go.”

“Choose first.”

The little boy stepped from behind Darian. His small hands shook, but he lifted his chin.

“Take me.”

“No!” Ronan shouted.

The boy looked at him sadly. “You already lived my life. You had the sun, the wind, and her arms. I had a coffin.”

“I never asked for any of that!”

“I know.” Tears filled the child’s red eyes. “That is why I hate you less than I hate her.”

His words silenced the chamber.

Darian lowered his violet flames. For the first time, he saw the child not as a monster, but as someone whose entire existence had been stolen before he could understand it.

“Maybe neither of you has to die,” Darian said.

The ancient father laughed.

“Still believing you can inherit a world without understanding its price?”

He opened his free hand.

Darian’s violet mark ignited. The boy cried out as violet energy tore from his body, streaming toward the father.

“Darian!” Elias launched black chains, wrapping them around his brother’s waist. Aren reinforced them with silver light, while Lyra fired an arrow into the father’s exposed wrist.

The arrow shattered, but the interruption weakened his grip.

Ronan’s mother fell.

Ronan caught her before she struck the ground.

“Forgive me,” she whispered.

“For what?”

“For making you carry a heart that was never yours.”

Her palm touched his chest.

Suddenly, Ronan saw a vast darkness before creation, where a lonely being drifted through endless silence. It had no face, no name, and no heart. Then another presence appeared, offering it something red and living.

Love.

The darkness devoured it.

Ronan recoiled from the vision.

His mother wept. “I thought love would change him.”

The father’s expression twisted.

“You gave my heart to a child and called it salvation!”

The little boy clutched his chest. “Then why does it hurt when he hurts?”

For the first time, the father hesitated.

Ronan rose, carrying his mother behind him.

“Because,” he said, staring at the child, “you are not him.”

The boy looked up.

“And neither am I.”

Ronan drove his black sword into the stone between them.

A red shockwave erupted, connecting both brothers through their hearts.

The father screamed as cracks spread across his ancient body.

Then the child whispered, “Brother, stop.”

Ronan turned.

The boy’s eyes had become six burning stars.

“He is inside me now.”