Life rarely gave you the chance to choose your path. One way or another, you always found yourself standing in places you never meant to be, wondering how you had even arrived there.

It was like being thrown into a dance competition, expected to perform steps you'd never learned, with music too loud, lights too bright, and all you could do was try to move in time.

And yet… if life denied you the right to choose the path, it still granted you one freedom… the choice of how you would walk it.

It had been hard for Sora.

She did not wish for the throne, yet somehow life made it so that she needed it, and she now found herself in the midst of a political mess she had no desire for.

Now, she had no choice.

She could no longer watch her mother do whatever she pleased. She could no longer let her brother surpass her in this game of thrones. She could no longer allow her father to dictate her life, stopping her from doing what she loved.

They wanted her in this mess?

Fine.

Then she would play it her own way.

Let the coin spin.

"I will need you to go to Green City and speak with the Lady of Green," Sora said, her golden eyes fixed on Kenan and his father, Lewin Fireborn.

"You will be my spokesperson and tell her that the Sun Inheritor asks for her allegiance, and in return, she will receive my protection and my support for her endeavors. I will also acknowledge the project she proposed but that my mother refused."

Kenan watched her with neutral eyes, his deep black suit fitting him perfectly, his demeanor nothing like it had been months ago.

"I see," he said curtly. "But what if she refuses?"

Sora stared at him, then shifted her gaze slightly toward Lewin, her golden eyes bearing a distinct, silent question.

Lewin smiled politely. "Forgive me if I've offended you, Princess, but Kenan is my heir. He must learn," he said with calm deference. "In any case, I am here to correct him." He finished by bowing his head lightly toward her.

Sora only nodded, with Rome standing behind her like a guardian carved from gold, his eyes stern and unfeeling.

She turned her attention back to Kenan and saw how different he looked from the last time she'd seen him.

'I guess life is impartial to anyone,' she thought before parting her lips.

"What would you suggest if she refuses?"

Uncaringly, Kenan shrugged. "Ashes," he muttered. Then, with those cold, burning black eyes, added, "Transforming green into ashes is our specialty, Princess."

Sora smiled at that. "Yes," she nodded. "Either she accepts my considerate proposal, or the sun will burn hotter than her city can bear."

Lewin didn't say anything, he only smiled faintly at the exchange.

It didn't matter to him. If the Princess wanted Green City burned, then so be it. His loyalty rested with her, after all.

"When do we save Kaden Warborn, Princess?" he asked next.

He had already failed as a friend to Dain by letting him be deceived by the Moon's machinations. Now, he couldn't bear to let the same happen to Kaden.

He needed to save him, at least that way, he could still raise his head when he met Dain once again.

At his question, golden fire began to lick across Sora's face, turning it half flesh, half flame. The temperature in the room rose sharply, yet none of them sweated.

Slowly, she closed her eyes and exhaled, calming her turbulent thoughts before speaking,

"Only my father could stand against my mother," she said coldly. "And my father will only hear me if I bring him results."

She paused, then added unhurriedly,

"So let's take care of Green City before my brother takes hold of Morningstar City."

It was a hard truth, but truth nonetheless. So Lewin nodded.

Kenan, meanwhile, was thinking of something entirely different.

If his father was doing all this for his friend…

And the Princess for her pride or whatever flowed inside those arrogant Asterion minds…

Then he was doing this for one person.

'Lisa, please, wait for me,' he whispered inwardly, his fist clenching tight.

Playtime was over.

It was time to turn this whole game of thrones into ashes and go back to the girl he loved and missed dearly.

Ashes.

They said a woman is a man's greatest weakness.

What they forgot to say… is that it's her love that can turn that weakness into his greatest strength.

And so…

'Ashes…'

…

The battle was apocalyptic.

The whole forest was severed into thousands of splintered trees, the ground no longer resembling one but instead shaped as if some forbidden beast had clawed it apart with eerie ferocity.

The air itself tasted of calamity, the atmosphere so heavy and soaked in murderous intent that one could see a red haze enveloping the entire area, shrouding the gaze of any curious onlooker, a haze born solely from Daela's intent.

Across the ravaged ground stretched a sea of deep ebony branches covering everything in sight. Scattered among them lay hundreds of severed, husk-like human corpses, turning the battlefield into something no longer meant for the living to walk.

But for the dead to crawl.

Daela floated in the air, her clothes torn in multiple places, barely managing to do their job. Streams of crimson blood flowed down her body, riddled with wounds. One particularly vicious cut ran across her right eye, a deep black-hued slash that traveled from brow to cheek, destroying it completely.

She was now borgne.

Before her loomed the massive black tree — its state little better than hers — its colossal body severed in several places, wounds refusing to heal under the weight of Daela's intent.

Yet the spirit of the tree, the woman, was smiling from ear to ear, black blood dripping from her lips.

"Useless effort," the woman uttered, her voice reverberating deep within Daela's mind. "You cannot win, human."

The Mind Devouring Tree was one of a kind.

Its ability reflected its name, to devour the minds of others. But even without fully consuming them, it could weaken them, twist their senses, or erode their will until they could no longer defend themselves.

And once your mind was swallowed by her, you became nothing more than a husk, a hollow puppet, obeying her will without thought or soul.

That was the situation Daela found herself in.

She looked down around the woman and saw hundreds of humans, their bodies shriveled, as if drained of blood and muscle, staring up at her with a hollow, killing intent.

Each one's body radiated its own power, making it seem as if Daela were facing hundreds of Grandmaster-ranked beings, all without their domains.

The situation was dire, and victory seemed an impossible thing to grasp.

And yet, Daela's face didn't change.

Since the beginning of this battle, not a single word had escaped her lips, nor a shift of expression from her face.

Her face remained cold and unfeeling, as if the entire world lay beneath her, unworthy of even a flicker of her emotions.

One would believe she was arrogant.

But that was simply who she had learned to become, by herself, with absent parents.

And yet, Daela remembered a day, when she had been just ten years old, after she had awakened her Origin. One of the rare days her parents were actually with her.

She remembered her mother then, speaking to her about her cold attitude toward everyone, even toward them.

'Your heart is closed, my daughter,' she had said, looking at her, knowing full well the reason why.

But instead of asking forgiveness for their absence, instead of telling her to change…her mother had only smiled, then pressed her forehead against hers and whispered:

'What's done is done. There is no turning back. You've closed your heart to the world, yet I can still see within you feelings burning hotter than anything.'

'Then let them burn in silence. Let them feed your heart and soul, while you hide them behind a veil of apathy and indifference.'

'The one who masters the concealment of their emotions is the one no one can control, and the one everyone will learn to fear.'

'So go. Walk the path you chose because of us, but walk it with the dignity and honor of a Warborn.'

'And never forget…'

'Never forget that you are Daela Warborn. The blood of war runs through your veins. And…'

Serena had smiled at that moment, and Daela remembered how that day had been the first and last time she had ever cried in front of her parents.

'…and be like an Echo. Be like Time. Wield its sword and embody it completely. Ruthless, cold, and indifferent to the woes of the world.'

'Do not forget—!'

"Attack!!" The spirit of the Mind Tree screeched in rage, her wooden heart pounding erratically as it saw Daela's one remaining eye growing colder and colder with every passing second.

She was afraid.

Daela was looking at her as if she was nothing but filth, and somehow, she couldn't help but start to believe it.

"ATTACK! ATTACK ALL OF YOU! TAKE HER DOWN!" She howled, sending all her puppets forward, trembling as she felt the space around them begin to slow, as though time itself had turned against them.

Daela closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again, watching as hundreds of enemies closed in from every side.

She raised her twin swords, their tips facing down, then slowly let them go.

Instead of falling to the ground, the swords sank into the very fabric of space, disappearing into another fold of reality.

At that moment, the Tree shrieked, its branches twisting wildly as it too began its assault, driven by a sudden, apocalyptic fear that devoured all reason.

But it was far too late.

"Domain Activation…"

'I did not forget, Mother. I will not forget.' she whispered within her mind, and then slowly…

"Empire of Silence."

Time stopped.

A white light exploded outward from her heart, enveloping all the space around the Mind Tree, creating a domain of absolute silence.

Daela was draped in garments fit for an Empress — white and unblemished — with a crown of fragmented swords floating above her head. Behind her, her otherworldly attire fluttered like a pale sea. Her borgne eye opened once more, revealing not darkness, but a blank, pure white eye, and within it, in the center, her twin swords crossed in the shape of an X.

She raised her right hand in that time-frozen, silenced world… a world where only she could move, for she was its Empress. Then, unhurriedly, she lowered her hand back down…

And in that silence louder than words.

In that silence she had always bathed in since her childhood.

In that silence more terrifying than anything.

Daela summoned every strike she had ever made since the first moment she held a sword.

And the world was severed in silence.

—End of Chapter 323—

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