Chapter 371: The Weight of Legacy! II

What she would give to see Uncle Adras again!

But the Adrastia lineage flowed through blood she didn’t share and carried truths she could never access!

The thought should have brought bitterness, but instead it brought only a fierce determination to protect what they had, to be the anchor that kept them grounded in the present while they walked through the shadows of the past.

—

The Lineage Memory unfolded around them like a vast blueprint built from starlight and sorrow.

They stood on ground that sparkled with the essence of distant suns, crystalline sand that stretched toward horizons that seemed to bend upward into infinity. And filling that impossible expanse, extending beyond the reach of vision, were graves.

Not hundreds. Not thousands.

Millions.

Each one marked with symbols that pulsed with their own inner light, each one a life that had been cut short in service to something greater than themselves.

The magnitude of it was overwhelming, a testament to loss that stretched back through tremendous conflict and sacrifice.

And kneeling before this sea of monuments, his broad shoulders bent beneath a weight that no living being should have to carry, was a figure that made Achilles’s eyes pulse.

The Eighth Adrastia Emperor King.

His father.

Golden stellar armor covered his frame, each plate inscribed with runes that seemed to shift and flow like living things.

His hair, the same purple-gold as Achilles’s own, hung loose around his shoulders, and even from behind, the sheer presence he radiated was enough to make the very air tremble with respect.

“Out of all the memories,” he said without turning, his voice carrying the deep resonance of someone who had commanded Empires, “I hoped that my son would not see some of my greatest failures.”

HUUM!

His words were addressed to the endless field of graves, but Achilles knew they were meant for him. Had always been meant for him.

“They were all my closest aids,” his father continued, and now Achilles could hear the weight of grief that threatened to crush even an Emperor King.

“Killed in a war they didn’t understand, dying to protect someone who should have been strong enough to protect them instead. Their families, those they left behind… I carry all of that on my shoulders now.”

He lifted his head toward the star-filled sky, and Achilles could see his profile- strong, noble, and marked by lines of sorrow that spoke of responsibilities too heavy for any one being to bear!

“I pray that you, my son, will never have to go through something like this. That you will be stronger than I was. Wiser. Better.”

The pain in those words was heavy, and it took everything Achilles had not to rush forward and embrace the father he had never known.

Instead, he found his voice.

“Father,” he said, and watched as the armored figure went perfectly still. “I brought someone to meet you today.”

Only then did the Eighth Adrastia Emperor King turn, and Achilles watched his father’s composed expression crumble into something shocking and wondering as his gaze fell on the small figure standing beside his son.

Arya stepped forward with the brave uncertainty of a child meeting someone important for the first time.

Her silver-green eyes were bright with curiosity and just a touch of nervousness as she lifted her chin and spoke with all the dignity her tiny frame could muster.

“Hello, Grandfather! I am Arya! Adrastia! Maxwell!”

…!

The silence that followed stretched for several heartbeats, and then his father’s face transformed.

Joy- pure, incandescent joy- blazed across his features like a sunrise after the longest night. His laughter boomed across the field of graves, a sound so full of happiness that it seemed to make the memorial crystals ring in harmony.

“A granddaughter!” he roared, gravitational pressure erupting from his form as he swept Arya into an embrace that lifted her off her feet. “I have a granddaughter!”

But even as he laughed, even as he spun her around with the delight of discovery, Achilles could see the tears that tracked down his father’s cheeks.

Because this was memory, not reality.

This… it was at the end of the day, all false and real at the same time.

Because he was gone, and would never truly hold the granddaughter who bore his eyes and his stubborn courage.

When he set her down, his hands trembling as they smoothed her hair, his expression had grown serious once more.

“For both of you to have attained your Empyrean Stars…” he said, looking between them with something that might have been pride mixed with fear. “Tell me you haven’t gone into the Star Seas yet!”

The urgency in his voice made Achilles’s chest tighten. “Only my Primordial Avatar has ventured out,” he said carefully. “To handle a danger before it becomes real. But I also came here because I need to know about our enemies. Those who killed you, and all the Adrastia Emperor Kings who came before.”

His father’s face grew grave as he looked down at Arya, whose bright eyes were taking in every word with the intensity of someone far older than her apparent years.

“Unlike all those who came before you,” his father said, his voice heavy with the weight of countless failures, “you have to succeed, my son. You cannot fail where we failed. Do you understand?”

The words carried with them the accumulated grief of generations, the knowledge of defeat after defeat, of Emperor Kings who had fallen one by one until only memory remained!

Achilles met his father’s gaze without flinching. “I am the Last Adrastia Emperor King,” he said. “I will not fail. I cannot fail!”

WAA!

Something in his eyes must have convinced his father, because the older man nodded slowly, his expression shifting from desperate hope to grim resolve.

“Then I will tell you about our enemies,” he said. “And may my conscience forgive me for the burden I’m about to place on your shoulders. For the burden no single existence should ever have to bear…”

…!

Onward!