CHAPTER 104: THE WEIGHT OF A CHOICE

Rhys opened his eyes.

The first thing he felt was the gentle warmth of a sun on his face. The second was the rhythmic, deep sound of water moving. The air smelt clean and salty.

He slowly sat up, his body aching with a deep, bone-weary exhaustion that went far beyond simple tiredness.

He was sitting on a vast, flat hand. The hand was made of black rock that had faint, glowing lines of starlight running through it.

High above him, the sky was a perfect, clear blue, a colour he had not seen in a long time. Below and all around him, a calm, dark ocean stretched to the horizon in every direction.

The hand he was sitting on belonged to Stony. The colossal being was walking through the ocean, its massive legs moving with slow, steady steps that did not disturb the water.

Its upper body was high above the clouds, a silent mountain moving through the sky. Rhys and his two companions were resting on one of its open palms, a platform the size of a small town square.

Sera was asleep on his chest, her small body curled up like a kitten. Her silver hair was spread across his simple grey cloak, and her breathing was slow and peaceful.

A few feet away, Seduction was lounging against one of Stony’s giant fingers, her eyes closed, an expression of profound boredom on her perfect face.

The memory of what had happened came back to him in a slow, heavy wave. He remembered the darkness of the void, the silent judgment of Chaos, and the two realities clashing.

He remembered his other self, the emperor on the Mainland, a man who had built an empire to run away from his own loneliness.

Then he remembered his own choice.

Rhys slowly clenched his own hand into a fist. The memory was not a nightmare. It was a cold, hard fact.

He had committed an act of genocide. He had erased an entire province, every man, woman, and child, from existence.

He had done it to kill Kaelen, to erase every last drop of his blood from the world. But he had also done it to prove his own reality, to prove to Chaos that his path, the path of confronting his own lonely destiny, was the true one.

He did not feel guilt. He did not feel remorse. To feel those things would be to admit that his choice was wrong.

And his choice had not been wrong; it had been necessary.

It was the only move left on the board. He had accepted the burden. He had embraced the loneliness. This was the price of his victory.

This was the foundation of his new existence.

The feeling that settled in his chest was not regret. It was a heavy, cold emptiness. He was the last living person from the Azure Province.

’A king with no subjects... is there any difference between me and Kaelen now?’

[Host, are you okay?]

’What do you think?’

[You do not seem okay to me...]

Rhys looked down at Sera, still sleeping peacefully. Seeing her was a small point of warmth in the vast coldness of his soul.

Sera stirred, her small nose twitching. She opened her eyes, her pitch-black pupils blinking in the bright sunlight. She looked up at him and smiled.

"Papa," she said, her voice a sleepy murmur. "Are we there yet?"

"Not yet, Sera," Rhys said, his own voice a little rough. He gently stroked her hair. "We have a long way to go."

She sat up and looked around at the endless ocean. Her eyes widened with a child’s wonder. "Wow, a big bath!" she exclaimed.

Seduction opened one pink, heart-shaped eye.

"If you find this boring scenery impressive, child, you have a very low standard for entertainment," she said, her voice a lazy drawl.

She sat up, stretching like a cat. "Husband, how much longer must we endure this tedious journey? This toy of yours is as slow as a dying snail."

"We will get there when we get there," Rhys said simply. He looked out at the horizon. "We are going to the Mainland."

The journey across the Endless Ocean was a long and quiet one. Days turned into weeks. The scenery never changed.

Just the endless blue water and the empty sky. No monsters dared to come near Stony, and those who did were stumbled by the Titan’s breath.

Stony’s slow, steady steps were the only constant rhythm in their new life.

For Sera, it was a grand adventure. She would play on Stony’s massive hand, treating it like her own personal island.

She would practise her shapeshifting, turning into a tiny, flying fish that would dive off the edge and into the water, only to be scooped up by Stony’s other hand a moment later.

For Seduction, it was a prison of boredom. She would spend most of her days sleeping, or creating small, intricate illusions of beautiful palaces and gardens to pass the time.

She complained constantly about the lack of proper food, the boring view, and the absence of any interesting people to torment.

For Rhys, the journey was a necessary period of recovery and preparation. The trial of Chaos had taken a heavy toll on his mind.

It was a deep, spiritual exhaustion that even his infinite lifespan could not instantly heal. It took two full weeks for the feeling of numbness to completely fade, for his body and soul to feel whole again.

During that time, he consolidated his power. He spent his days in deep meditation, exploring the new possibilities Seduction had opened for him.

He took his Inferno Heart build, which was based on the simple concept of fire and explosion, and began to experiment.

He took a thread of energy from his new Water build, the property of ’flow’, and tried to combine it with the ’burning’ property of his fire.

The initial attempts were disastrous. The two opposing elements fought against each other, creating small, unstable explosions that even made Seduction look up from her nap with a flicker of interest.

But Rhys was patient. He controlled the ratio with absolute precision. He did not try to force them to merge. He guided them, creating a delicate balance.

He imagined a fire that did not just burn, but flowed. A liquid flame that could seep into the smallest cracks, a river of fire that could not be extinguished by normal means.

After days of intense concentration, he succeeded.

[New Mutated Element Created: Molten Soul]

[Description: A fusion of the Burning property of Fire and the Flowing property of Water. Allows the user to create and control a semi-liquid fire that possesses both intense heat and the ability to move like a fluid. It can bypass physical defences and burn from within.]

He then moved on to his other builds, experimenting with new combinations. He fused the ’sound’ property of his Wind element with the ’structure’ property of his Earth element, creating a skill that could turn a simple shout into a solid, concussive force.

As his power grew, he looked towards the horizon.

The Mainland was still a distant, unseen land, but he could feel it. A place of greater power, greater challenges, and greater dangers. He was a Tier 4 cultivator.

In the primitive Wastelands of the Azure Province, that made him a god. But on the Mainland, he knew he would be just another cultivator in a world full of them.

His Ashen army was all in the Ashen Dimension, but he could not rely on them here. He had to start from the beginning again, just like his other self, the emperor. But he was not afraid.

He looked at his companions. Sera was now trying to teach Stony how to make ripples in the water with its giant fingers.

Seduction was creating a perfect, illusionary copy of Rhys and was making it fan her with a large palm leaf.

They were a strange, broken family, the last remnants of a dead world. They were his to protect.

That was the difference between him and the emperor. The emperor had built an empire to escape his loneliness. Rhys had embraced his loneliness to protect his family.

His purpose was no longer about revenge or power or even building an empire. It was simpler now. It was about finding a safe place in this vast, new world for the three of them.

One morning, after a month of travel, Seduction suddenly sat up, her bored expression gone.

"Husband," she said, her voice serious for the first time in weeks. "We have company."

Rhys opened his eyes. He looked out at the empty ocean. He could see nothing. But he trusted her senses.

He stood up, his hand resting on the hilt of his dagger.

Then, he saw it. A small, dark shape on the horizon. It was a ship. It was moving towards them with an unnatural speed.