CHAPTER 190: ATTACHMENTS [3]

Similar cries of confusion and wonder echoed throughout the streets as hundreds of people discovered they had somehow returned from the void. The psychological impact was immediate—some wept with joy, others stared at their hands in disbelief, and a few simply fainted from the shock of their impossible resurrection.

Families that had been torn apart by tragedy found themselves whole again. A woman rushed to embrace her husband, tears streaming down her face as she held someone she had watched die protecting her. Children ran to parents they thought they had lost forever, their laughter ringing through air that had been filled with screams only moments before.

"My son... my son is alive!" cried an elderly man, clutching a young warrior to his chest. "But I saw him fall... I held his body..."

The joy was overwhelming, infectious, spreading through the city like sunlight breaking through storm clouds. People emerged from their hiding places to find loved ones restored, buildings rebuilt, their world returned to them as if the golden invasion had been nothing more than a terrible nightmare.

Buildings started reassembling, returning to their previous state as if they had never been destroyed. Stone blocks flew through the air like guided missiles, finding their exact positions in walls and foundations. Glass shards swirled upward in crystalline tornadoes before reforming into perfect windows. Even the smallest details—carved decorations, painted signs, flower boxes—materialized exactly as they had been before the attack.

The city breathed again, whole and unmarked by tragedy.

After everything returned to its pristine state, Ethan said quietly, "I will go meet up with Tiana."

Hong Wei nodded with a genuine smile spreading across his face. Despite everything that had changed about Ethan, this single gesture felt familiar.

"She never stopped believing you’d come back," Hong Wei said softly.

Ethan disappeared without a sound, reappearing several blocks away to avoid startling Tiana. He walked slowly through the restored streets, his footsteps deliberate and measured as he approached the small group gathered near Uncle Lin’s restaurant.

Just like everyone else, Tiana was shocked by what was happening around her. She stood frozen, staring at her own hands as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, that the world had somehow undone its own destruction. Her mind struggled to process the impossibility of what she had witnessed.

Next to her stood Lin, who was equally shocked.

Uncle Lin was there too.

Ethan cleared his throat softly, the sound cutting through their shocked silence.

All three turned toward him simultaneously.

"E... Ethan..." Tiana whispered, her voice barely audible.

Time seemed to stop in that single moment. The brilliant researcher who had built a successful career, who had grown confident and accomplished in his absence, suddenly became the young academy girl who had once bandaged his cuts after he’d protected her from bullies.

Without warning, Tiana burst into his arms, unable to contain herself as tears flooded her eyes. She pressed her face against his chest, her hands clutching desperately at his clothes as if afraid he might disappear again.

"You’re real," she sobbed against his shoulder, her voice breaking with years of suppressed grief and hope. "You’re actually real. I thought... when you left for that place, I thought I’d never see you again. Everyone said you were probably dead, but I couldn’t... I couldn’t accept it."

Lin covered her mouth with both hands, her own tears flowing freely as she watched her friend’s reunion.

Uncle Lin stepped forward slowly, his old eyes bright with unshed tears. "Young Ethan," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "You’ve come home."

The simple words carried the weight of family, of belonging, of love that transcended time and transformation.

Unfortunately, Ethan didn’t feel the same way. The reason he came here was to check—had he lost all emotions?

Indeed, he had.

No matter how many times he looked at Tiana’s crying eyes, those beautiful features streaked with tears of joy and relief, he never felt what he used to feel. Her warmth pressed against him, her desperate grip on his clothes, her broken sobs of happiness—all of it registered as mere sensory input.

He watched her cry in his arms and felt... nothing.

The absence was profound, like staring into an abyss where his heart should have been. He could remember loving her, remember the way his pulse had quickened at her smile, the protective fury that had once burned in his chest when others threatened her. But the memories were hollow now, echoes of emotions experienced by someone else.

Looking at his own status, Ethan willed for a specific skill to reveal itself.

There it was, embedded deep in his abilities like a parasite feeding on his humanity:

Advanced Stone Heart (Perfection)

The skill that had helped him survive countless battles, that had allowed him to make the cold calculations necessary for transcendence. It had protected him from emotional weakness, from the hesitation that could mean death in combat.

But it had also stolen his soul.

Without any emotion, Ethan willed the skill to go.

Advanced Stone Heart (Perfection) - DELETED

The skill vanished from his status instantly, unravelling like a chain that had bound his heart in ice. As if something massive had been uplifted from his chest, as if he could suddenly breathe again after drowning in an ocean of indifference.

Ethan started feeling emotions again.

All of them.

At once.

Anger flooded through him first—rage at the years lost, at the pain he had caused, at his own willful destruction of everything that had made him human. Then came hate, burning bright and terrible as he thought of every enemy who had ever threatened this place, these people.

Love crashed over him like a tsunami, overwhelming and pure as he truly saw Tiana for the first time in years. Her tears, her devotion, her unwavering faith that he would return.

Sadness followed, deep and aching as he realised how much he had missed, how cold he had become, how close he had come to losing everything that mattered.

And finally, worry—soul-deep concern for everyone he cared about, for the city that had been attacked in his absence, for the pain they had endured while he pursued power in distant realms.

Everything.

The emotional cascade was so intense that tears began streaming down his own face. His arms tightened around Tiana, no longer the mechanical response of someone going through motions, but the embrace of a man who had found his way back from the void.

"Tiana," he whispered, his voice cracking with genuine emotion. "I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry."

But beneath the love and relief, a darker current flowed.

He wanted to wipe out every single being that had caused pain to this city of his.