Theo was utterly incapable of weaving a convincing lie to get himself out of this predicament. He slowly raised his head, his eyes meeting his aunt's steady gaze, which was like that of a hawk watching its cornered prey. The resolve he tried to plaster on his face was a thin mask hiding a sea of despair and doubt.
A predicament!
The word screamed in his mind, its echo reverberating in the void of his exhausted soul. He had become a prisoner not only of this flawed body but of a web of secrets that had grown too heavy for him to bear alone. He knew Celia would never let him go until she had pried the truth from him, until she knew where he had obtained that brutal method of absorbing aura.
For a moment, he contemplated the true implications of what he possessed. If the secret of this technique spread throughout the world, Fifth-Rank fighters, now considered legends, might become as common as flies. The balance of power that had governed the continent for millennia would collapse. Endless wars would erupt, and rivers would turn into channels of blood. It was a frankly monstrous technique, not only in its execution but in its potential consequences for the entire world.
He felt his throat go dry under her piercing gaze. His mind was working frantically, screaming for an escape, for any lie that could be woven in this critical moment.
"I fell on my head from the sky."
The moment the words left his mouth, he wanted to bite his tongue off. It was an answer so childish and stupid that it was a direct insult to Celia's intelligence, and an even greater insult to his own suffering.
Tsk… Damn it. Theo cursed his own stupidity in that moment, feeling the heat rise to his face as he wished the earth would swallow him whole.
Celia, on the other hand, was staring at him in utter bewilderment, as if seeing a strange creature she had never encountered before. Then, very slowly, the corner of her lip rose into a cold, sarcastic smirk—a smile that made the blood freeze in Theo's veins. She was swearing in her mind right then that if the ancient ancestors of fighters saw Theo in this moment, they would have killed him out of sheer frustration—not for using a forbidden technique, but for this foolish answer not even fit for a child.
She took a step closer, her voice dropping to an icy whisper that carried a deep, veiled threat. "Tell me, Theo… do you miss Kyle's training?"
A violent shiver ran down Theo's spine. Despite being a Fifth-Rank fighter now, and despite having a body that supposedly wouldn't be fatigued by normal training, the mere mention of Kyle's name in that tone was enough to stir painful memories of days of training that were more akin to systematic torture, where he was pushed to the brink of death daily. He knew she wasn't joking. She was perfectly capable of devising new ways to torture him, methods tailored to his new body that would make him wish for death.
Damn it. The word repeated in his mind like a deafening alarm bell.
"Stop cursing in your head." Her voice came, sharp and cutting, confirming that she could practically read his thoughts through his rigid expression.
"I wasn't cursing," he replied quickly, a desperate attempt to deny the obvious, like a child caught red-handed.
"Yes, you were," she said coolly. "I can see it in your eyes. Don't try to play these games with me, Theo. We are long past that stage."
Theo's mind was racing faster than lightning. He searched every corner of his memory, turning over every experience, looking for a way out of this trap that had snapped shut around him. It wasn't easy for him to tell his aunt about meeting his "future self." In fact, he never would have. He knew she might believe him; after all the strange things that had happened to him, nothing was impossible anymore. But he also knew the consequences of revealing such information. Knowing the future, even a glimpse of it, could change it in unpredictable ways. Perhaps his future would become even more difficult, darker. It was hard enough for the current Theo to accept, so how could someone else comprehend it without going mad or trying to interfere in catastrophic ways?
His future self had appeared to him at a very precise moment, had spoken to him, told him a little about the future, and taught him a technique and an incantation. This was his greatest secret, his heaviest burden, and the cross he had to bear alone.
In the depths of his despair, just as he was about to break under Celia's piercing gaze, something unexpected happened. He felt a cold prickle at the back of his head, as if a sleeping part of his mind had suddenly awoken. Unbeknownst to him, Theo had instinctively activated "Dark Mind." In an instant, his aunt's emotions flooded his mind like a torrent. It wasn't just anger; it was a complex and tumultuous mix of deep anxiety for him, fear of the technique he possessed, a hidden joy at his survival, and a multitude of other emotions that came and went. He understood in that moment that her anger wasn't directed at him as much as it was a reaction to her fear for him—a shield she used to protect herself from the possibility of losing him.
His mind worked with extreme speed, using this new data. He had found a solution—an elaborate lie, built on a foundation of truth, a truth she already knew.
"Do you remember the empty dreams I told you about?" Theo began, making his face look more serious and sincere than before, his voice coated in a tone of masterfully crafted confusion and bewilderment.
Celia's expression shifted slightly, its intensity softening. "Hmm," she nodded, waiting for him to continue. Those empty dreams had been a real mystery that had accompanied him since childhood.
"They changed after I entered the Archive," Theo continued, carefully weaving the threads of his lie. "They weren't completely empty anymore. A strange person appeared in them."
He paused for a moment, as if trying to recall a fuzzy image from his memory, lending his performance greater credibility. "He was tall, very tall. And his hair was blue, the color of the midnight sky, cascading down his back to his waist. His eyes were black, as black as the endless void of space, cold and empty of any emotion."
Theo was describing the image he had invented in his mind.
Celia fell silent, thinking deeply. The description was too strange and specific to be a mere fabrication. She didn't interrupt, letting him finish, her mind analyzing every word.
"He never spoke to me. He would just stand there in the black void, practicing martial arts the likes of which I had never seen. His movements were fluid and powerful. He wasn't teaching me; I was just watching him, for countless years inside the dream. And this technique… I understood it from observing him. I saw him use it several times, and it became etched in my mind—every step, every pulse of energy, every moment of pain."
Theo finished his story, feeling drained by the immense mental effort. He had presented a complete narrative that explained the technique's origin and connected it to an old mystery Celia already knew, making it far more believable.
Celia looked at him for a long time, her mind a whirlwind of possibilities. Then she asked a strange question he never would have anticipated, a question that came from a completely unexpected angle. "Hmm, let me ask you. This person in your dream, does his body not look like a fighter's? Does he look thin, like the body of a scholar or a mage, despite his power?"
Seriously? Theo almost said it out loud. He had just made the man up. How could she know that detail?
"Uh... yes, but how did you know?" The shock was real this time, not just inside him, but on his face as well. He was no longer acting. He had just described someone his aunt apparently knew, or at least had heard of.
Celia's expression changed completely. The sarcasm, anger, and suspicion vanished, replaced by a look of profound shock, awe, and something akin to a fear she had never shown before. She took a step back and sat on a piece of rubble, as if her legs could no longer support her.
"Because you're not the first person to describe him," she said in a faint voice, as if talking to herself, the words struggling to leave her throat. "This man appeared a thousand years ago. His name was unknown, and everyone called him the 'Blue Shadow.' He was a fighter who reached the Eighth Rank—a rank no one has reached since, a rank many consider to be nothing but a myth."
Celia continued, her eyes staring into the void, as if seeing the ghosts of the past materialize before her in the ruined room. "He possessed immense power, but his appearance was frail; there wasn't a single muscle on his body. He appeared from nowhere, and no one knew where he came from. He was quiet and never harmed anyone unless provoked. But his power was absolute. It was said he defeated an entire army with a single wave of his hand. It was said he turned an oasis into a desert with a single word."
"Then, eight hundred years ago, something happened. He fought a fierce battle with an unknown entity, whose identity no one knows to this day. A battle that was said to have lasted for a month, cleaving the sky and altering the very terrain of the land. It ended in a massive explosion that killed all life within a ten-mile radius, leaving behind a barren wasteland where nothing grows to this day—a place we now call 'The Crimson Scar.' And after that battle, the 'Blue Shadow' vanished as suddenly as he had appeared. No one ever saw him again, and he became nothing more than a frightening legend told to children."
An oppressive silence fell over the room, a silence heavier than mountains. Theo was so stunned he couldn't even think. He had fabricated a lie to save himself from a tight spot, but his lie had morphed into a terrifying reality, connecting him to a forgotten legend of a fighter known to history, a being almost demonic in his capacity for destruction.