A silence heavier than the mountain rocks that had witnessed the legendary battle eight hundred years ago descended upon them. Celia's final words echoed through the shattered room, not as historical facts, but as a judicial verdict, a terrifying prophecy casting its cold blue shadows over Theo's soul. He wasn't shocked by the story itself, but by the cosmic absurdity that had transformed a desperate lie, born in a moment of weakness, into an entrenched historical truth—a bloody truth that left an unhealing wound in the body of the world.
Theo sat on the floor, his back rigid, feeling a chill not from the night air but from the pure fear that crept into his marrow. He had conjured a specter to save himself, only to discover that the specter was real, a transcendent being. He looked at his aunt's pale face and saw, for the first time, a reflection of genuine terror—not directed at him, but at the entity he had unwittingly become linked to.
"The Blue Shadow…" The name repeated in his mind with dark irony. "I should have chosen another color. Pink, perhaps? Was there a 'Pink Shadow' who baked cakes for orphaned children? Damn, even my lies are born deformed and deadly."
"Are… are you sure?" Theo's voice emerged faint and hesitant, performing his role with a skill honed by years of masking pain. "Just a legend, isn't it? Old stories are always exaggerated."
Celia shook her head slowly, her eyes still staring into the void, as if flipping through the pages of an invisible book. "No, Theo. 'The Crimson Wound' is real. I visited it once. Ten miles of dead land where no grass grows, and no beast dares to tread. The aura there is distorted, filled with the echo of that explosion even after eight centuries. Nothing could cause such destruction except a battle between beings beyond our understanding of reality. And this isn't the only legend about him."
She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, adopting the posture of a storyteller—not one narrating for pleasure, but to warn her listeners. "There are other stories, less bloody but no less strange. They speak of how he appeared in the midst of the 'War of the Three Kings,' a civil war that nearly tore the Middle Empire apart. He didn't fight, didn't join any side. He simply stood in the middle of the battlefield before it began. When the armies tried to ignore him and launch their attack, time stopped."
She paused, ensuring Theo grasped the weight of her words. "Survivors from both sides—few as they were—told the same tale. Everything froze. Arrows halted in mid-air, swords stopped inches from necks, soldiers' cries lodged in their throats. He alone, 'The Blue Shadow,' walked among the frozen ranks of the armies, spending an entire day inspecting the soldiers' faces one by one, as if searching for someone. Then, when he finished, he turned and left. The moment he vanished from the horizon, time resumed. But no one fought that day. The soldiers dropped their weapons and fled in absolute terror. He ended a twenty-year civil war just by walking."
Theo felt a shiver course through his body. This time, it wasn't fear of his aunt, but the weight of the legend he had inherited through deception. He had been playing with a fire he didn't know could burn stars.
"Freezing time? Walking for a whole day? This entity I just invented has strange hobbies," he thought sarcastically, his only shield against the creeping madness. "What was he looking for? Did he lose his keys?"
"And there's another story," Celia continued, her voice dropping lower, "about the 'Forgotten City of Sages,' another legendary city said to contain all the world's knowledge, guarded by the strongest magical barriers. No one could find it or enter it. But 'The Blue Shadow' did. He didn't break the barriers; he simply ignored them, as if they didn't exist for him. It's said he spent a full month in its library, reading every book. When he left, he took nothing, destroyed nothing. He left behind a small blue crystal floating in the air. They say that crystal remains there still, granting glimpses of absolute knowledge to anyone who approaches—but driving them mad in return."
"He's not just a fighter, Theo," Celia said, now looking directly at him, her eyes bearing the weight of all those legends. "He was a phenomenon, a cosmic anomaly. A force that didn't obey the world's laws. And now… you say this entity visits your dreams, teaching you his techniques."
Theo nodded slowly, playing the part of the shocked and frightened apprentice. "I… I don't know why. He never speaks to me. I just… see."
"And that's what terrifies me," Celia said. "This is no longer about your flawed body or your need for power. It's become so much bigger. If your mind, or your soul, is somehow connected to this fearsome entity, it raises two dreadful questions. First: why you? What makes you so special that the ghost of history's mightiest warrior chooses you? And second, more troubling: if your dreams have opened to one legend, who's to say they won't open to others?"
Theo's eyes widened, and this time, he wasn't acting. It was an idea that hadn't crossed his mind.
"This world's history is teeming with monsters—not just those with claws and teeth, but monsters in human form," Celia went on, as if unlocking a Pandora's box of nightmares. "There's 'The Bloody Empress Lilith,' the sorceress said to have reached the Ninth Ring, who sacrificed entire cities to prolong her youth. And 'The Corpse King,' the necromancer who nearly drowned the continent in armies of the undead. And there are older entities, from the age of ancient demons. What if they start visiting your dreams too? What if your mind becomes a battleground for these legendary specters, each vying to impose their legacy upon you?"
Theo felt true horror clutch his heart. His small lie was ballooning, turning into a cancer that devoured his reality. It was no longer about concealing the truth from Celia; it had become about the possibility that his lie could morph into a reality more terrifying than anything he could have imagined.
"Marvelous. Just what I needed. A tea party in my head with history's greatest villains. I hope they bring biscuits, at least," he thought, sarcasm his only lifeline as he sank.
"I… I don't know," he said, his voice trembling, reflecting his genuine shock. "What do I do?"
The sharpness returned to Celia's gaze, pulling herself from the whirlpool of legends back to the harsh, practical reality. "First and foremost, that technique you learned—the Overlord's Aura Absorption—forget it."
"But…" Theo tried to protest, thinking it might be his only chance at survival.
"No 'buts'!" she interrupted firmly, leaving no room for debate. "You saw what it did. You nearly tore the fabric of reality in this room. You drew the attention of every monster within miles. You almost killed yourself—not from injury, but from sheer pressure. That technique isn't a tool; it's a suicidal weapon. You don't control it, and you don't understand its true source or its full cost. You will not use it again, understood? Unless the alternative is certain and immediate death—and only with my permission. This isn't a suggestion; it's an order."
Theo fell silent and nodded in agreement. She was right. He had felt it—how the power had nearly consumed him.
"Second, we'll stick to our original plan, but with a thousand times more caution," she continued. "You'll focus on strengthening your aura the slow, painstaking way. You'll absorb the crystals, one by one, thread by thread. We'll move carefully, monitoring any changes in your dreams, any signs of new visitors. We must now treat your mind as a dangerous territory, an unstable zone."
"And third," she paused, giving him a long, intricate look. "You need to become stronger—not just physically, but mentally and spiritually. You must learn to master this body, this aura, and above all, your mind. If your mind is to become a meeting ground for legends, you must be the king in that meeting—not a frightened bystander. Your will must be the strongest."
Celia stood and walked toward the entrance of the shattered room, her back to him. "We'll rest tonight. It's been a long week. Tomorrow, we begin training—not for strength, but for control."
She stopped at the threshold, gazing at the sky as it took on the pale hue of dawn. "There's one last thing you should know about 'The Blue Shadow,'" she said without turning. "One of the lesser-known legends claims he wasn't searching for knowledge or power. He was searching for just one thing."
"What was it?" Theo asked, genuine curiosity in his voice.
Celia turned, and in her eyes lingered a shadow of sadness, a shadow of understanding that transcended time. "He was searching for someone who could kill him."