Colen smiled faintly and said, "Snow, would you like to do the honors?"
Snow beamed, her small arms wrapping tightly around Colen in a brief, affectionate hug before she looked up and blew a soft gust of snow and cold air into the room. With a flick of his fingers, Colen gathered the swirling frost, shaping it into a miniature cloud that floated gently above the long table.
Snow watched the spectacle with a cold expression eerily similar to Colen's but somehow warmer, her innocence shining through no matter how hard she tried to imitate his stoicism. It made her seriousness look almost adorably naive, and Maxi couldn't help but laugh internally. That same look... he thought, just like when I helped my daughter with her homework.
Colen cleared his throat lightly, placing a steady hand on Snow's back to ensure she stayed balanced. Then, with another flick of his fingers, a single snowflake drifted from the cloud above and landed on the long table. Instantly, a thin sheet of ice spread across its surface.
Another snowflake descended, and when it touched the thin ice, the air itself began to freeze. Delicate ice sculptures rose up: figures of Lore, Oasis, a small boy, and the grinning shark, Uki.
The layer of ice continued to weave around them, expanding into the beginnings of a grand castle, still under construction.
Colen's voice resonated through the grand library, his words weaving into the moving sculptures like a master puppeteer breathing life into his marionettes:
"Lore, Oasis, and their companions — with the blessings they had gained — built their kingdom with ease. It was a castle of great beauty and strength, a sanctuary for their people."
The ice figures moved gracefully, depicting Lore and Oasis constructing their castle, their actions filled with purpose and joy.
Colen continued:
"But as time passed, Uki, the shark spirit, felt a different calling. His journey with Lore and Oasis had been wonderful, but it was not where his path ended. He desired a kingdom of his own."
The ice sculpture of Uki turned away from the others, looking toward an imagined horizon.
"With heavy hearts, Lore and Oasis agreed. They told him to build a kingdom as grand as theirs — if not greater."
The scene shifted: the castle melted seamlessly into the throne room. Lore and Oasis sat regally, speaking with Uki, while the small boy in the background struggled to climb the throne with clumsy determination.
Lore and Oasis smiled warmly yet sadly as they nodded their approval to Uki. Their smiles held a bittersweet weight, filled with pride, love, and inevitable parting.
The throne room then melted away, and the ice refroze, shaping into a towering cliff overlooking a shimmering ocean. The waves below moved with a startling realism the ice melting and refreezing so smoothly that it looked like real flowing water.
The figure of Uki approached the cliff's edge. He paused, turning to look back one last time at Lore, Oasis, and the small boy, who all waved at him, their figures bathed in a soft, ethereal glow.
Uki's wide, shark-toothed smile stretched across his face a smile full of fierce joy and farewell.
With a final wave, Uki leaned backward and dove gracefully into the icy ocean below. The moment his sculpture touched the water, it melted completely, vanishing into the illusionary sea as if he had truly disappeared into another world.
The library grew quiet.
Maxi found himself swallowing hard, a lump forming in his throat. The sweetness and sadness of the scene lingered, weaving into his chest and squeezing his heart.
For a moment, no one spoke. Even Snow, usually bright and giggly, simply stared, wide-eyed and quiet, at the now still table but then she started tic-tac-toe with the side of Colens face .
Colen waited until the bittersweet moment settled and until snow stop stopped playing tic-tac-toe on his face before continuing.
"After that farewell," he said, "Lore and Oasis devoted themselves fully to growing their kingdom."
They began by spreading word of the upcoming Blessing Awakening Ceremony, starting with the noble houses. Whispers turned to excitement. Curiosity grew. Their kingdom gained traction quickly among the nobility, and even parts of distant worlds caught the echoes of their rise.
In the realm of the Earthly Gods, where prestige was often guarded and slow to shift, their ceremony spread like a new fire — slow at first, but steady, undeniable.
Years passed. The kingdom flourished, its name becoming etched into history.
But as the kingdom grew, so did the small boy.
He matured into a teenager, yet while Lore and Oasis were buried under politics, alliances, and endless responsibilities, he quietly drifted away from their world. The boy wanted no part in the intricacies of running a kingdom — whether out of disinterest, rebellion, or something deeper, no one could say.
Instead, he wandered.
He spent his days practicing anything and everything: fishing, sword-fighting, archery, mountain-climbing. Whatever he stumbled upon, he tried. And whatever he tried, he learned fast — frighteningly fast.
Colen's voice sharpened slightly, a note of intrigue bleeding through.
"If you didn't know," he said, "original humans carried a special gift an inherent genetic trait of rapid adaptation. Natural jacks-of-all-trades. They could quickly adapt to any skill or environment... as long as it didn't kill them instantly."
Maxi's eyes narrowed thoughtfully as Colen continued.
"And there's more," Colen added. "When a human masters a skill truly masters it that mastery passes down to their children."
Maxi's mouth opened slightly in realization.
"Wait... does that mean?"
Colen nodded, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"Yes. He can talk, convince, manipulate, and charm as masterfully as the King of Power himself."
Maxi internally cursed.
Ohhh... so that's how he was able to convince so many people to join his kingdom...
He scowled inwardly.
I hate Tengen.
Out loud, Maxi asked, "Alright... what about his mother? What skill did he inherit from her?"
Colen only shrugged, Snow hugging him tighter as if trying to squeeze the answer out of him. But Colen resisted.
"Personally," he said, "I assume it's the ability to adapt to someone's fighting style after losing to them... but without enough confirmed information about his mother, we can only speculate."
Maxi nodded reluctantly.
With a flick of his fingers, Colen changed the scene again.
The ice sculptures shifted, flowing from one setting to another like turning pages in a living book:
The boy fishing by a misty river.
The boy dueling with swords in a training yard.
The boy practicing archery beneath towering trees.
The boy scaling cliffs and conquering rugged mountains.
Colen narrated:
"He did all of this to pass the time, mastering skill after skill. Over years of wandering, he quietly shaped himself into something... more."
But then something strange began to happen.
The boy started hearing a voice.
A familiar voice one he had only heard once before.
The oldest voice he had ever encountered.
"Presumably," Colen said carefully, "it was the voice of the oldest god ever crossed in the Astroplanes. Our ancestor himself claimed so, though his confirmation was... cryptic."
Maxi leaned forward, every muscle tense, drawn into the unfolding mystery.
Colen continued:
"When our ancestor recounted the story before his death, he said only this:
'I heard a voice both familiar and unfamiliar. Whether it was a true call or a mimicry, I could not tell. But once heard, it was never forgotten.'
He never explained more."
The library felt colder somehow, as if even the ice sculptures were leaning in, listening.
Colen glanced at Snow, who clung to him silently now, sensing the gravity of the story or just wanting a snake.
"No matter the truth," Colen said, "it marked the true beginning of the boy's destiny. A voice, whispering across realms... calling him forward."
Colen's voice softened, almost reverent.
"He heard that voice again and again," he said. "Never clear... just fragments, drifting through the air like pieces of broken dreams."
But one day, while exploring a dense forest, it changed.
The boy heard it — clearly.
A whisper as sharp as thunder:
"Go deeper, if you want to know the truth... about your father... and those who killed him."
Without hesitation, the boy pushed deeper into the woods.
Colen flicked his fingers.
The scenery melted forests twisting into mist, before freezing into a new scene: the boy wandering under dark green canopies, listening, waiting.
The boy's expression shifted his head jerked up as if hearing something only he could perceive.
He ran, cutting through the trees, until he burst into a hidden clearing.
There, floating in the center, was a shining yellow star pulsing with a slow, golden heartbeat.
The boy hesitated... then reached out.
As his fingers brushed the star, reality shattered.
Colen flicked his finger again the clearing faded into white snowclouds above, and snowflakes began to fall, slow and heavy.
The boy stood frozen in the center, the star still glowing in his hands.
The story unfolded.
A gust of wind whirled around him, carrying glimmering snowflakes that froze the very air, painting images for him and for Maxi, watching from afar.
The first sculpture appeared:
His father, a small boy himself, sitting and reading under a tree.
The sculpture melted away.
Another snowflake froze the air:
His father meeting his mother for the first time, their faces shy, cautious, hopeful.
It faded.
Another snowflake:
His father and mother on a date, laughing under the stars.
It faded.
Another snowflake:
His father, falling to his knees in frontof his mother with a black box.
The boy, now watching from the clearing, fell to his own knees, tears welling in his eyes though no sound escaped him.
Another snowflake drifted down:
His father pressing his ear to his mother's pregnant belly, a tender, fragile moment.
It vanished.
Another snowflake froze the next memory:
His father receiving news something that filled him with rage and fear.
Another:
His father standing atop his crumbling kingdom as it spiraled into chaos.
Another:
His father at his wife's side, fear written deep into his face as she screamed in labor.
Another:
His father alone, gripping his hair, broken by stress, confusion, helplessness.
Another:
His father writhing in pain at the base of his throne... while Lore and Oasis's group simply watched, horrified disgusted and detached.
Colen flicked his fingers sharply.
The boy's eyes in the clearing began to glow faintly red.
The next snowflake captured a darker image:
His father, monstrous now, fighting Lore and Oasis's group.
The clash of gods and kings frozen forever in the ice.
The sculpture shattered.
The boy's eyes glowed brighter.
Another snowflake His father lying dead, Lore and Oasis standing over his body, victorious.
The boy's body trembled with anger, his glowing red eyes flickering like dying stars.
Another snowflake:
His mother, desperate, slicing open her own womb revealing him.
No tears fell from the newborn boy.
No cries were given.
Only silent, glowing red eyes... watching.
The glow pulsed stronger.
The final snowflake descended slowly.
It froze the last image:
Lore and Oasis pulling him out of his mother's womb, cradling him but not in love. In victory. In ownership.
The memory faded.
The snow stopped falling.
Silence reigned.
The boy sat alone in the clearing, surrounded by the whispering trees.
He knew now.
Who he was.
Who his parents were.
And what had been taken from him.
The glowing red in his eyes did not fade.
The boy rose slowly from the clearing.
The snowflake he had caught the one that showed him the truth he pressed it against his heart. It shimmered faintly, pulsing with his rage, his sorrow, his destiny.
Without looking back, the boy left the forest.
Colen's voice continued, steady but weighed with emotion:
"The boy kept the star with him... as a comfort, as a reminder of what was lost and what was stolen."
He did not hesitate.
He marched straight toward Lore and Oasis's grand castle, disturbing everything in his path markets, ceremonies, courts.
Storming through their hall, he found them.
Without warning, the boy screamed
His voice raw, broken, and thunderous.
"WHY?!"
"WHY DID YOU DO IT?!"
"WHY DID YOU KILL THEM?!"
"WHY KEEP ME ALIVE IF I WAS BETTER OFF DEAD?!"
Tears streamed down his cheeks, burning hot against his skin.
Lore and Oasis froze.
They had no answer ready — no words prepared.
They had never expected him to know.
They never imagined the truth would find him.
They tried to calm him, reaching out with soothing voices, gentle hands.
But that only made it worse.
The boy recoiled, screaming louder.
His cries filled the castle like a storm.
Every guard, every servant, every noble and commoner heard it.
By the end of their desperate explanations — their flimsy, stumbling justifications — the boy was already at the doors.
He turned back once, voice shaking the heavens:
"I won't take your lies anymore!"
"You could have destroyed ALL of humankind with your sins!"
"This... is the end of you!"
"I will build a kingdom that remembers the morals you failed to keep!"
"I will see to your punishment with my own hands!"
His shout echoed through every hall, every street.
Outside the castle, citizens gathered drawn by the commotion.
And when they heard him, when they saw his tears and felt the depth of his heartbreak — they moved.
They followed.
Nearly half of Lore and Oasis's once-mighty kingdom thousands chose the boy.
Chose truth.
Colen flicked his fingers.
The scene melted and froze again into shimmering, icy history.
On the table before Maxi, the story unfolded in frozen sculptures:
The boy standing before Lore and Oasis, tears staining his face, shouting in rage.
Lore and Oasis, arms outstretched, desperate, shocked.
The boy storming down the grand staircase of the castle.
Lore and Oasis running after him, pleading.
Colen flicked again.
Thousands of snowflakes tumbled down from the snowcloud above.
As each flake touched the thin layer of ice on the table, they froze into sculptures
a vast crowd, surrounding the boy, Lore, and Oasis.
The boy turned to leave.
And as he did, more than half the crowd turned with him.
The traitors.
The loyal.
The broken-hearted.
The hopeful.
Together, they followed the boy into the wilderness.
The scene melted once more, then froze into a new image:
People raising walls.
Carving stones.
Building homes with calloused hands.
Planting flags of new hope in fresh soil.
And when the final stone was laid, and the first home finished
the people cheered.
They lifted the boy high into the air, tossing him up in celebration, shouting his name with joy and love.
For once
for the first time
he was wanted.
He was chosen.
The ice sculptures shattered all at once into a burst of snowflakes, which floated softly upward, disappearing into the great snowcloud above.
Maxi then look at the snowflake going up to the snowcloud wondering if every snowflake had a story like that