Chapter 28: Maya's Feeling 3
Maya's eyes followed Ank as he disappeared into his room. His footsteps echoed in her ears long after he had gone.
She trained for one year with all efforts, making her powerful enough to stand up with him and thought, maybe he would notice me. While he was unconscious after the attack, she took care of him and did everything that she could do when he was training.
She wanted to take care of Ank, wanted to watch him every day, wanted to tell him something that even she didn't know how Ank would react.
She had waited two days for his return, praying to God that nothing would happen to him.
And yet, the moment she saw him, he had only smiled… and left her behind.
Her heart sank.
She clenched her fists. Why… why can't I even hold him for a moment? Why can't he look at me like I look at him? Why does he ignore me? What do I do so Ank will notice me?
But she didn't let the feeling linger. Instead, she followed him into the room where Arthur still sat. She listened to Ank's story, her emotions rising and falling with every word.
When Ank described standing face-to-face with death, her chest tightened with fear. When he spoke of victory, pride bloomed in her heart, even though she bit her lip to keep from smiling.
But when Arthur spoke—when his words fell like a hammer against stone—her entire world trembled.
"In a few days, you will be free to leave the village."
Maya was shocked after what his grandpa said to Ank.
Those words shattered her calm completely.
Leave?
She had known, deep inside, that this day would come—that Ank was never meant to stay in the village. He had someone that reached new heights that she couldn't imagine.
Ank had something different. She had a feeling Ank was not a normal being; he was different, and his grandpa knew something about him, but he didn't tell her.
But knowing it and hearing it aloud were two very different things.
Her knees weakened, and slowly she held herself from falling with the help of the wall.
Grandpa's words echoed in her head.
He's leaving… he's really leaving.
The thought tore at her. If he left now, without knowing… without her ever saying anything… what then? Would he disappear into the vast world, never to return? Would someone else stand beside him, where she had always wanted to be? Only that thought was in her head.
No.
Her lips pressed together, trembling as her thoughts grew fierce.
I can't let it end like this. I can't just watch him walk away.
Maya's eyes hardened with resolution. She had only a few days.
A few passing days to make him see her. To carve her place in his story, to make him fall for her, to make him never forget me.
Her heart raced as determination settled in.
She thought to herself, "I'll do something… before he leaves. No matter what it takes."
Her decision was made.
I will change my fate and link with Ank. I will never leave him no matter what happens.
And now Maya's decision added a new layer to Ank's story that Ank would never like, but his mother's creation would support him.
Maya didn't know that by making her decision, she made a goddess very happy, and the goddess would make her dream true by giving a quest that Ank was not ready to complete.
Creation would do anything for Maya to succeed in her dream.
And once again, fate gave Ank a quest that he had to complete at any cost to save Maya. And Ank would come closer to his dream of finding peace, but for this peace, he had to kill billions of beings, and it would be his first massacre after his revival.
And now Ank was in his room, lying on the bed, thinking that the time had come for his rise, but there was a hint of sadness in his eyes.
Ank was now deeply attached to the old man, and he had slowly begun to recover from the shadows of the first Emperor of the Universe's world.
The one year he had spent with Arthur and Maya was not just a chapter in his life—it was a treasure. Days filled with laughter, mornings warmed by the scent of Maya's cooking, without caring about anything except training under Arthur's watchful eyes...
For the first time, he had tasted what it meant to live—not as a warrior, not as a ruler, not as someone that no one could look down on, not as a man burdened with destiny, not as a man that had ambitions, not as a man that had a dream—but as family.
And because of that, something inside him began to change.
The throne of the universe, the endless wars, the weight of power… all of it felt distant, almost hollow, compared to the warmth he now held.
His wish to live in peace had drastically increased, and he had not a slight wish to return to his position as the first Emperor of the Universe again.
All he wanted was his strength back—not to conquer, but to protect. Not to command, but to remain here.
With Arthur.
With Maya.
But he knew his past would haunt him one day, and he didn't want Maya and Arthur to be punished for his mistakes.
With this fragile, fleeting happiness, slowly, Ank's aim shifted—from ruling the cosmos to holding onto something far more precious.
A home.
A family.
And a voice that once told him the same dream that he had now, but he did not remember who talked to him that time. He had laughed at that person, and now he wanted the same.
Yet, no matter how tightly he held onto that fragile dream, fate had already written a different path.
And fate… was not kind.
Fate would test him all the time through his journey to see how the first Emperor of the Universe, who had the power to make the impossible possible, would change his fate that even Gods could not.
Fate had once lost to Ank, but this time it was ready to face Ank head-on.
The stage was ready, but what Ank wanted to achieve would be impossible for him.
Far beyond the stars, a massive army of stone plants consisting of billions that Ank had fought one year ago assembled and chose the Duskwild to attack.
The army was ready to invade Duskwild and conquer.
In this massive army of stone plant monsters, with green light glowing in every chest and fearless faces that even death could not scare, one stone plant holding a spear came from the massive army, lying on its knees, and shouted,
"The king gave me a chance. Let me go first. I will find the person who killed our brothers.
And I will punish him with my own hands, so give me the order, my king."
Then a voice came with such pressure that the stone plant spearman started coughing blood. "I give you a chance.
So go. I am waiting for good news."
He slowly lifted his head and shouted,
"All hail the king!
All hail the king!
All hail the king!"
This army would make Ank remember how helpless he had become.
He struggled to survive.
And once again, he had to accept that the First Emperor of the Universe's identity would not be easy to forget.
He also needed this identity.
And the universe itself was beginning to demand him back.
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Author's Note
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