Chapter 543: Past
Gao Ziyue took a deep breath once more. The air within Azhura’k’s domain, though intangible and posed of pure spiritual energy, seemed to solidify inside her lungs, making each breath an act of conscious effort.
The mist that always surrounded her within that domain slowly rippled around her.
Its movements were not random. Every ripple, every swirl of thick fog, pulsed in sync with the instability of her emotions. It was as if the veil that hid her from the world reflected the inner chaos she had long since learned to suppress.
For long, heavy seconds, absolute silence reigned. Even Azhura’k’s gigantic eye, floating in the depths of the darkness, seemed to hesitate to pulse. She remained motionless, a statue sculpted from shadows and mist, as if gathering every spark of courage she still possessed.
This was not a story she told just anyone. It was the key to a prison she had built with her own hands, and opening it required a strength she no longer knew if she still possessed.
Then, at last, her voice broke through the veil of silence. It was soft, so soft that Kyrian instinctively leaned in to hear her, and carefully controlled, as though every word were a shard of glass she had to handle with extreme care to avoid cutting herself.
“I… don’t hide my appearance because I want to.”
The sentence lingered in the air, carrying a weight that transcended the words themselves. Kyrian remained silent. There was no impatience in his posture, no eager questions in his violet eyes. Only patient waiting, a safe space he offered her without asking for anything in return.
Her voice echoed again, now with an almost imperceptible tremor at its edges.
“When I was still a child…” She paused, as if the mere act of remembering was already painful.
“…one of my uncles tried to kidnap me.”
The darkness around them seemed to grow denser, and even Azhura’k’s eye, watching silently from above, appeared to dim its glow, as if respecting the gravity of the moment.
“He…” She breathed slowly, the sound echoing damp and heavy.
“…said he had fallen in love with me.”
“But it was never love.” Her voice hardened, a thread of steel beneath the layer of pain.
“It was obsession. A sick obsession.”
Kyrian continued looking at her, his eyes never leaving the silhouette wrapped in mist. His face showed no exaggerated shock.
She continued, her voice growing heavier, as if dragging invisible chains.
“He was an extremely important person within my family. Powerful. Respected. Influential.” Each word landed like a heavy blow.
“He had enough authority that very few people dared stand against him.”
She paused, and when her voice returned, it was laced with anguish.
“But… after he saw me…” The mist around her stirred, as though sharing her unrest.
“…something inside him changed. At first, no one noticed. He simply began appearing wherever I was. He brought gifts. He always found some excuse to talk to me.” Her voice became melancholic, tinged with lost innocence.
“I was far too young to understand. I thought he simply cared about me the way an uncle cares about his niece.”
Her hand, visible for a brief moment through a tear in the mist, slowly clenched into a trembling fist.
“Little by little…” The words came out slowly.
“…it got worse. He started following my every move. He knew where I studied. Where I trained. Who I played with. Who I talked to.” Her voice faltered for a second.
“I couldn’t leave my room without finding him somewhere. He was always there, watching me with that look…”
She took another deep breath, the sound hoarse and painful.
“I still remember the look in his eyes. It was…” She hesitated, searching for the right word.
“…terrifying. For the first time in my life, I was afraid of someone from my own family.”
Kyrian continued listening, his presence as steady as an anchor amid the stormy sea of her memories. He did not interrupt her or offer empty words of fort. He simply listened, and in doing so, gave her more than any speech ever could.
Her voice became even softer, a whisper that seemed to rise from the depths of a dark well.
“Then… one day, he decided to act. He spent months preparing everything. Illusions. Formations. Bribed servants. Corrupted guards.”
She listed each item like a general reporting the forces of an enemy army.
“He waited for a moment when my father was away from the main residence. Then he tried to take me.”
Even after so many years, the memory still seemed alive, burning in her mind like an ember that had never fully gone out. Her hand trembled slightly, the only sign of the emotions threatening to overflow.
“He almost succeeded. If a few loyal guards hadn’t noticed what was happening… I never would have e back.”
The image was far too vivid. The panic, the darkness, the rough hands trying to drag her away from everything she had ever known. Once again, she felt the cold of that night deep within her bones.
“My father arrived in time. The battle happened right before my eyes.” Her voice sounded like a distant echo now.
“I can still remember… the screams… the blood… the techniques destroying half of the family’s garden.”
She fell silent for a few moments, reliving the scene. When she spoke again, her voice carried a weariness impossible to conceal, a burden that seemed to have accumulated over decades within the span of a few minutes.
“My uncle refused to give up. Even after being defeated, he kept saying that I belonged to him. That no one… not even the Patriarch… could take me away from him.”
The echo of those words, spoken with sickening conviction, still haunted her. The possessiveness, the madness, the way he saw her not as a person, but as an object to be claimed.
She slowly clenched her hand, her nails digging into her palm.
“My father had no choice. He had to kill him.” The sentence was spoken with a coldness that did not match the trembling in her soul.
“With his own hands.”
The void fell silent once more, the weight of those final words lingering in the air like an even thicker fog. Kyrian could imagine the burden of that decision. Killing his own brother. Even if it had been necessary, even if it had been to protect his own daughter, it was a wound that would probably never fully heal, a scar upon the Patriarch’s soul that echoed through Gao Ziyue’s very existence.
After a few seconds, Gao Ziyue spoke again, her voice recovering a little of its posure, as though she had forced herself to lock that memory away once more inside a sealed partment of her mind.
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