Killed Me? Now I Have Your Power

Chapter 391: Chapter 391: The choice is we have no choice.

Chapter 391 – The choice is we have no choice.

The meeting with his mother ended as swiftly as it had begun. There was not much to say, after all.

Besides the fact that they had passed the last two years in the same house, sometimes even training together, the only thing Serena wanted for her son was for him to come back alive.

It didn’t matter what he would accomplish. It also didn’t matter if the people of Waverith would see him as a Hero or something higher.

All of that didn’t matter to her.

If Kaden was a symbol of peace for the folks of the stronghold, Serena only saw him as a son.

A son she held within her for months, biting down pain only a woman would ever understand.

A son born in a place where the ground was littered with corpses, the air hazy red because of blood and death, and the weeping of the dead clear for all to hear.

A son who was born weaker than any Warborn, making Serena feel guilty about her ridiculous attempt to birth the Chosen of Threnovar she once read about in a strange dungeon.

It was said that such a child could only be born in death and blood and war. A child chosen by something little known.

Now that the thought forced itself into her thought-cage, Serena found herself wondering how she could dare such a thing.

How come, without hesitation, when the occasion for her to give birth coincided with a war going on with a Beast Lord, she ran toward such an opportunity?

Why wasn’t she afraid?

Now seventeen years have passed, and her child became something not even his elder siblings had become.

All these years, she had tried to ignore that knowledge. Even Garros told her not to mind such things, such events, that everything was coincidental.

But he himself knew that it was nothing but falsehoods.

No coincidence existed in life.

Absolutely nothing.

Even the fall of a leaf on a random tree inside a random forest in a random world was anything but coincidental.

So now, seeing her son achieving feat after feat, Serena Warborn asked herself,

Did she truly birth the Chosen Child?

If yes, what were the consequences of such an act? What were the downsides of being chosen by an entity even she, in all her knowledge, knew nothing about?

She dreaded the answer. And the dread climbed with each passing second, the more the mother watched her son grow, the more she watched him be a man she could be nothing but proud of.

"Will everything be alright?" Serena muttered to herself, now standing alone, surrounded by void on all sides.

"Are you still worrying?" Nixie sighed, appearing out of the void itself at the left side of Serena, "Nephew will be fine. I told you that already. He will be fine."

"But what if—!"

"There is no what if, Serena." Nixie mercilessly interrupted her worried words, looking at her with furrowed brows.

"What is done, is done. You have said it, you did not know why you chose such a reckless action. And I, myself, do not know why I didn’t stop you. Neither why that muscle-head Garros didn’t."

Serena pressed her lips into a thin hard line.

"All of this shows that it was something meant to be. It was—!"

"Fated." Serena continued, then clenched her jaw tight, walking around the void restlessly, "That’s exactly why I hate it. Anything related so closely to fate never ends with tears of joy, Nixie. Never. Only blood and ashes. Blood and Ashes, I say!"

"How many stories did you hear about such a thing? How many shattered dungeons did we clear together, reading and watching how fate gives you an apple only to put the whole weight of the tree itself on your back, expecting you to succeed bearing it with only the apple as nourishment?"

She halted her steps, snapped her head toward Nixie, eyes both cold yet worried, "Will that happen to my son, Nixie?"

"Nothing is certain." Nixie’s voice lowered, taking a soft murmur, "And don’t you believe in your son? For me, I believe in my nephew."

She forced out a smile, "I don’t know what’s happening. I know it reeks of the scent of gods—!"

"Gods, Nixie, I know many of them." Serena cut her mid-sentence, "And the ones I know do not have the power to force all of us together into such a hotpot. Not without suffering a very high cost."

"A Wonder, then?" Nixie guessed.

There, Serena paused, tilting her head. "Maybe. Maybe not. It’s impossible to know with so few clues about all of this."

She clicked her tongue in frustration, walking back and forth inside the void, her heavy steps making the space crackle.

Many thoughts were parading dizzily inside her mind. And in all those, her worries didn’t listen. Instead, they stuck to her skin like oil.

Serena halted her steps briskly.

Then, with gritted teeth and cold black eyes, "I need to ascend." She growled, "I have been in the Epithet realm long enough. I need to reach the Elderling. No, not only me. Garros needs to do the same."

Nixie immediately frowned, "You will need a divinity pathway for that, Serena." She said, "We are not like those bloodlines that came directly from gods, helping them reach the Elderling rank only by accepting the pathway of their ancestor."

Her voice went deeper.

"Our bloodline traces to no gods. At least, not one we can use to obtain a pathway."

"So what?" Serena spat, "All I need is to create my own pathway."

She pivoted and stared at Nixie, who was looking at her master in shock, "Why are you surprised?"

"Because I thought you had learned the lesson after the event with Scarlet Warborn." Nixie scowled, almost shouting, "You know why she is no longer with us. They hunt her, Serena! Many gods hunt anyone daring to create their own pathway! Do you wish to take that risk?"

"Now tell me another fucking choice." Serena cursed, slamming her foot on the ground so viciously hard the whole Red House quivered for a moment.

Nixie fell silent.

Serena continued sharply, "If you have no other choice to propose, then shut it down, Nixie. Both Garros and I consciously stopped ourselves from going further because of that fear. Because of being on the run, hunted by those fucking minions of gods for daring to have our own path."

"But there is no longer such a choice left." Her black eyes looked like twin pools of wrathful void, "We have enemies knocking at our door, and I have my son entangled in affairs I have no idea about. Staying at this rank is no longer an option."

Heavy silence swelled between them, each looking at the other with heavy emotions behind unwavering eyes.

Serena understood Nixie’s fear. She knew that attracting the ire of the gods was never a smart idea. In fact, it was foolish to no end.

Scarlet had run away only to stop those gods from targeting the Warborn.

But if she dared to do the same as Scarlet, then even if she ran, Serena doubted the gods would allow the Warborn to live in peace ever again.

It was risky. No, it was extinction-level risky.

Yet if she did not do that, she would die at the hands of those Beasts or Kaleith if war blew its horn.

"The choice, Nixie," Serena began once more, now calmer, "is that we have no choice."

"In either of our situations, war is inevitable, death’s hold on us will be tighter than ever. But it is what it is."

"That is the price of power."

She paused, breathing softly to calm her thunderous heart, "Are you with me?"

Nixie said nothing. She just stared at her master, knowing full well that once Serena made a decision, it was over.

She exhaled through gritted teeth, shooting a sharp glare at her master,

"Like hell if I have any damn choice. I am your origin. I am your weapon. I am your Spear."

"I am fated to die with you and ascend with you. So tell me, Serena,"

She smiled, fear dancing ruthlessly inside her eyes,

"What is our next step?"

—End of Chapter 391—