Read Novel Full Chapter 484: Bag of Grief
Chapter 484: Chapter 484: Bag of Grief
Chapter 484 – Bag of Grief
The feeling was strange. Or rather, regret was a strange feeling.
Kaden couldn’t help but turn that over as he stared at the corpse of his grandfather, slowly unravelling itself like a peeled onion.
His body felt as though it had been thrown into a deep void, cold and colder still with every passing second. His heart grew heavy, the regret settling inside it like an unmovable rock.
Regret for knowing his grandfather only five days before his death. Regret that he could do nothing to stop it, his own weakness so disgusting it sickened him more than the horrid stench of the rotting body before him.
Yet the regret went deeper and deeper, crippling him, leaving him only able to stare — a witness with no power to change the outcome.
For a moment, inside that cloud of pain and darkness darker than space, Kaden wondered if the regret would one day go away.
The answer came faster than he expected.
Regret was immortal.
It never faded the way anger and happiness did. Regret settled deep within you and reminded you of the same event at every single opportunity. And when memories returned, regret was reborn again and again and again…accumulating, until it consumed everything.
Yet something even more harrowing came with it in that moment.
Grief.
The grief flooding Kaden was like nothing before, a bottomless ocean trying to pull him down into its cold depths.
His eyes were streaming, his face the very picture of pain. The grief was trying to carry him away, and he was not letting it.
“Death ends a life,” Kaden whispered through his choked throat, looking at what remained of Raven, “but not a relationship.”
His grandfather’s words echoed within him, and he found himself smiling through the tears, pulling something like strength from simply repeating them.
‘If death does not end a relationship, grandfather, then how do I continue this one? How do I stay in contact with you when you are no longer in the same plane of existence as me?’
A lifelong question most asked themselves in moments like this.
How does one connect with the dead?
The answer was simpler than it sounded. Almost laughably so.
‘I must remember you.’ Kaden realized, then laughed and cried, then laughed and cried again.
‘I must remember you, grandfather. I must learn to live with the pain of your departure, and never let go of the lessons you pushed yourself to teach me at your last breath.’
Yet that also meant accepting the grief. Carrying it. Because by wishing to forget the grief, he risked forgetting the man himself.
So to remember…
‘…I must suffer.’
That was the price. And Kaden was ready to pay it.
So he gathered all of it — the grief, the pain, the sadness, the regret — and hung it over his back like a bag. The weight was heavy, almost crushing his soul and mind. But the young man was no longer the young man he had been.
His face didn’t change. No new wrinkles. No frosted hair. No slouching back. Yet something inside his eyes shifted, as if he was no longer Kaden…yet still entirely Kaden.
That was the man who had just witnessed the most natural death possible and chosen to carry it. So he cleared his blurred eyes and stared at the body of his grandfather once more.
Nothing remained of Raven Warborn. His skin had rotted and fallen away. His muscles had thinned to nothing. His bones had turned to dust.
Only one thing remained intact, untouched by the degradation of the curse, as if the curse itself was afraid of it.
The Heart.
Kaden exhaled shakily, looking at the strange heart. It was not a typical human heart. Pale, translucent, allowing one to see bluish veins coursing through it.
It looked like glass. Not because of fragility, but because of how precious and beautiful it was.
Just by looking at it, Kaden felt the space around him shift and tighten, as if affected by the heart now left open to the world.
He looked at it for a long moment, his mind torn between two thoughts.
But he was not alone. He never was.
“Take it, Kaden.” Reditha’s voice echoed all around, and ghostly hands appeared, wrapping around him with overwhelming tenderness.
“Reditha…” Kaden wheezed, the weight on his back easing considerably at her touch.
“Take it. You need it.”
“But what—!”
“Don’t sully his image, Kaden.” Reditha cut in. “The time was short, but you shared enough with him to know the answer yourself…would he be happy or sad to aid his grandson in healing?”
Kaden’s body shuddered, recognising the truth in her words.
“And this is not over.” Reditha continued, holding him tighter. “You have a choice to make. And you have your grandfather’s work to finish.”
“…Vainglory?”
“Yes.”
Kaden fell quiet.
He had seen how much it hurt his grandfather to speak of chaining his own friend — a brother to him — inside a god-cursed Tower.
And it made him remember what he had once said… that if his grandfather left behind something unfinished, he would finish it.
Now it was time to keep that oath.
“I understand.” Kaden whispered, and reached out to take his grandfather’s heart.
“Forgive me, grandfather. You helped me, guided me when I was lost inside a path I thought was swallowing me whole…”
The heart was cold to the touch, and heavier than anything he had expected.
“…now I take your heart into me, in hope of becoming as strong as you were, yet as loving and grounded as you were too. But most importantly…”
He activated his Synthesis.
“…so that you may still guide me in this life, for I am lost without your voice.”
He smiled sadly, eyes welling up again.
“You are my North Star, grandfather.”
DING!
The Will chimed instantly. Kaden ignored it entirely and began the process of reclaiming his lost Heart using the Heart of his grandfather.
The Will was undeterred.
[Your Myth is gaining depth.]
[Your Myth is Evolving.]
[The Concept: North Star, has been added to your Myth.]
[Your North Star has been discovered.]
[Your North Star is unique, for it holds within it two Favoured Beings: Vaela Aurora Crimson and Raven Warborn.]
[A Seer blessed by the Stars. A Wiseman loved by the Cosmos.]
[Your Myth is guided.]
[You are guided.]
[The Stars are watching you.]
[The Universe…]
Kaden lost consciousness completely, his body enveloped in the cocoon of Synthesis.
[…is watching you.]
—End of Chapter 484—