I don’t remember falling asleep.

One moment I was there, my hands still stained, the weight of her body still in my arms, and the next… everything was gone.

White.

Not light. Not sky. Just white, stretching endlessly in every direction. There was no ground beneath my feet, yet I stood. No wind, no sound, nothing to anchor myself to. It felt wrong, like I had been placed somewhere that wasn’t meant for me.

Then I saw it.

A tree.

It rose out of nothing, vast beyond reason, its trunk thick and ancient, its surface lined with patterns that shifted the longer I looked. Its branches spread outward in every direction, splitting again and again, multiplying into thousands, millions, until they blurred into something I couldn’t follow. My eyes tried to trace a single path, just one, but every time I did, it broke into ten more.

My head started to hurt.

“…Beautiful, isn’t it?”

The voice came from behind me, soft and clear, as if it had always been there.

I turned.

She stood a short distance away, cloaked in white, her hair falling over her shoulders like snow. She wasn’t looking at me. Her eyes were fixed on the tree, calm and unmoving, as if nothing else existed.

“What… is this?” I asked. My voice sounded distant, like it didn’t belong to me.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she stepped closer to the tree, slow and deliberate, until she stood near its trunk. She lifted a hand, stopping just short of touching it, her fingers hovering in the air as if she could feel something I couldn’t.

“So many paths,” she murmured.

I followed her gaze. The branches twisted endlessly, each one dividing into another, then another, each split leading somewhere I couldn’t see. The longer I looked, the more suffocating it felt.

“Every choice becomes another branch,” she said.

Something tightened in my chest.

Reesay.

The blood.

Her voice.

I clenched my fists. “I didn’t choose that.”

“No,” she replied gently. “You chose something else.”

There was no accusation in her voice. That made it worse.

“I was trying to stop it,” I said, sharper now. “I was trying to avoid all of this.”

“To avoid pain?” she asked.

I didn’t answer.

Her hand moved slowly along the air near one of the branches, as if tracing a line only she could see. “There is a path where you hesitate,” she said. Her fingers shifted slightly. “Another where you don’t.” She moved again, indicating something further out, something I couldn’t even perceive. “And countless paths you will never reach.”

My breathing felt uneven.

“Do you see it?” she asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, but the words felt weak.

She turned her head slightly, just enough for me to see part of her face. Her expression wasn’t cold. It wasn’t cruel. It was simply certain.

“It doesn’t matter what you choose,” she said.

My chest tightened.

“There is always a path where someone suffers.”

“No,” I said immediately, shaking my head. “That’s not true.”

“It is.”

She turned back to the tree, as if the matter was already settled.

“And you felt it, didn’t you?” she continued. “You tried to protect everyone.”

My hands started to tremble.

“And someone bled for it.”

The image hit me again, sharper than before. Reesay in my arms. The warmth of her blood slipping through my fingers. The way she looked at me.

My king.

“What do you want from me?” I asked, my voice barely holding together.

She was quiet for a moment.

“I once stood where you are,” she said.

I looked at her, trying to understand.

“I believed that if I chose carefully enough, if I understood enough… I could find a path where no one had to suffer.”

My throat tightened.

“There isn’t one,” she said.

I shook my head. “Then I’ll make one.”

She paused at that.

Only for a moment.

“Yes,” she said softly. “That is what you will try to do.”

Something about the way she said it made my chest feel heavier.

Not doubt.

Not belief.

Just certainty.

“And when you fail?” she asked.

I froze.

The question lingered in the empty space between us, pressing in on me from all sides.

She turned to face me fully now.

Her eyes were pale. Not empty, not lifeless, but distant, like they had already seen something I couldn’t even begin to imagine.

“What will you choose then?” she asked.

I didn’t have an answer.

I couldn’t even think.

Behind her, the tree shifted.

At first, I thought it was my imagination. But then I saw it. A cluster of branches, far above, where I could barely focus, began to collapse inward. Not breaking, not falling, but folding into each other, simplifying, reducing. The countless paths narrowed, converging into fewer, thicker limbs.

My chest tightened.

“What… is that?” I whispered.

She glanced back at it, her expression unchanged.

“…A kinder shape,” she said quietly.

Something about that felt wrong.

Deeply wrong.

I took a step back. “No… that’s not…”

But I couldn’t finish the sentence.

Because part of me understood.

And that terrified me more than anything she had said.

The white began to blur.

The tree faded.

Her figure dissolved into the same endless nothing.

But her voice remained, soft and distant.

“You don’t need to find the right path,”

"Lenn,"

A pause.

“You only need a world where none of them can go wrong.”

Then—

Darkness.

***

I woke up gasping.

Air rushed into my lungs too fast, too shallow, like I had been drowning. My body was drenched in sweat, my chest rising and falling as if I had just run for miles without stopping. For a moment, I didn’t understand where I was. All I could see above me was wood. Rough, familiar beams.

My ceiling.

The realization came slowly. The warmth beneath me. The weight of the covers. The faint sound of wind brushing against fabric.

I was in my bed.

Sunlight slipped through the window, soft and indifferent, illuminating the room like nothing had happened. The curtains swayed gently in the breeze, their movement calm, almost peaceful. It felt wrong. Everything about it felt wrong.

I was alone.

I pushed myself up, the motion sending a sharp, dull pain through my abdomen. My body protested immediately, weak, unsteady. I looked down. Light clothes. An undershirt. Trousers. Clean. Someone had changed me. My coat hung neatly by the wardrobe, exactly where it always was.

Like nothing had happened.

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and stood. The moment my feet touched the ground, dizziness hit me. The room tilted slightly, my vision blurring at the edges, but I forced myself forward anyway.

I needed to see.

I made my way to the window, one hand brushing the wall to steady myself. Outside, Wolkenburg stretched beneath the midday sun, its streets alive with movement. People passed by as they always did, merchants calling out, children running, life continuing without hesitation.

But something was different.

There were more guards.

Groups of armored knights patrolled the streets in tight formations, their presence heavy, deliberate. Their armor caught the sunlight as they moved, scanning, watching.

Because of what happened.

The thought hit me like a blow.

What happened.

My chest tightened.

I turned abruptly and rushed out of the room, nearly stumbling as my body failed to keep up with my urgency. The hallway felt too quiet. Too still.

My parents’ room was empty.

Reesay’s room was empty.

I went downstairs. The same silence greeted me. No voices. No movement. Just the faint creaking of the house settling into itself.

Even the basement, the place I had claimed as my own, felt distant. Untouched. As if I had never been there at all.

I couldn’t stay.

I stepped outside.

A breeze hit me immediately, cool against my overheated skin, grounding me for a brief second. The streets were busy, but as I moved forward, I started to notice the shift.

Whispers.

“Hey, it’s that kid.”

“Heinberg’s child?”

“The one with the Eidolon…”

“That prodigy…”

Their voices weren’t loud, but they didn’t need to be. I felt their eyes on me, their curiosity, their judgment, their distance. I didn’t respond. I didn’t look at them. I just kept walking, heading south without thinking, away from everything familiar.

I didn’t want to see anyone.

Not my parents.

Not Reesay.

The thought of facing them made something twist painfully inside my chest.

I’m an idiot.

The words came uninvited, sharp and immediate.

I kept walking until the noise of the town faded behind me, replaced by the quiet density of the forest. The dirt path stretched ahead, familiar in a distant, almost forgotten way. I had been here before, back when things were simpler. When my father had taught me how to fish, when time felt slow and harmless.

Now it just felt empty.

The wind moved through the trees, carrying the sound of rustling leaves. Somewhere in the distance, an animal stirred. Life continued here too, indifferent, unaffected.

I stopped walking.

I nearly killed them.

The thought landed heavier this time, refusing to pass.

My father. Reesay.

Because of me.

Because I couldn’t act.

Because I wouldn’t.

I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my palms.

All of this… because I couldn’t bring myself to harm someone.

Because I believed I could resolve everything without violence.

Because I thought understanding would be enough.

A hollow laugh escaped me, bitter and quiet.

What a joke.

I had dreamed of building something better. A kingdom where peace wasn’t enforced by fear or power. A place where no one had to bow their head to survive. Where strength didn’t dictate worth. Where people weren’t divided into those who ruled and those who endured.

I didn’t want to recreate the world I came from. A world where luck decided everything. Where some were born with everything, and others with nothing. Where effort didn’t always matter, and suffering didn’t always have a reason.

I hated that world.

I hated what it did to people.

I hated what it did to me.

So I thought… I could do better.

I thought if I just understood people enough, if I just made the right choices, I could build something without that cruelty. Something clean. Something fair.

Something peaceful.

But all I did… was hesitate.

And that hesitation nearly killed them.

My chest tightened, the weight of it pressing down harder with every breath.

I wanted to erase luck. I wanted to create a place where everyone could live without fear, without suffering, without being crushed by circumstances they never chose.

But what did I actually do?

I made the worst decisions of my life.

I chose inaction when action was needed.

I chose ideals over reality.

I chose to believe… instead of protect.

And now—

I stood there alone, surrounded by a quiet that felt suffocating.

My hands trembled.

“I hate this…” I whispered.

The words felt small.

Insufficient.

My voice broke.

“I hate myself.”

It came out louder this time, raw, unfiltered.

“I hate myself so much.”

The forest didn’t respond. The wind kept moving. The world didn’t care.

I came to this world to change. To live differently. To live fully. To become someone who had no regrets, someone who could stand at the top and create something worth believing in.

I wanted to live like a king.

A king who brought peace.

A king who protected everyone.

A king who never let anyone suffer.

But now?

I was the reason people were suffering.

I was the reason they were bleeding.

The pain in my chest deepened, sharp and suffocating.

In my past life, I thought I understood suffering. I thought I knew what it meant to lose time, to be powerless, to watch life slip away without being able to grasp it.

But this—

This was different.

Back then, I could blame fate.

Now?

There was no one else to blame.

Only me.

I sank to the ground slowly, my strength giving out as the weight of everything finally caught up to me.

“I didn’t want this…”

The words barely made it out.

“I didn’t want any of this…”

But wanting didn’t matter.

It never did.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, her voice lingered.

There is always a path where someone suffers.

My hands tightened against the dirt.

Then what am I supposed to do?

The question echoed, unanswered.

And for the first time since I was reborn—

I had no idea what kind of king I was trying to become.

Frustration surged through me, hot and uncontrollable, drowning everything else. Before I could think, before I could stop myself, the word slipped out.

“Kronos.”

The air shifted.

That familiar distortion wrapped around me, subtle yet absolute, like the world itself was bending to something deeper, something older. Power surged through my body, sharp and unstable, feeding directly into the anger I couldn’t contain.

I moved.

My fist drove forward.

For a split second, there was no resistance. Just the feeling of impact connecting with something that didn’t matter enough to stop me.

Then—

The tree ruptured.

A clean, violent puncture tore straight through its trunk, the force splitting wood fibers apart as if they were nothing. The sound came a moment later, a deep, cracking groan as the structure gave in on itself. The entire tree shuddered, tilted, and collapsed, crashing into the forest floor with a heavy, final thud.

Silence followed.

My breathing was ragged, uneven, my chest heaving as I stared at what I’d done. Splinters and dust drifted through the air, slowly settling like the aftermath of something far more significant than it should have been.

It didn’t feel better.

It didn’t fix anything.

If anything, it made it worse.

A sharp pain suddenly pierced through my chest.

I froze.

It wasn’t dull. It wasn’t distant. It was immediate, brutal, like something inside me had cracked under the strain. My body tensed, my hand instinctively clutching at my chest as my breath caught halfway.

“Dammit!” I cried out, my voice breaking as the pain intensified.

My knees buckled slightly, the strength draining from my limbs as quickly as it had come. The presence of Kronos flickered, unstable, like it was rejecting me just as much as my body was.

I staggered back a step, then another, before dropping to one knee, my vision blurring at the edges.

Even this—

Even this small, pointless act—

Was too much.

I clenched my teeth, trying to endure the pain, but it only reminded me of everything else. Of how little control I actually had. Of how easily everything slipped through my fingers.

I couldn’t protect them.

I couldn’t hold my ideals.

I couldn’t even hold myself together.

The forest remained quiet around me, indifferent to my struggle, as if nothing I did, no matter how much I broke, would ever be enough to matter.