There was only silence between Elliot and Seungju. There was no words left spoken after Elliot confronted him.
The wind blew coldly as the breeze passed through the both of them. The tree swayed with the sweeping of the winds, its twisted trunk still wrinkled.
"So?" Elliot finally broke the deafening silence between them. "What's your response?"
"I" Kang Seungju trailed off. "I don't know where it all went wrong but there was a woman who was trying to warn all the Suns that a great plague was coming."
"Great Plague?" Elliot asked. "What plague?"
"That's the exact sa question we all had," Seungju said. "What does this woman an? Is she even sane to begin with? How are we sure that we can trust her? We were riddled with questions but she just disappeared out of nowhere.
"Out of concern and fear, we didn't inform our future brides and decided to hide this from them, even the kingdoms. We went on with our lives, complete forgetting about the woman's words until I started to have these dreams a few weeks before the wedding ceremonies."
"Dreams about what?" Elliot asked, stepping closer to the man. He was already this deep into what had happened in the past, might as well be fully imrsed in it.
"That there was going to be a Blood Wedding that's gonna happen, and the one responsible for it was a person with a pure black aura," Seungju replied. "I didn't tried to consult anyone with these dreams, and just went on with my life. I feel responsible for what happened.
"If I just paid close attention to detail, none of the incidents would've happened. All of us could still lived happily." Seungju sighed and looked up. "Maybe Aeri and Sana would've been there with until all of us grow old and die."
Elliot had soon understood where Seungju was coming from. He was only trying to protect what he thought he knew what to protect, but he didn't know that he was actually slowly destroying everything that he cared for.
"The Manual found way before the Blood Wedding," Seungju added, making Elliot's ear shot up. "It was placed in my room a couple of days after I started having the dreams. Since I was at the peak of everything, I didn't have ti surpassing the limit for the cultivation levels."
This topic had caught Elliot's interest. He was ready to settle with Seungju, but now new questions have risen from his mind.
"Why did you say that it found you at the Blood Wedding?" Elliot asked. "Because you were afraid that you'll be blad?"
"Of course," Seungju nodded. "I surpassed the cultivation levels not three days after eting the Manual. I was powerful enough to rule the entire East on my own, yet I couldn't do anything when facing the God of Darkness."
"God of Darkness?" Elliot asked. "Who is that?"
"The Forsaken," Seungju said. "I realized that you call him by a different na, but he's the sa being that had been corrupting everything. You might not know this, but when I was transported into this world, the Five Kings was known to have cleared the darkness in these lands.
"That was why they were regarded with such honors. After the fall of the Suns, the darkness lood over our lands, and the Five Kings were responsible for vanishing it and reuniting the people once more," Seungju muttered. "But, a new darkness arose and this ti, there're no kings to stop them."
"They have been corrupted as well," Elliot whispered. "I know you already know about this, but we need your help as much as we can. We need to survive this war and fight our own. So please, if you ever have anything else you can offer, I beg you."
"I have nothing else," Seungju said with sadness. "The re fact that my existence itself is limited is already aa hinder. I cannot fight any battles."
"Then tell everything you know then," Elliot uttered. "I refuse to believe that that's all the things your thousand-year mory has. Tell everything."
"Fine then," Seungju said. "Let's start with the manual."
"After you surpass the limit of your powers, the Manual's clutch into your soul gets stronger," Seungju said. "I think I'm not the first user of it since the Manual has mories in its own. I saw a lot of mories that weren't mine, and they had also helped through it.
"This was the first ti two Creators t, but if it clutches into you, a part of your soul will be sewn into the book. You'll have the powers of the previous owners, their mories, and their will."
"What?" Elliot interrupted. "Powers, mories, will? I have none of those."
"That's because you haven't surpassed level 100 yet," Seungju said. "Since I reunited with the part of my soul that is in the Manual, I am slowly seeing all the adventures of the previous owners. There's a ssage in my vision that I cannot disclose this information, but what I can tell is that you're not the next owner to , and you'll definitely gain more powers."
What the man was saying made Elliot interested so much. He was now invested in what Seungju had to say.
"There's a lot of betrayal here," Seungju sighed. "Even from your own experience, you have experienced so. Your predecessors had it worse, so you better watch out."
"Can I at least ask if I could have enough power to defeat Licht and DuDu?" Elliot asked.
Seungju's eyes suddenly widened. He ignored the question and slolwy shook his head, as if he just saw sothing horrible. He looked at Elliot and then into the empty space. "T-This"
"What's wrong?" Elliot asked. "Is there sothing wrong with the mories?"
"Elliot," Seungju said. "I don't know if I'm allowed to say this much, but you're connected to the previous owner of the Manual. The man who owned it before you is connected to you."
Elliot tilted his head, "I don't think I understand."
Seungju shook his head, "Watch out. When you think keeping the manual as a secret to people who are close to you, they are keeping secrets much greater than yours."
The emperor leaned closer to Elliot, "And they are closer than you think."
For so reason, Elliot's gaze wandered to the tree beside them. Seungju followed his eyes and he slowly nodded, without even hearing the question first.
"This is the sa type of tree that transported you into the Forest of Gray Lake," Seungju said. "I have co to realize that there was a man who visited years back. I cannot say his na, but he was with another man and a woman. The three of them are not from Terra, ane I assu you can connect the dots from there."
"The previous owner was also a visitor here," Elliot whispered. "I just couldn't pinpoint why the tree was in our backyard. I don't know who told all about it."
Seungju's eyes widened. "What? All this ti, I thought you had pieced it together."
Elliot shook his head, "I don't even rember how I got into the tree."
The pink-haired emperor then knew.
Soone was erasing Elliot's mories.
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