Chapter 311: The First Pantheon (4)
The mont Ash and the Originats stepped fully into the throne room, every sound died.
Every breath hitched.
Specifically, among the won.
Heat flushed through them as if soone had slipped an aphrodisiac into the air.
Ash exhaled quietly—his Erosence was restrained to its absolute limit... yet even that wasn’t enough. Lower beings like these couldn’t help but react to him.
Before anyone could lose control and pounce at him—
SNAP!
Ti froze.
Everyone in the room went still—except for two figures floating before the projection.
Sandra and Shia remained untouched by the ti change.
Sandra’s eyes widened, and as if needing to confirm with her own hands that the man before her was truly her son—
She vanished.
And reappeared with a fist already flying.
BOOOOOM!
Her punch detonated against Ash’s face—only for him to stop it with a single finger.
Since becoming an Asura again... Sandra had never been quite warm in the normal sense.
While she might’ve hugged her daughters.... her sons?
That was totally different. Asuras softened just a bit for their female children... but for their sons, strength was truly the only language.
And Ash’s presence stirred sothing far more primal in her—sothing only power could ignite.
Ash smiled, tilting his head as he held her fist effortlessly.
"Long ti no see, Mother~"
Seeing this woman again—after all this ti, after everything he had beco—Ash felt... nothing. Not in the cold, hollow sense, but in the clear, settled way of soone who had outgrown the need for old attachnts.
If he was honest, he no longer held familial ties to her.
Not to Sandra. Not to Nia or Shia either—not in the simple, mortal sense of "siblings" at least.
When Ash first appeared on Elaris, he assud he was like any other transmigrator—soone dropped into a new world with mories of another life, soone who owed nothing to the family tied to his new body.
That was the logic he clung to at the start.
But it didn’t take long for that illusion to break.
This wasn’t a borrowed life.
It wasn’t a vessel.
It wasn’t a second chance wearing soone else’s skin.
It was his life—and had always been.
Once he realized that, he embraced everything that ca with it. The family problems, the history, the responsibilities, the chaos.
He accepted it fully, without hesitation.... just in his own way of course.
But that was before he awakened every incarnation.
Before he lived countless lives across countless cycles. Before he beca whole in a way no single lifeti could contain.
Now, standing here again, he felt the difference sharply.
Old sentints—good or bad—no longer held aning. Old wounds no longer stung.
And old bonds no longer defined him.
He wasn’t the boy who stumbled through life without a true direction.
He was the sum of every life he had ever lived. And from that vantage point, the past—its comforts and its wounds—no longer held the sa weight.
Sandra’s voice cracked as she pulled her fist back.
Even as an Asura, her humanity had never fully disappeared even after regaining her race—and seeing the man her son had beco, the man who had grown without her, pierced her heart like a hundred needles.
"Ash..." she whispered. "I’m sorr—"
Ash leaned in and stole her lips.
Mwah.
Sandra’s abyssal eyes widened, shock rippling through her—but she didn’t pull away. Not even for a heartbeat.
From the side, Nia sighed and shook her head.
"Honestly? I’m not surprised.... I even warned our grandmother."
After knowing Ash for so long, how could she not expect this?
To her, it was obvious—Ash would take his mother and Shia just as naturally as he took anyone else, he desired. In her mind, it was practically inevitable.
Why else would they still be alive?
Vaeloria nodded. "You’re not wrong. I had the feeling long ago... back on Elaris."
While they chatted, Sandra lted into the kiss, lost in it—while Shia watched with a storm of conflict twisting inside her.
And Ash?
He was no longer ’standing’ in the throne room.
He had stepped directly into a sacred place within Sandra—her Sea of Consciousness, the inner place that housed Lysa.
-----
Inside her Sea of Consciousness stood two thrones facing one another—one pure black, the other pure white.
Lysa sat upon the white throne, the other half of Sandra’s soul. For a long mont, she and Ash simply regarded each other in silence.
Ash had known of her existence for ages, through the affection Sandra carried. But seeing her directly—seeing both halves of his mother laid bare—made everything fall into place.
With a single glance, he understood their entire story.
Not just their ti on Elaris. Everything before it as well.
It was the sa with his newer wives.
After awakening all his incarnations, he no longer needed to sift through mories or watch lives unfold piece by piece.
He saw the totality of a person instantly—past, present, and the threads that shaped them.
[A/N: Their backstories will still be revealed. Just in a different manner.]
And in this mont, Ash saw everything.
The brutal childhood of the Asuras—children thrown onto battlefields the mont they could walk, taught to bleed before they ever learned softness.
Their entire culture was built on conflict, not comfort.
Love, care, even hatred... all filtered through strength itself.
Seeing the full shape of Sandra and Lysa’s lives, how they were molded from birth, he understood why Lysa had rejected the mortal kingdom, why she tried to force Sandra’s soul to heal by taking control.
It wasn’t cruelty.
It was instinct—an Asura’s way of living.
Ash smiled faintly, speaking with casual ease.
"Hm. Should I call you ’mother’ as well?"
Lysa didn’t smile or frown. She simply studied him—the being who had once been the boy cast out by his own kingdom, the stain of Solace.
"Are you here for revenge?" she asked.
It wasn’t an unreasonable question.
If he was here, then he obviously knew she existed. Which ant he knew she was the one who turned a cold shoulder to him—not Sandra.
Ash shook his head lightly.
"That’s far too childish," he said. "I like to think I’m a bit more mature now."
With a single thought, the woman with long black hair streaked in white appeared directly before him—not because she moved, but because he wanted her there.
BADUMP!
Lysa instinctively stepped back, her heart pounding. Before she could retreat further, Ash’s hand closed around her waist, steady and unyielding.
A faint, knowing smile touched his lips as he leaned in close and took her lips.
His voice echoed directly through her mind, calm and resonant.
"Let the past stay where it belongs. You and Sandra are not the sa. And from now... you will live as yourselves."
The words struck her harder than any physical blow. Confusion flickered across her features, but with her trying to fight off her building lust she couldn’t think too deeply.
Before she could respond, a soft white radiance enveloped them both.
This kiss was no simple gesture. Ash wasn’t just acknowledging her — he was separating her.
A new vessel ford around Lysa, shaped by Creara’s will the mont Ash desired it.
A complete body.
From now on there would not be two souls in one body... but they will be completely separate entities.
Ash no longer drifted with fate. Every action now carried intention, precision, and purpose. And in his eyes these two won would be much better separate than they would be together.
The light twisted, and the throne room returned around them.
Sandra blinked as Ash pulled back, breath unsteady. Lysa stood beside her — whole, independent, overwheld by the sensation of having a body of her own for the first ti.
Ash’s gaze shifted to the last person frozen in place.
"Shia," he said, voice cutting through the silence, "are you going to keep standing there like an idiot?"
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