Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 187: I Will Never Forgive Myself

Chapter 187: I Will Never Forgive Myself

After waking up, I remained for a long time without knowing what to think, what to do, or even what to hold on to.

There was no direction anymore, no clear anger, no longer that burning energy that usually drove me to reject the world or reject myself.

I was emptied, but not relieved.

I was there, simply there, in a troubled in-between where even self-hatred seemed to have deserted, as if it had understood before me that it no longer served any purpose.

I didn’t even have the strength to hate myself anymore.

All I wanted was to understand.

To have answers.

Not excuses, not justifications, just a thread, an explanation, something to which I could cling this pain I carried without knowing exactly where it came from.

Why had I become a monster, or why did I still see myself as one?

Why did that word, "weak," scare me so much that I preferred to destroy everything rather than accept it?

Why did my childhood memories, every time they resurfaced, drag me back into that second state, blurry, unreal, where I no longer knew if I was still a man or merely a living wound that kept breathing, despite everything?

I already had a few intuitions, blurry fragments floating at the edge of my memory, always there, always ready to surge, but that I kept pushing away with an instinctive gesture, as if they burned before even being formulated.

There was that closet.

Those noises.

Those silences too heavy between my parents.

That way I had, since childhood, of fleeing certain memories without even realizing it, of turning my eyes away inwardly before the image could form.

And then that love...

That almost unbearable warmth, those overly tender songs, those voices that lulled something in me I couldn’t bear to feel — as if softness itself had become an aggression.

I knew it was there.

That it was in that core, that ancient place, that part of me I had buried to survive, that the truth resided.

And I also knew that if I wanted to move forward, it would no longer be enough to flee, not even to understand.

I would have to accept.

Accept why I had been broken.

Accept why I had become a monster.

Not to excuse myself.

But to stop running from myself.

Because yes... I knew it.

Even with all the excuses in the world, even by unfolding one by one the traumas, the wounds, the silences, the stifled screams, the nights spent surviving instead of living — even with all that, I had no excuse.

None.

What I had done... could not be erased, nor justified, nor covered up by pain.

I had massacred.

Not by accident.

Not in a defensive gesture.

But out of pure destruction.

I had ripped life away from those who, to the very end, had continued to reach out.

From those who, in that damned dungeon, that sanctuary I had turned into a tomb, had always remained there for me — even when I was no longer myself, even when I had let myself be devoured by my own shadows, even when nothing human remained in my actions.

They had followed me.

Supported me.

Hoped.

And I... I had trampled everything.

As if loving me still had been an insult I couldn’t bear.

But in this world... could I really be blamed for having become inhuman?

I no longer knew.

I no longer had the strength to decide, no longer the certainty needed to judge what I had become.

So many things had happened to me since I arrived here — too many to list, too many to bear without staggering.

Losses, metamorphoses, choices I hadn’t known how to refuse, violences I had let sculpt me from the inside.

This world had skinned me, stitched me back together, then broken me again, again and again, until I no longer knew which part of me still belonged to me.

So yes, maybe I was no longer human.

But how could I have been... after all that?

What I would never forgive myself for — never — was not having fallen, nor having lost my way, not even for having let violence turn me into something else.

No.

What I could never forgive myself for was hurting her.

Emotionally. Physically.

Hurting my daughter, my Lysara, that pure soul I should have protected with my life, unconditionally, without hesitation, without deviation.

She, who had asked for nothing, demanded nothing, except perhaps a presence, a gaze, a hand extended.

She, who had come toward me without resentment, without reproach, with that fragile and heart-wrenching love that only children still know how to give.

And I... I answered with chaos.

With fear.

With the blade.

I betrayed everything I should have been for her.

And that crime... that crime will remain.

Even if everything else fades away.

What I was sure of, at least, was this: from now on, no matter the pain of the trials to come, no matter the intensity of what I would have to endure, no matter the bite of truths, of punishments, of the faces I would meet, I would no longer flee.

Even if the world keeps tearing away what’s left of me.

Even if the road becomes darker than anything I’ve ever known.

Even if the Antheses rise up before me, as that goddess had whispered — that voice from elsewhere that, in a cold breath, warned me of what would come.

I would no longer flee.

I would face it, not because I’m ready, but because I can no longer afford to look away.

Because fleeing now would be dying again.

I will fulfill my two goals.

No matter the cost.

No matter what must be broken in me to succeed.

The first — the most urgent, the most visceral — will be to save Cassandre.

To free her from the claws of that fucking god Noctis.

To bring her back to the light at all costs, even if I have to lose my soul, even if I must face the impossible.

And the second... the second is slower, deeper, more heart-wrenching:

To never make Lysara suffer again.

Never again.

To protect her. Help her. Carry her as best I can, with whatever means the world still deigns to leave me, even if they’re meager, even if they’re painful.

I will no longer live for myself.

I no longer have that right.

I will live as a slave, as a body in service of those I still love despite everything.

I will live to repent, not in words, but in every act, every step, every sleepless night.

I will live to carry the weight of my twelve companions, whom I killed with my own hands or let die without saving them.

I will live to carry the death of Lucas, whom I saw collapse without being able to hold him back.

And if, for that, I must destroy this world, if I must overturn the heavens, bend the gods, turn over every stone and every law of this reality until it screams...

Then I will.

I no longer seek peace.

I seek reparation.

And for that, only one outcome, one direction, one solution imposed itself — cold, sharp, inevitable:

To become stronger.

But not just strong in the usual sense — not surface strength, not loud or borrowed power.

No.

To become strong enough to never again bend, never again fear the Vestiges or the Gods.

To become a force that even divine entities would be forced to look at differently.

I would leave this world — I was sure of it now.

Not by miracle.

Not by mercy.

But through construction, through ascension, through determination.

And once outside... I would dedicate myself entirely to rising in power.

This time for real.

Without distraction. Without deviation. Without obstruction.

Alone in the world.

Without ties other than those I choose to carry.

I would become what they always wanted me to become — Noctis, Anarael, all those monsters who shaped me through pain.

I would become that monster, yes.

But a lucid monster, an awakened monster, a monster who keeps his goals in sight and his mind clear.

A monster who doesn’t forget for whom he bleeds, nor why he continues.

And I would not betray them again.

Never.

For that, one conclusion came to my mind, clear, evident, almost calm in its painful clarity:

I would have to move forward.

Move through this world, no longer by rejecting it as I always had, no longer by cursing it at every turn, but by accepting it.

Even in its absurdity.

Even in its cruelty.

Because it was there.

Because I could no longer live against it without living against myself.

I would have to move forward, mentally, physically, until each step became a construction, not a flight.

So I let my legs decide.

I didn’t choose a direction.

I didn’t try to understand.

I just walked.

And they led me, simply, without force, as if the world itself remembered the path for me.

Until they stopped.

On their own.

As if they knew I was ready to look.

When I opened my eyes, I was back in the field, the one that sheltered the Memory-Grass — that silent, almost unreal plain that always seemed to float somewhere between two worlds.

It shimmered with a pale green, translucent, almost luminescent, as if the light dissolved there instead of illuminating it.

The supple blades quivered at the slightest breath.

Not to wake me.

Not to shake me.

But simply to receive me, with that organic, disarming gentleness found only in places that already know what you carry.

I let myself fall without a word, without a sigh, on my back, arms open, heart unguarded.

Eyes lost in a sunless sky — a perfect white, smooth, deep, without movement, without promise.

The grass held me.

Literally.

Like invisible arms, warm, patient.

It embraced the curves of my body without weighing on me, rocked me just enough to feel I could remain there without needing to justify it.

I thought of nothing.

I expected nothing.

And for the first time... it was enough.

And that’s when she returned.

Not the voice.

Not the world.

Not a vision from outside.

No.

What returned... was a memory.

Pure.

Raw.

Detached from any will, from any conscious summoning.

It settled gently, without forcing, without clashing, as if it had waited for this precise moment to rise — this moment when nothing resisted anymore, when I was neither tense nor fleeing, just lying there in a fragile, almost naked availability.

It needed no precise image, no loud sound.

It slid into me like an ancient truth I had let fall asleep.

A memory, yes.

But not like the ones we tell.

A memory that lives.

That still breathes.

That knows me better than I know myself.

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