The two elders were none other than the former Lord Izan Starlight and his younger brother .. the same face I had seen before.. Leonides Starlight.
The latter's light was faint compared to his brother's.
"And who are you?"
Lord Izan, with his long white hair and aged face, stared at my father, ready to strike at any moment.
Facing that crushing pressure, my father answered calmly.
"Abraham Starlight, from the branch family."
You could see the shock flash across the former Lord's face.
"Why would a member of the branch family attack the main house?"
Izan spoke as he drew his sword, unleashing a pressure that was no joke.
"I haven't attacked anyone.
I simply wish to fight you."
Despite the overwhelming force bearing down on him, my father didn't flinch.
"And why would you want that?"
"To test myself."
Without any warning, he unsheathed Dark Sister and pointed it directly at Izan Starlight.
The old lord immediately unleashed his full strength, summoning eight stars of the Stardust Technique.
Yet even he broke into a heavy sweat when he saw his opponent manifest a ninth star.
Their swords clashed violently ..
their strikes splitting mountains and leveling the earth.
Izan Starlight was a monster at the very peak of SS rank.
One of the strongest in the world at that time.
But against Abraham Starlight, who had already stepped into SS+ rank and wielded Dark Sister, The old lord never stood a chance.
After a fierce and wild exchange of blows, Izan Starlight fell to one knee before Abraham .. his sword completely shattered.
Meanwhile, my father stood tall .. unharmed, unscathed, utterly pristine.
Abraham Starlight had won. Decisively.
"This is the end."
He sheathed his sword and slowly stepped back.
That day, news spread like wildfire...
of a man who had toppled the Starlight Family by himself.
Everyone wondered:
Who was this man?
They thought they'd never see him again, assuming he was just some ghost provoked by the Starlights.
But they were shocked when they saw him casually wandering among the branch families afterward.
It made no sense.
"I remember when the Lord of the Starlight Family himself came looking for me."
At first, things were tense between them.
But after getting to know my father's true nature, everything changed.
He gained the deep interest of the old lord, especially after Izan learned that Abraham Starlight had never intended any harm.
"I often sat down with that old man, exchanging conversation...
He had lived for over a hundred years, and for someone like me who had lived longer than most people here, I found myself learning from him."
For the first time, my father .. who was always older in spirit than those around him ..
found someone who had lived far longer.
Every time Izan met Abraham, his admiration grew deeper.
"He repeatedly tried to pry the secret of my power from me,
asking how I reached the ninth star of the Stardust Technique...
But I couldn't tell him about the system.
So I simply said I figured it out through relentless training."
A 25-year-old man who reached the ninth star ..
a feat not accomplished since Nova Starlight, the first Lord, who had achieved ten stars before his death.
Abraham Starlight grew into a colossal mystery ..
a force that drew countless eyes.
"Then there was Carmen...
That woman constantly messed with me."
She often challenged him ..
either trying to kill him or sparring for fun.
"Especially after that incident…"
During that period, tensions between the Empire and the Ultras were constantly flaring, and one day, a full-scale assault was launched by one of the Lords of the Ultras .. Gavid Lindman.
That day, Carmen Starlight would have died had it not been for Abraham intervening and saving her.
He utterly crushed Gavid Lindman, and the latter barely managed to escape with his life.
That event forged a strange bond between my father and Carmen.
A bond that was... suspiciously friendly.
It made me wonder .. what kind of woman had Carmen been before I ever truly knew her?
Especially considering she already had a child...
One day, I saw a memory of my father's where Carmen had invited him to her house.
I walked in with a blank face as I watched the scene unfold.
The moment they entered, Carmen fiddled with a few bottles...
"How about a drink, Abraham?"
Holding bottles of fine liquor, her intentions were painfully obvious ..
but my father simply shook his head.
"No, thank you. I don't drink."
That was the father I knew !
a man so upright it almost hurt.
His polite refusal made Carmen pout.
"Turning down an offer from an older lady, huh?"
Smiling slightly, my father played along.
"I never said I wouldn't drink with you.
We could always have tea instead."
"Wow~ The great Abraham Starlight who toppled an entire family... a tea-lover?
You sound like an old man."
He wasn't the monster I'd seen that day.
He was just a simple young man, carrying the weight of years he hadn't even lived yet.
Carmen was much older than him, yet she didn't feel that gap at all when she was around him.
Despite all her grumbling, she honored his request and went rummaging through her kitchen for tea supplies.
My father watched her with a soft smile.
"You seem... different here, at home."
"Different? How?"
"You're more like a housewife than the fierce warrior I once knew... Peaceful, and unguarded."
At those words, Carmen stiffened for a moment ..
realizing she was alone with a man who could crush her easily if he wanted to.
"Do I... need to keep my guard up against you, Abraham?"
Laughing, he pointed to the tea.
"No.
I'm just an old man who drinks tea."
At that, Carmen laughed too.
"Smooth talker, huh? Abraham Starlight...
You're going to cause a lot of trouble for the ladies outside."
As the atmosphere between my father and Carmen grew more... heated,
I stood there, gripping my head.
Was my father really this good at talking to women?
When? How?
Did my mother even know what was going on here?!
I didn't want to watch anymore.
It felt so wrong.
Please stop... I don't want to see this...
Thankfully, my father managed to control himself till the very end and avoided a catastrophe.
I exhaled in relief as the memory continued...
For a moment there,
I almost thought Carmen might have been my mother...
...
...
...
In any case, surprisingly, the Starlight Family didn't hold any grudges against my father.
Izan Starlight was a sharp man, and he realized Abraham could become an incredible asset.
After all, they both bore the Starlight blood ..
even if one came from a branch family.
Izan was terminally ill at that time.
His sons were unfit to inherit the title of Lord, and that left only one contender ..
his ambitious younger brother, Leonides Starlight.
Leonides had lost to Izan in the past, but now he sought the position once again after learning about his brother's illness.
But Izan had other ideas.
The future of the Starlight Family wasn't in his sons.
Nor was it in his selfish brother, whose only loyalty was to power.
He saw it instead ..
in that miraculous young man who had appeared from nowhere.
Izan didn't care about origins or background.
The fact that Abraham had Starlight blood was enough.
However, my father didn't seem particularly interested in the family from the start.
"Izan Starlight was a smart man.
He helped me countless times without asking for anything in return.
I truly respected him."
My father knew the old man wanted something from him.
But he didn't resent it.
Without even realizing it, he learned much from Izan ..
and benefited greatly from him.
Abraham Starlight slowly but surely became the Starlight Family's deadliest hidden weapon...
without even knowing it.
At that time, as his fame continued to spread, my father tried desperately to send us a signal ..
To his family.
Every time he appeared publicly ..whether during speeches in front of large crowds, or in broadcasts meant to be seen by all ..
he always tried to reach out to us, using words and phrases only we would recognize, or gestures only we could understand.
Small things...
but enough to make my heart ache for the days we lived together.
Yet it was all in vain.
For years .. no matter how hard he tried ..he received no response.
His repeated failures made him doubt whether we were even in the same world to begin with.
"I often wondered... if I was the only one who reincarnated,
the only one granted a second chance at life."
He had no proof of our existence.
The only evidence he clung to was the story he once heard from me ..
and the Engineer's words, who had told him his son was "on the way."
"At the time, I convinced myself... maybe I'd see you all someday.
Maybe it just wasn't time yet."
Maybe ..
if he grew stronger.
If he completed all the system's missions to the end ..
Maybe then he would finally meet us again.
Years passed.
One after another.
And during that time, so much happened.
"Abraham! Fight me!"
The young lord of the Moonlight Family, Drogo Moonlight—Seris' father—would often come to challenge him.
Back then, both my father and Drogo were SS+ ranks.
It was a golden age, with three SS+ level individuals in the Empire if you included Emperor Maekar Valerion.
I saw Drogo lose to my father again and again.
He challenged him ten times ..
and lost ten times.
My father's fame only grew and grew.
And little by little...
Abraham Starlight became part of that world, without even realizing it.
Especially after living thirty full years there.
Thirty years spent searching for his family...
and yet, he never found us.
"One day... I felt so hopeless, I wondered if maybe you were on the other side of the world."
He hadn't found us within the Empire.
So he started to believe that maybe...
just maybe, we were in the Ultras Continent.
It was a reckless idea, without a shred of proof ..
but it was possible.
"So I set off for that place."
The legends of Abraham Starlight were countless.
And this was one of them.
The day he invaded the Ultras Continent ...alone.