Leo let out a deep sigh once Leonardo left, as the silence of the mansion settled around him once again, heavy and familiar.
He could not believe how quickly the boy was growing. It felt like just yesterday when Leonardo used to hide behind Jacob’s legs, peeking out nervously with wide eyes whenever Leo returned home from training.
He still remembered the way the child would cling to Elena’s robes, too shy to greet him alone, and how his laughter used to echo through the manor’s courtyard as he played with wooden swords Elena had carved for him.
Now that same boy stood tall and proud, carrying the weight of the Skyshard name on his shoulders with the grace of a man twice his age.
The realization made Leo’s chest tighten faintly, a quiet ache spreading through him as he stared at the faint glow of his own reflection against the polished marble floor.
When had the years slipped away so silently?
When had the child turned into a warrior?
Somewhere between his endless training and his pursuit of strength, time had passed him by without mercy, bleeding into decades until he could no longer recall the exact moment when Leonardo’s innocent child-like laughter had become a memory.
*Sigh*
"In the end... I’ll walk alone?" he muttered under his breath, his voice barely louder than the soft hum of energy that filled the air.
His mind drifted toward the faces of his parents—Jacob’s steady gaze, Elena’s warm smile. Both gone, both having left him with nothing but the hollow echo of what once was.
They had passed without warning, leaving him standing in the aftermath of their absence, wondering whether all his years of training had been worth the cost of missing those final moments.
For a while after he entered the Time Stilled World, he had managed to balance it all.... strength and family, ambition and affection.
During the first fifteen years of his stay here, he had visited home often, spending fleeting yet precious days with family every month.
He could still recall those dinners that stretched late into the night, filled with laughter, teasing, and gentle scolding from his mother whenever he trained too long.
But after Jacob’s death, things had changed. Elena had grown quieter, smaller somehow, her joy dulled by solitude, while he himself had become consumed by duty, losing sight of the world outside his endless cycle of discipline.
When she passed in her sleep, peacefully yet alone, the guilt had settled into him like a blade twisting slowly through his chest.
"This strength..." he whispered, glancing down at his hands as a faint crimson glow began to shimmer around his fingers, the color shifting like liquid fire. "...it’s more of a curse than a boon."
The red aura pulsed faintly, its rhythm uneven, its pressure spilling into the room in waves that made the nearby windows tremble. Leo inhaled slowly, pulling it back under control, though the act took far more effort than he cared to admit.
The Emperor Suppression Manual had granted him unimaginable power, but each layer of mastery came at a cost. The stronger his aura became, the more fragile his control over it grew, as though the world itself resisted the energy he carried.
He clenched his fists, watching the light flicker and fade.
Because of this power, he had lost the right to be near those he loved most.
He could not hold his wife’s hand without fear of hurting her.
He could not cradle his children in his arms without risking their fragile hearts.
Every visit to his home was conducted only after the children were moved somewhere safe, or he met Amanda in private, where she came to see him without the kids.
It was a cruel irony.
He had become strong enough to move entire oceans, yet powerless to touch the faces that gave him reason to live.
"I’m turning into him," Leo murmured, his voice thick with quiet bitterness. "Into the same kind of father Jacob was..."
A father who was always gone.
A father who watched from afar.
A father whose love could only ever reach through absence.
His gaze drifted toward the far wall, where faint scorch marks still stained the stone from his earlier rage. The memories of Veyr’s humiliation burned vividly behind his eyelids, feeding the anger he had tried to suppress.
Maybe that was the price of carrying too much strength—
To love, yet never touch.
To protect, yet never hold.
To care, yet always stand alone.
The red aura flickered again, faint at first, then rising like a living flame that danced across his shoulders before he forced it back down with a strained exhale.
The mansion trembled lightly under the suppression, the silence that followed deeper than before.
"That’s why I have to save you, Cuz, for in the end, if not for you, I may truly end up without a single friend in this universe, and just thinking about such a life scares me.
As much as I envy Soron for his strength, I don’t want to live for 2000 years like he did, confined within the four walls of an old castle, with only an underling to call friend....."
Leo admitted, as over the past two decades, after finally processing the death of two loved ones, he realized that his path was inevitably going to end up with him being alone.
For unless one of Veyr, Leonardo, Caleb or Mairon became a God as well, he would be doomed to an eternity of solitude.
"Surely, at the end of this road, I won’t look back at this life and wonder, ’Was it even worth the effort?’, Right?"
He asked himself, as his eyes dimmed, his voice quiet with sarcasm and fear, as he put on the blindfold over his eyes once more and began walking out towards the training arena.
He had already defeated 750,000 opponents without a single defeat, and if he could keep this up without making any mistakes, he could finally complete this stage of the Emperor Suppression Manual within the next year or so....
With him hoping to save Veyr, failure was no longer an option, for he knew he needed all the strength he could spare to even think about attempting that mission.
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End Of Volume 7
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