Chapter 46: Deep And Buried

It was too dark.

Lumi didn’t dare to move at first. She stood completely still, listening carefully for any sound that might tell her where Evan was.

"Evan...?"

Only silence answered her.

She swallowed and slowly took a step forward, then another. Her footsteps echoed faintly through the darkness, making the empty space feel even larger than it was.

She continued walking carefully until, after several more steps, she noticed a tiny dot of light in the distance.

Lumi stopped.

’Light...?’

She hesitated for a moment before slowly approaching it.

The closer she got, the brighter the light became. At the same time, faint voices began reaching her ears, distorted at first, as though they were coming from somewhere very far away.

Lumi slowed down.

Then she heard a woman’s voice.

"Why can’t you listen to your own mother?"

Lumi froze.

The voice sounded emotional, almost desperate.

"Don’t you love me?"

Her heart tightened slightly.

"Please, Evan... suppress your power. That power won’t do you any good!"

Lumi’s eyes widened.

’Evan’s mother...?’

She had heard Sloane’s voice before, but never like this.

The voice continued from within the light.

"You don’t need to become stronger than everyone else. You don’t need that much power. Just suppress it, Evan... please."

Lumi stood at the edge of the light, listening silently.

Something about those words felt painfully familiar.

And somewhere beyond the light, a much younger Evan was listening to his mother too, his small hands clenched at his sides as he tried to understand why she was asking him to suppress the very power he had worked so hard to control.

"Isn’t it good, Mother?" His voice was small but earnest. "With this power, I could protect you."

Sloane’s expression tightened. "No."

The answer came so quickly that Evan fell silent.

"I don’t need your power to protect me, Evan."

"But..."

"I don’t need you to become stronger than everyone else. I don’t need that much power from you." Her voice trembled as she held his shoulders. "Your brother is the eldest son. Your father has already decided that he will inherit the family."

Evan’s eyes widened slightly.

"I don’t want to be the heir."

"Then don’t fight for it."

"I’m not fighting for it."

"But you’re becoming stronger every day!" Sloane’s voice finally cracked. "You keep pushing yourself, Evan. You keep training that power as if you have something to prove. What happens when your father realizes that you’re stronger than everyone else? What happens when the family starts fearing you?"

Evan fell silent.

Sloane crouched in front of him and gently held his face.

"Please... just suppress your power. Let your brother become the heir. You don’t need the position, and you don’t need to become stronger than your father."

"But if I become stronger..." Evan whispered, "then no one can hurt you anymore."

Sloane’s expression trembled.

"I don’t need you to protect me." She pulled him into her arms. "I just need you to stay my son."

Lumi stood there silently, watching Evan’s expression.

She could feel it.

The sadness, the anger and beneath both of them, something much deeper that she couldn’t quite understand.

The young Evan remained still in his mother’s arms, his small hands slowly curling into fists at his sides. He didn’t cry, nor did he push her away. He simply stood there, quietly swallowing whatever he wanted to say.

Lumi’s chest tightened as she watched him.

’He really wanted to protect her...’

And yet, the person he wanted to protect the most had been the one asking him to stop becoming stronger.

She looked at Evan again.

The sadness in his eyes slowly turned into something colder. Something that looked almost like determination.

The darkness around them suddenly shifted.

A faint light appeared to Lumi’s left, slowly growing brighter until the scene in front of her began to change.

The scene changed.

Evan was older now, no longer the young boy Lumi had just seen. He stood in front of Sloane wearing a Sentinel competition uniform, his expression cold and distant. There was a medal hanging around his neck, still carrying the insignia of the competition he had just won.

Lumi’s eyes widened. She could immediately understand what had happened.

Evan had secretly continued training. He had entered the Sentinel competition without telling his mother.

And he had defeated Leon.

Sloane stared at the medal around his neck, her expression filled with disbelief.

"You..." Her voice trembled. "Why did you need to enter the competition?"

Evan said nothing.

"And you defeated your brother?"

Still, he remained silent.

Sloane’s hands slowly curled into fists. "I told you to stop."

Evan finally lifted his eyes toward her. "Why do I need to?"

"You lied to me." ℯℯ𝑙.

"I didn’t lie." His voice was calm, almost painfully calm. "I simply didn’t tell you."

Sloane stared at him as though she was looking at someone she no longer recognized. "You promised me."

"I promised to stop showing you my power." His eyes hardened. "I never promised to stop becoming stronger."

Sloane’s lips trembled. "You really don’t love me."

Evan froze. The words seemed to strike him harder than any attack ever could.

Sloane looked away, her eyes already reddening.

"If you loved me, you would have listened to me. You wouldn’t have gone behind my back, and you wouldn’t have defeated your brother after everything I asked you to do."

Evan’s expression slowly changed. "Then... Do you love me, Mother?"

Sloane didn’t answer immediately.

And that hesitation hurt him more than anything she could have said.

The silence suddenly cracked.

Electricity burst through the darkness, spreading across the entire mental space like countless veins of lightning. The ground beneath Lumi’s feet trembled as the familiar blue-white glow swallowed everything around her, erasing the scene of Evan and Sloane in an instant.

Lumi turned around anxiously.

"Evan?"

A deafening roar exploded through the darkness.

Lumi’s heart stopped.

Behind her, a pair of glowing eyes slowly opened.

And then, a familiar voice whispered directly beside her ear.

"Why did you come here?"