Chapter 633: What Growth is About

All these things continued to linger deep within Blake’s heart.

They were among the reasons why he wanted to become a better Young Craftsman.

He also wanted to become a more capable member of the group his idol, Ezra Ashenlocke, was building for the future.

But there was something else that continued to trouble him.

Blake hated himself for not becoming the kind of person Gwen could lean on.

Someone she could talk to when she wanted to express her feelings or share her doubts.

Someone she could trust enough to reveal the things she kept hidden from others.

Instead, he had failed to become that person.

And worse of all...

He had failed to see through the hatred Gwen had held towards him all this while.

The realization left him feeling stupid and useless.

He had been so caught up in his own thoughts and the things happening around him that he had failed to notice what was happening with someone he knew.

Just like Gena and Lucy, Blake had also been forced to face his weakness.

He had allowed the world to reveal it to him, and it had happened too late.

The room Ezra was in fell silent.

Neither Gena nor Blake spoke.

Even in their respective rooms, the two seemed to have fallen quiet at the same time.

The conversation that had been moving from one person to another had come to a stop.

Outside, the wind blew faintly against the buildings.

Its soft sound reached the rooms, but the people connected through the holographic call barely paid attention to it.

Lucy, Ezra, and Gena had sharp hearing.

The quiet made the sound easier to notice, even though it was faint.

Ezra narrowed his eyes as he looked at the awkward atmosphere on the screens.

He had been listening to Gena’s account of Pamela, then her memories of Mina.

Lucy had been reminded of Gwen, while Blake had been left thinking about his own failures.

The conversation had taken them somewhere none of them seemed eager to speak about further.

Ezra did not immediately say anything.

He looked at the screens for a moment before finally opening his mouth.

"It’s human nature."

His voice was calm.

Lucy, Blake, and Gena turned towards him.

"We tend to live in the moment so much that we forget the things slowly breaking around us."

Ezra continued speaking in the same tone.

"It’s like we’re too focused on what is happening now that we forget what is already around us."

He had given a clearer explanation of what he meant.

"It’s only when we end up losing something that we realize the mistakes we’ve made."

The words came out plainly.

Ezra did not raise his voice or try to make the statement sound more important than it was.

He simply explained what he believed, allowing the others to listen.

He understood this particular problem more than once.

No...

He understood it from two halves.

The past self who had lived in a different, modern world.

And the person he was now, who could remember the life his past-self had lived.

Both Ezras had experienced moments when the signs of their weaknesses had been there, yet they had allowed those signs to pass them by.

If only he had known.

That was one of the greatest regrets he carried from his past life.

If only he had not acted that way.

If only he had been truthful about his feelings towards Claudia.

Would they have gotten married?

The questions remained tied to the memories of the man he had once been.

They were not things that could be changed now, no matter how many times he thought about them.

The regrets.

The chains binding his heart.

And the pain.

Those were among the things his past-self had lost.

And they had led him towards becoming a monster.

A man who had brutally killed his mother’s new family.

A man who had allowed his anger to reach even a baby who knew nothing about the wickedness his own mother had caused him.

He had killed children.

He had killed a baby.

Just to prove what?

Ezra continued to wonder about it whenever he remembered the kind of man his past-self had become before his death.

What had he been thinking?

Or perhaps...

He already knew the answer himself.

Even apart from the regrets of his past self, Ezra had regrets of his own.

He remembered the days he had cried to himself, asking why it had to be him.

He had never treated Zara, his twin brother, badly.

Nor had he ever been part of the people who bullied him.

Ezra cared for his brother, just as their mother did.

He would defend Zara whenever he needed to.

If someone tried to hurt his twin, Ezra would stand between them.

He had always tried to protect him from getting hurt, even when doing so meant putting himself in the way.

That was how he had treated his brother.

But never once had that kindness been returned when the situation changed.

When the tables turned against him, the person he had tried to protect became the one hurting him.

Bam!

Bam!

Bam!

Bam!

The sound of punches echoed through Ezra’s mind as the memory of the spar between his younger self and his twin brother returned.

It had begun as a match.

The moment the fight started, Zara had bragged about his strength and told Ezra to throw the first punch.

But what could Ezra do?

His body had already begun to freeze up.

He could barely move properly, and even parts of his skin had started developing frostbite.

His pale skin grew paler.

The cold and his sickness had left him struggling to control his own body.

His movements were restricted, and he could not respond as he wanted to. Even if he had tried to move, his body would not cooperate with him.

Zara noticed.

Rather than give him time to recover, he used the condition to mock his brother.

Well, he was the one who planned the whole situation.

The relatives gathered to watch the match wore confused expressions.

Some had expected a spar between the twins, while others had simply come to see how the two would perform.

But as the match continued, the situation became harder to ignore.

Ezra was not fighting back.

Zara had been bragging and drawing attention to himself.

After he had gained enough of the crowd’s attention, he pounced on Ezra.

He did not wait for his brother to recover.

That was never the plan.

The first punch landed before Ezra could properly defend himself.

Then came another.

Punch after punch.

Kick after kick.

Elbow after elbow.

Zara kept attacking while Ezra struggled to move his body.

Every time Ezra failed to protect himself, another blow followed.

His arms could not rise quickly enough to guard his face, and his legs could not carry him away from the attacks.

The match had stopped looking like a contest between two brothers almost immediately.

Zara continued striking him, while Ezra could do little to stop the beating.

The relatives watched as the situation grew worse.

Their expressions changed from confusion to shock as they saw how far Zara was willing to go.

But they were even more surprised that Zara was actually having the edge over Ezra, who was seen as the Future of House Sterling.

Ezra sustained fractures to his right eye socket, wrist, rib cage, teeth, cheekbone, and several other parts of his body.

Yet Zara did not stop.

He picked up the wooden sword and struck Ezra with it.

The first blow was followed by another.

He kept hitting him harder, refusing to end the match even as Ezra’s condition worsened.

Their mother shouted for the match to end.

She pleaded for them to stop.

But Zavier refused.

The current Baron of Sterling did not bring the match to an end when their mother first called for it to stop.

The beating continued, and the relatives who had come to watch were left shocked by what was happening before them.

Meanwhile...

Zara kept smiling brightly.

The blood of his own twin brother splashed across his cheek, but he did not seem to care in the slightest.

He continued hitting Ezra.

There was no sign that he intended to stop on his own.

He kept striking his brother, beating him close to death while the wooden sword moved through the air again and again.

That was when Zavier, their father and the current Baron of Sterling, finally signaled for the match to end.

By then, Ezra lay on the ground, almost lifeless.

The spar had ended, but the consequences did not.

From that point onwards, any relative who supported Ezra’s right to the heir’s position, or even supported his existence within the family.

Ceased to exist.

Zara continued bullying Ezra alongside their cousins.

They beat him whenever they felt bored.

It became something they could do without needing a reason beyond their own desire to hurt him.

Sometimes, they would pour cold water over his body and drag him outside the mansion.

They would leave him there to shiver in the cold, watching as his body struggled against the freezing water and the weather until he was close to death.

It was another way of making him suffer.

Ezra had endured those moments without understanding why his life had become that way.

He had cared for Zara and tried to protect him, yet his kindness had done nothing to prevent his brother from turning against him.

Why had he never fought back?

Was it because he had been too weak to fight back?

No...

That was a lie he had kept telling himself.

He was the same person who had pushed through and survived the First Trial during the Trial of Steel when the time came.

When his life had been on the line, he had found a way to continue.

He had endured the trial and survived what had been placed before him.

Could he not have tried his best back then, rather than accept the fate that came with his sickness?

Even then again...

He already knew about the evil within human nature.

He had already understood that being too humble during the trial could cost him his life.

Yet he still chose not to kill, even when he could.

Before the Fourth Trial had even commenced, he had thought about whether he could use the knowledge contained in the Book of Memories to grow stronger without having to kill.

He wanted to become stronger without taking lives.

But that choice had led him to lose someone who could have been a ray of light to him.

That was the consequence he had to live with.

But it was all in the past now.

"At the end of the day..."

Ezra spoke again, looking the same as always.

"We all have to learn from our mistakes, store that weakness and why we couldn’t realize it on time."

He looked at Gena, then Blake, before turning his gaze towards Lucy’s reflection on the screen of his Starlix 11.

"That is what growth is about, and that is why we are humans."

Ezra concluded his talk.

"Good night."

He said it without giving any of them the chance to add anything else.

Gena had wanted to say something, but she stopped when she realized how late it had become. She also had plenty of things to do in the morning.

"Good night, Ezra and Lucy."

She waved with a warm smile.

"Good night, Sir Ezra and Lucy."

Blake waved as well.

"Good night, Miss Gena and Mr. Blake."

Lucy returned the farewell with a bright smile.

The call ended, and everyone went to sleep.