Reaper of the Martial World

Book 5: Chapter 164: Second Trial (107)

Amphorae stood still for a long time. By now, it was already the dead of night before Luna finally finished her story. But, by this point, Amphorae couldn’t bring herself to hate Luna anymore.

There was no doubt that Luna’s actions were childish, immature and short-sighted, but this all stemmed from one guilty moment that weighed on her heart from when she was 5 years old! How could Amphorae have the heart to continue to blame her?

Normal 5-year-olds only had to worry about when their next nap time was or what snack they’d have for the day. Yet, Luna could already flip the world with a wave of her hand! It could be said that the universe was lucky that the only person who suffered from Luna’s childhood was her own sister.

“Y- … You’ve never thought of at least trying to undo what you’ve done?…” Amphorae asked with her voice being slightly weak.

Luna trembled, but in the end, shook her head. “Even if the reversal didn’t kill Laura like I think it will, how could she react to being back to her normal self? Would she even have the will to continue living?”

Amphorae was stunned by Luna’s words, but suddenly understood. Not only was it exceptionally dangerous to continually manipulate the Life Essence of someone, namely because it was very tightly linked to one’s Soul, even if Luna could undo it without consequences, would she dare to?

With all the hatred Laura had built up for her dead father in all these years, she would suddenly wake up to realize that she had been madly in love with him for the last 30? How could she live with herself? Who could take such a mental blow and continue on?

This was not even mentioning all the things Laura had done in the name of pleasing her father in just the last 3 decades. Even after his death, she banished their mother to live out her days in the Moon Clan dungeons, she lived frivolously and treated human lives like weeds, and even worse, she treated her own little sister like a pawn to be used as she pleased. She had become the very man she hated…

Luna couldn’t bear to risk her sister dying… Because in the end, that guilt would overwhelm her even more so than it already had…

Amphorae’s mind was jumbled. As a woman who had never stepped foot outside of her clan, she wasn’t very well versed in the way of the world. She couldn’t imagine that there could be a father as terrible as Luna’s, nor could she understand the back-stabbing and subterfuge of the political world… Even worse, she had never been given such a moral dilemma.

For much of Amphorae’s life, everything seemed black and white.

When she was told at a very young age that her marriage had already been arranged, she simply accepted it. She didn’t understand what love was since she was a mere toddler at the time. In the end, it didn’t end up mattering because to her, her arranged husband was the greatest man to ever live.

She never struggled with the idea of being sold off for the benefit of her family, because if she had a choice, she would have married Dyon anyway. In her own little naïve world, there was nothing bad about arranged marriages, right? After all, she met the love of her life through that system. How could the be bad?

Then, when Dyon broke her heart, she still felt like her decision to make was simple. She thought that she simply wasn’t good enough and thus deserved to be abandoned. Since she had already fallen for Dyon, how could she ever blame him? To her, a woman who never so much as looked at another man, Dyon was perfect. How could he ever make the wrong decision?

To say that Amphorae was sheltered would only be a severe understatement. She had thought she had already suffered in her life, only to find out that this supposed sister-wife of hers had suffered just as much, if not more!

However… She had still not forgiven Luna, despite not blaming her.

When one goes to war, would you blame the soldier of an opposing army for killing soldiers of your own? Of course not.

But, if that soldier happened to kill one of your closest allies, or your father, or your dear husband or wife, despite not blaming them, could you forgive them?

Maybe the only person to ever live with a magnanimous enough heart to do such a thing was Madeleine Sacharro. However, even she had a bottom line. She would never forgive Dyon’s murderer!

It was only now that Amphorae was beginning to learn that the world wasn’t so black and white… The greys were so overwhelming that they could turn the clear skies, gloomy.

While Luna felt that she could only live her life to serve her elder sister out of guilt for what she had done as a child, Amphorae felt that there was no one more worth protecting than her husband.

Even further than that, in Dyon’s eyes, a true wife would have spoken to him. She wouldn’t scheme behind his back for the sake of anyone. Instead, they would fact her problems together! Luna had shattered Dyon’s trust in her. Even worse, she hadn’t believed in the ability of her husband to weather all storms.

This was without a doubt a slap to Dyon’s face, the greatest insult imaginable!