Chapter 1236 - Taming the Old World - Second Chance - 2

Chapter 1236: Chapter 1236 - Taming the Old World - Second Chance - 2

Ren fully expected to find her in the exact same devastated state as Selphira.

He braced himself to physically support her, to offer a sturdy shoulder to lean on, ready to be her anchor while she confronted the petrified visage of her mother, much like he had done for Luna in the past. Feeling maybe a little experienced...

But Liora, while visibly affected, remained significantly more composed than Ren had calculated and broke his illusion of knowledge.

Instead of collapsing under the emotional weight, she turned to look at him. With a chilling serenity that felt entirely out of place given the agonizing scene of a mother playing out in front of them, she asked a highly practical question.

"Are you capable of repairing the half-consumed crystal core we found?"

Ren leaned in close to her ear, keeping his voice to an absolute whisper to avoid intruding upon Selphira’s profound grief.

"I am not one hundred percent certain," he admitted softly. "I will have to meticulously deduce and reconstruct several missing external parts that were expended and that only after I purge as much of the corruption as possible. That intricate process could inevitably alter her internal mana network, for better or worse." He paused, choosing his words with care. "But I absolutely promise you her mind will remain entirely intact. The only genuine alteration might involve the specific Spiritual Treant variant her core belongs to. The derivative cultivation method originally utilized to forge it was structurally sound, yet I can see is fundamentally imperfect; there might be some subtle structural or mana deviations compared to exactly how she functioned with it before."

Internally, Ren calculated that his engineering interference was vastly more likely to correct old anatomical flaws rather than exacerbate them.

"But I am going to bring your mother back for sure," he assured her with unwavering firmness. "Do not worry at all... You are going to see her move again very soon."

Liora whispered a quiet word of gratitude and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck.

Pressing her face against his collarbone, speaking at a volume so impossibly low that the words were meant exclusively for him despite the acute hearing of the surrounding elite Tamers, Liora confessed something deeply unexpected to him.

"I do not know if there is something wrong with me for this," she murmured. "But I genuinely do not care about that Laura..."

Ren went perfectly, absolutely still.

"It only hurts me to watch my grandma cry." Liora’s voice trembled slightly, and Ren felt a few hot tears soak into the fabric of his collar. "I just want her to get her daughter back; that is absolutely all I care about... Please help her."

She squeezed him even tighter, then burying her face against his chest.

In that fleeting, heavy moment, Ren finally deciphered the psychological awkwardness he had been observing ever since they breached the sanctuary.

Liora’s muted reaction to the old statue, her complete lack of tension during the walk back to the capital; absolutely none of it was born of a cold heart.

The reality was much simpler.

The frozen woman encased in that Platinum-rank cristal was simply no longer Liora’s mother, at least not in any capacity that truly mattered to her.

Liora was too small so she did not possess the exact historical data confirming that Laura had actively abandoned her infant daughter ninety-nine percent of the time, consistently prioritizing distant horizons over her own blood. But the young woman had clearly deduced a similar emotional truth over the years.

And the person who had actually raised her, the woman who had nurtured her and served as her true, authentic mother, was Selphira.

Therefore, the quiet tears staining Ren’s collar were absolutely not shed for Laura.

They were shed entirely for her grandmother, who was currently weeping on the cold stone floor for a lost child. Liora wanted to orchestrate this resurrection not because she missed the explorer, but simply because she could not endure watching the only woman who had genuinely loved her carry such a devastating, visible burden and wanted it to stop.

♢♢♢♢

Ren stood in thoughtful silence, gently returning the embrace for a long, quiet moment.

Once again, entirely without seeking it, he collided head-on with the exact same stark realization. His own ordinary family, consisting of two impoverished cooks living in the absolute last house that now would be outside the Great Wall, felt profoundly miraculous compared to the shattered dynamics so many of these noble elites had endured.

He had grown up with two parents who loved him fiercely, who were unconditionally present, and entirely whole.

Liora had been forced to grow up with an absent phantom of a mother and a heavily burdened, endlessly busy grandmother who did absolutely everything in her power to fill the gaping void with sheer affection. Luna had grown up with a father forced into hiding his feelings and a mother she had desperately missed for years. Larissa had a similar hard situation...

Every single family unit presented a distinct, complex mosaic of love and profound absence or heavy duty.

His own dynamic, through sheer, unadulterated cosmic luck, happened to be one of the few complete ones on the board.

Ren tightened his arms around her waist, speaking slowly and deliberately, ensuring the words anchored directly into her mind.

"I am going to do absolutely everything necessary to give you whatever you need," he vowed. "And listen to me very carefully, because this matters to me immensely: there is absolutely nothing wrong with you... Nothing at all. Absolutely none of this is your fault."

Liora did not formulate a reply. She simply remained anchored there, fiercely holding onto him, while on the completely opposite side of the private chamber, Selphira remained desperately clung to the crystalline statue of the daughter the universe had miraculously returned to her.

It was a room actively hosting two entirely distinct forms of grief.

And Ren stood quietly in the center of it all, gently holding the girl who wept purely out of profound love for a mother that was someone else than anyone believed.