Part 5

It was pitch dark. Had Eray relived his past before his eyes, or was it just a dream?

With a deep breath, he opened his eyes. But upon opening them, there was not even the slightest bit of light. Then, he took several breaths in quick succession, trying to regain his composure.

Due to the darkness, he couldn't understand what was happening. "Am I dead? Is this the afterlife? Ah, I remember now, I truly died."

Eray tried to sit up. He could see nothing; he was in complete darkness. "I remember, the creature, the trial," he murmured.

Then, Eray's face soured as he remembered the betrayal by his siblings. He couldn't stop the revulsion. All his family members flashed before his eyes. He cursed them all in his mind. He tried to think about what had happened, trying to remember each event. "I must have really died. I felt the coldness and numbness of death. My consciousness faded at the last moment."

"Then, why am I here? Ah, my head really hurts."

Eray tried to stand up but felt pain in his body. He could feel all his body starting to ache.

"How long have I been here?"

"In this darkness, what?"

As time passed, Eray regained his senses. After feeling fear and curiosity, the first thing he felt was hunger.

"Ah, I'm really hungry." "How much time has passed? How many days have I been here?"

Eray managed to stand up, albeit with difficulty. He cautiously took a few steps, feeling the darkness with his hands. But he decided against continuing.

"It's too risky to move without seeing in this darkness." "I guess I'll have to crawl."

This time, Eray started crawling like a baby, feeling the ground with his hands. However, it was very slow.

"Ah, if only there was a bit of light," he thought to himself. After a while, he gave up crawling and lay on his back.

"This place is really cold, I can't move forward without light. Am I still in the room where we saw that creature?"

"But that's impossible. My head was always bowed there. The floor there was marble. But here, the ground is rocky, sandy, and uneven. I must be in some kind of cave."

"I really can't move forward without light," he said and gave up for a moment. "Is anyone there?"

He shouted a few more times, but the only answer was the echo of his own voice. He felt around the ground with his hands, searching for a few pieces of stone. He found a few small ones and tried to strike them together to create some sparks.

"Ah, it's really impossible. Starting a fire without flint. Even if I had flint, there's no dry grass to light a fire with."

Eray passed these thoughts through his mind with sadness and disappointment, "Ah, if only I had some magical power." "I wish I had just a bit of magical power to create a light."

Eray thought this with intense longing. While consumed by these desires, a faint sound first emerged near him. Then, a weak blue sphere began to illuminate the surroundings.

Eray screamed in great fear and tried to escape from where the light appeared. He tripped over a stone on his second step and fell. Crawling with his hands and shouting in fear, Eray moved a few meters further.

"Ah, who's there? Who are you, show yourself!" The only response was the echo of his own voice.

He still had a sword in its sheath. He drew the sword from his belt and extended it towards where the light was. Eray's thought was that someone might come from behind the light. He stood in a defensive position for a while, but neither did anything come nor did he hear any sound.

"Then, cautiously, he began to circle around the sphere of light with his sword. As Eray tried to turn, the sphere also turned around him. He took a few steps back. The light did not stop following him.

"Who sent you?" "There's really no one there, right?"

As if someone was there, Eray said, "Excuse me, sir, are you there?"

There was truly nothing. Eray sheathed his sword again. He stared at the light for a few seconds, then, as if struck by a bolt of electricity inside his mind, he opened his eyes wide. He could have swallowed his tongue in astonishment.

"Impossible, isn't it? Can such a thing really be possible?"

"Hey, light, come here."

There was no movement in the light.

"Ahhh, of course, such a thing couldn't be possible." Then he thought again,

"Wait, it doesn't work like that." This time, Eray inwardly gave commands like, "Come here, go up, move to the right."

But again, there was no movement in the light. Eray thought about the moment the light appeared; he had felt a great need at a time he really needed it.

Continuing with these thoughts, Eray tried again, this time truly wishing from within for the light to move away and illuminate what was around him.

After these thoughts, the light indeed moved straight ahead. As the light began to move, Eray froze in astonishment.

Biting his lip, he said, "I really can do magic." "What happened to me?"

Eray couldn't stop thinking about himself. He was both happy and astonished that he could perform magic. He thought it must be related to that creature. The light had moved forward but illuminated nothing; it was as if it was an empty darkness.

Then, Eray showed a strong will for the light to return. The light came back to his side much faster than he had sent it out.

Eray started to move in a random direction, accompanied only by the light illuminating his surroundings. The light was indeed weak. It could only illuminate a few meters around Eray. But it was better than nothing.

Having shaken off his astonishment, Eray thought about what had happened.

"I can use magic; I must return to the capital at once and show these powers to my family. They will regret everything they've done to me."

As he said these words, a pang of pain emerged in Eray's heart.

"Do I really want to go back to them? To a family that wanted me dead?" The pain in Eray's heart intensified. The humiliations and evils they had inflicted on him began to come to mind one by one. It was as if even memories he had forgotten years ago were coming back to life.

He remembered Cyo's final words, Jamie's ignoring and ostracizing him, the things Ellie said that night. How his mother treated Eray like filth,

His father looking down on Eray. The disgust in Lyon's eyes, he remembered his other siblings and wanted to curse and take revenge on each one of them.

"Ah, I think I hate them. Life there was disgusting for me. Constantly feeling ostracized, reviled, looked down upon, and scolded."

"There's really nothing tying me to them." Eray bit his lip, "Those damn people actually tried to kill me. I will take revenge on all of them. Even on Ellie, and even on Mia, who gave me hope only to let me down."

Eray shouted with anger and disgust, "I'll make everyone regret it."

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A cold and clear voice:

"Hey, you're too loud. Shut your mouth or you'll wake the monsters."