Chapter 57: Echoes of blood and bond
The silence in the forest was deceptive. Birds chirped, the wind rustled through the tall silverwood trees, and the sun filtered gently through the dense canopy. But under it all, there was a hum—low, ancient, and pulsing.
Cain felt it first.
He stood at the edge of the trees, arms folded, eyes scanning the path they were to take next. Selene sat on a fallen log behind him, her side still wrapped in soft cloth. Leo and Eren were bickering nearby, Leo trying to read an ancient map while Eren claimed he saw a talking mushroom.
Cain turned back, his voice low. "He's close."
Selene looked up, concerned. "Your father?"
Cain nodded, jaw clenched. "I can feel it in my blood. He's calling us. Testing us."
Selene stood slowly. "Then it's almost time."
They had come far, further than any of them had imagined. What had started as a survival mission had turned into a journey of reckoning—for identity, truth, and vengeance.
Eren tossed a stick into the air and caught it. "So, what do we do when we meet him? Fight? Hug? Tell him he owes us decades of child support?"
Leo rolled his eyes. "You think this is funny? He's not some absent dad from a sitcom. He's a demon lord."
"Exactly," Eren replied, deadpan. "So he should have been in our lives. We could've had private tutoring, a castle, maybe therapy."