Chapter 408 - 400. A Shadow Princess
Senia Azra grew up believing power was above everything. Not just from money and connection, but also raw power coming from the blessing of the tower.
Ironically, this view did not come because she was in a position of power from the start. No--it was because she spent her childhood being the victim of the powerful.
It was a hidden past that she always tried to bury; a life of living under a literal shadow, when her name was yet Senia Azra.
In the dark side of the high-zone, the brilliant neon lights could never penetrate the black market and the slum. The dazzle of coins from the clients could never elevate the status of those who resided within, no matter how much they piled the money around them.
Much less those who didn’t have the money.
As an illegitimate child of an underboss, the girl who would later become Senia Azra lived as a shadow of the illegitimate daughter. Being a part of the underworld was already a stain, but being a lower level of that dark society...well, even her parents did not bother to give her a name. She was shunned, beaten, humiliated, and made to realize that people with power and authority had the right to walk all over those weaker than them; that it was normal, expected, for the weak to serve the strong.
So she dreamt of being part of the strong.
Perhaps because of her constant prayer, or perhaps because of her incessant curse, she got awakened to be an esper. Coincidentally, a rich young man had been asking to ’buy’ young awakeners, to be raised and groomed as his ’people’, who would serve him faithfully no matter what.
The girl didn’t care if she had to be a tool or servant for someone else, as long as she could become stronger; stronger than those who had been trampling over her. As long as she could have a name. That tenacity, fortunately, was accompanied by talent. She gritted her teeth through a cruel training regime, and was taught that her view was right--it was the strong’s right to rule over the weak.
And in this world, the strong were the espers who had the power to either build or destroy the world. They were Kings, they were Queens, they were Gods.
However, it was also this view that formed her weakness. In front of those who were more powerful than her, she couldn’t do anything but grit her teeth.