Chapter 45: Why? 6 (Flashback)
Alex sat stiffly before the console, his fingers curled into trembling fists against his knees. His mother’s voice—soft yet heavy with the weight of the past—continued to spill from the speakers, weaving together the truth.
"It took your father two months to regain consciousness, Alex," she said, her tone carrying the quiet pain of someone who had lived through every agonizing second. "Even after all that time, he was only forty percent healed."
Alex’s breath came out unsteady. He could still remember that time—those endless, suffocating weeks of silence.
His father had vanished without a trace.
No one spoke of it. No one answered his questions. Warriors of the clan carried on their duties with forced normalcy, but the tension was palpable, a lingering unease in every whispered conversation, in every stolen glance between elders.
Alex had asked his mother over and over again. He had pestered the clan members, demanding answers. But even they had no knowledge about his dad whereabouts.
"When he finally woke up," his mother continued, "he told me what had happened. He spoke of the world he had entered—Eloria, as its inhabitants called it."
Eloria.
The word alone sent a chill down Alex’s spine.
"It was unlike anything we had ever seen, Alex," she said, her voice tinged with something unreadable. "That world has been saturated with mana for over a thousand years. The density in the atmosphere alone... it was overwhelming. The air itself pulsed with energy, thick enough that even standing still, one could feel its influence in their bones."
Alex exhaled slowly, his mind painting the image of a world so rich in mana that every breath filled the lungs with raw power.