Chapter 282: Chapter 281: The Fractured Prophecy
And then...
Lumberling’s body jolted awake. His icy blue eyes snapped open, wide with shock. His breath came in ragged bursts, chest rising and falling like a man dragged out of drowning.
"Huff... huff... huff..."
"Lumberling!"
"My Lord!"
Two familiar voices broke through the haze. Lumberling turned his head and found Skitz and Liraeth close.
Slowly, fragments pieced themselves back together, the battle with Agathis, the spear piercing her heart, the surge of foreign memories and essence crashing into him, then the void.
"What’s wrong? What happened to you?" Liraeth asked, her brows furrowed. Her hand hovered as if she wanted to steady him but held back. His skin was pale, his eyes clouded, as though his soul had wandered too far and only just returned.
Lumberling shut his eyes, forcing his breath steady. The pounding in his chest eased bit by bit, until finally a faint clarity returned to his gaze.
"I’m fine now," he said at last, managing a small smile at their faces. "No need to worry."
"How long was I out?"
"Four hours," Skitz answered bluntly. "We found you collapsed beside Agathis’ corpse and carried you back. What exactly happened?"
"I absorbed her memories," Lumberling said, voice low. "It was too much for me at once. My body couldn’t handle it and I lost consciousness."
He leaned back against the bedframe, his tone leaving no room for more questions. "Give me some time. I’ll explain later."
Liraeth and Skitz exchanged a glance, reluctant but obedient. At last, both bowed their heads slightly and stepped out, leaving him alone with the silence of the room.
As the door closed behind Liraeth and Skitz, Lumberling exhaled slowly, the sound heavy in the quiet room. He had told them he was fine, but that was far from the truth. His body was steady, yet his mind still churned with fragments of memories that weren’t his.
This was the first time he had blacked out after devouring someone’s essence. The memories of Agathis had not only poured into him, they had drowned him. For a while, he had felt like he was living another life entirely, her life.
The emotions were the hardest to separate. Her joys, her fears, her regrets, they clung to him, trying to seep into his own thoughts as if they belonged there.
’If it wasn’t for the Mindseal Meditation anchoring me... I’d have lost myself,’ he admitted inwardly. ’I need to strengthen it further. If this happens again, I may not come back.’
Lumberling shut his eyes, steadying his breath. One by one, Agathis’s memories spilled into him, not as thoughts of his own, but as if he were sitting in a darkened hall, forced to watch another life play across a stage. Her joys, her fears, her triumphs, all of it played before him like a film he could not stop.
He saw the girl clawing her way from poverty, Agathis, who had been born with a gift, or a curse, an ability to glimpse fragments of fate and to sense the flow of luck around others. With it, she carved a path out of poverty.
She built influence by tying herself to those whose futures shone brightest, riding their luck as if it were her own. Step by step, she raised her family and friends, lifted them all into comfort and safety.
She became powerful, respected, and untouchable in her city. People admired her, feared her, and envied her.
But then came the child.
His luck was unlike anything she had ever seen. It wasn’t a trickle or a glow, it was a blazing torrent, reshaping everything around him. Misfortune never clung to him, even disasters twisted themselves into opportunity. Those close to him thrived simply by being near.
Agathis had been fascinated. And as natural thing for human, she became greedy.
Her ambition flared anew, whispering that if she could control this boy, he would become the greatest shield, the greatest weapon, the greatest treasure her family could possess. She tried to guide him, to mold him, to claim him.
That was her mistake.
The boy’s fate was not hers to bind. And in time, the very child she had sought to control became the instrument of her downfall.
Her friends, her family, her life’s work, she watched them burn. The boy’s enemies came for her, and in the crackle of flames swallowing her home, she smelled the bitter smoke of everything she had built turning to ash. When dawn came, the silence was unbearable, no laughter, no voices, only ruin.
The boy spared her life, though. He looked her in the eye and said she had been the one who helped him grow, and that sparing her was his thanks.
But for Agathis, survival was no mercy. From that day forward, she lived with nothing but rage and regret, her heart hardened by vengeance. She chased after the boy like a shadow, trying to twist his path, researching, plotting... yet every move she made only nudged him further toward success.
It was her greatest torment, her existence fed the very destiny she wanted to shatter.
She was left broken, her hope gone.
Lumberling watched her wander the ruins of her home, night after night, alone.
Rooms that once rang with laughter now echoing only with her footsteps. She told herself she would rebuild, but no one came. Those she had lifted had turned their backs, unwilling to risk sharing her downfall.
Loneliness gnawed at her. Some nights, she clenched her teeth until her jaw ached, refusing to accept such weakness.
And then... she saw another. A child marked by fortune’s glow. The same shimmering aura, the same unyielding tide of fate bending to shield them.
The sight snapped something inside her. Her grief twisted, her emptiness hardened into resolve. If destiny had stolen everything from her once, then she would strike at destiny itself. If she could not kill the boy, she would kill every one of his kind.
What began as bitterness finally erupted into obsession. Her fury no longer belonged to a single face, it belonged to all the "children of luck."
The visions shifted again.
The second time, she set a powerful noble against one such child. She thought she had found the perfect trap. Yet the same thing happened, the noble was destroyed, while the child of luck survived and even thrived.
It should have broken her again. Instead, it fanned her anger brighter.
She searched for another.
On her third attempt, fate brought her before Kairo. His aura burned with that same overwhelming fortune, twisting danger into blessing, defeat into victory.
Through her visions, Lireath was tied to the young boy. His fated partner. A talented Oracle, born to walk at his side. She glimpsed their future, Lireath’s land pressed by endless waves of war, her walls about to fall, until Kairo appeared at her side. Together they held the line, together they won. And in time... Lireath became his lover.
But reality bent differently.
Someone who was never supposed to exist stood in the middle of that path. Him, Lumberling.
He had taken the place that should have belonged to Kairo. Lireath, who in her vision was destined to be Kairo’s heart, had turned towards him instead.
Agathis was baffled. No, she was shaken. For the first time, the script she had glimpsed crumbled before her eyes.