My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger

We live in fear. We are shaped by the world around us, blinded by only what we choose to see through our own narrow lens of the world.

Have you ever wished you were not yourself, but someone else?

Have you ever loved someone while hating them at the exact same time?

Matia crawled across the frozen ground, dragging her broken body through the snow as blood smeared behind her in a grotesque crimson trail. Every inch of her small frame ached violently, bruises blooming beneath pale skin while one of her bent wings twitched weakly against her back. Her face pressed briefly against the ice-covered floor, and despite the agony running through every shattered nerve in her body, all she could feel was the familiar cold embracing her skin.

She was used to pain.

She had lived with pain for as long as memory allowed.

Even then... she was afraid.

Not because she feared death.

No.

She was afraid she would die before reaching the courtyard. Afraid she would collapse before she could make it to the snow waiting outside, where she could lay down and bleed quietly while watching snowflakes drift lazily from the heavens above, while the warmth of the snow beneath her blanketed her body and held her one final time with its beautiful coldness.

By some miracle, she made it.

Her trembling fingers dug weakly into the snow as she finally pulled herself forward before collapsing fully onto her back, staring upward at the gray sky overhead.

Her brother stood several meters away.

Two maids restrained him by both arms while he struggled weakly against their grip, his frail body shaking violently, panic written all over his face as he stared at her broken figure lying in the snow.

Seeing that expression on his face, seeing him worry for her like always, Matia could not help but feel that familiar emotion rise inside her chest.

Hatred.

And the moment that thought surfaced, she wished she were dead instead.

Her father stood in the distance with the same cold expression he always wore. In his hand rested the blood-soaked stick he had used moments ago to beat her within an inch of her life, crimson droplets slowly sliding down the frozen wood and staining the white snow beneath his feet.

In that moment, she wished she were like the snowflakes drifting down from the heavens.

She wished she possessed their freedom.

Even if only for a brief moment.

Beautiful things were beautiful because they faded.

The snow was born in the heavens. It danced through the skies before falling gently toward the earth, only to die the moment it touched the ground.

She often wondered why it never stayed above.

Was heaven too cold?

Was the earth somehow warmer?

Did snow, much like her, long for warmth despite being born from winter itself?

Matia slowly raised a trembling hand toward the sky as if trying to grasp one of those falling flakes.

If home was heaven...

Then perhaps she wished to fall to earth as well.

”I wish I could be a snowflake...” she whispered softly, offering her childish wish to the falling snow.

Ah... what a sight that would have been.

To see a beautiful fairy dancing freely through endless snowfall.

Yes.

What a beautiful sight it was.

To witness a lethal fairy dancing through the snow.

Snowflakes began descending faster.

The moment their auras rose, the memory vanished and reality returned.

At last she stood facing her father.

The man who ruled this frozen kingdom from its icy peak now stood before a daughter no longer broken.

A lethal fairy clad in war.

Suddenly the heavens fractured.

Hundreds of massive lances of ice rained downward from above, each one trailing streams of frozen white particles through the air. Every shard carried monstrous weight, heavier than an elephant, sharper than the finest forged blade, yet they descended with almost graceful beauty as they screamed toward Matia like divine judgment itself.

She moved.

Her body twisted fluidly through the torrent with impossible elegance, boots sliding over ice as she bent her waist, spun on one foot, and danced through the storm of destruction. Her hips shifted with each calculated motion while the sword in her hand flashed repeatedly through the air.

Each strike detonated with violent bursts of frozen mist wherever steel met magic.

Her father narrowed his eyes.

Mild anger creased his expression.

”You dare face me...” his voice echoed coldly through the storm. ”Clearly your birth was a mistake. One I will rectify myself.”

A brilliant white arc erupted from his blade.

The sword slash cleaved through the very air itself, freezing the surrounding space as a field of absolute frost expanded outward. Time itself seemed to slow under its influence.

Matia stepped through it untouched.

Her full plated armor shimmered faintly as she reached upward and slowly removed her helm, allowing silver-white hair to spill freely over her shoulders.

She had never been one for mockery.

Words were not her nature.

So she had learned them.

She had learned cruelty for this exact moment.

”Do you know why I removed my helm... father?” she asked, her voice as flat and emotionless as still winter.

Her expression remained taciturn.

Yet Lord Faldren knew that face.

Sadly enough for both of them... he was still her father.

And he recognized mockery when he saw it.

The contempt hidden behind her calm gaze irritated him immediately.

Even knowing he would hate her answer, he asked anyway.

”And why is that?” His tone carried naked disgust.

Matia slowly raised her sword and pointed it directly at his chest.

”Why isn’t it obvious?” she asked calmly. ”I wanted you to know the one who defeats you today... is a woman.”

The silence that followed lasted only a fraction of a second.

Then everything exploded.

The entire palace violently ruptured outward as overwhelming magical pressure detonated from Faldren’s body.

The ceiling tore apart and launched high into the dark sky above while hurricane-force winds erupted in every direction, sending shattered pillars and chunks of frozen stone flying across the kingdom.