Lackey's Seducing Survival Odyssey

Chapter 1881: Some Lies… Gave Birth to Love: Part-2

TANCK!

The Purple Flame blade collided with the cosmic black smoke blade, sending a violent shockwave through the air. Purple flames twisted around Aether’s sword while black smoke coiled around the woman’s weapon.

Aether groaned through clenched teeth as he pushed against the woman, while she strained against him with equal force.

His right leg stepped forward, forcing his body lower for leverage, while his left leg shifted backwards as he steadily pushed her away.

Aether stared at the woman through the flickering flames.

She looked exactly like his mother.

Her magenta hair, deep blue eyes, small nose, pink lips, and beautiful face were all unmistakably familiar.

Even the subtle expressions crossing her face reminded him of memories he had carried for years.

Every feature belonged to the woman he remembered as his mother.

Yet something was wrong.

He could feel it somewhere deep inside him, buried beneath instinct and memory.

This woman was not the same person.

But at the same time…

Some part of him still recognised her as his mother.

The contradiction twisted inside his mind, refusing to make sense.

Something about this wasn’t right.

“Arh!”

Aether suddenly drove his foot into her stomach. The impact sent her flying backwards, and before she could regain her balance, he surged after her and swung his Purple Flame sword toward her.

The blade struck her waist, cutting through her body with frightening ease. She rolled across the ground before stopping and slowly looked down at the wound.

A small portion of her waist had been sliced away as cleanly as a piece of paper, yet there was no blood.

The edges of the wound remained strangely empty.

Her face twisted with fury as she raised her hand. Instantly, Aether felt his entire body freeze again.

A cruel smirk appeared on her face.

But then…

The Purple Flames flickering around Aether’s hand suddenly trembled.

The flames flickered once.

Aether’s frozen body suddenly moved.

The woman looked at the flaming sword in Aether’s hand.

“Tsk,” she clicked her tongue before suddenly bolting toward him.

She crossed the distance in an instant and struck again and again, her blade tearing through the air with brutal precision. Aether parried every attack, each collision producing another sharp flame-dull sound. The woman continued pressing forward without giving him even a moment to breathe, forcing him backward step by step.

Aether’s eyes narrowed.

He began parrying faster.

One strike.

Another.

Then another.

His movements became increasingly precise until he finally found an opening and drove his fist directly into her gut.

“ARH!”

The woman coughed violently as the impact bent her body forward. She staggered backwards before raising her head and glaring at him with raw hatred.

“This Motherfucker!”

“Give my mother back,” Aether said coldly.

For every second he continued looking at the cosmic black storm surrounding the person inside the storm, he could feel the storm of emotions inside himself growing stronger.

The cosmic black seemed to feed upon every feeling he thought he lost.

Hate.

Anger.

Fury.

Annoyance!!

One emotion after another surged through him, growing heavier with every passing second.

The woman chuckled softly.

“I am here, dear. I am your mother. Why are you still refusing to accept it?”

Her smile widened as she stepped forward.

“What is it? Did it hurt your pride when I told you that your little brother was better than you? Did you hate hearing that someone else deserved my praise more than you did?”

She tilted her head, watching his expression carefully.

“You spent all those years wanting me to look at you, wanting me to acknowledge you. And when I finally did, you could never forget what I said.”

“Hahah.”

Her laughter echoed through the reddish-hued void as she suddenly shot forward, swinging her sword horizontally toward his body.

Aether blocked the strike at the last moment. The impact forced his arm sideways, but he redirected the momentum and kicked her away.

This time, however, the woman caught his leg.

Her fingers tightened around his ankle.

Before Aether could react, she swung him through the air and hurled him away. He twisted his body before crashing down, but the woman had already leapt into the sky.

She raised her sword above her head.

The cosmic black smoke gathered around the blade, thickening until it looked as though an entire storm had condensed around its edge.

Then she brought it down with full force.

THUD!

Aether blocked the descending blade, his feet slamming into the ground beneath the sheer force of the impact.

He pushed the blade aside and landed firmly on the ground.

Rolling his shoulders once, Aether raised his eyes toward her.

Then he surged forward.

His Purple Flame sword erupted with renewed intensity as he struck at her furiously, each swing carrying more weight than the last. The flames illuminated his face, but they could not hide the coldness in his eyes.

TANCK!

She blocked his strike with a wicked grin.

For a moment, their blades remained locked together.

Then her eyes shifted toward his left cheek.

“Do you remember the scar I gave you, dear?”

That single sentence pierced through Aether more deeply than any blade could have.

Even though the scar was no longer there, the moment she mentioned it, something impossible happened.

A faint mark appeared upon his left cheek.

The scar slowly formed as though an invisible blade were carving the memory directly.

The scar had returned.

Not because his body remembered it.

Because something inside him did.

Aether’s lips trembled as he pushed her back and struck at her with his sword, but she blocked the attack with ease. Their blades locked for a moment, purple flames licking against the black smoke surrounding her weapon.

She looked into his eyes and smiled slyly.

“Why are you here? What did you come all this way for? My acknowledgement? Is that what you wanted from me?”

Aether’s expression tightened.

“No.”

He pushed harder against her blade.

“I just need to know why she isn’t movi—”

TANCK!

She abruptly twisted her sword and knocked his blade aside, cutting off his words before launching another attack.

“Don’t lie to me, dear.”

Her voice carried an almost amused tenderness that made the words even more unpleasant.

“Mommy knows everything about you. You can deceive yourself, but you could never deceive me.”

Another strike.

Aether blocked it.

Another.

He deflected it.

The woman stepped closer with every exchange.

“I know why you are here. I know what you have been searching for. That pathetic child inside you is still waiting for his mother to love him, isn’t he?”

Aether’s grip tightened around his sword.

“Stop.”

“You still remember it, don’t you?”

Tang!

Their blades collided again.

“The times you convinced yourself that maybe tomorrow she would finally smile at you. Maybe tomorrow she would call your name with warmth instead of disappointment.”

Aether’s eyes narrowed.

“Shut up.”

“But tomorrow never came.”

TANCK!

Her sword slammed against his.

“You kept telling yourself there had to be a reason. You kept making excuses for her because accepting the truth was harder than blaming yourself.”

Aether clenched his teeth.

“You are not my mother.”

She blinked slowly.

For the first time, her smile faded.

“Why do you believe that?”

She glanced toward the silhouette of the person trapped within the eyes of the storm.

“Is it because of her?”

Aether followed her gaze.

The woman shook her head.

“No. She is not your mother.”

She looked back at him.

“She never was.”

A pause.

Then she smiled again.

“I am.”

Aether stared at her.

The woman placed a hand against her chest.

“I raised you. I watched you grow. I watched you make mistakes, watched you cry, watched you crawl back to me whenever the world hurt you.”

Her eyes hardened.

“And you still have the nerve to stand there and tell me I am not your mother?”

Aether’s jaw tightened.

“A mother doesn’t deliberately destroy her own child.”

Then the woman laughed softly.

“Destroy you?”

She tilted her head.

“Is that what you call it?”

Her smile slowly returned.

“Funny. You always did have a talent for making yourself the victim.”

The veins on Aether’s forehead bulged as anger surged through him. He shifted his legs, lowered his centre of gravity, and suddenly swept her legs out from beneath her balance before driving his fist directly into her face.

Thud!

The woman stumbled backwards and covered her face. She remained still for a moment before slowly lowering her hand.

“How dare you! You haven’t changed at all…”

“Just like always… a brute. You never learned how to talk. You only learned how to hurt people when they refused to give you what you wanted.”

Aether raised his sword.

“Stop.”

“You hurt everyone around you and then wonder why they leave.”

“Stop!”

“You were always selfish.”

Aether’s eyes shook with anger.

“Stop talking about things you don’t understand!”

The woman smiled.

“I understand you better than anyone.”

Aether suddenly struck again.

She blocked the blow and immediately retaliated.

The two blades collided repeatedly, each impact sending burstful sparks and fragments of purple flame through the air.

“You thought becoming stronger would change what you are?”

TANCK!

“It didn’t.”

TANCK!

“You are still that same frightened child.”

TANCK!

“The only difference is that now you have enough power to pretend you aren’t afraid.”

Aether’s breathing became heavier.

“Shut up!”

She pushed his blade aside.

“You want her back so badly?”

Aether froze for half a second.

“Then why don’t you admit what you really want?”

She stepped forward.

“You don’t want answers.”

Another strike.

“You want her to tell you that you were worth loving.”

Another.

“You want her to look at you and say, ‘I was wrong.ʼ”

Aether blocked the attack with both hands gripping his sword.

“You want an apology.”

The woman’s smile became cruel.

“You want your childhood back.”

Aether’s eyes trembled.

“And you know what hurts the most, dear?”

She leaned closer.

“You know she can never give any of those things back to you.”

“Enough!”

Aether shouted as he struck her again, but she held her ground and retaliated without holding anything back.

Their blades became blurs.

Faster.

Harder.

The woman began forcing him backwards, each attack coming closer to his body. Aether parried one strike, then another, but her movements continued accelerating as though she were slowly learning every rhythm of his body.

Then she suddenly struck upward.

Aether barely avoided the blade.

The woman stepped inside his guard and lowered her face until she was dangerously close to him.

She whispered directly into his ear.

“Tell me, dear…”

Her eyes searched his face.

“How does it feel to know you’ll never have a child of your own?”

“…”

Aether’s expression instantly went blank.

The world seemed to become strangely quiet.

“Hahaha…”

The woman laughed softly.

“What happened?”

She tilted her head.

“Did I finally find the wound you don’t know how to heal?”

Aether didn’t answer.

She continued.

“You always wondered why you couldn’t have children, didn’t you?”

Her smile widened.

“Somewhere inside that miserable little heart of yours, you still believed there had to be another reason.”

She leaned closer.

“Perhaps I had no choice.”

“Perhaps I was manipulated.”

“Perhaps…”

Her eyes narrowed.

“Perhaps your mother wasn’t cruel enough to do it herself.”

Aether’s fingers began trembling around the sword.

The woman smiled when she noticed.

“There it is.”

Her voice softened.

“That little hope.”

She whispered the next words.

“You were still protecting me, even after everything.”

Aether’s eyes slowly lifted toward hers.

“You were still making excuses for the woman who hurt you.”

She suddenly struck him sideways.

The blade tore into his shoulder.

Aether staggered.

The woman watched him carefully. “Nothing?”

Aether remained silent.

“Doesn’t it hurt?”

She smiled.

“Of course it does.”

She slowly pulled her sword free.

“But not here.”

She tapped her own chest.

“Some wounds are deeper than flesh, aren’t they?”

Aether’s expression remained empty.

He didn’t feel the physical pain.

Yet those words had carved something inside him that the sword never could.

The woman rested her sword over her shoulder.

“What?”

Her smile returned.

“Did you really expect your stepfather manipulated me into making you infertile?”

Aether’s hands trembled.

He had.

Somewhere deep inside, he had.

Even after everything he had remembered, some small and pathetic part of him had still searched for a reason that would make his mother’s actions less unforgivable.

His mind had desperately tried to build an explanation.

Maybe she was forced.

Maybe she was threatened.

Maybe someone had manipulated her.

Maybe she had been protecting him in some twisted way.

Because even if his mother hated him…

Why would she deliberately take away something so fundamental from her own child?

Why would a mother do that?

It was beyond reason.

Yet the woman before him was smiling.

“I did.”

Aether’s pupils contracted.

The woman laughed.

“I purposefully did it.”

Her laughter echoed through the reddish-hued space.

“Hahahaha!”

Aether stared at her.

“Y-You’re lying.”

The words barely escaped his mouth.

She raised an eyebrow.

“Am I?”

“You’re lying.”

She slowly raised her hand.

“You don’t have to believe me, dear.”

Her fingers moved gently through the air.

“We can check.”

She laughed quietly.

“How about we check my memories?”

She flipped her hand.

Instantly, the reddish-hued space around them folded inward.

The air distorted like a reflection being twisted across disturbed water. Layers of crimson light peeled apart, revealing an image hidden beyond the warped space.

Aether stared.

His mother stood inside a familiar kitchen.

She looked calm.

She prepared his food with the same hands he remembered from his childhood.

Then she reached for a small container.

Aether’s breathing stopped.

She opened it.

Inside was a strange substance.

His mother carefully poured it into his food.

Then she mixed it.

Slowly.

Thoroughly!!

As though she had done it before.

Aether didn’t move.

His eyes remained fixed on the image.

The woman beside him watched his face instead of the memory.

“Now you understand.”

Every day…

Every meal…

She had put those things into his food.

Every single fucking day until he left the house!

“…”

Aether’s eyes slowly turned dull as he stared blankly at the visuals of his mother carrying out the deed.

Aether’s fingers slowly loosened around his sword.

The Purple Flame flickered.

The woman noticed his expression and smiled.

She tightened her grip around her blade.

Then she moved.

Her sword thrust forward with brutal speed and pierced straight through his chest.

Chcukk!

The blade emerged from his back.

Aether barely flinched.

His body reacted to the impact, but his mind seemed to remain somewhere far away. He looked down at the weapon buried inside him, then slowly raised his eyes toward her.

There was no anger in them.

No hatred.

No resistance.

Only emptiness.

The woman stepped closer until her face was almost touching his.

“I never liked you. I never wanted you.”

Aether stared at her.

“You took my freedom. You took years of my life simply by existing.”

Her expression hardened.

“You were never something I dreamed of having. You were never the child I wanted.”

Aether’s lips moved slightly.

Nothing came out.

The woman twisted the blade inside his chest.

Aether’s body jerked faintly.

She stared into his dull eyes.

“Now tell me… why are you here? What do you want from me? Sorry? You crossed all this distance for an apology?”

“You want me to kneel before you and admit that I was a terrible mother?”

“You want me to tell you that I regret it?”

“I would never say it.”

“I will never apologise to you.”

“I will never tell you that you mattered to me.”

“And I will never pretend that I loved you.”

The woman thrust her blade forward again.

Aether’s eyes slowly closed.

Something inside him had simply stopped fighting.

The Purple Flame sword in his hand began to weaken.

The flames that had once burned fiercely around the blade gradually shrank.

The light reflected in his eyes disappeared with them.

His fingers loosened.

The sword nearly slipped from his hand.

The woman watched him with a cold smile.

“That’s right. Give up.”

Her voice became almost gentle.

Aether’s breathing grew slower.

‘Yeah… right… Why would she love me? I was never meant to mean anything to her.’

His eyelids grew heavier.

‘She… she just never… loved—’

Then…

“I will never leave you.”

“You’ll be fine, my darling. Mother will always be with you, Aether.”

His eyes twitched.

Everything disappeared for a moment.

Those words…

They weren’t from this woman.

They weren’t from his childhood.

They belonged to another time.

Iteration No.18.

Aether remembered her arms around him.

He remembered the warmth.

He remembered being held without fear.

He remembered a voice that never made him question whether he was wanted.

Someone had stayed.

Someone had looked at him without disgust.

Someone had called him their darling.

Someone had promised they would never leave.

Aether’s dull eyes slowly opened.

The woman noticed the change.

“What…?!!”

WHOOM!

In the next second, Aether’s eyes flared with intensity as he swung his Purple Flame sword, which suddenly burst into flames as well.

Chucck!

The blade instantly cut off the woman’s head.

The woman’s severed head rolled away from her neck as the Purple Flames suddenly erupted across both her body and head.

As the flames burned through her body, Aether kicked her body away and stared at it before saying,

“No! She did… Love me. At least… Once.”

“Hahaha…”

A faint laugh came from behind him.

“Dream on!”

The voice came from the severed head.

“I would…”

She coughed.

“Ahem…”

Her head twitched slightly.

“I would…”

Another cough.

“Ahem… ahem…”

Aether frowned.

Something was wrong.

That voice…

It wasn’t hers.

His eyes narrowed, and also… he frowned when the flames disappeared from the body; it didn’t burn it away instead…

It became a man?

Aether’s breathing stopped. He immediately turned towards the head.

His eyes widened.

The flames parted.

The face that emerged from within the burning was not the woman’s.

But it was a man.

For several seconds, Aether couldn’t move then,

“What the fuck!!!”

His face was literally shocked because… that man was

… His birth Father!

“Hello~” He said with a sly expression.