Ash remained drifting in the void, yet his thoughts no longer scattered like before.

Love.

People praised it as the highest virtue, the purest emotion, the proof of humanity. They wrote songs about sacrifice and devotion, as if it were law, as if it could absolve the world of its cruelty.

But Ash now saw it stripped of all ornamentation.

Love was attachment.

Attachment was weakness when it demanded sacrifice without return.

And weakness, when exposed to reality, was punished without mercy.

He had not understood this before. Or perhaps he had, but chose to avert his gaze.

He had vowed to protect Elysia.

A vow born from emotion, spoken in warmth and safety, when the cost of keeping it had not yet been revealed. He had believed those words meant something absolute.

Yet when the moment arrived, when the price was placed before him with brutal transparency, he hesitated.

He calculated.

He weighed gains and losses.

That hesitation was the truth.

Ash replayed it all in his mind with unusual clarity. Every calculation he had made, every excuse disguised as reason, unfolded like a map of his own failures.

He had told himself he was thinking ahead, that surviving now would allow him to save her later.

A beautiful lie.

In reality, he had chosen himself.

And that choice tore something open inside him.

He had called himself pathetic, cursed his cowardice, and hated his weakness. But hatred was merely another form of escape.

It allowed him to pretend that he was something else, that he could have been different if circumstances were kinder.

That was the real lie.

Ash finally saw himself clearly.

If he truly were the kind of person who could burn everything for one moment of devotion, he would have done so without hesitation.

But he was not that person.

And he never had been.

Survival had carved itself into his bones long before love ever touched his heart. Every decision he had made, every path he had walked, pointed to the same core truth.

He valued existence.

He valued continuity.

He valued the future, even when it was uncertain and painful.

Elysia was a pure soul. Her love was simple, fierce, and without conditions. She could give everything without asking for return.

Ash could not.

Even his affection carried conditions. Even his vows were bound by calculation.

And that was not a flaw.

It was simply who he was.

The universe did not mock him for this realization. It did not praise him either. It merely existed, vast and indifferent, like truth itself, unwavering and impartial.

Ash let out a slow, deliberate breath and felt something within him settle, a cold clarity that had eluded him before.

Acceptance.

He no longer cursed his past self. That version of him had acted according to his nature, just as this version would do the same.

Regret changed nothing.

Self-hatred achieved nothing.

Only results mattered.

He raised his gaze toward the endless stars, toward the silent heavens and the unseen earth that lay impossibly far away, suspended in the void like indifferent witnesses.

"I see it now," he murmured, his voice steady and measured in the infinite void. "I was never suited for purity. I was born from filth and raised by survival."

The stars watched in silent indifference.

"I made a vow I had no right to make," he continued, eyes burning brighter with the weight of cold logic. "I promised protection without the strength to enforce it. I spoke of eternity while standing one step from annihilation."

He was a survivor.

A schemer.

Someone who chose tomorrow over today, life over romance, continuation over sacrifice.

There was no shame in those words anymore.

The void stretched around him, infinite and indifferent, yet within that emptiness, Ash found the unshakable law of himself: he alone was responsible for what he could and could not endure, what he would and would not accomplish.

And in that clarity, he finally understood.

The heart could desire, but the mind dictated. The soul could hope, but survival commanded.

"I vow this," Ash said, each word heavy, deliberate, carved from cold resolve, "not to gods, not to fate, not to heaven or hell, not to demons, not to mortals, not to immortals, not to stars, not to planets, not to void or abyss, not to time or space, not to the universe, but… to my own will, and nothing else."

"I will climb until the heavens cannot overlook me. I will rise until fate dares not toy with me. I will grow so powerful that gods, immortals, demons, and the abyss itself must weigh the cost before acting against me."

The void witnessed the vow being made. A vow destined to change the whole universe.

"I will never again place my heart above my survival. I will never again let emotion drag me into powerlessness. If love demands weakness, I will abandon love. If mercy invites destruction, I will discard mercy."

His gaze turned sharp and ruthless.

"I will seize strength by any means. I will betray destiny, trample causality, and tear open every so-called law that dares limit me."

"If the heavens stand before me, I will shatter the heavens themselves. If demons rise against me, I will show them what a true demon is. If immortals block my path, I will drag them down from eternity. If gods confront me, I will destroy their divinity. If the abyss swallows me, I will swallow it in return. If fate dares bind me, I will break its chains and walk beyond its flow. If the universe itself rebels, I will force it to kneel and obey my will. If stars oppose me, I will extinguish them one by one."

A slow breath escaped him.

"And if one day I stand high enough, where love no longer demands sacrifice, where protection no longer requires desperation, only then will I reach out to love again."

The final words fell like judgment.

"Until that day, I choose survival. I choose power. I choose myself."

His words steeled the resolve of his heart. This was not a vow he could break. The Ash from before was weak, but the current Ash was no longer weak, at least not spiritually.

As h vowed, something within him shifted and reshaped itself, like molten metal cooling into an unyielding blade.

At the same time, Ash felt movement within his Soul Vault.

He closed his eyes without hesitation and entered the place immediately.

**

Ash appeared inside the vast space, divided into multiple sections, each glowing with faint, ethereal light.

The movement he sensed did not come from Eric. The little unicorn had still not regained consciousness, which tugged at Ash's mind for a brief moment. But he knew Eric was out of immediate danger, and that knowledge was enough to steady his heart.

The movement came from the most central section, the place where the Rune of Time was kept.

With a thought, he summoned the Rune.

A rusted hourglass appeared before him, its surface glinting with a golden sheen.

Ash's eyes widened with realization as he saw the glow coming from it.

"Don't tell me… I fulfilled the condition to absorb it?"

Now that he considered it, he realized the truth.

He had acted against his own will. He had wanted to save Elysia with all his heart, body, and mind—but he had not.

He had done something in direct opposition to his own will.

He had acted in antithesis of his deepest desire.

A hollow laugh escaped his lips, sharp and brittle.

"What cruelty," he muttered, the sound echoing faintly in the vast Soul Vault. "To gain something, one must lose something. I gained the Rune's acceptance, but I lost my heart. There is nothing but emptiness there now."

Still, he did not sink into despair. He had just vowed to himself, he can't break it just because of small emptiness.

Without wasting time, he summoned a vial filled with his own blood.

Rather than absorbing the Rune outside, he felt much safer to do it inside his Soul Vault.

He had stored the blood as a contingency—if his body were completely destroyed, he could use this portion to reconstruct himself.

He allowed a small drop of blood to fall onto the hourglass and muttered quietly.

"RUNE OF TIME."

Instantly, the hourglass disintegrated, fusing with the surrounding space of the Soul Vault. The essence of the Rune seeped into his Soul, absorbed into the depths of his consciousness.

He did not feel immediate changes in himself, yet he sensed the Soul Tree expanding, its branches stretching wider and stronger, while the darkness beneath the Soul Sea deepened even more.

Before summoning the Status Window, he commanded the Soul Vault to slow its internal time, hoping to reduce the gap between it and the outside world.

After testing, he realized the attempt was futile.

The Soul vault was created without incorporating the Rune of Time. That is why it failed.

And I don't have the ability to fuse Runes into the skills, I can combine them to make a skill, but can't add another one to an existing skill.

The time difference of my Soul is bound to my mutated Soul itself. It has nothing to do with the Rune.

He had hoped, even briefly, that aligning the Soul Vault's time with the outside world might allow him to save Elysia.

That hope had failed. Thus, he moved forward.

**

Rune: Rune of Time

Description:

- Allows one to gaze 1 second into the future at the cost of 10% of whole mana..

**

Ash read the description with absolute impartiality. Feeling no change in the knowledge from what he had already known, he closed his Status Window.

There was no thrill, no satisfaction, no pride. Absorbing the Rune had not moved him. It simply was something that he had to do.

He turned his mind to the task at hand.

"Skill Creation," he commanded with a steady voice.

"Create a skill that allows one to…"

***

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