Silence drenched the room the moment Alystren collapsed.

Eisha looked at the scenery, her face a mixture of shock and awe. It was almost like she found this version of events to be particularly impressive.

She looked at the unconscious Alystren with a small frown, however, and turned to Northern.

"Lael, we should take Silver away from here."

Northern looked back at his mother.

"Ah, right."

Another clone appeared next to him and gently collected the little girl from her mother. Meanwhile, Eisha had to consciously control herself, adjusting to the atmosphere of her son's many talents.

She certainly knew that this particular ability was her husband's own.

As the other clone carried the child away, she looked at Northern and curiously asked, "How many is your limit right now?"

Northern glanced back, watching his clone's retreating form, and immediately realized what his mother was asking.

"Oh, limitless actually. There's no limit."

Eisha's mouth fell open.

"So you have many? How many do you have right now?"

"About thirty-two? Minus the original."

Eisha brought her hand to her mouth in shock.

"So… this one now—are you real?"

Northern smiled at the look on his mother's face, then looked away, thinking for a bit. By this time Alystren stirred on the floor. Something was changing about the man, but Northern was more fixated on answering his mother's question.

"Personally, I believe all my clones are as real as my original body is. I can shift my main consciousness across any one of them while replacing my supposed original body with that of the clone. So everyone is as real as I am." He paused. "But to put it simply, my original body never left the Grand Archive." He looked at his mother. "The kingdom's library."

The Elf looked discombobulated, her gaze darting between the rising Alystren—who was morphing as he got up—and the mother and son duo casually having a conversation.

Eisha smiled sweetly at Northern's response, especially the last part.

"The library, uhn. We did try to make you hate books. I'm of the opinion that everything wrong about this world started with books. Shin, of course, didn't fully agree with me, but he was the one who also believed teaching you the martial art he'd learned was going to be a curse for you to bear."

Northern sighed. "...What do I do with you both."

Eisha looked down, somber.

"Anike told us so much… and it made us feel so much fear. Hence…"

Alystren—no, Peacemaker—was fully standing now. He was a dangerously beautiful elven man with bone-white skin and hair like wild frost, swept back and spiked in untamed waves.

His ears rose to sharp points, almost blade-like in their severity. But it was his eyes that held one captive: brilliant emerald green, glowing with an unsettling intensity beneath a perpetual scowl.

"Aureisha…" The words crawled out of his mouth like metal scraping against concrete.

Northern smiled gently and placed his hands on his mother's shoulders.

"I've had enough time to hate everyone. And blame a lot of people. I'm a better person now, stronger too. Of course, it doesn't invalidate the sufferings I had to experience, but… what was the guarantee that my life would've turned out any different even if you had taught me all those things?"

Northern breathed gently. "I guess I just don't want to keep blaming people or pointing fingers. Anike, you, Shin, Raven—everyone who thought they could orchestrate my life for my own good."

He looked away wistfully.

"Aureisha… how dare you?"

'My life strangely is filled with people like these.' Northern let the thought settle, familiar and well-worn by now. 'I don't particularly resent them, nor do I feel any sort of gratitude. I'm just indifferent, I think.'

He smirked. "But at least the tables have turned."

"Aureisha!!"

The cool, handsome man yelled and yanked his hand forward.

But in that instant, Northern's and Eisha's eyes sharpened to slits. Northern's eyes glowed blue while Eisha's radiated amber light.

The stare alone made the elven man's hand freeze mid-air, and he trembled back, his face pale and eyes wide.

He was so shaken to the core that he had to ask himself internally: 'What? What happened to me? Did I just… fear?'

It was true. Peacemaker—a high nobility of the Light Elves from Stuart, a person belonging to the royal circle of the court, respected and feared by many, a selector of Kings—felt fear for the first time in his life.

He clenched his fist and his frown deepened. He focused on Eisha first.

"Aureisha, such a thuggish expression belongs not to your delicate face. Wipe that off." He spoke casually, with a gentle hand dismissal.

Then he turned to Northern.

"You… something is not right about you. I have never sensed any human like you. Care to explain who you are?"

Northern was silent, looking at the man from his feet to his head with mild irritation.

"I see it has not settled in…"

Northern didn't move.

He simply looked at Peacemaker—really looked at him—and along with the cold glow of his eyes, something shifted in the air.

The elven man's next words died in his throat. Not from fear this time. From something he couldn't quite recognize anymore. It felt like he was losing grasp on something and couldn't even identify what it was.

It was as if someone had reached inside his chest and turned off a light he'd never realized was always burning.

Slowly, he began to realize: the connection to his essence, the flow of power he'd wielded for centuries… was gone. Silent. Like a river suddenly running dry.

Peacemaker's emerald eyes widened. His hands moved instinctively, trying to conjure anything—a simple light ward, a basic enhancement—but there was nothing there. Nothing answered.

"What..." he breathed, and for the first time, his voice cracked.

Northern tilted his head slightly, and the shadows in the room seemed to lean toward him. Not dramatically—subtly. As if they were listening.

And then the fear came.

Not the rational caution from before. This was something older. Something that bypassed the mind entirely and spoke directly to the marrow. Peacemaker's legs trembled. His perfect posture crumbled. Cold sweat beaded on that bone-white skin.

"I didn't seal your voice," Northern said softly, almost kindly. "You asked who I am. You can still ask. Though I suspect the question has changed."

Peacemaker's knees buckled. The selector of Kings, the high nobility of Stuart, knelt on the floor—not by choice, but because his body simply refused to stand in the presence of whatever was looking at him through those glowing blue eyes.

Eisha watched with an expression caught between maternal pride and something approaching awe.

Northern hadn't raised a hand. Had barely even moved. He'd simply decided that Peacemaker was no longer permitted to be powerful.

And reality had agreed.

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