Chapter 394: Basin of Memories
"Are you talking about the guardians?" Arthur asked and saw a weird expression appear on the spirit"s face. It looked at him as if he was someone else.
"You truly don"t remember anything," it sighed and gave the most helpless expression. "As long as you are still alive, then it doesn"t matter, I guess."
"You are not the first to mistake me for someone else," Arthur furrowed his brows, but the Sovereign didn"t say anything. "And I"m tired of not knowing what"s going on," a helpless sigh mirrored the one the Sovereign gave.
"I can tell you if you want to," it said, surprising Arthur.
"Then do," he leaned forward in expectations.
"However, I know that you don"t want to know yet," it shook its head. "Otherwise, you would have remembered already. There"s a plan, and I"m not going to interfere with it. Your plans never failed, after all."
Arthur was quiet as he realized this was another dead end. He felt frustrated that everyone was choosing for him instead of asking him about what he wanted.
"I"m not who you think I am,"
"Then that"s fine," the Sovereign shrugged. "You shouldn"t care whether I tell you or not since I"m simply mistaken."
"You don"t believe that you are," Arthur scowled at him. "You still think that I"m someone else,"
"I just that you don"t remember but don"t care about what I think. After all, I"m sure you have never seen any signs that prove my words," the spirit gave a sly smile.
But Arthur saw them countless times, one contradicting the other. So he was growing more confused about what happened and how it all links in the end. That"s why he knew that the spirit was playing mind games to seed doubt into his heart.
"It is one thing to accept being a vessel of a higher being, and another to be someone else entirely without knowing,"
"Let"s keep watching," the Spirits Sovereign smiled as if his goal has been accomplished. Arthur stared at it for a long time, feeling as if his antics were familiar. "This is her first battle using spirits. How marvelous she was,"
Destruction and spiritual energy intertwined as the knights fled from the witch they were hunting. Gala"s eyes were wrathful, and Arthur watched as she killed over a hundred knights to stand as the sole survivor.
"Marvelous?" Arthur questioned as he studied her expression. "She is hurt, terrified of the destruction she caused, and scared of her powers," he saw her look at her eyes the same way he looked at his after the battle against Ilios.
"I guess I"ll never have what isn"t truly mine," the Sovereign"s voice was sad as if blaming the world for his pseudo-feelings.
The image changed again to reveal Gala fleeing from the witch hunt. She was sitting on the roadside when a giant man found her. He offered shelter, and she accepted it.
"And that"s how Gala met young Solomon, that must have been at least twenty years ago,"
The pond rippled as it revealed the image of Gala gazing up. She was wounded in a snowstorm, and a figure stood in front of her. Arthur frowned as the back of the figure made his body tremble.
As if sensing his gaze, the figure turned away from Gala and met Arthur"s gaze, and it confirmed his doubts. His lips pressed themselves against each other to form a thin line. The features were ordinary, and a beard mottled his face.
"Dad...?" Arthur could never mistake the green and kind eyes of his father. But now, they weren"t kind. Instead, they were wary and looking into his with gradually increasing shock.
"Art!"
The image disappeared as his father reached out to him. Arthur"s heart was in turmoil as he took a step back. Despite being a spiritual body, he couldn"t stop shaking. They were all identical: the name he called him, his voice, and his face.
"Oops, forgot about this guy"s ability," the spirit waved its hand, and the pond returned to its translucent surface. Arthur grabbed the spirit"s color before shoving it back.
"Show him again!"
"Careful now, I don"t like physical touch," the white cross in the Sovereign"s eyes glowed before it disappeared. Arthur felt it slip from his grasp, and he rushed to grab with his other hand, but the spirit was gone.
Arthur fell on the ground, and his hands dug into the bark of Yggdrasil. The Spirits Sovereign walked to stand beside him before crouching.
"You are lying," Arthur gritted his teeth as the image of his father"s wary and tired face appeared in his mind. "You knew that you were showing him to me, and you knew that he would see me."
"What you saw is in the past, Arthur," the gourd reappeared in its hand before the Sovereign took another sip, devouring more spirits. "Why are you blaming me for a gift I gave you? You wanted to see your father, so I showed you."
"Then show me again. Tell me where he is," Arthur gritted his teeth. "Why would you show me if you wanted to take it away? Cruel."
"You are talking like a child now," it threw the gourd over its back before standing up. Looking at him with its abnormal and unfeeling eyes, the Sovereign of the Spirits Realm had a goal that Arthur didn"t know. "You had someone who knew your father this entire time, but you missed it."
"I didn"t know that she knew him," Arthur stood up, feeling drained. He turned away from the Sovereign and went to look through the basin, but it was nothing but water. "Show me again,"
"I can"t show you more than I did," the voice answered from behind him. "Your father is unique. No mana fluctuations can escape his senses, not even those that transcend time."
"Time," Arthur repeated as he clenched his fist. "Time, time, time." He banged his hand against the basin, and the water"s rippled distorted his image. "When was this?" His voice was helpless and tired.
"A hundred years ago,"
"Hah," Arthur fell to his knees while still clutching the basin. "My father traveled hundreds of years into the past?"
"That, he did," the cheerful voice of the Sovereign was gone. "I"ve watched over him, and sometimes he looked back."
"It didn"t matter how much I"ve waited for his return," Arthur gasped, m.u.f.fling a sob. "He was hundreds of years away from us."
The Spirits Sovereign didn"t say anything but simply stood there quietly. Arthur"s mind had countless thoughts, and he felt many feelings until he let out a laugh.
"Absurdity makes us laugh,"
Arthur said as he turned toward the Spirits Sovereign. It was standing there, looking at him with a relieved smile. The sight of it made Arthur angry again, but he was too tired now.
"I feared that after your fight against the Duke of Fire, you would have lost all feelings. Yet, I"m glad that they are still there, no matter how much they hurt,"
"For an omnipotent being, you care too much about trivial things," Arthur shook his head and looked into the basin again.
"What do humans survive for?" As it asked him, the Sovereign walked to stand beside him. Images began appearing in front of the two again. "Is it not to feel these things: happiness, love, ambitions, awe, curiosity, and every other emotion?"
Images began appearing in the basin: friends joking with each other as they walked home, a father listening to his child who couldn"t stop laughing, two lovers sneaking into a forest under the stars, an alchemist who danced because he made a potion, and a father reading his two kids a book.
The images froze on the last one of Arthur, Oren, and their father sitting beside each other. Arthur"s eyes stared into the basin, seeing the thin smile on his father and the awe Oren and him had as they listened.
"This image isn"t from your memories," the Spirits Sovereign said. "It"s the most treasured memory your father had."
"Where is he now?" Arthur was silent before asking.
"I don"t know, really," it said and paused. "However, I can feel that he"s alive somewhere, doing what he believes in."
"Do you think saying that would make me feel better?"
"I don"t know what it would make you feel. You asked, and I simply answered," the Spirits Sovereign shrugged. "I showed him to you to make sure you are still capable of feeling,"
"Still?" Arthur glared at the spirit. "Am I going to lose my feelings the more power I draw from that being?"
"Ah," the Sovereign smiled. "You aren"t as clueless as I thought. If I say that you will, would you stop using this power? Would you choose to feel, or would you choose to become powerful?"
"You are offering me an impossible choice," Arthur shook his head. "I can"t choose between these two,"
"Why can"t you?"
The Spirits Sovereign walked away from him, returning to its branch on Yggdrasil. Arthur turned to look at it with confusion. The following words it said arrived with the hissing wind, but Arthur heard them.
"After all, you made that choice once before,"