Aetherios System [Slow Build OP MC, Isekai LitRPG/Cultivation] Chapter 224: Book 3: Chapter 75: The Identity of Theseus

Read chapter 224 of Aetherios System [Slow Build OP MC, Isekai LitRPG/Cultivation] by TTReynolds on NovelPedia.

Book 3: Chapter 75: The Identity of Theseus Chapter 75: The Identity of Theseus Alex burst through the treeline, aether still sparking at his heels, before forcing himself to slow. His squad, as well as Ghrukk’s team, waited in a rough cluster together. Their shoulders were hunched, and their eyes were hollow. Grief sat heavy on the group, pressing them into the dirt like a multi-ton weight. His chest ached as he saw them all like that. He walked the last stretch, and the silence broke the instant they saw him. “Where are they?” Selka said first. Cole echoed her demand, fists clenched at his sides. When Alex didn’t answer immediately both surged forward at him, rage trembling in their movements. Someone caught Selka’s arm—Henry, maybe Ghrukk—but it barely restrained her. “They were left behind,” Alex forced the words out, tasting bile as he said it. The reaction was instant. Selka’s fury flashed, Cole’s face twisted like Alex had struck him. For a heartbeat Alex thought they’d tear away and run back toward the field. “Enough!” His shout cracked across the area, harsher than he intended. He grimaced, guilt burrowing into him as every eye landed his way. Eric, Kate, Ghrukk, all asked what the plan was, each of their tones with its own angry edge. Alex raised a hand, forcing them to quiet. He needed silence, needed some iota of control, or the following conversation would break them all. “Listen up...” He held Selka’s stare first, then Cole’s, waiting until their chests stopped heaving and their trembling settled into a simmer. He could still feel the heat of their fury burning beneath the surface. It wasn’t gone, only temporarily contained. Alex swallowed. He wasn’t sure how long he could keep them from losing it entirely, but he also didn't know what to say. He looked back at Selka, and then, almost against his will, at Holly. If it had been her… if he’d watched her head torn from her shoulders right in front of him… nothing, no one, could’ve stopped him from getting revenge. He’d have been uncontrollable, uncontainable. He would’ve been death itself. So how could he begrudge Selka and Cole their rage? How could he deny them their grief, their fury, their need for blood? He couldn’t. He understood it too well. But fighting the Hive? The Hive was suicide. He knew it as surely as he knew the taste of his own breath. They would all die, every one of them, if they tried. There was no question about it. And yet, again, if it was Holly... would he care about that? He already knew the answer. No. I wouldn’t. I'd still march out there and give it my all. The thought hit him deeper than he wanted to admit. He stood caught between two selves: leader and friend. Which one could he be right now? Which one did they need him to be? And which one would they need in the days ahead? He felt like his very self had been torn apart and stitched back together a dozen times over the past few months. He had so many identities. Son, brother, soldier… survivalist, mage, prisoner, war-slave, leader, lover. How many of those had he chosen and how many had been forced on him by the System, by circumstance, by the hungry political games of others? Piece by piece, he’d been torn down and rebuilt, he'd been remade and changed. He looked back at Cole, a man he’d once thought of as nothing but an enemy when they first met. Now he couldn’t even stand to see the anguish carved into his features. Would it be a mercy? He wondered, To take that pain away? To use the basilisk eye, or a draught of some alchemist’s potion, to strip the memory of Rynel out of him? To ease the wound? Would that be a gift? Or a theft? Alex’s thoughts drifted, unbidden, to the old losses that still lingered inside him. His grandfather, gone before their time. The quiet ache of heartbreak from relationships that had fractured and fallen apart throughout life. Each memory had weighed him down in its own way, a chain wrapped around his feet. How many times had he wished he could’ve just… for