Chapter 2177

"We've reached our destination. You're dismissed," said Zidane. A clueless one would've assumed Morvahn worked for him. Surprisingly, Morvahn was unfazed. He stared at Zidane's retreating figure for a few seconds before finally tearing his gaze away and shifting it to Shannon and Benjamin. His voice was deep and gloomy. "With this journey to return you to the living, the karmic bond between you should also end. All past grudges and entanglements shall cease here at the River of Oblivion." Before Shannon could ponder what karmic bond he referred to, Zidane, rarely seen angry, suddenly lashed out. With a flick of his hand, a long whip wrapped in ghostly flames snapped toward Morvahn. "Stay out of my business!" Morvahn raised his hand, effortlessly seizing the long whip and allowing the ghostly flames to scorch his palm. And yet, a touch of melancholy surfaced on his otherwise impassive expression. He felt a twinge of sorrow that someone once so powerful, after thousands of years of reincarnation and exile, now only possessed this much strength left. There was regret in his heart, but even more than that, a hope that Zidane could finally end this endless cycle of rebirth. "If you still carry guilt within you, why not offer them a sincere apology before the chroyan branch?" Zidane's expression grew colder. The sly, lazy glint once seen in his eyes had vanished, replaced by a chilling calm. Yet, he said nothing, nor once looked at the couple. As the parties involved, Shannon and Benjamin could vaguely sense from Morvahn's words that there was some past connection between them and Zidane. A sense of confusion stirred in their hearts. Zidane's identity had always been a mystery, one that Shannon could never unravel—neither his destiny nor the karmic entanglements between them. Though she had always been curious, she had never asked. Now that Morvahn had exclusively stated her and Benjamin's involvement, she felt it was time to get the truth from Zidane. Thus, she turned to him and called out his name. She didn't voice a question, but it was enough to convey what she was after. Zidane lowered his gaze, pursing his lips in silence. Realizing the situation, Benjamin directed his focus to Morvahn and asked, "Who is he?" Morvahn noticed the lack of movements and verbal interference from Zidane and eventually sighed deeply. "He was the former Morvahn," the current Morvahn said. "Six thousand years ago, the former God of the Underworld was stripped of his title for failing to govern the underworld and was condemned to a thousand years of exile and endless reincarnation." Shannon's eyelids fluttered as she was clearly taken aback by that answer. "Six thousand years ago…" she muttered lightly, an assumption forming in her heart. It was too much of a coincidence for those two timelines to match. If Zidane had been Morvahn six thousand years ago, it meant his karmic entanglements were tied to their past-life selves—Lucan and Elowen—rather than to the current versions of themselves. At that point, Shannon and Benjamin had come to a realization. The hardest part was over, and Zidane finally gave up his silence. Above the River of Oblivion, a silent sigh lingered in the air. He withdrew his hand, and the long whip in his grasp instantly dissolved into green smoke. Without a word, he turned to face Benjamin and Shannon. In his usually beguiling eyes, there was an unfamiliar depth and solemnity. He stared at them, almost as if to see the ones he had once known through the couple. After a prolonged silence, he softly stated, "My sins began with Vlad Grimshaw." Back when he was still Morvahn, the God of the Underworld, six thousand years ago, he allowed the release of a hundred thousand malice fragments suppressed at the deepest grounds of the underworld due to a moment of… carelessness. He confessed, "That calamity of Celestria, the one that led to the destruction of Lucan and Elowen's divine souls and brought suffering to all living beings in the mortal realm… It all started because of me."