Chapter 356 -: 355 I have my own destiny.
"What?"
Ian’s eyes widened like dinner plates, his mouth hanging open as he stared at Destiny in complete disbelief. For perhaps the first time since meeting her, he genuinely didn’t know how to respond to something she had said. Destiny merely nodded, averting her gaze as she looked back toward the endless night sky.
"This vast universe is nothing more than a grain of sand, and there are countless others beyond it. I haven’t been to them, so I cannot tell you how many there truly are, nor where they begin or end, but I have reached the edge of this one."
"E-Edge?" Ian echoed, his voice trembling slightly with disbelief. The word itself felt absurd. An edge? How could something he had always considered infinite possibly have an edge?
He didn’t even voice the question aloud because the answer was already obvious to him. As far as Ian knew, this universe stretched endlessly in every direction, with countless stars, worlds, dimensions, and unknown regions scattered throughout its immeasurable expanse.
He had travelled farther than most beings could ever imagine, moving toward the deepest regions of existence where even the light of distant stars became scarce, yet he had never discovered anything resembling an end.
There had been nothing there, nothing except more space and more worlds waiting beyond it. The idea that he had unknowingly been travelling inside something with a boundary was almost impossible to accept.
"Indeed," Destiny sighed. "This vast universe has an edge, but that edge exists beyond what we call reality."
She turned toward Ian and locked her eyes with his. For a moment, nothing happened, and then one of her eyes slowly changed colour, its ordinary pink fading away as a deep crimson hue spread across the iris.
Ian’s expression tightened immediately. He remembered that eye. He had already experienced its power once, and even though Destiny had never properly explained it to him, he knew enough to understand that it wasn’t an ordinary ability.
She gently pointed toward her crimson eye.
"Do you know what this eye is called?"
Ian stared at it for a moment, slightly shaken by her words. He had no idea what she was implying, although he had always suspected that the eye was connected to illusions or some similar ability.
Destiny had used it against him only a few days ago, and what he had experienced then was already enough to make him wary of it.
"I named it the Rose Petal Eye," Destiny said casually. "You don’t have to think too deeply about the name. I didn’t think about its meaning much when I came up with it."
Ian’s lips twitched slightly.
’Of course she hadn’t.’
Destiny continued before he could comment.
"This eye can create illusions from imagination and make those illusions manifest within reality as though they were genuine. In other words, something that exists only inside my imagination can be brought into this world and given substance. However..." She paused, her gaze drifting toward the hearth where the flames continued to burn beneath their dinner.
The light reflected faintly against her face, but the expression in her eyes had become distant. "At its final stage, it can do something far more troublesome. It can break the fabric of reality itself."
Ian’s expression slowly became serious.
Destiny raised her hand slightly, as though trying to find the right words to explain something that even she found difficult to describe.
"You could say that I am all-knowing and all-seeing. Everything within this world can be perceived by me, whether it belongs to the past, the present, or the future. If I possess enough authority over something, I can even alter what I perceive and change it according to my wishes. To someone living inside this universe, that kind of power would probably sound absolute."
She lowered her hand.
"But even that power is nothing more than a drop of water in an ocean."
Ian remained completely silent.
Destiny’s expression became strangely solemn.
"Even though I possess so much strength, I still cannot simply defy Fate. The Fate you know is not the entirety of Fate. What you call Fate is only one thread belonging to something much larger, something that connects and supports the existence of this entire universe."
She frowned slightly.
"I don’t really know how to word it properly."
Ian rubbed his chin as he listened.
"A tree, perhaps?" Destiny eventually continued. "Imagine that what we call Fate is only a single thread growing from one enormous branch, while that branch itself belongs to a tree so vast that we cannot even comprehend its roots. And perhaps that tree is only a small part of something even greater. I cannot see the whole thing, so I cannot tell you what exists beyond it. I only know that what we once believed to be everything is far from everything."
Ian’s eyes narrowed.
That explanation sounded absurd. And yet, coming from Destiny, he couldn’t simply dismiss it.
"When I broke through the fabric of reality..." Destiny continued, and this time her other eye slowly changed colour, turning into a brilliant golden hue. "My all-seeing ability allowed me to observe what existed beyond it. I could see the past and future of another universe, one that was completely different from ours. It wasn’t merely another region of our universe. It was genuinely different."
Ian’s breathing became slower.
"In that universe, the energy we call mana doesn’t exist. There are no gods either, at least not beings like the gods that exist here. Their worlds developed differently, their civilizations followed different paths, and the laws governing their existence were not exactly the same as ours."
Destiny’s golden eye glimmered beneath the firelight.
"However, there was one thing I was able to observe."
She turned toward Ian.
"Do you know what it was?"
Ian didn’t answer. He simply sat there, staring at her with an expression that had lost every trace of his earlier casualness.
Destiny smiled. It was a faint smile, but there was something bitter hidden beneath it.
"There was Fate."
Ian’s pupils contracted.
"It was similar to the Fate I was born from. The moment it noticed my presence, its threads immediately tried to bind themselves around me. I managed to escape, but it wasn’t easy. Even for me, breaking free from those threads required an enormous amount of effort."
She paused for a moment.
"After that, I didn’t simply leave. I observed other universes as well. Some of them were completely different from ours, while others were strangely similar. Their worlds developed differently, their inhabitants lived different lives, and their histories followed different paths, yet certain things remained almost identical despite everything else being different."
Destiny’s voice became quieter.
"And in one of them, I saw something that even I found difficult to understand."
Ian’s eyes remained fixed upon her.
"I saw the birth of myself."
The words struck him harder than anything else she had said. Ian’s mouth opened slightly, but no words came out.
Destiny simply looked at him.
"I watched myself being born in another universe with my own eyes. I saw someone who looked like me, possessed abilities similar to mine, and carried the same name. Her life wasn’t exactly the same as mine, but there were similarities that shouldn’t have existed if everything was truly random. I watched her Fate unfold from beginning to end, and the more I looked, the more I realized that I wasn’t looking at an isolated existence. I was looking at another possibility of myself."
Ian slowly lowered his gaze.
For someone who had spent his entire life believing that his own existence was already strange enough, hearing that there could be another Destiny somewhere beyond the boundaries of his universe was difficult to process.
"So yes," Destiny said softly, returning her gaze toward the stars, "this vast universe is nothing more than a grain of sand. I don’t know how many other grains exist, and I don’t know whether the thing we call the universe eventually ends or simply becomes part of something even larger. I only know that I have seen enough to understand that what we consider infinite may simply be something finite from the perspective of a greater existence."
She suddenly paused.
"There was one other thing I saw."
Ian looked toward her again.
Destiny’s expression changed slightly, becoming almost playful.
"I once observed a planet where the energy used by its inhabitants was completely different from mana, and it was so powerful that I couldn’t even properly comprehend its nature. I could only observe the traces of it, yet even those traces were enough to make me realize how terrifyingly powerful that energy could become."
Ian’s brow furrowed.
"What was it called?"
"I believe they called it..."
Destiny tilted her head slightly, trying to remember.
"Aether."
Ian’s eyes narrowed.
"Aether?"
"Yes."
She nodded.
"I couldn’t properly understand it, but based on what I observed, some of the strongest humans there seemed to possess strength comparable to you and me. Perhaps even greater, although I couldn’t accurately measure it from such a distance."
Ian remained silent.
A faint curiosity appeared within his eyes.
Destiny noticed it immediately.
"But don’t envy them."
She suddenly giggled softly, her previous solemnity disappearing for a moment.
"Ian, you’re already sitting here worrying about how to obtain enough food for tomorrow. Do you really have the luxury of worrying about the power of some distant civilization you’ve never even seen?"
Ian’s expression darkened.
"That’s unnecessarily cruel."
Destiny laughed.
"Well, it’s true."
She turned her attention toward the chicken.
"Besides, this isn’t my job to explain to you. I only mentioned it because we were talking about how vast existence really is. If I ever have the opportunity, perhaps I’ll show you that place myself. Until then, there isn’t much point in thinking about it."
Ian didn’t reply. His thoughts were already moving in countless directions.
For someone who had once believed that he had already reached the highest point of existence, this conversation was slowly making him realize just how narrow his understanding of the world had been.
Destiny watched him quietly for a moment before asking, "So?"
Ian finally looked at her.
"Does that answer your question?"
Ian’s expression remained complicated.
Destiny smiled faintly.
"I may be mighty. I may be capable of seeing things that most beings could never even imagine, but when compared to the vastness of everything that exists, I’m still incredibly small."
Her smile slowly faded.
"That is why I’m doing what I’m doing."
Ian’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Destiny’s gaze lowered, and the warmth that had been present in her expression disappeared. Her eyes became solemn, while the smile on her lips remained only because she seemed to be forcing it.
"Because I am Destiny."
She looked back toward the sky.
"And just like every other being in this world..."
Her voice became softer.
"...I have a destiny of my own."