Lili slowed her steps, her dress swaying in the settling dust. Her eyes narrowed.

  She thought 'Hmm… seems like it's over.'

  But then—movement. The haze tore apart as a figure pushed through. It was Ezo.

  His armor was cracked and broken, blood dripping from his lips, yet his eyes burned with a wild yellow aura. A twisted, almost gleeful smile spread across his face. Despite his wounds, he clenched his massive sword and dragged it along the ground with a metallic screech before suddenly vanishing—In an instant, he was in front of her.

  Lili's heart skipped for half a second, but at the last moment she moved at dodged. She decided to fly high in the sky by floating. "Huh… nice try. But it didn't even hurt me." Lili said her tone was casual but her face expressions was clear that she was shocked for a moment.

  Ezo again fall on the ground. He didn't lay but stand still and then he tilted his head, blood still leaking from his mouth. His voice was low, mocking.

  "Are you sure?"

  Her eyes flicked down—and her breath caught. A thin red line was etched across her hand, blood trickling from the shallow cut.

  For the first time, Lili's lips curved into a genuine smile. "So… you can scratch me after all."

  Her expression changed into Seriousness now.

  She raised both hands, her aura spreading everywhere.

  Suddenly, the very air around Ezo warped, a crushing weight pressing down on him. His knees bent, the ground cracked beneath his feet, and his sword trembled in his grip.

  "Let's see how long you can endure this." she whispered, her voice calm, lethal.

  The crushing weight of Lili's gravity pressed down on Ezo, forcing his body closer to the ground.

  'You think I can't endure.... this?' Ezo thought. 'I have endure a lot besides this which you don't even know and this is just scant of all that.' He clenched his teeths. His armor cracked, blood dripped from his mouth, his vision starts getting blurry Ezo realized that if things go like this he won't be able to win. He shake his head trying not to fall by unconsciousness. But then suddenly, a voice—his own voice—rose inside him, it was his past that refused to stay buried.'....Huh why am I remembering all those conversations now?

  'Suddenly Ezo saw a old man who might be in his forties. His black messy hairs with a slick back passing his hands toward him. Ezo didn't know him at first.

  "Umm who are you Mr?"

  But that old man smiles and then Ezo realized something.

  '....Oh Dad it was you?'

  '…You was really a respected man,' Ezo thought. Ezo thoughts start mixing in his memory and then Ezo thought to himself 'Why does everyone thinks that I should become like YOU?' As Ezo thoughts keeps growing. He keeps remembering all of his past as it's flashing before his eyes.

  Ezo father was a leader in the Holy Empire during King David's reign. People saw him as a great soldier, a man to be trusted. Everyone thought that Ezo would walk the same path… and that Ezo would carry his legacy.

  The dust around him swirled, and for a moment, the battlefield dissolved into memory.

  He was twelve again, maybe fourteen. His hands were smaller, calloused from wooden practice swords. His face, though younger, carried the same determined fire that burned in his eyes now.

  And standing before him was his father—broad-shouldered, sharp-eyed, his presence commanding even in silence. The kind of man who looked like he could hold the weight of an entire kingdom on his back.

  "Ezo," his father's voice was steady, almost weary. "I know you don't want to be like me. My work is dangerous… every day, I wonder if I'll even live to see the next sunrise. I chose this path because it's what I wanted. But you… you don't have to."

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  Ezo shook his head quickly. "No, Dad, it's fine. I'm even learning sword skills—just like yesterday, when you were teaching the villagers how to swing properly. I was watching."

  His father raised an eyebrow, almost surprised. "You were there?"

  "Yeah," young Ezo admitted with a faint smile. "I don't want people to think badly of you. I heard many people wants me to be like you and If I don't become like you they will hate me and you, they'll say you failed as a father… that you didn't raise me well. I can't let anyone think that about you."

  For a moment, his father froze, eyes widening at the boy's words. Then he stepped forward and pulled Ezo into a sudden embrace, holding him tightly before letting go. His expression softened, a rare gentleness flickering in the man's usually hard features.

  He turned toward the door, his boots echoing against the wooden floor. Just before leaving, he paused at the threshold. He didn't look back, didn't allow his son to see his face—but his words carried all the weight of a father's love.

  "Ezo," he said quietly, "You can choose whatever you want. Your dreams, your goals—no one can take them from you. Live for them and do your best, and enjoy every moment of life. Even if it's only for a limited time."

  As his father had told him to do, Ezo had chosen his own path. He had walked away from the swords and the blood, seeking the life he had dreamed of. But the very thing he had feared most had come to pass. The people of the empire did not just judge the son who turned away from duty; they turned their fingers toward the father.

  In the crowded streets and the dark corners of the barracks, the whispers grew like a stain. They looked at the legendary soldier and muttered that he had failed in his greatest task.

  "Hey I didn't know that there can be such foolish fathers exits" A merchant said this to his customer when young Ezo and his father was out for groceries. The customer replied to merchant by staring at Ezo and his father with a disgust look on face. "Yeah and how pathetic son can son be.

  "To them, he was no longer just a leader; he was the man who had raised a weak son—a son who couldn't, or wouldn't, carry the weight of the family name.And my father he doesn't care about anything whenever he heard these words from others and if I am with him he will just see toward me and with a smile he said. "Let them bark."

  Young Ezo clenched his fists. But the thoughts of current Ezo wasn't completed because he wants to punish him more by remembering such disgraceful childhood.

  'I didn't say a word. How could I? Deep down… I knew they were right. I was supposed to continue his legacy. To inherit his strength, his duty. But I didn't. I walked away.'

  For a moment, his younger self stood frozen, head lowered, unable to meet anyone's eyes. His father walked beside him in silence, the old man's back still straight, his steps unwavering despite the weight of public scorn.

  'I thought… my father would hate me for it,' Ezo thought. His voice cracked, his lips curling in a bitter smile. 'But he didn't. Not once.'

  The memory brightened—warm light spilling through a wooden shop window. Shelves filled with goods, the scent of fresh wood and spices lingering in the air. Ezo stood behind the counter, older now, calloused hands moving with practiced ease as he handed coins back to customers.

  'I opened a shop," he said softly. "I wanted to make it work, to build something of my own. And it did. Slowly, it grew. I… I married a beautiful woman.'

  The vision of his memory with his loving wife and the shop which became their home. Laughter echoed in the air, the laughter of children. A little girl clung to his arm while a baby boy slept in his wife's embrace. His wife's smile was radiant, her eyes filled with love, and Ezo's own smile—so different from the man crushed beneath Lili's magic—was bright, almost unrecognizable.

  'My children were born,' he continued, his voice thick with emotion. 'My family was everything I ever wanted. A peaceful life, far away from the battles my father fought.

  But through all of it, one figure remained unchanged in the background—his father. Hair streaked with gray, wrinkles marking his once-youthful face, yet the sword in his hands never wavered. Even as the years passed, he stood on the walls of the empire, blade raised against every threat that dared approach.

  'And yet,' Ezo thought, "My father… still did his work. No matter how many times I told him to stop, no matter how old he became… he never quit. Even when his body ached, even when the weight of time bent his shoulders, he never let go of his sword. He never stopped defending that empire."

  The memory held there—his father standing tall in the twilight of his years, a lone figure against the setting sun, unshaken, unbroken.