Chapter 116: Raising Children

The trek back to the district was a slow, grueling process. Aden draped Eren’s limp arm over his shoulder, the boy’s weight pulling at his center of gravity with every step. The adrenaline that had fueled the breakthrough had evaporated, leaving Eren in a state of profound exhaustion, a cultivation coma where the body prioritized the reweaving of meridians over conscious thought.

The outskirts of Grey-Rock were no longer silent. The pillar of crimson light had acted as a beacon, and as they crossed the threshold where the ruins met the newly paved streets, Aden noticed the shift in the air. People were peering out of half-opened shutters. A few low-ranked guards stood at a street corner, whispering frantically and pointing toward the wasteland they had just vacated.

Aden pulled his hood deeper, the fabric shielding his sapphire eyes. He didn’t want a confrontation, not with a dead-weight apprentice in tow.

’Step lighter,’ the Entity hissed, its voice a cold vibration in his skull. ’Your footprint is leaking. You’re leaving a trail of Resonance that even a blind hound could follow.’

Aden tightened his grip on Eren’s waist. He adjusted his internal flow, pulling his aura inward until it was a tight, suffocating knot. The leak stopped, but the physical strain increased. His muscles burned, a sharp contrast to the effortless power he had displayed in the crater.

“I’m aware,” Aden muttered, his voice barely a breath. “Just keep an eye on the rooftops. If Elara has scouts in this sector, they’ll be moving toward the blast site.”

They navigated the labyrinth of the slums, sticking to the narrowest alleys where the urban reformation hadn’t yet reached. Here, the mud was thick and the smell of rot lingered, providing a natural camouflage for their presence. Aden moved with a predatory grace, his boots barely making a sound despite the burden he carried.

He passed the back of the Adventurers’ Guild, hearing the muffled shouts of men arming themselves. The Silver-Crest Shipment was likely being pushed up; a magical explosion of that magnitude usually signaled the arrival of something dangerous or something valuable.

As they neared the old building, Aden felt a ripple in the air. It wasn’t the Void, and it wasn’t Eren’s raw Resonance. It was a familiar, cooling violet hum.

Lorelei was standing in the shadows of their doorway. Her spectral form was more translucent than usual, a sign that she had pushed her senses to their absolute limit the moment the sky had turned red. When her eyes landed on the duo, the tension in her shoulders vanished, replaced by a look of sheer, maternal fury.

She didn’t speak. She simply stepped back, holding the door open with a stiff, formal jerk of her hand.

Aden hauled Eren inside, the cool air of the interior hitting him like a physical relief. He carried the boy to the corner where Armin and Reiner were sitting, their eyes wide with a mixture of fear and awe. They scrambled out of the way as Aden lowered Eren onto his bedroll.

“He’s fine,” Aden said, answering the unasked question in the room. “He just overtaxed his core. He’s Attuned now.”

The silence that followed was heavy. Armin reached out, tentatively touching Eren’s glowing, feverish hand, then pulled back quickly.

Aden straightened his back, his spine popping with a series of wet clicks. He turned to face Lorelei, who was standing by the cold hearth, her arms crossed over her chest. She looked at the singe marks on his cloak, then at his soot-stained face.

“The neighbors heard the mountain scream, Master,” she said, her voice a dangerous silk. “And I believe I specifically mentioned that breakfast would be ready at dawn.”

Aden looked at the empty pot on the table, then back at her. He let out a short, tired laugh.

“I’ll buy more tubers,” he promised, sliding down the wall until he sat on the floor, his head resting against the wood. “But for now, just let the him sleep. He earned every bit of that noise.”

He closed his eyes, the image of Eren’s fist shattering his barrier still burned into his retinas. He had wanted to know how the boy was doing. Now he knew. He was raising something that wouldn’t just survive this world, it would challenge it.

Lorelei silently walked back to the room with her hands fixed on her waist. Aden hadn’t noticed it due to everything that had happened, nor did he explicitly place interest there, but he couldn’t deny that Lorelei was quite beautiful.

The thought was fleeting, a ripple in the calm lake of his mind before the exhaustion of the morning fully set in. Lorelei disappeared into the adjacent room, the ethereal hem of her dress trailing like smoke against the floorboards. She carried herself with a dignity that felt out of place in this rotting building, a remnant of whatever noble or terrifying height she had occupied before becoming his shadow.

Aden leaned his head back against the wall, listening to the heavy silence of the house. Armin and Reiner had crawled back to their own bedrolls, though they didn’t sleep. They sat huddled together, watching Eren’s unconscious form as if expecting him to levitate or burst into flames at any moment. The glow on Eren’s skin had faded to a deep, resonant crimson, the light pulsing in time with a heart that now beat with the weight of the Attuned Realm.

“You’re staring,” the Entity whispered, its voice sounding amused for the first time in days. “Checking the inventory of your little army, Resonance Lord?”

Aden didn’t even have the energy to snap back. *’I’m checking to see if the roof is still on,’* he thought. *’And wondering how many silver pieces a door-sized hole in the sky costs in reputation.’*

He closed his eyes, but sleep didn’t come. Instead, his senses remained hyper-extended. He could hear the distant clatter of wagon wheels from the market district and the frantic chirping of birds disturbed by the lingering static in the air.

A soft shadow fell over him. He didn’t open his eyes; he knew the scent of cold ozone and lavender anywhere.

Lorelei had returned. She didn’t say a word, but he felt the damp, cool pressure of a cloth against his cheek. She began to wipe away the soot and the dried spray of silt from the wasteland, her movements methodical and surprisingly gentle.

“You should have used the storage ring for the groceries, Master,” she murmured, her voice no longer carrying the edge of fury, but a weary sort of resignation. “And you should have told me you were going to break the world before breakfast. I would have made more tea.”

Aden let out a low, gravelly hum of amusement. “He was going to explode, Lorelei. The boy has too much stubbornness ingrained in him. He doesn’t know how to bleed off pressure; he only knows how to build it until something snaps.”

The cloth paused near his temple. Lorelei’s violet eyes studied his face, tracing the faint lines of fatigue that even his cultivation couldn’t entirely hide.

“He is not the only one who builds pressure until he snaps,” she whispered.

Aden opened one eye, meeting her gaze. In the dim light of the room, her beauty was sharp, almost crystalline, but there was a profound sadness behind the violet mist. She was a ghost tethered to a monster, playing house in a city that wanted them dead.

“I’m fine,” Aden said, though the lie felt heavy on his tongue.

“You are a liar,” she countered softly. She pulled the cloth away and stood up, looking toward the window where the morning sun was finally beginning to burn through the city’s smog. “The Adventurers’ Guild is already moving. The explosion was too close to the Silver-Crest route. They will send scouts to our door within the hour to ask questions about the ’phenomenon’.”

Aden’s expression hardened, the last vestiges of his domestic haze vanishing. He looked at the sleeping children, then at his scarred hands.

“Let them come,” he said, his voice dropping into that cold, sapphire register. “But tell them to knock quietly. The boy is tired.”

Lorelei gave a small, solemn nod and moved toward the kitchen to salvage what she could of the morning meal. Aden remained on the floor, his hand drifting to the hilt of the blade he kept hidden beneath his cloak. The peace had been short, a few hours of soup and silence, but the world was finally knocking on his door again.

And this time, he wasn’t the only one in the house who knew how to bite back.

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