Monarchs of Ruination

"You are the first person I have ever told this story." Lucas' voice was calm, but the weight of his words hung in the air. "Until that day, I didn't even know I was capable of such carnage. Before that, I would have hesitated to kill a bug."

He turned to NOX. "Do you know why I'm telling you this now?"

NOX shook his head. He truly didn't understand.

"Because you are sacrificing your life and power, hoping that I would create a just world from it. But I can't… The truth is, I am an evil soul, just like you. I just needed a good reason and the right timing." Lucas said, his tone laced with self-mockery.

NOX wanted to argue. He wasn't giving up his life for some utopian dream. He didn't care about justice. He was doing this so Lucas could live—so maybe, just maybe, they could fight to bring their families back. But NOX swallowed those words. Instead, he smirked.

"We're not here to measure the cruelty metrics of our past actions. But of course, if we were, I'd definitely win by a huge margin. I mean, you wouldn't even stand a chance. It'd be the most embarrassing loss for you." NOX joked, trying to lighten Lucas' mood.

Lucas gave him a faint smile.

"But I still won't accept your power. And I won't kill you."

He met NOX's gaze. "I'm sorry."

NOX's smirk vanished. His expression darkened.

What is this bastard saying?

"You selfish, hypocritical prick! I'm sacrificing myself so you have a chance to bring our families back, and you're being selfish now?" NOX spat, his voice sharp with frustration.

Lucas didn't react to the curses. Instead, he asked a question.

"Why are you going to such lengths to save your family? This isn't just obsession… There is something more, right?"

It was a question that had always lurked in Lucas' mind. It felt unnatural, beyond mere grief. At times, he even wondered if something—or someone—was manipulating NOX into turning his goal into something beyond reason.

NOX fell silent, as if unwilling to answer.

Lucas stared at him, unyielding. His eyes conveyed a clear message: We have all the time in the world. I can wait for eternity if I have to.

Realizing there was no avoiding it, NOX finally gave in.

"Alright, alright… You selfish bastard. I'm only indulging you because this is the last conversation we'll ever have. But if you still refuse my power, I swear, I'll kill you myself and carve 'Golden-Haired Monk' on your tombstone."

Lucas simply nodded.

NOX sighed, then continued.

"Sometimes… even I find it bizarre. Sure, I love my family—just like any person would. But is my mind so fragile that I can't move past grief? In the beginning, it wasn't even grief. It was revenge."

His voice became distant.

"Years passed. And from the moment I started my revenge to the moment I ended it, the universe plunged into its darkest era. They called it 'The Shadowfall.' I brought humanity to the brink of extinction. Of course, that was until you, you bastard, rose to power."

NOX shot Lucas a resentful glare. "Oh, the headaches you gave me. I wanted nothing more than to strangle you. My own childhood best friend, fighting against me—and against our common enemy."

The bitterness in NOX's voice was real. He still hadn't forgiven Lucas for that.

Lucas shook his head slightly. "No. Your revenge was long over by then. You were just slaughtering innocents."

"Innocents?!" NOX scoffed. "They lived on the same planets as my enemies. Didn't you read the ancient wisdom from the Dragon Country novels?"

Lucas raised a brow. "You mean the one that says, 'Those who are not of our race have different hearts'?"

"Not that one. The other one."

"Justifying killing innocents as strength and calling them 'not my race'?"

"No, the other one."

"You mean 'removing the grass and roots, and splitting the eggs and worms'?"

"Yeah, that one. I was making sure they didn't come back to haunt me later." NOX said righteously.

Lucas sighed. "I can't even comment on someone who calls novels 'ancient wisdom.'"

NOX snorted.

Lucas narrowed his eyes. "And what about the experiments? You conducted experiments on your enemies. Did that come from novel wisdom too?"

"That was for science and research purposes." NOX said defensively.

Lucas scoffed. "And I suppose creating a 'new Cultivation Path' was your justification?"

NOX paused mid-sentence, realizing something. His eyes narrowed.

"You selfish bastard… are you stalling? Trying to sidetrack my story?" NOX accused, glaring at Lucas. His expression read: Manipulative bastard.

Lucas blinked. "Who's sidetracking who?"

Clearing his throat, NOX continued.

"After I got my partial revenge—no thanks to you—I finally took time to mourn my family properly. Time passed, and I set a new goal: to bring my family back, if I ever became strong enough. Back then, it was just that—an uncertain, fleeting goal.

But as years faded into eras, I started asking myself—what was the point of it all? That realization took root, and I couldn't get it out of my mind. My thoughts shifted. I started feeling lonely. At first, I dismissed it as depression.

Until I couldn't ignore it anymore."

His tone grew heavier.

Lucas watched him closely. "What do you mean?"

NOX took a slow breath. "Fate gave you a loving, caring mother. But it gave me a mother who would rather cut me out of her womb than wait a few more months for me to be born."

A heavy silence followed.

Lucas felt something deep in his chest tighten. Just as he opened his mouth to ask what NOX meant, NOX continued, cutting off the question before it could be spoken.

"When I was at my lowest, questioning my entire life, even considering whether I should keep going, I awakened memories — memories from before I was born. No… I should call them memories after I was cut from my mother's womb."

"In those memories,

I was stored in some kind of test tube, barely alive either by magic or technology, maybe both. First few months, my thoughts were blurry and I somehow knew that my brain was still developing.

Few days or perhaps weeks gone by…. This was the first time, I experienced it…. The Overwhelming loneliness.

It was suffocating.

And just then, I saw a woman. She was beautiful, kind. She was my mother, not the one that dug me out and left me on the road, but my only true mother.

At that moment, I saw the loneliness dissipating at her presence. She spoke to me, though I could not talk back.

She spoke for hours and hours as if she sensed my loneliness, and there was never exhaustion in her words, only boundless patience and perhaps love.

When she left, she also took my loneliness with her, giving me a few memories to think about. If that makes any sense." NOX chuckled.

Lucas listened intently as this was the first time NOX ever talked about his family. Though he was confused how this was all related to his obsession with reviving his family.

NOX continued with a faint smile as if he was living these memories.

"She would visit me every day. She talked about her work, and sometimes she would complain about my cheap dad(smile). And I took joy in listening to her. Perhaps to me, that was the only way I knew to be called as living a life."

"Days became months and months became years, my body—if I call it that—grew just a little."

And she never stopped coming, not even a single day. She was my whole world, as the world I knew was what I saw through her eyes, and it was a beautiful world, at least from my eyes."

NOX stopped as if remembering his mother's smile. After a brief moment, he continued.

"One day, she suddenly stopped coming. I waited for days, months, but she never came.

And that was the second time I experienced loneliness again, only this time it was more intense.

Maybe my mind had developed a little, or maybe my mom's words had shown me hope, or maybe I had forgotten my first time feeling it.

I started hating this loneliness.

Perhaps, it was the first time I truly understood the feeling of hating something.

As I got the taste of feeling hate, I started resenting my mother for not visiting.

I really was a spoiled brat, wasn't I?

To even be brazen enough to resent someone who introduced me to the concept of love?" NOX chuckled again, as if he was genuinely angry at his past self.

"Just as I was suffocating and drowning in my loneliness, hatred, and resentment, someone else visited.

It was my big brother. He too spoke to me for hours. He was stuttering and stammering with his words. I think he was going through his teenage phase, I guess. But there was anger in his eyes, directed not at me but at someone else.

But I was certain of one thing—he too loved me.

Then he started visiting me often whenever he was free. He spoke about his life, his powers. God, he bragged too much about how OP his 'Dharma Seed' was.

At the end of every session, he would beg me, beg me to live." NOX said, his breath heavy, his eyes almost misty.

"Few years went by, and I was still in the test tube, and I grew a bit of flesh and body.

And suddenly, my father and grandfather started visiting me. They really took their sweet time to visit me.

They too spoke to me for hours, but mostly they either bragged or bickered incessantly. God, they argued a lot, they compared themselves in everything.

But I listened and watched them, even with a smile in my yet-to-grow heart.

This cycle continued for a few more decades, yes, decades. By now, I was familiar with everyone in my family—their quirks, their hobbies, and even their secrets." NOX chuckled.

Lucas listened intently without a hint of impatience.

"Again, for some reason, everyone stopped coming. Normally, they would visit me often, yet all of them stopped coming altogether.

Decades went by, and no one walked through that door. I missed their footsteps, their voices, their bickering…

It was the darkest time of my life. I experienced the most prolonged loneliness I ever had before. It was traumatic, suffocating, and it was eating away at my mind.

I wasn't even able to breathe in this darkness called loneliness, but what I didn't realize was that in the same period, my flesh and body were growing rapidly.

I developed my eyes, hands, legs, mouth, and so on… each at a few years' interval. But I was too busy experiencing the loneliness. If I had the ability, a whole body, and a chance, I wouldn't be here today."

NOX said, his face darkening as he couldn't help but hate his cowardly past self.

"Yes, I was a coward. But, I vowed that day to never experience such loneliness ever, ever again. After a few decades, I fully developed my body into a 'normal' newborn boy.

Here's the baffling part—For some reason, I forgot all these memories. And why do you think they all came back after what—nearly thousands of years later?" NOX posed a question to himself and to Lucas.