"I first encountered this topic back when I was but a small child."

With enough of… let's say… insistent persuasion, Celleria finally caved in and started speaking. But as cliche and annoying it was for her to start the story all the way back in her early years, the fact that she actually brought that up inevitably caused me to compare it to what little I knew about Eve's background.

"It was still back then when my father was in our family. He used to spend a lot of time with me…"

As Celleria continued the recounts of her happy childhood, I couldn't help but cast a curious glance at Eve. Yet rather than seeing her expression filled with boredom, she was actually immersed in the story, as if someone was speaking about her own past!

"... yet, as if something changed, as soon as I turned six, my father disappeared from our lives. To cut the explaining, it wasn't until I turned nine that the relative peace of my life lasted. Exactly three years since father's disappearing, a strange group of people knocked on our doors."

Seeing that the events that Celleria was speaking about was finally accelerating, I put my attention back to her words. From what I could understand so far, despite there being a lot of similarities with what Eve went through, there were just as many differences. After all, I clearly remembered that she was held captive by some strong men along with her father!

"To my surprise, outside of some strangers that I have never seen before, my father was also there. Yet rather than rejoicing that her husband came back, as soon as my dear mother saw them…"

Stopping for a moment, I could see a small tear forming in Celleria's eye.

"Rather than rejoicing, she instantly pulled me back to the house and locked the doors. Yet before we could even move out of the hallway, the entrance erupted in flames, allowing those men to enter. In the very last moments that I can remember from back then, my mother used some kind of secret technique to hide my presence. That's why I could see how those men, under the leadership of my father himself, at first, tortured my mother to reveal where I was, only to rape and kill her before burning the entire house down."

Just a single glance at the girl's face was enough for me to understand what kind of pain she was going through right now. Even though I never saw the end of my father in this world, just by hearing about what had happened to him from the mouth of my now-dead cousin was enough to turn me from a kind guy to the edgelord of the revenge.

Yet in the end, it wasn't me who reacted the strongest to this story. As if Celleria's words finally unlocked a part of Eve's memory that remained intentionally hidden from her mind, her knees suddenly gave up, resulting in her falling down on her soft bottom to the ground.

"What's wrong?"

Even though in the back of my head I already knew what happened, I still hoped that my guess would turn out wrong. If Eve were to learn that her father was most likely the one responsible for all the shit that she had to go through all the way back in her past, then it could turn into the very last drop that would break her mind.

From what I knew, as much as she didn't like to recall that story, she still believed that one day, after growing strong enough, she would get the chance to find her father. Learning that he was the source of all the pain that she had to go through would break even the strongest of the minds, not to speak Eve, who just went through a long, near-death experience!

"It's okay… I'm just worried that I'm starting to see a pattern in here…"

Despite her words, I instantly understood that there was something that Eve attempted to hide from me. While I could easily break through her defences or just once again fuse our souls' thanks to the spirituality that developed into our shared realm now, I still decided to respect her privacy. If she would ever want to share what she just remembered with me, then I would gladly listen up to her story and comfort her afterwards, but if she wanted to tackle the emotional outburst of her soul by herself, I could only stay back and support her from the side.

"Comming back to the story, I will save you the details, seeing how this part of perception was blocked from you. I guess you really went through the entire ordeal, yet seeing as you still have the blood of the immortal, something must've happened in the process of extracting it. Anyway, after escaping from the burned house where I somehow managed to survive, I dedicated all my life to find out just why my father wanted to place his hands on me."

Shrugging her entire self as she spoke about it, Celleria didn't pay any mind to the state in which her alleged step-sister was. Set of recounting the entire story to me, maybe due to how I scared her before, she could only go on an on about how she picked literally any sort of job and slept with anyone who could give her the chance of finding out just what the heck was wrong with her life, for her father to turn against her like that.

"What I learned… Is something that one could deem a common knowledge back in the continent, or in any other ultimate tier of place. As you stand right now before me, not even bothering to hide this fact, I can tell you one thing. By reaching the sage realm, you stepped into the absolute pinnacle of this world."

As much as I would like to focus on Eve, hearing Celleria's words, instantly put me on the edge. With everything that I knew about the structure on which this entire universe was set, reaching the ultimate top of the mortal strength wasn't necessarily a good thing!

"Ah, don't get me wrong. You can still advance, as I can tell that you only reached this stage now. There is still a long way before you. What's more, being on the top of the world, doesn't mean that you will be the strongest existence either. It's just the fact, that when you reach the absolute top of your current realm, you will have to either step into the Immortal's path, leading to the divine ascension or give up on breaking through mortal chains and become a grand sage, otherwise called a realm protector."