Killed Me? Now I Have Your Power Chapter 475: Incompleteness

"Aren’t unfinished things beautiful?"

Across the table from Kaden sat the Historian—a diminutive figure topping out at four feet, his skin yellow, hair and eyes a moose-like yellow—scratching his bushy yellow beard as he addressed him directly.

The cave sheltered them. Pandora had vanished, sent away by the man she named as father.

Yet studying him, Kaden detected no trace of likeness between them. Moreover, the Historian stood utterly apart from the entire Malan tribe.

Like a foreigner himself, much as Kaden felt.

No tribesman bore yellow skin. None stood just four feet high, resembling a child who might vanish amid a throng.

Despite the peculiarities encircling the beard-rubbing Historian, Kaden felt dwarfed in his presence.

Those yellow eyes held something—a weariness, perhaps a deep-seated fatigue that shadowed his look—as though nothing under heaven or earth could stir him.

His words flowed leisurely. Gently, too. His stare remained fixed, and he bore himself as if all surroundings shrank while he alone loomed large.

The feeling was odd. Unbidden, Kaden started to revere the man instinctively. As though the Historian compelled it naturally.

He rolled his tongue in his mouth, clutching the cup of herbal tea offered by the Historian, searching for a clever reply to the query. A response to awe this towering figure.

But as that desire flickered in his thoughts, Kaden shook it off, his Will stirring independently.

He eyed the Historian. A faint, perceptive smile played on the man's lips.

Kaden muttered a curse softly, pulse racing.

’Yet another tricky fellow.’

"I’m afraid I don’t understand." He replied, casting a quick look about, spotting the same sense of incompleteness that cloaked the tribe now permeating this cave as well, like the ever-watchful gaze of a deity. "What could make unfinished things beautiful?"

"Let me counter with a question, Boy of Wisdom."

Kaden winced at the moniker.

Yet the Historian continued smoothly, his tone mild and compelling. "What renders something finished as beautiful? Is it the idea of completion itself—the close of something—or merely your habit of viewing it so?"

"The ending." Kaden responded. "All that begins must end. Without it, nothing holds meaning, Historian."

"Oh?"

"Yes." Kaden affirmed with assurance. "An unfinished painting stays incomplete. It could charm, qualify as art, even stir the soul. Yet a vital piece always lacks, discoverable only through a fitting conclusion."

"Like a tale, right?" The Historian flashed a low, bearded grin. "What’s a story sans ending? Yes, I grasp your view."

"Then—!"

"However," the petite yellow man interrupted smoothly, sans remorse, "consider this, wise boy: who defines an ending?"

Kaden’s eyes flared a bit, taken aback.

"What’s incomplete to you might seem wholly done to me. Take the herbal tea you hold. Who calls it finished? It’s yours, so you do. Mine’s mine to judge. Correct?"

Silence hung for a few breaths from the Historian before he resumed.

"Even in incompleteness lies beauty. Mystery, too. The undone offers endless paths to closure, day by day. It feeds the imagination. Each notion fresh. Unusual. Wildly extraordinary!"

Excitement surged in his tone suddenly.

"Don’t you perceive it, wise boy?" His pitch climbed, arms flailing about. "Life mirrors that precisely! Unfinished! Ongoing! Every moment, tick, hour, day, year—countless happenings mold your life’s finale."

"But," Kaden broke in, brow furrowed, "doesn’t life’s true destiny lie in its end?"

"Do gods perish?"

"They can."

"Only through slaying." The Historian amended. "Meaning they trod a road to that fate. But those selecting preservation’s path?"

Kaden snorted. "I may not know every god, but the ones I’ve met defy your portrait. Ravenous, selfish entities bent on seizing desires at any cost."

"Why, in your view, wise boy?"

"For power."

"And power’s purpose?"

Kaden went quiet at once, grasping the Historian’s direction ahead of the words.

"Power serves mortals and divinities equally in one key way: self-preservation. Evading death in battle. Surviving foes. Defying time’s cruel decay like spoiled flesh."

The Historian halted, sipped tea via grinning lips, then pressed on.

"That defines us. Creatures striving to halt our own life’s completion. Yet we crave perfecting all else around us. Total wholeness."

He shook his head. "Buildings, art, bonds... all of it. We demand completion in others as we yearn for our own."

"Those spark conflicts and battles." He erupted in raucous laughter. "Perceptions vary. Thus visions of a perfect world clash. Ponder it, wise boy: what occurs when all enforce their ideal?"

"Wars." Kaden said tersely, sensing the talk slipping from his control, unsure of its course.

"Indeed, wise boy." He dipped his head. "Wars ignite. Then wars to end those wars follow."

Humorless laughter escaped him. "Ironic, eh?"

"I grant your point. Still..." Kaden shot back, refusing to yield, "perhaps fear drives you. Hence these justifications."

The Historian froze instantly. He tilted his small head, yellow eyes flashing.

"The scared soul consumes itself." Kaden went on. "Easiest via lingering incomplete in a realm thrusting toward wholeness... toward growth."

His star-flecked crimson gaze met the Historian’s yellow stare. "Perhaps that explains this village. Perhaps why..."

Tension thickened the air.

"...the Tower remains undone. Not from pursuit of insight or safeguarding. But raw, shameful dread of completion’s consequences."

Kaden smirked icily, noting the Historian’s features harden.

"Stagnation from fear holds no honor or splendor. So drop the noble guise."

He slitted his crimson eyes.

"It’s not. Which makes me curious, Historian..."

His gaze swept the space.

"What do you fear? What truth do you evade? Why deceive yourself, this tribe, and attempt me—claiming incompleteness superior?"

Kaden leaned close to the now-muted Historian, evidently unprepared for Kaden’s resolve or tenacity.

"What is the Tower? Why unfinished?"

"Do you really seek the truth?" The Historian replied at last, tone sharpening.

"Reveal it."

The Historian grinned, teeth yellow and adorned. "Very well, wise boy! Wise as you claim? Then discern what merits knowing from what doesn’t. Heed closely!"

He gave Kaden no pause.

"The Tower is none other than the youthful, timeless girl you’ve grown fond of!"

Kaden’s eyes bulged. The Historian barreled ahead.

"Its unfinished state? Utterly absurd. Not chosen. We endure this lack, emulate it, solely to temper how swiftly she slays us!"

"Explain." Kaden’s voice grated.

"What else, wise boy?" The Historian scoffed. "Pandora slaughters any nearing the Tower. Even afar, she drains us gradually. Ever puzzled by our Church?"

Breath fled Kaden abruptly. It intensified with the Historian’s final revelation.

"We’re a tribe harvesting grief for the Goddess. And I, the Historian, must log every death from her appetite, and her divine, celestial armament..."

Kaden’s heart lurched.

—End of Chapter 475—