Killed Me? Now I Have Your Power Chapter 476: Choose for me

Kaden's thoughts whirled in chaos, his eyes bulging as frigid ideas swirled within him, the chill seeping into every part of his body and locking him rigidly to the seat.

'Pandora is the Tower? And...' He cautiously raised his head to face Historian's icy smirk. 'She slays everyone who nears it?'

But how could that be?

Ignoring whether Pandora and the Tower were identical, how exactly was she bringing gradual doom to the entire tribe?

And above all...

"Why?" Kaden croaked, his tone thick with desperate curiosity. "Accepting that she is the Tower..."

"Questioning my words, wise boy?" Historian barked a rough laugh.

"...why does she block anyone from nearing it?" Kaden pressed on, ignoring the outburst. "It makes no sense."

"How could it make sense to you?" Historian's yellow eyes narrowed sharply. "You'll grasp why she's so eager to slaughter rule-breakers only after hearing the complete tale."

"The rules?" Kaden's eyes widened in shock. "She made the rules?"

"Who else?" The squat yellow-skinned man spat, irritably clawing at his beard. "She crafted it all, wise boy. She dictates our clothes, our food, and the rigid laws smothering this tribe like an icy shroud. Gods below, she even controls when and how tribesmen breed."

Dread surged higher in Kaden with every word, twisting tighter around his throat until his mouth felt parched and constricted.

"Every sight in this tribe, the tribe itself, sprang from her hand. Pandora of Sorrow." He scratched more fiercely. "Don't let her looks deceive you, wise boy. Don't fall for it."

"Then why?" Kaden whispered hoarsely. "Why block access to the Tower?"

"To keep him asleep."

"Who?"

"Vainglory, naturally."

Kaden drew a sharp, aching breath into his weary lungs. His Heart of Rune—already taxed from its heavy labor—strained even more as truths stacked upon each other, weaving a clear picture of comprehension before his eyes.

Bit by bit, nearly holding his breath, he pieced together all his encounters with Pandora from recent weeks.

His core turned icier. Colder yet.

The Quest now loomed almost entirely clear. The fragments he'd seen were enough to make his chest quiver like turbulent waves.

He had never confronted anything remotely like this.

'You're doing this deliberately.' Kaden ground out silently, gasping, shutting his eyes to prevent his faltering heart from collapsing him. 'What do you desire, Will? What's your aim? Explain why...'

The words refused to form right. Yet the intent rang true. And deep within, in a spot nameless even to him, the queries reverberated endlessly like a deranged banshee's wail.

Why wait until a bond formed with Pandora to reveal this?

Why delay until that night when Pandora had slipped beside him, believing him asleep—her tiny fingers entwining his, offering the sole true solace in this alien realm—before disclosing it?

Why forever this? Why always choices?

'Just pick for me, damn you!' He smashed his forehead against the table with a resounding thud, stone cracking and fragments flying. His frame trembled from profound, devastating fatigue.

Historian observed silently. He maintained that prior inertia, that motionless poise where all simply existed.

Yet underneath, a fragment of him—withered like aged hide from life's brutality—gazed at Kaden with eyes grasping all too keenly the youth's torment.

The torment of facing a choice. Oh, how it had torn at him the first time he'd endured it.

The instant realization dawned: a choice wasn't a gift.

It was a malediction.

And it consumed Kaden, unstoppable—like a famished beast devouring its own body for survival.

'Kaden—!'

'Do it, Reditha.'

'What?' Reditha's voice rose with alarm.

'Command me what to do. I'll follow. Just say it. No more choosing.' His tone was tiny. So tiny that Reditha shattered into sobs, unable to bear witnessing him thus.

So vulnerable. So breakable. So bare against the world's fury.

He resembled nothing of his former self, as though existence had burdened his shoulders with a weight his resolve couldn't bear without crumbling.

A load slaying him inwardly, sparing the shell. But even the shell now faltered. His Heart of Rune—gradually, inescapably—had started to perish.

"Ah, I understand, wise boy. I know it deeply. The torment, the torment, the torment twisting inside and stealing your air." Historian murmured, voice softer now. "I know it. Intimately."

He halted, scratched his beard, then continued softly.

"But do you see it now, wise boy?" He eyed Kaden's condition with near-pity. "Pandora bars us from the Tower lest it rouses Vainglory, whom she scarcely confined within her true form after he ravaged part of her."

Kaden showed no response.

"Even she learned to dread that beast!" He chuckled mirthlessly. "Oh, a beast to her, yet a cursed savior to us. A genuine savior, wise boy. But doomed. He was, right? You two..." he paused, scanning Kaden, "...you two bear a striking resemblance."

His mouth curved into a mournful grimace.

"Doomed."

"What do you seek from me?" Kaden questioned, raising his head. His features mirrored a damned spirit—a directionless soul adrift in a realm striving to crush him down.

It prevailed.

"The Goddess feeds on our generated sorrow to bolster her strength and mend her Tower." Historian stated, his yellow gaze fixing on Kaden's now rust-red eyes. "The surest method to heighten our sorrow is slaying our kin and cursing us with diseases."

He leaned in, revealing his face completely.

And as though a shroud lifted, Kaden beheld Historian's actual condition—the yellow beard decayed, ghostly pale bugs gnawing his skin with savage hunger.

Kaden recoiled sharply, horror twisting his expression.

"What is this?" He almost yelled.

"This is our suffering, wise boy." Historian replied, reclining calmly without wincing. "All to yield more sorrow for that ravenous goddess and her tool. And when Pandora fully recovers...not even Vainglory, battered, imprisoned, perhaps slain within the Tower, could oppose her."

He stopped, clawing at his beard without cease.

"Now, wise boy, do you grasp the peril?"

Kaden remained mute. Utterly quiet, as the Quest's full outline etched itself in his thoughts.

To rescue Rea, he must complete the Tower. That would surely slaughter every tribesman, unleashing Pandora completely.

Refusing to finish it risked Rea transforming into someone—or something—else.

'In either path, the tribesmen perish. Swiftly or gradually. Death remains death.'

So why fret?

Yet Kaden couldn't condemn the whole tribe so lightly. He shut his eyes, leaned his head back, and spoke with a voice drained empty.

"What do you want from me?"

"Oh, it's straightforward, really." Historian said, scratching vigorously. "You'll prove ideal, wise boy."

Kaden froze. He opened his eyes and stared at the man. "Ideal for what?"

The yellow man bared a broad grin.

"Ideal to encounter the second outsider who entered this tribe with Vainglory."

Kaden bolted upright at once, his body protesting the strain.

"Ah, you even resemble him a touch." Historian sighed, gaze far-off briefly. "Oh my... yes. Time to meet the Wise Stranger, wise boy."

—End of Chapter 476—