Reborn as an Extra Chapter 652: I will not retreat Again... Part-11.

’I had the choice back then... but I retreated... I failed...’

Memories from a remote past surfaced in her thoughts as Lia reflected deeply on her deathbed.

Long ago, when her mother instructed her to summon every bit of determination to pursue her aims even in dire straits, Lia failed to grasp that vital teaching.

She was simply too youthful to comprehend the weight of those profound words.

Her small frame was nowhere near ready to bear the load of vows and dreams.

Yet time spares no one; it presses on regardless of situations and offers no pity to the most hopeless.

The trial of resolve struck Lia far too soon.

Her father, missing even from his wife’s burial due to a critical dungeon outbreak, returned home after numerous days.

However, Lia remained rooted before her chamber door.

That very day, at that precise hour, had she mustered the bravery to step out, to challenge his negligence, to unleash her feelings and engage in a true conversation with him.

She could have vanquished the ’Darkness,’ the lingering effects of the miasmic curse within her, right at that instant!

Instead, Lia froze before her room door, gripped by doubt and uncertainty.

As the ancient proverb states, ’Time does not wait for anyone...’ Through her wavering and indecision, Lia squandered the golden opportunity to reshape her fate entirely.

By withdrawing then, she surrendered to the darkness and curse precisely at that juncture, gradually plunging deeper into the abyss’s depths.

Subsequently, Rio’s influence helped curb Lia’s curse indirectly, allowing her to overcome that darkness upon reaching rank A and discovering her personal ’Path.’

That marked the second pivotal shift in her existence.

Having at last subdued the darkness tormenting her for years and uncovered her own ’Path,’ Lia recognized her ancient error and vowed to herself.

This oath Lia made to herself held such immense power that it fused directly into her ’Path.’

Lia ventured into this dungeon primarily to grow stronger, to stand equally beside Rio without weighing him down.

As her father James had explained, this dungeon stood out; it molded itself to any challenger who dared enter.

The dungeon tailored itself to Lia’s singular situation, weaving fate’s threads to compel her into a harrowing dilemma.

These stood as her two choices.

The dungeon positioned the ’Fairies’ as emblems of her ’Path,’ while foes embodied the trials she’d endure to safeguard and persist on that ’Path.’

James, the father who accompanied her inside, had vanished; his absence signaled that the dungeon demanded she decide alone—no one else could aid in this crucial choice.

Should Lia withdraw or forsake the fairies, it would signify forsaking her ’Path’ and shattering her self-made ’promise.’

Such an act would yield just one result: Lia could never attain rank S, having discarded her ’Path’ out of fear and faltering resolve.

Facing impossible odds might appear foolish and illogical, yet Lia sensed deep down she must never ’retreat,’ come what may.

She had backed away once before, enduring years of torment from that single failure to face her father.

She knew intuitively she couldn’t yield ground again today; doing so would erode her bravery against trials, dooming her to lifelong regret.

Rather than a lifetime of anguish, better to confront the ordeal boldly and fearlessly.

In Lia’s view,

Therefore, Lia’s decision was straightforward: battle to her final breath without yielding an inch!

Kai, Rahn, Nova, and others couldn’t fathom Lia’s unyielding refusal to retreat; even she didn’t fully grasp it all herself, much less them.

Bleeding out in her own crimson pool, Lia’s mind sharpened to perfect clarity then.

’I managed to change the future...’

A content grin spread across Lia’s features as she grasped her achievement.

The fairy twins Miria and Lyria were fated to perish in the true world; Kenorland’s fairy city was doomed to ruin, with its fairies probably massacred.

Yet Lia altered everything.

Though this scene was merely a dungeon-recreated past memory, Lia leveraged her foresight to battle and reshape the destiny of this fixed memory.

’Why didn’t I realize it myself until now... Although I can’t change a broken past, I can change the present so that a ’future’ that will eventually become a new ’past’ won’t be as broken as the previous one...’

The past remains unalterable, but the future can be steered to craft a new ’past’ free of past pains.

Lia possessed this ability.

’If I manage to see farther in future, I can change it and turn the world towards a better direction, towards my liking...’

As these insights dawned in Lia’s lucid thoughts, she surmounted a significant obstacle on her ’Path’!