Lord Shadow

And they love him. If not for the fact that it is out of his character, he wanted to shout it to the world.

That Katarina, the most beautiful woman in the world loves him. The most beautiful woman in the world. Katarina did not show it and she would not admit it but she does like the title of the most beautiful woman in the world

Who would hate being complimented?

And Sofia, his one sided love that broke his heart by dating some jock when he was in high school now loves him.

Maybe that is why he hates athletic guy like Raymond. It is why he hates seeing Sofia getting close with Raymond.

It is petty, yes. But he never said he was not a petty guy. He does not show this side to Sofia. Because it is his worst side.

And nobody who wanted someone to love them would intentionally show their worst side to the people they like, because they want the person they like to see them the way they wanted it to be seen.

So, the person they like would like them back. It is hypocritical but all love story is alike… at least on some points.

Boy meets girls. Boy likes girl. Boy wanted to impress girl. Boy being honest and boy got dumped.

Thinking about it Azief really didn’t know what love really is. True honesty or some lies? There is no manual in love.

Seducing someone have a manual. But falling in love? Being in love? Making that love stay? Making sure it is forever?

There is no manual teaching you that.

All the people in love is muddling through it all and hope for the best.

They are all in a dark tunnel and the light at the end of the tunnel is hope. That is what sometimes sustain a relationship.

The hope that their love stays true. Looking at Sofia he sighed

He never told anyone that. That she was his one sided love for most of his high school life.

Not even Sofia. That she was his one sided love is a secret he never wanted to be exposed. It is a long time ago and he think he would look like a loser if he confesses that fact to her.

Nobody knows this fact. Except him. It is why he was so lenient on her.

Even when it was burdening him and slow down his pace he keeps her close in the initial period of the Fall.

Was he blind to the fact that Sofia slow his march and even endangered his own survival? No. But he let himself to be blind because it is her.

Maybe, he felt for her even then. But he surely didn’t think so at that time

He never holds up hope that she would ever feel the same and at the time when they meet during the Fall, there are only feeling of familiarity and no longer that childish feeling of one sided love.

But spending time with her, knowing her on a personal level evoke that long lost feeling of love.

And he could not admit it because he doesn’t know whether the feelings he had for her is some lingering emotions when he was in high school…. or it is because he loves the current Sofia.

It is a secret he wished to never tell her. Because the him at high school is quite pathetic to be honest.

He is unconfident, he dresses weird, had a lame hairstyle, doing some stuff he thought was cool but not, and he keep blaming the world for all of the things that went wrong in his life.

Some of it is the world fault…. but most of it is his own fault.

He got nothing going on for him in high school. He was the clown of the class. He never gets bullied but that doesn’t mean his high school life was rosy.

And he even at some point of his life trying to act like the other guys and participate in bullying. He regretted the fact later but any apology that comes after that would always seems like an excuse.

He did not punch people or kick people but he just ignores them. Him, the clown of the class trying to be a bully.

Neglect is abuse. It is the unseen wound that hurts the hardest

He is a weak person, always being pushed by the currents of life and never got to decide anything in his life.

Maybe all of that broke him which makes him very different from the kind of guy he was in high school.

He is colder and always seems unhappy. A weak person will always have the mentality of the weak.

He met that guy after high school. Azief was so embarrassed at that time that he had to hide. It is a past he wanted to erase.

He wanted to apologize but he knew whatever he said would sound like a lame excuse. And people never cares about why you did it.

People only cares that you’ve done it. And the feeling of the victim is not the same as the feeling of the perpetrator.

Azief understand it best.

Just because you were repentant and wanted to say sorry, was Azief na?ve enough to think that the person he hurts have to forgive him?

Was he naive enough to think one apology could make it all go away?

It’s not. Because Azief knows that what he did was wrong. It is probably why he after the Fall always rooted for the underdog.

It pricks his conscience. It is why he supported Evolver when it would be easier to allied himself with the Normies in Earth Thirty-Nine.

He knows how it feels like to be disregarded and unnoticed which makes his shame even more burdening.

He knows how it feels to be invisible.

Now, maybe he doesn’t have the chance to apologize to that person anymore. That person probably dies after the many changes that happen after the Fall

But even if he is still alive, Azief still did not know how to confront that person. He did not know how to make it all go away.

All the pain and the shame and the suffering. He wishes he could take it back.

But regent comes only after the fact. The damage was done.

He tries to be better of course after he got out from that group of friend

It is not that he doesn’t try, but trying doesn’t seems to be giving him any result. It was easier back then to give up.

To give up on everything and just walk this life motionlessly and follow the crowd. Follow the people.

Live your life as sheep and don’t stir any trouble. Don’t try…. because everything has been done before. Don’t try to surpass your limit because the world has settled.

The rich would always be rich and the poor would always be poor. The weak will always be weak and the strong would always be strong.

And why is the poor always be poor? Because the rich would never let the poor become rich. And why does the weak remains weak? Because the strong have no intention of protecting the weak.

And so the gap grew and while the whole world preaches equality, none of them practices what they preach. They would always be inequality. That is the truth of the world.

But one should not have been unequal on certain things…the things that they preached.

the more Azief grow up the more his head hurts with things he couldn’t even understand.

The whole world seems like a mess.

He was born into a normal family who have normal lives living in a normal village near a normal city

Everything about him scream ordinary.

But he wanted to become…. something more. He wanted to aspire to something great. He wanted to be…just more than what he was supposed to be.

But the whole world at every turn and at every corner is telling him, that he couldn’t. That he won’t able to do it.

What is one man compared to the rest of the world? What could one man do to change the world.

It was the truth. It was reality.

He looks at the world and he felt that every construct of laws and government were all designed to gain the compliance of the people and the people like a blind man walking towards a deep pit, walked blindly to it.

The government which was built because people congregated in one place and created a council among themselves to govern themselves and bring them to prosperity and peace is instead now chaining them with things that shouldn’t have chained them

Instead of helping the very people, the citizens that make up a country, they were oppressed. They were manipulated. Exploited and play around with.

Knowing this truth, how could he had hope? Hope was lost. He would always be that normal person that lives in a normal city and probably will also die in that normal city.

Azief felt the whole world was binding him with an unseen chain. It makes him feel suffocated

The chain was strong and he was weak.

Or maybe because he was weak, that the chain become strong.

It felt like his whole life was spent in a prison. A large cage. He knows it is a cage but he was not strong enough to break it. So, he lives his life inside the cage, never truly being alive.

Money, culture, country, people opinions, all of it becomes his chains and weigh him down. One could see from this how many bullshit he was thinking when he left high school.

When he left high school, love is the last thing on his mind. He was preparing to live alone until he died.

Extreme. Yes. But he was always an extreme kind of guy.

Love seems like luxury for him and no one wanted to marry a guy like him. Poor, with no to little background, nothing about him was interesting.

He was a broken and useless thing. But now he is strong.

And he knows he was wrong in a lot of things. The weak always have the mentality of the weak? Then become strong.

It was simple. Love is only for those who are rich? And have background? Then why are there so many poor people with love in their hearts.

Azief thought love have to be some kind of give and take. But he learned that sometime there is people that just wanted to give and there is some people that just wanted to take.

In love, there is always the weak person. The one that loves more is weak. But the one that love more will always be happy.

It is weird, strange and funny. But love is the only game where the weak is the winner.

Azief learned that love is something you really just couldn’t understand with logic. Because love doesn’t seem logical at all.

And when he became strong he noticed certain things.

It was easy to break through all of that. If only…if only he had the will to fight, back then. He sighed as he looks at Sofi and there is a gentle gaze in his eyes.

Then he looks beside Sofia and Azief smiles.

***

Ok, I delay it for long enough. This is the chronology of events (Only the ones that is mentioned by Loki in passing and probably would not or might still happen in the new timelines.)

Frist one is The Time Crisis. It is the first true problems that the world faces in Loki timelines. It is happening also in NT (New Timeline) but it is deviated slightly from the original Time Crisis. I don’t know if you get the hints but these changes are most definitely because of Loki and the future Oracle Erika that also foreseen this event.

Then there is the subtle reference that Loki always made about the relationship between Raymond and Sofia. It is because it is connected to the event of Marriage of the Earthshaker and Divine Archer.

There is even one chapter dedicated to that particular event in LS. Then this is another event that mentioned in the latest few previous chapter.

The New World War. Loki did not say much about it other than it is connected to the Magician in Aleppo.

And of course the one that was mentioned in the beginning of the story is the Attack of Yrinia. But Loki also did not provide context for this but some of my readers could deduce why right?

And then there is a passing comment about the event of The World Without the Prince. Not much is said about this by Loki.

And then here we are at the most talked about and referenced about event in LS. The War of the Sovereigns. Of all the events that Loki mentioned, he was thinking about this event the most and anything regarding it put Loki in unease.

On many events, Loki is content of letting it happen naturally not trying to change the event that much. But if there is one event that Loki intent in changing, it is this event.

And then of course the event that leads all of this happening is none other than the Doomsday Event or usually called End of Days Event

And that it all folks. We need to get through all that event to reach the end. Huuu. I know how it ends. The problem is how to get there.

I am crying just thinking of how many words I had to write to reach that end.

Anyway, this went a little bit long but I hope all of this refresh your memory as we are racing to end this arc. Hopefully I would be able to finish it this month.

Ciao.

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