Antihero In the Hero Academy: I Can Connect the Past Heroes-Chapter 148: The Truth Of The Past (1)

"Atlas... should I be here?" Cassandra asked with great surprise.

Atlas finally turned to her after 50 minutes and smiled, asking, "What, am I not going to introduce my future wife to them?"

This was the sentence that had made Cassandra the happiest in her life, and Atlas had no idea.

When Atlas’s gaze fell on Cassandra again, it was clear that the Ancient Woman’s ears had turned red.

The place where the two of them were currently standing had been built on the orders of Emperor Aether himself. It was the place where Atlas’s and Eva’s families lay in eternal sleep, where even their bodies no longer existed, only their bones remained.

Ilanos City Cemetery.

"I never knew my family. It would be accurate to say that I have never even seen their photographs. I only vaguely remember my mother. The only reason for this is that she held me when I was born. I don’t know how it happened, but I saw her face even before I could open my eyes. After that, my mother passed away," Atlas said suddenly.

Cassandra couldn’t even open her mouth and stood there, a few metres behind Atlas, not daring to enter the cemetery.

"Come with me," Atlas said suddenly. He reached out his hand to Cassandra again.

When Cassandra took his hand and stepped into the cemetery, a strange energy surrounded the Ancient Woman. She felt as if someone was watching her.

She wasn’t the only one who felt it. Everyone watching them from the realm of the gods seemed to be able to see a few grains of dust. Each of these grains of dust surrounded Atlas.

With each passing second, more dust particles gathered around him, and as the evening light began to fall on Atlas, the nature of the dust particles became clear.

"Are these... spirits...maybe souls?" Cassandra suddenly asked herself. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing before her eyes.

"I think you can understand who lies here," Atlas said suddenly.

Cassandra replied, "Yes... your mother and father, you just said so."

Atlas smiled and replied, "Not just them. We had many family members. Members who graduated from different academies, with low or high power, carriage drivers, knights, wizards, tailors, and many other professions. Emperor Aether, my uncle, made part of the cemetery a section for people of my bloodline to be buried."

Cassandra, however, had managed to determine to whom these spirits belonged. Perhaps the spirits did not possess such great depth. They had bodies. Eyes and mouths, ears and noses. Yet each one bore the same expression. Every spirit enveloping Atlas had a sorrowful expression, a sad gaze.

Perhaps each of them was a family spirit, as Cassandra had thought, but why were they all looking at Atlas with those expressions, and how was it that Atlas could not see them?

In the end, Cassandra could see each spirit as a sacred being watching over those from the same divine realm.

Still, it was clear that Atlas couldn’t see them for some reason. The young man turned to Cassandra many times and smiled. Despite being in a cemetery, it seemed like an important moment for him.

After a slow ten-minute walk, Atlas and Cassandra arrived at a small temple. It was indeed a small place. Perhaps it could have been twice the size of a small hut.

There were dozens of graves around the temple, and from each grave, more spirits emerged, gazing at Atlas. The expression of pity on each of their faces, the presence of sorrow, unintentionally worried Cassandra.

Why were these people, who might have been Atlas’ ancestors, watching him with such expressions?

When the two slowly entered the temple, they were greeted by two tombs as magnificent as those of the imperial family, adorned with flowers.

The tombs bore the calm inscription, "Here lies, Azula Shorekeeper and Orion Shorekeeper." Atlas realised that his sister had already replaced these tombstones and smiled.

Even if Atlas couldn’t see it, the sacred beings watching from the realm of the gods and Cassandra herself could see everything.

This time, the spirits seemed almost alive. It was obvious that they were spirits, but everything about them, from every strand of hair to the clothes they wore, was intact, and they looked like two living beings created by Chaos himself, just like Nyx.

Still, there was one thing that remained unchanged between the spirits outside and these two spirits. It was the expression of pain and sorrow on their faces. Love might have been one of those expressions, but the sorrow was so overwhelming that it had reached a level where it could even replace love.

"It’s been a long time, my dear child..." said the spirit on the left. This person was Azula herself.

Neither Cassandra nor the others understood what these words meant.

Atlas, meanwhile, had knelt in front of the two graves and said to Cassandra as gently as possible, "You can stay however you like, but allow me, I will pray for them."

Cassandra noticed that the two spirits were looking at her, but without showing it. To be honest, the Ancient Woman, who had been calm for perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, had knelt beside Atlas in a state of anxiety for the first time.

Meanwhile, Atlas had begun to pray.

Cassandra began to listen to the words of the two spirits before her as if they were sacred beings from the realm of the gods:

"It’s been almost 30 years," said a rough but loving voice. This person was Atlas’s father, Orion.

"The war has taken a toll on him, hasn’t it?" asked Azula.

"The war?" asked Cassandra and every sacred being watching the events in unison to themselves.

"Does he remember?" Orion asked.

"I don’t think he does. Don’t you remember what the precious Chaos told us, my love?" Azula replied.

With each passing second, everyone’s astonishment grew, even if the spirits did not notice.

"He told us to support him. I remember. But Chaos... he’s a man full of lies. If we call out to Atlas, can we remind him of his past?" Orion objected to his wife Azula.

"We shouldn’t do it. If we remind him of how he lost everyone, it will only break Atlas. Don’t you see how broken he is, despite the smile on his face? His life has just begun, and he’s been given the chance to save everything." Azula said.

"You’re not wrong... But what about that girl? Do you know who she is?" Orion asked.

"Isn’t she Cassandra?’ Azula replied, adding, ’One of the 7 Sages... Ah, the Sages... How painfully they died..."

Cassandra couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The Ancient Woman had begun to sweat. She was even questioning whether she was dreaming.

"Ah... Now I remember... They were poisoned and killed to open the Devil’s Gate. It was very painful. Especially Cordelia... Even though she lost 90% of her power due to the poison, she was still the strongest person in the world and continued to fight until her death. Ah, the Sages, we prayed for their souls to rest in peace," Orion replied.

"True, but... shouldn’t Cassandra be dead by now? Or rather, poisoned? I remember her being in such a bad state that she couldn’t even get out of bed. I saw Atlas’s memories, Orion; there’s no way I could forget that!" Azula said.

"What you say may be true. That means Atlas either knew everything or changed everything without realising it by acting differently. Either way, it’s sad but also good," Orion replied.

"Yes... Still, it’s unbelievable that Chronos and Nyx placed the entire burden on Atlas’s shoulders!" Azula replied angrily.

These words had cast every gaze in the Olympus hall upon Nyx and Chronos.

"It wasn’t their fault. Atlas begged. He promised that if given another chance, he would fix everything. Nyx rushed to his aid, and Chronos repaired a part of Atlas’s soul, sending him back to the past, to a time just before the beginning of everything," Orion had said, his eyes filled with love, briefly trying to calm his wife Azula.

"But...our dear children...both of them carry a heavy burden...and Atlas carries one a million times heavier than Eva’s," Azula replied. The sorrowful expression returned to her face.

Cassandra and the others watched Atlas, who continued to pray with a smile on his face, wondering what could have happened.

Still, the fact that he had gone back in time... it was unimaginable, even from the perspective of the gods and goddesses.

"He was 17 when the war began. He was 18 when he volunteered to join the war from the academy. He killed demons and angels until the day he died, and by the age of 37, he had become the greatest hero in the world. But humans... our race is untrustworthy... Yet look at this—he still trusts them. Every time I observe his memories, my heart breaks," Orion added.

These words were the ones that changed everything. Even the gods and goddesses, not to mention Cassandra, had begun to grasp everything, albeit slightly.

"Just watch." that came from Chaos to Nyx and Chronos now started to make sense to all.