Apocalypse: Transmigrated with an Overlord System-Chapter 286: Back to Dawn Base

The first thing she felt was the softness beneath her. A bed. Sheets tucked around her like she had been sleeping for days. The air smelled faintly of wild flowers, the blue wildflowers that only grew on the blue planet.

Her eyelids fluttered open, and for a moment she thought she was still drifting in the dark. Her vision was blurred, the light was too bright, and her head was too heavy to lift. She groaned softly and turned to one side, her hand pressing against her forehead.

This was not the ship. This was not the endless void.

It was her room.

Not the room in Lunaris Prime where she had lived with Xu Kai and Aerish. No. This was her old room in the Dawn Base, on the blue planet. The place where she had lived before her memories had returned.

Her chest tightened. Slowly she sat up, her body trembling as if every bone inside her was still remembering the blast. Her mind was foggy, broken into pieces that barely fit together.

Then, like water rushing through a broken dam, it all came back.

The moment of how she had reached level twenty. The flood of memories from her past life. Her life as Aeris. Xu Kai’s voice calling her name. Her daughter’s laugh, soft and warm. The little bunny and star toy were always tucked against Aerish’s chest. The decision to leave Lunaris Prime and visit her parents. And then...

The explosion. The ship is breaking apart. Her baby’s small hand slipping from hers. Xu Kai’s face on the other side of the capsule barrier. His roar tore through her soul even though no sound could reach her.

Her breath caught. Her hands clutched the blanket so tightly her knuckles turned white.

Where was Xu Kai? Where was Aerish?

If she were here, if she had been rescued, then maybe—maybe her baby would have been saved too. Maybe someone had rescued her capsule and pulled her back from the dark. That hope burned inside her chest, desperate and trembling. She forced her legs to move, swinging them over the side of the bed.

The door opened before she could stand.

Atlas stepped inside.

For a moment, she just stared at him. Her throat closed. Her vision blurred again, but this time it was not from the fog of sleep. It was from tears that pressed hard and hot against her eyes.

Her brother.

The man who had been the silent protector, someone she had not known she was tied to until her past returned. Now he stood here, and she could not stop herself. She broke.

Her sob tore free, and she stumbled toward him. Atlas caught her before she could fall, his arms wrapping around her shoulders, holding her as if he had been waiting for this moment as long as she had.

"Atlas," she choked, her voice raw. "It’s me. I’m Aeris. I’m your sister."

"I know," Atlas said quietly, his hand stroking her hair like she was still the little girl he had once sworn to protect. His voice shook, but his grip did not. "I always knew, Liora. From the first time I saw you, I knew you were my baby sister."

She pressed her face against his chest, tears soaking his shirt. "I forgot everything...alas, I forgot everything."

"You are not alone," Atlas said. His tone softened, warmth threaded through the steel of his words. "I have always been searching for you. Every journey I took, every path I followed, it was for you. To bring you back to me."

Her fingers clenched against him. "But I—I should have found you sooner."

He laughed softly, almost teasingly, his thumb brushing the tears from her cheek when he pulled back enough to look at her. "It was not you who had to find me. It was me. I am the big brother, remember? That is my duty."

His smile wavered, but his eyes did not. "Eli found you first, before I could. He brought you back to me. Without him, maybe I would still be searching."

"Eli..." she whispered, remembering the boy, remembering the strange bond that had formed between them.

Atlas nodded. "He is mine. My son. The boy you saved... that was him, Liora. You saved my child before you even knew we were related. Do you see now? We were always meant to find each other."

Her heart ached at his words, but there was a comfort in them too. A thread of warmth in the cold storm that had consumed her since the explosion.

Liora nodded at him. She was also surprised that the boy she rescued and treated like her own was really her Eli. There was doubt in her mind because both of them had different hair. Eli should have had soft snow-white hair, but the boy she saved had normal hair.

But there was a part of her heart that treated him the same as Eli, even when she did not know him at all. Maybe he had changed his hair color before going out, as the snowy hair was the mark of their clan. Anyone would recognize them.

So, to not endanger his life, he must have changed his hair color. Now everything fit right.

Atlas looked at her and said, "Do you want to meet Father and Eli? They are all here."

Liora was surprised and asked softly, "Why are all of you here, so far from the Spire?"

Atlas’s eyes deepened, but he avoided the question and turned it in a different direction.

"When we found out your ship had exploded, and Xu Kai’s people contacted us, we began searching for all of you. For days, we searched before finding your capsule. It has already been ten days..."

"You were unconscious the whole time because the mechanism of the capsule put you into sleep so your life could be sustained. There is no fixed time when a capsule can be found. And just like yours, Xu Kai’s and his men’s capsules behaved the same, which gave us time to recover them."

Suddenly, Liora asked, "What about them? Did you also find them? Is my baby safe? Was Xu Kai rescued too? And his men? And what about the other ships... the people on board?"

Atlas’s expression turned solemn at her words. His voice dropped low, like he was not sure how to break the news to her.