ยฉNovel Buddy
Ten Lucky Draws: I Became OP-Chapter 311: The First Pantheon (4)
The moment Ash and the Originats stepped fully into the throne room, every sound died. ๐๐ซ๐๐ฒ๐๐๐๐ง๐ ๐๐๐ฅ.๐๐๐
Every breath hitched.
Specifically, among the women.
Heat flushed through them as if someone had slipped an aphrodisiac into the air.
Ash exhaled quietlyโhis Erosence was restrained to its absolute limit... yet even that wasnโt enough. Lower beings like these couldnโt help but react to him.
Before anyone could lose control and pounce at himโ
SNAP!
Time froze.
Everyone in the room went stillโexcept for two figures floating before the projection.
Sandra and Shia remained untouched by the time change.
Sandraโs eyes widened, and as if needing to confirm with her own hands that the man before her was truly her sonโ
She vanished.
And reappeared with a fist already flying.
BOOOOOM!
Her punch detonated against Ashโs faceโonly for him to stop it with a single finger.
Since becoming an Asura again... Sandra had never been quite warm in the normal sense.
While she mightโve hugged her daughters.... her sons?
That was totally different. Asuras softened just a bit for their female children... but for their sons, strength was truly the only language.
And Ashโs presence stirred something far more primal in herโsomething only power could ignite.
Ash smiled, tilting his head as he held her fist effortlessly.
"Long time no see, Mother~"
Seeing this woman againโafter all this time, after everything he had becomeโAsh felt... nothing. Not in the cold, hollow sense, but in the clear, settled way of someone who had outgrown the need for old attachments.
If he was honest, he no longer held familial ties to her.
Not to Sandra. Not to Nia or Shia eitherโnot in the simple, mortal sense of "siblings" at least.
When Ash first appeared on Elaris, he assumed he was like any other transmigratorโsomeone dropped into a new world with memories of another life, someone who owed nothing to the family tied to his new body.
That was the logic he clung to at the start.
But it didnโt take long for that illusion to break.
This wasnโt a borrowed life.
It wasnโt a vessel.
It wasnโt a second chance wearing someone elseโs skin.
It was his lifeโand had always been.
Once he realized that, he embraced everything that came with it. The family problems, the history, the responsibilities, the chaos.
He accepted it fully, without hesitation.... just in his own way of course.
But that was before he awakened every incarnation.
Before he lived countless lives across countless cycles. Before he became whole in a way no single lifetime could contain.
Now, standing here again, he felt the difference sharply.
Old sentimentsโgood or badโno longer held meaning. Old wounds no longer stung.
And old bonds no longer defined him.
He wasnโt the boy who stumbled through life without a true direction.
He was the sum of every life he had ever lived. And from that vantage point, the pastโits comforts and its woundsโno longer held the same weight.
Sandraโs voice cracked as she pulled her fist back.
Even as an Asura, her humanity had never fully disappeared even after regaining her raceโand seeing the man her son had become, the man who had grown without her, pierced her heart like a hundred needles.
"Ash..." she whispered. "Iโm sorrโ"
Ash leaned in and stole her lips.
Mwah.
Sandraโs abyssal eyes widened, shock rippling through herโbut she didnโt pull away. Not even for a heartbeat.
From the side, Nia sighed and shook her head.
"Honestly? Iโm not surprised.... I even warned our grandmother."
After knowing Ash for so long, how could she not expect this?
To her, it was obviousโAsh would take his mother and Shia just as naturally as he took anyone else, he desired. In her mind, it was practically inevitable.
Why else would they still be alive?
Vaeloria nodded. "Youโre not wrong. I had the feeling long ago... back on Elaris."
While they chatted, Sandra melted into the kiss, lost in itโwhile Shia watched with a storm of conflict twisting inside her.
And Ash?
He was no longer โstandingโ in the throne room.
He had stepped directly into a sacred place within Sandraโher Sea of Consciousness, the inner place that housed Lysa.
-----
Inside her Sea of Consciousness stood two thrones facing one anotherโone pure black, the other pure white.
Lysa sat upon the white throne, the other half of Sandraโs soul. For a long moment, she and Ash simply regarded each other in silence.
Ash had known of her existence for ages, through the affection Sandra carried. But seeing her directlyโseeing both halves of his mother laid bareโmade everything fall into place.
With a single glance, he understood their entire story.
Not just their time on Elaris. Everything before it as well.
It was the same with his newer wives.
After awakening all his incarnations, he no longer needed to sift through memories or watch lives unfold piece by piece.
He saw the totality of a person instantlyโpast, present, and the threads that shaped them.
[A/N: Their backstories will still be revealed. Just in a different manner.]
And in this moment, Ash saw everything.
The brutal childhood of the Asurasโchildren thrown onto battlefields the moment they could walk, taught to bleed before they ever learned softness.
Their entire culture was built on conflict, not comfort.
Love, care, even hatred... all filtered through strength itself.
Seeing the full shape of Sandra and Lysaโs lives, how they were molded from birth, he understood why Lysa had rejected the mortal kingdom, why she tried to force Sandraโs soul to heal by taking control.
It wasnโt cruelty.
It was instinctโan Asuraโs way of living.
Ash smiled faintly, speaking with casual ease.
"Hm. Should I call you โmotherโ as well?"
Lysa didnโt smile or frown. She simply studied himโthe being who had once been the boy cast out by his own kingdom, the stain of Solace.
"Are you here for revenge?" she asked.
It wasnโt an unreasonable question.
If he was here, then he obviously knew she existed. Which meant he knew she was the one who turned a cold shoulder to himโnot Sandra.
Ash shook his head lightly.
"Thatโs far too childish," he said. "I like to think Iโm a bit more mature now."
With a single thought, the woman with long black hair streaked in white appeared directly before himโnot because she moved, but because he wanted her there.
BADUMP!
Lysa instinctively stepped back, her heart pounding. Before she could retreat further, Ashโs hand closed around her waist, steady and unyielding.
A faint, knowing smile touched his lips as he leaned in close and took her lips.
His voice echoed directly through her mind, calm and resonant.
"Let the past stay where it belongs. You and Sandra are not the same. And from now... you will live as yourselves."
The words struck her harder than any physical blow. Confusion flickered across her features, but with her trying to fight off her building lust she couldnโt think too deeply.
Before she could respond, a soft white radiance enveloped them both.
This kiss was no simple gesture. Ash wasnโt just acknowledging her โ he was separating her.
A new vessel formed around Lysa, shaped by Crearaโs will the moment Ash desired it.
A complete body.
From now on there would not be two souls in one body... but they will be completely separate entities.
Ash no longer drifted with fate. Every action now carried intention, precision, and purpose. And in his eyes these two women would be much better separate than they would be together.
The light twisted, and the throne room returned around them.
Sandra blinked as Ash pulled back, breath unsteady. Lysa stood beside her โ whole, independent, overwhelmed by the sensation of having a body of her own for the first time.
Ashโs gaze shifted to the last person frozen in place.
"Shia," he said, voice cutting through the silence, "are you going to keep standing there like an idiot?"







