Chapter 1969 One Chance

Chapter 1969 One Chance

Hope had never expected to hear such words, and the moment she did, she began to tear up.

Suddenly, it didn't matter if Ryu's action felt patronizing to her or not. The reason being treated like a child would hurt in the first place if there was some sinister intention or underlying disdain. But for Ryu to say such words, how could she not be moved?

Ailsa was his Life Partner, the only woman that had broken his stubborn streak, the woman he was designed to love the most whether it be by nature or the Heavens themselves.

And yet, he had said such a thing.

When Ryu first met Ailsa, he was completely opposed to her entire existence. It could be said that in his whole life, Ailsa was the one person that had ever applied external pressure to change any of Ryu's internal thoughts.

In his life, or lives, Ryu had changed, altered, and grown as a person in various ways... but not a single one of those instances was because of something someone else told him. At least not when it came to large things, and certainly not in regard to things that he had decided to be stubborn about.

Ryu had never put it in so many words... but maybe the catalyst for his largest change in self was Ailsa.

If not for Ailsa, he would have never even thought to look at a woman other than Elena. If not for Ailsa, he wouldn't have come to accept the Heavens for what they were instead of always thinking of them as his number one enemy. If not for Ailsa, the foundation of cultivation he relied upon to this day wouldn't even exist.

It had been trillions of years for Ailsa, but to Ryu, it had barely been a blink of an eye, and the things he had learned with his wife by his side were very much there. Nôv(el)B\\jnn

It could even be said that if any other wife had done what Ailsa had done, maybe instead of threatening divorce, Ryu would have directly done it.

If Ailsa was his idealized reflection, the cultivator he could have become had his life never been tampered with... Elena was the one who picked up the pieces... Yaana was the silent support by his side... and Hope was the one lying in pieces on the ground with him.

She too had had her life ruined at the hands of others, her Fate toyed with, and her destiny ripped from her hands.

Her Fate was now tied to his own and he remembered distinctly the sort of despair she had felt when she thought that she had calculated wrongly and hitched herself to the wrong person.

The last time such a woman had broken down before him like that Ryu had directly abandoned any thought of ever being with her. Of course, Sarriel hadn't truly broken down into tears, but in Ryu's eyes, it might as well have been no different at all.

That sort of resignation to Fate was something he hated to see, and even more so in women since his most liked women were the exact opposite.

Even so, he remembered almost... ignoring Hope back then.

At first glance, it seemed that he was just as disdainful of her as all the others. But the more he thought back to that moment, the more he self-reflected, the more he understood his real emotions back then.

He had seen a potential reflection of himself... a reflection of what he might become if he never broke free of the Martial Gods... of how he might fail if he took a single wrong step... of how he might crumble if the walls crashed unexpectedly.

And even that was being too charitable.

Because the reality was that she wasn't what he could become... she was what he had been.

A failure who gave up... a failure who just needed one chance to reverse their Fate.