Neo had huge amount of memories.
The hundreds of years of his own lives.
The thousands of people whom he purified with his blessing and gained their memories.
And lastly, the fourth vision of Sphinx where he spent eternity.
The memories of Eternity were sealed by his mother, but the emotions he felt during those countless years were not sealed.
Despair, hollowness, fear, grudges, insanity, love, ambition.
Everything Neo gained during the eternity was still with him.
The Shadow saw everything at once when it looked into Neo’s memories.
Its foolish actions tore apart its sanity.
idon’tWANTtoliveihatelivingsomeonekillMEpleasepleasepleasePLEASEpleasekillME, the Shadow screamed.
Before Neo could do anything, the Shadow exploded, having killed itself.
Neo stared at the remains of the Shadow.
Shaking his head, he devoured it.
The memories of Neo Hargraves poured into Neo.
He was born to two humans who didn’t awaken their demigod lineage and he had an older brother.
Unlike Neo Hargraves, who had a healthy physique like his mother, Henry Hargraves had a very weak body.
It led him to develop an inferiority complex against Neo.
The relationship between the brothers had been strained since childhood.
Neo Hargraves didn’t pay much attention to it. He was content with his life.
The Hargraves family was a sub-clan of the Hephaestus Clan.
The High God Clan treated his family nicely even though they didn’t have any demigods in their lineage.
Neo Hargraves had been happy.
But everything changed during the centennial tournament.
As an event that happened once in a century, it was highly celebrated, and almost every member of the Hephaestus Clan participated in it.
The day, which should’ve been one of the happiest of Neo’s life, was torn apart when the sky shattered, and thousands of eyes poured out of broken sky.
A storm brewed in the skies above the arena, turning daylight into an ominous twilight.
The crowd’s cheers turned to screams as grotesque monsters descended.
They were a mass of writhing eyes that seemed to pierce through souls.
Just looking at the grotesque monster made Neo Hargraves’ eyes burst, and he was turned into a cripple.
Neo Hargraves thought he would die.
The only thing he remembered was his mother’s voice telling him everything would be okay.
His parents left saying they would do something about the monster.
They never returned.
Only Neo Hargraves and his older brother Henry Hargraves were left.
‘B-Brother…. Mom and dad… hic… hic… where are they’
Neo Hargraves remembered crying in his brother’s embrace.
Both of them hid under the wreckage, praying the thousand-eye abomination wouldn’t find them.
‘I’ll g-go and look for mom and dad. It has been hours since t-they went out and didn’t return,’ the little Henry had said to Neo.
Don’t go. I’m afraid.
Neo kept the words he wanted to say in his heart.
He understood it.
His brother hated him, and now Neo was a cripple who could die at any moment.
He was a burden.
Instead of sticking with Neo, it was better for Henry to escape alone.
‘Hey, what are you thinking!’
Henry had flicked Neo’s forehead.
‘There is no way I will leave my little brother alone and escape myself.’
Henry understood Neo was afraid, and he decided to stay with Neo instead of searching for their parents.
The last thing Neo Hargraves remembered was his weak-willed big brother saying he would protect Neo.
When Neo woke up, a week had passed since the incident.
They called it the Void Window #8477 incident.
The complete Hephaestus Clan was annihilated.
The only survivors were Neo and Henry Hargraves.
The change hit Neo hard.
The little child couldn’t even cry.
He would’ve killed himself to escape the nightmares of the thousand eye monster if not for Henry, who had matured from the incident, being with him.
Fortunately, there was a blessing in disguise.
The inheritance of the Hephaestus Clan was divided between Neo, Henry, and a few remaining members of the Hephaestus Clan who didn’t attend the tournament and thus managed to survive.
Henry used the settlement money to start a new business, and he made it into one of the biggest business empires within one generation.
There were a lot of hurdles Henry had to face.
During those times, Neo was assassinated without Henry’s knowledge.
But someone—a ‘new’ Neo—replaced him.
The assassination happened again.
Another ‘new’ Neo replaced him.
It repeated several times until the Neo who died to a zombie transmigrated into the body of Neo Hargraves.
[ Shadow ]
Awakening progress: 32/33 → 33/33
So this is what everything was about.
Neo massaged his head.
Gaining the memories allowed him to understand a lot of things.
Every time he was assassinated, the seal on one of his previous life’s memories would break.
The broken seal would dissolve into raw energy and revitalize Neo’s damaged body and soul.
The breaking of seals healing my injuries is too good to be a coincidence.
The only reason I can think of is King Morgan making the seals this way.
The more Neo thought about it, the more ridiculous it became.
There were never different people transmigrating into Neo Hargraves’ body.
All of them were my previous lives’ selves whose memories got mixed up with other lives, and they started to think they were different people.
Neo didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
It was really ridiculous.
And here I was thinking I needed to make sure Henry didn’t realize I had hijacked his brother’s body when I first ‘transmigrated’.
Though there is still something I don’t understand.
How can someone assassinate me multiple times in my own house?
There is no way a normal assassin can fool Henry’s senses multiple times and assassinate me without getting caught.
Neo thought of a culprit candidate, but immediately shook his head.
There is no way he can be the assassin.
Just as he finished his contemplation, a new power exploded from within his Core.
He could feel his Shadow affinity successfully awakening.
It allowed Neo to sense the giant presence that was looking down at his trial.
Looked enough?
He stared at the sky.
The entity smiled and snapped, creating a door for Neo to leave the trial.
Before I go, there is something I want to ask you, Neo said to the entity. Why didn’t my Shadows appear inside Shadow Windows?
Neo would have never needed to enter the Shadow World if his Shadows manifested in Windows.