Lirians Throne World.
The encroaching thrones all froze in place and rapidly fled to the edges of the world, in the centre a black mist shrouded Lirian, and his other selves watched in dread.
Too afraid of the mist, they had all tasted of its demented fruits, it was a disease they all carried, it was the corrupting madness, it was always here in the throne world locked in its cage, waiting silently for true panic to take hold of the host.
Its attack would be abrupt, and it would pounce on the host if they should show the slightest of weakness.
Their minds were broken enough without the mist's touch, any more exposure, and the madness would take them as it had so many times before.
Kaladin opened his eyes and sighed, Lucian and himself were different from the rest, their minds were whole and complete, while they had known fear and despair, they were never completely broken like the rest.
He stood up from his throne and walked into the mist, his figure was that of an unbending tower as he stood at 9 feet tall and his body was a massive and unmoving boulder, he stepped up to the centre throne and put his hands on Lirians face.
"Boy,", his deep voice carried throughout the entire world, ", remember the system was crafted for this purpose, use it as it was meant to be used."
"No," Lirian cried out, ", the system will break the illusion, if it breaks then, I'll lose her, I'll lose my mother, Anya, and all the people I created.", he shouted in the mist.
"You won't know what's real and what isn't until you use the system, but trust me boy you will be happy with the results."
When Lirian looked up again Kaladin had returned to his throne, his eyes shut, he would be asleep for a long time, while his mind was stronger than the rest, he was still weak in comparison.
He felt lost, he wanted the illusion to continue but he hated it, all the same, he could only keep living in an illusion for so long, it would inevitably fall apart.
"System, perform a mental recalibration."
[Host are you certain, the cost will be 10 trillion fate particles, Y/N?]
"Yes."
The cost was immense, and if he had begun his cultivation, it would have cost at least ten times more, the greater his cultivation the harder it is to break his delusions.
---
When he opened his eyes, he was back in his room, as he shifted around, he could feel that his hand was still healing, he took a sniff of the bed and the scent of his mother entered his nose, she had spent a lot of time in his room, to take care of him while his arm was broken.
'It wasn't an illusion.', he thought happily.
He jumped out of the bed and went running to find his mother he still needed to confirm that it wasn't an illusion.
He pushed the door to her study open and ran in, "Mom," he called out cheerfully, but in the next second his heart sank.
She sat alone in the room; her hands that were usually always busy with something were empty right now, she sat motionless with her face buried in her hands.
"Mom," he called out hesitantly.
"Am I?", she asked after a long silence.
When she looked at him Lirian could see that her eyes were red from crying and her beautiful face was streaked with dried-up tears.
He winced at her tone of voice, he had never heard her so furious, and her question left his mind in chaos, as he recalled everything he had shouted at Anya.
He felt himself quiver and shake, and for the first time, he felt like a real child caught in a lie and too afraid to tell their parents the truth.
"What's the matter, you are usually so fast to answer me and defend yourself, why aren't you answering me?", when she shouted the doors slammed shut and Lirian detected an isolation barrier from in the room, so no one could listen in.
He wanted to say something but he didn't know where to start and as the silence filled the room he trembled like a leaf in the wind and his eyes turned misty as he saw his mother, her eyes were dripping with tears.
"Tell me what you meant, was what you told Anya a lie or the truth?", he could see a trace of hope in his eyes as if begging him to say it was just a lie, he made up to get out of school.
He opened his mouth repeatedly but he could barely form any words, "T-t-truth." he stammered out with all his courage, he felt like he'd have more courage in the presence of a million gods.
She sunk to her knees and sobbed even harder than before.
"Was everything until now a lie, you must have had a good laugh as you watched me faun over you and take care of your every need."
"No, these past ten years were the first time in my felt that I was ever treated like a person, it's the first time I ever got to experience a childhood where no one tried to kill me just for existing and it's all thanks to you mom.", tears spilled from his eyes and his nose felt all clogged-up as he sniffled and spoke.
"You gave me a home and a family and so much more that I could have never hoped for in the past but most importantly you loved me like your own and you could never imagine what these past few years meant to me,"
"I was born with a curse, Anya must have shown you the images that I accidentally passed on to her, do you know what my parents named me '#~'@£4'."
For the first time his words got a response it was mainly because, Taliyah didn't understand the name it sounded like an entirely different language.
Lirian smiled bitterly, "It means filth in the language of that world, it wasn't just that life, but all the lives I've lived I was given names with similar or worse meanings, and you saw how the people wanted me dead, I was just a child, I think I was nine years at the time, my parents raised me in a cage and if I performed well they would reward me with the bones of the food they ate but I didn't know any better in fact I was grateful to receive such scraps, it was a hundred times better than my life before where I starved to death at three years old, and that is how I was treated wherever I went no matter what I did, all the good and bad people of an entire world could put their differences aside if it meant killing me."
"But all of that changed in this life, my father was able to remove my curse and take it on himself, he knew that he couldn't keep me near him so he sent me down into the mortal world, you've probably even heard of my father's name he is the eldest god Adolin Morningstar."
"When I entered the portal, it was unstable, and based on my estimations I was slung across 200 000 years, that's the day we met and it's the day you had no reason to help me but you still did.", he fell to his knees as he sobbed as he spoke of that day, no one in all the worlds would ever be able to understand what that single moment meant to him, it was the first time in his life that someone had nothing to gain from him and still chose to spare him.
"All the time we spent together over these years was not some grand lie that I devised," he stepped towards his mother and took her hands in his own, he didn't care about the pain in his broken arm as he held her hands tightly and looked down too afraid to meet her eyes.
"You are the first person in all my lives that I can call mother, and by a measure of all mothers in the world, I'm the luckiest person in the world to have a mother such as you, I doubt there are any other people even amongst the emperor's and empresses of old that would put up with all my antics.", he added with a slight chuckle.
She shut her eyes and tears still fell from her eyes, "Do you know what day it was when you appeared in the gardens of the imperial pyramid?" she asked.
"No," Lirian answered shaking his head as tears uncontrollably rolled down his face.
"It was the day that I came out of my seclusion, every decade since I lost my last child, I would spend an entire month praying by their sarcophagus's, on the day I left I made a wish to whichever god could hear me for another child, and hours later you practically fell from the sky."
"Of the many things I ever imagined not once did I ever think I would raise a man as old or older than the seven civilizations as a child.", Lirian sighed in relief as he heard her voice grow slightly warmer.
"Little one, I need some time, this is all a lot to digest even for me, go to your room I shall come to speak with you again later.", she truly had no idea what to do, she only knew that at that his tears were not fake and it was all she had to reassure herself that everything was not a complete lie but it was still not enough to settle her heart.
Complicated, as Lirian left both the empress and himself thought that one word.