Killed Me? Now I Have Your Power - Chapter 282

Chapter 282: Chapter 282: Rest
Chapter 282 – Rest

After obtaining the Grimoire of the Forbidden Alchemist, Kaden began to read it.

It was a difficult endeavor. The Forbidden Alchemist had mixed common language with runic language, making it extremely challenging for him to fully comprehend.

Irritation simmered inside him, threatening to burst open in a cloud of steam.

Once again, Kaden felt that same pull, the desperate urge to understand and master Runesmithing. It wasn’t just about forging artifacts. No… not anymore. It had become a matter of learning an entirely new language.

And that thought made him recall something.

If he wasn’t mistaken, during that vision— when he had possessed the body of that grey woman — she had been speaking in runic language.

That realization struck him harder than he expected.

It was more important than he thought.

But all of that would have to wait for later. For now, he needed to find a way to save his dear father-in-law inside this broken shell.

Fortunately, he did…after tremendous effort.

He had managed to find a section in the book dedicated to runic formations of the soul. In fact, there were many chapters focused on the soul, but this one in particular was about restoration.

How the formation worked was surprisingly simple to grasp. To restore a soul… you only needed to use other souls, or soul energy.

That discovery shocked him. He hadn’t known there was another form of energy entirely, soul energy, one that existed solely for techniques and skills related to the soul itself.

And that made him think of Soulbrand.

That trait had barely progressed since that day in the dungeon with Asael. He had always wondered why…why his mastery over it seemed to stagnate, but now he understood.

He needed soul energy. And he needed a way to harness it, not through runes, but by himself.

Something the book did not teach.

Sighing, Kaden decided to set the thought aside for now. At least he knew how to restore souls. The problem now was finding a way to remove the black rune on Eliot first.

That was when he remembered, the ashes-like grey parchment he had seen during the first vision, held by that woman.

He closed his eyes, remembering every detail of it, and rewrote the rune entirely without missing a single line on a sheet of blank paper. That rune was far too complex for him to understand alone, so he called his mother-in-law, Mayari, who had some knowledge about runes, though nothing close to the level of the book before them.

Naturally, she struggled. But in the end, they managed to confirm that it was indeed the same rune used on Eliot.

At that point, the hardest part was over.

If you know how a rune works, then you can destroy it immediately. The problem was that this one operated with soul energy, and Kaden didn’t have any of that left within him.

So he used another rune, one crafted by the Forbidden Alchemist, to gather soul energy, then shifted the black rune by changing one of its core inscriptions.

Where it once said “eat the soul,” Kaden and Mayari altered it to “restore the soul.”

Then, by inscribing the contrary of the same rune atop the original, they forced the two to cancel each other out, both collapsing and erasing one another in a quiet burst of black light…and the cursed rune finally disappeared from Eliot’s body.

He gasped in relief, then fell back asleep.

You could have seen the relief on Kaden and the others. Once it was done and the weight of stress finally steamed out of his pores, Kaden was sorely tempted to collapse into bed and sleep, but there was still one last thing to do.

Eliot’s soul had been heavily damaged, he needed to heal it. Once again, they used a rune from the Forbidden Alchemist’s grimoire to draw in the surrounding soul energy and nourish what remained.

Kaden observed the process closely, trying to understand how soul energy truly functioned. He found nothing concrete, unfortunately.

Still, he had gained much during the process of healing Eliot.

He had somehow obtained a divinity, something Death itself called the Sorrow Pathway. He had discovered that Luke was probably alive and wanted to kill Eliot for something related to Rea.

He had learned of a mysterious being whose nature he couldn’t grasp.

And finally…

He had obtained the grimoire of one said to be the greatest alchemist and runesmith since The Witch.

Too many things were happening all at once, and Kaden was beginning to feel overwhelmed. He had just finished a bloody war, yet the world refused to give him peace.

Mysteries kept unfolding one after another, rising like a tide of chaos, as if someone had flung a card and sent the whole castle crashing down in a cascade.

Or maybe…it was Pandora’s box?

Kaden tilted his head slightly, not understanding why his thoughts drifted in that direction.

He sighed ruefully. Meris and Inara watched him from the side. Inara was about to speak again, only for Meris to stop her with a sharp glare that clearly said, ‘You speak, I freeze you.’

Inara looked tempted to argue, but this time she complied, giving Meris a mocking snarl before huffing and snapping her head to the other side.

Meris sighed. Inara was troublesome and utterly lacking in tact.

Once he confirmed that Eliot was safe, Kaden decided to return to his room.

Inara said she wanted to come with him, but with an awkward smile, Kaden gently declined, telling her he wanted to sleep and that they would talk, and finalize their oath, later.

Inara wanted to insist, only for Meris to clamp a hand over her mouth while offering Kaden a loving smile and wishing him a good rest.

Kaden seized the moment to flee.

As for Meris and Inara…

“Do you want me to lick your palm, Meris?” Inara asked through a muffled laugh, her eyes glinting mischievously.

Meris scowled in disgust. “That would be the last time you ever use your tongue,” she said coldly, pulling her hand away. Then she added, “You did that on purpose.”

Inara chuckled. “It’s always funny to tease him. Don’t you think? He looks so innocent and cute!” Her eyes softened for a moment, a faint haze of fondness flickering within them at the thought of Kaden.

Meris’s jaw tightened at the sight, but she bit the inside of her lip, trying to suppress the sudden tremor running through her body. She failed to hide it, and Inara noticed.

Her teasing expression faded, replaced by a softer, awkward smile that Meris wasn’t used to seeing on her face. “Maybe we should rest too…” Inara said quietly.

Meris only nodded curtly.

…

In his room, Kaden sat on a reclining chair made through his blood control. He leaned softly against it, and on his lap, Reditha glowed faintly as he smiled and cleaned her blade carefully, lovingly.

He hadn’t forgotten how she saved him back in that mind space. And though he didn’t say anything, there was no need to. Reditha understood everything.

So he simply sat there, polishing her blade as if it were a fragile piece of glass that could shatter at the slightest touch.

Then thoughts galloped through his mind.

Things were becoming troublesome, it seemed.

He hadn’t told anyone yet that Luke was alive. He simply didn’t know how to. And besides, Kaden wanted to resolve this on his own.

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in his family’s strength. but Waverith was shattered, and they needed to rebuild it first, to restore what was lost, and to avoid unforeseen consequences. They were not alone in this region.

They didn’t need yet another troubling piece of news.

‘So I’m alone in this one, huh,’ he mused, smiling crookedly. ‘Alone with Reditha.’

He needed to find where Luke was. Though he didn’t have any clear lead… well, except for one.

‘Sorrow… Sorrow Pathway. And divinity. When one says divinity, they obviously speak of a god. And if I remember what the Anthropologist said about the gods, he mentioned a “woeful one.”‘ Kaden thought, still wiping Reditha with a small towel.

‘That means there’s a god related to sorrow. And in Fokay, in the north, just like the Celestial Empire, I once heard whispers of a church called the Church of Sorrow.’

Kaden’s eyes shone with a brilliant light, a path finally forming in front of him.

The Church of Sorrow.

That would be his next step. But first, he needed to tie up loose ends here in Waverith and Darklore. Also…

“Bloody hell, when should I learn runesmithing? Old Smith must be waiting for me. Gods… should I just start already?”

Kaden paused, tilting his head.

‘Why should I even learn it? I could just die to someone who knows it, it’s faster.’

Sometimes he truly forgot he could just… die.

He didn’t want to die without reason, but this one felt justified.

He didn’t have time, and things were spinning out of control. He needed the help of death.

‘I’ll first need to get stronger.’

His stats had increased tremendously with the number of souls and blood he had devoured during the war. Except for Will, which seemed to have reached its limit at one thousand, all others had gained over a hundred points.

It was enormous.

Kaden realized just how broken his Will had become. And the more he devoured, the stronger his Will grew, making him consume more efficiently and maybe… maybe one day he wouldn’t just obtain stat increases and soul enhancement…

Maybe. Just maybe.

For now, though, it was time to use his Synthesis once again.

He smiled.

‘My dear favorite child, Daddy needs your help once again,’ he whispered to his trait lovingly, as if speaking to something alive.

Synthesis quivered inside him.

His smile widened as he stood up once more, Reditha gripped tightly in his right hand, and he walked directly toward where they stored the corpses of the Steelbeasts.

Including the body of Goremaw.

Kaden licked his lips.

“The pain will be atrocious,” he said, but his smile didn’t waver.

He wanted to sleep, but in the end, he decided to take another step forward.

The world would not pause to let him rest. Rest was for the dead and the gods.

For one was too weak to survive, and so the earth gave him peace beneath its heavy embrace.

The other was too strong, and so the world kept them high above, in the heavens.

Kaden was neither of those two.

And so…

‘Another step forward.’

Yes. Another step forward. And even if it was shaky, it didn’t matter.

He just needed to walk.

And eventually, he will arrive at the destination, and rest will find him naturally.

—End of Chapter 282—