He was not ready for the scene that greeted him. He was never ready for this. There was no training in the world that could prepare him for this horrific sight.
His mother's body. Elena.
Lying on the ground in the darkness, under a faint glimmer of light filtering from the dilapidated window, terribly disfigured, almost unrecognizable at first glance.
Her red blood flowed onto the old wooden floor, slowly absorbed by the wood, forming a widening black puddle in the faint light. Her right hand was completely missing, replaced by gruesome remnants of torn flesh and bone. Signs of brutality, claw and teeth marks, marks of the monsters that had invaded his village, clear on her torn and cold body. Her liver... it was also gone, as if it had never existed.
The shock that struck him at that moment was powerful, devastating, as if a thousand lightning bolts had struck his soul and being all at once, as if the entire world had collapsed around him in that moment.
Seeing his mother dead. Seeing her in this indescribably horrific brutality. In his very room, the place that represented safety and the only refuge for him in this troubled world. Seeing the extent of the destruction and terror that did not stop at the outer limits of the village, but reached his home, his most precious possession, his heart and soul.
It wasn't just a fleeting visual shock. It was an existential shock that completely tore apart the fabric of his reality, destroying everything he had believed about life and the world. Nothing made sense anymore. How could this happen? Why? Who did this to his beloved mother? Why her, of all people?
He felt as if something violently broke inside him. A barrier, a dam that had been holding back the pain, terror, and grief he had carried all his life. It suddenly crumbled, shattered into pieces, unleashing a destructive torrent of dark, merciless emotions.
"M-Mom?"
The sound came out with extreme difficulty, choked with tears and terror, barely audible even to himself. It wasn't his usual voice. It wasn't the voice of the young boy who moments ago had been carrying his injured friend on his back, struggling to reach safety.
It was a distorted, strange voice, carrying in its tones the beginnings of absolute madness.
Rayn's injured and exhausted body fell from his back to the ground with a muffled thud. Theo could no longer carry him, could no longer stand. He fell to his trembling knees on the blood-stained floor, unable to turn his eyes away from his mother's disfigured body before him.
'No... this couldn't be real, This was just a horrible nightmare.'
a nightmare that would end at any moment. He would wake up to find his mother standing in the familiar kitchen, making breakfast for him, lovingly scolding him for being late to wake up on training day.
He slowly extended his trembling hand towards her, as if trying to confirm, as if trying to touch her to bring her back to life with the strength of his will. She was cold. Her body was chillingly cold and lifeless. No warmth emanated from her. No movement. No life. Nothing but the lifeless body lying before him.
At that moment, something exploded inside him. A scream erupted from his throat. A scream that was not an ordinary human scream. It was the cry of a dying wounded animal, the cry of a soul tearing apart, a scream of absolute despair and rejection of reality. A scream that carried all the pain he had felt in his short life, all the fear he had faced in the cave and the forest, all the anger he had suppressed inside him against the unjust world.
"M-Mom! Nooooooooo!!!!"
It was a scream that ripped through the absolute silence in the dark room, and ripped through the false calm of the night in the ruined village. A thunderous, genuine, raw scream, expressing the magnitude of the catastrophe that had befallen him.
He continued to scream, his cries rising and falling, turning into a deep painful moan, then exploding again with greater force.
He pounded the ground with his small fists with all his might, tearing at his already blood-covered clothes, shaking his head violently in rejection of reality.
"No! No! This isn't real! This can't be happening!" he screamed between his continuous sobs. "Mom! Mom! Why you?! Why did you leave me?! Who did this to you?!"
Thoughts raced in his mind chaotically, like sharp glass shards. Future Ana... the Seven Disasters... the power he must possess... everything began to mix and shatter within him. Was this part of the first disaster? Was this what Future Ana meant by her mysterious words?
"I was here! I was so close!" he screamed, his voice hoarse from crying and anger. "If only I had been faster! If only I hadn't spent all that time in the damn cave! If only I hadn't hesitated! If only... if only I was stronger!"
Guilt began to gnaw at his soul fiercely, eating him from within. If only he had been stronger. If only he had been faster in escaping. If only he hadn't gone to the cave in the first place and left her alone. If only he hadn't been born different and caused this darkness to enter their lives. Everything seemed like his fault, his fault that he wasn't enough to protect her, his fault that he wasn't by her side in her last moments.
He slowly crawled painfully towards her lifeless body, his hot tears mixing with the cold blood on his face, tears he could never stop. He finally reached her, laid his head on her cold chest. He heard no pulse. No warmth. No life. Nothing but the cold, torn body lying before him.
"Mom!!!"
Another scream erupted, stronger than the previous one, a scream that shook the remaining walls of the house, a scream heard by no one.
He embraced her torn body with desperate strength, not caring about the blood covering him, not caring about the gruesome injuries. He clung to the last remnants of his mother in this world.
"I'm back, Mom! I'm back to you! Why did you leave and abandon me?! Why did you leave this hideous world?!"
He looked at her smile, that weak, reassuring smile that was on her lips. She died at peace, perhaps someone lied about her in her last moments?
This made the pain unbearable, tearing his soul apart. She died believing he was fine, while he was in the hell of the cave and the forest, and she was here, facing her own hell alone with all a mother's courage.
He remembered the comforting warmth of her embrace. Her quiet, tender voice when she used to tell him stories before bed, the way she gently stroked his hair, the familiar scent of her clothes that gave him a sense of security.
All these innocent and happy memories contrasted brutally and painfully with the current scene before him, with the torn and cold body in his hands.
He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, trying to erase the gruesome scene from his memory, to escape from it, but it was etched there, deep in his soul, in every part of his being. The image of his dead mother. A brutal image that would never leave him.
The sound of his screaming gradually weakened, turning into broken sobs, into a sad moan. His entire body trembled uncontrollably, as if beyond his will, his muscles contracting from physical exhaustion and immense psychological pressure. His mana surged within him chaotically and violently, the dark energy responding to his pain, anger, and despair, as if reflecting his internal state, but it was unfocused, just an internal chaos that increased his torment.
He no longer perceived anything around him at that moment. He didn't notice Rayn lying on the ground behind him, although Rayn was still breathing with great difficulty.
He didn't notice the small black box Kyle had given him, which had fallen from his hand somewhere in the room during the first moments of panic.
His entire focus, all his consciousness, was on his mother, on his devastating loss, on the pain that consumed his soul.
Time passed incredibly slowly. He didn't know how much exactly had passed. Minutes? Hours? It seemed like an eternity of endless torment. His screaming completely faded, turning into absolute silence, a silence broken only by his ragged breaths and the sound of his silent, unending crying.
He slowly lifted his head from his mother's cold chest. He looked at her face one last time, trying to see in her the features of the mother he knew. Despite all the disfigurement, it was still her. Still his mother.
A new feeling began to creep into his exhausted and devastated heart, a harsh and dark feeling, different from grief or despair. It wasn't just grief, it wasn't just despair. It was... anger. Anger as cold as ice, as dark as night, directed towards everything and everyone who caused this horror.
Towards the monsters who did this to his mother. Towards the cruel fate that allowed it to happen.
Towards himself, for being too weak, helpless to protect her.
This anger was different from any anger he had felt before in his short life. It wasn't a fleeting childish anger that quickly faded; it was a deep anger, rooted in the depths of his soul, threatening to consume everything in its path, threatening to turn him into something unrecognizable, a feeling that the world was a cruel, unjust place that must be punished for what it had done to him.
With this new feeling, this dark anger born from the womb of pain, something else happened. He felt the dark energy within him, that chaotic, violent mana that had been surging in his being, began to change.
It began to condense, to gather, responding to this deep dark anger that now controlled him, as if the darkness found fertile ground in his anger and sorrow to grow and take root.
He was still kneeling on the blood-stained floor, amidst his mother's blood, carrying the weight of entire mountains on his small shoulders. The promise he had made to himself to become strong, the promise Future Ana had spoken of, was no longer just a promise or a goal.
It became a necessity. An absolute necessity for revenge, a necessity to protect those who remained, a necessity never to feel this devastating and humiliating helplessness again.
He looked around the destroyed room with eyes red from crying and exhaustion, but a new, harsh, and dark look began to appear in them. He saw the chaos, he saw the blood, he saw his mother's body... then he looked at his blood-stained hand.
The hand that moments ago held the small knife in a desperate attempt to protect her. The hand that killed the first Goblin in a moment of absolute terror.
His blood-stained hand trembled, but it was no longer the trembling of fear or physical pain. It was the trembling of immense energy gathering within him, preparing to explode, preparing to change.
In absolute silence, a silence more terrifying than his previous screams, Theo slowly stood up. His body ached all over, his soul torn to shreds, but something new, dark and harsh, was born from the ashes of his madness and pain. A grim determination, an unyielding will? Foolishness... it was madness.
Little Theo was insane now, intensely insane.
It was already difficult for the boy, the hard battles he faced before reaching his destroyed village, then Kyle's death, and more than all this, his mother's death.
It was difficult, very difficult. His mind was completely filled with thoughts and hallucinations, and madness!
"Hahahahahahaha, are you even reacting to this?" He put his hand on his face and looked up at the ceiling, laughing madly at his increased strength in those difficult moments.
"She died, she died. Now what can I do? I've lost everything now."
"Now, Mom, tell me, who can I protect now?" His madness and laughter were synchronized with the waterfalls running down his cheeks now.