Chapter 1179

Serena froze slightly.

She looked up at the Old Man.

She was her grandmother’s biggest surprise?

“Back then, Marianne was disgusted that you were a girl. She just dumped you in the countryside and left you for your grandmother to raise p>

“When she abandoned you, you were only this big,” the Old Man said, gesturing with his hands. “Your grandmother originally just wanted you to be normal. She wanted you to grow up safe, find a good man, and live a peaceful, ordinary life. So from the very beginning, she never intended to let you anywhere near the secrets she was hiding p>

“But… your terrifying intellect, your talent, and your unbelievable ability to learn… it was downright monstrous. It was insane p>

“A gift like that simply couldn’t be hidden p>

“When you were barely knee-high, you were already sneaking into her hidden basement lab. You used her precision equipment to flawlessly replicate incredibly complex recombination experiments p>

“How old were you then? Four? Five p>

Serena remembered.

She remembered the countless jars and bottles in the basement, the strange liquids and powders, and the vast array of equipment.

At the time, she thought they were just her grandmother’s toys.

She had watched her use them once, and memorized everything instantly.

After that, her grandmother stopped hiding her ‘toys’. Instead, she brought her down to the lab every single time.

Grandma Aria would do it once.

Then she would have Serena do it.

She taught her how to use the equipment, explained the properties of the liquids and powders, detailed what each bottle was for, and laid out the ultimate purpose behind creating all of it.

The Old Man sighed. “Your grandmother understood perfectly that possessing such brilliance was a curse. A monstrous talent like yours could never stay hidden forever. Eventually… the Obsidian Sun would definitely set their sights on you p>

“And the second they came knocking, a delicate flower raised in a greenhouse would be nothing more than a ghost beneath their butcher’s blade p>

Just like… the people at the National Lab thirty years ago.

Slaughtered by the masses.

If Aria hadn’t fled back then.

If she had refused to serve them, she wouldn’t have survived either.

“So… to make sure you lived, your grandmother begged us old fossils to come out of retirement. She went to each of us, pleading and bowing her head, begging to teach you absolutely everything we knew p>

“And you certainly didn’t let her down. Your gifts were staggering. No matter how brutallyus old. geezers ground your down, you absorbed every single lesson, eventually surpassing every single one of us p>

vel.

“Your grandmother got her wish. She turned you into an unstoppable monster p>

He looked at Serena, his eyes turning red. “Did you really think she didn’t know you sneaked off to the Gray Zone to build the Ghost Alliance p>

“Did you really think she didn’t know about every time you carved a bloody path just to make it back home alive p>

The Old Man’s voice trembled.

“She knew all of it p>

“Every time you came back covered in wounds, pretending everything was perfectly fine, she was standing outside your door, covering her mouth and sobbing in secret p>

He wiped a hand over his face. “But she knew she couldn’t afford to be soft. She had to force herself to be ruthless, to temper your into a blade that no one could ever snap p>

“Do you have any idea? Every time you were hurt, every drop of blood you bled… it

was like carving a chunk of flesh right out of Aria’s heart p>

“But… she just wanted you to live. She wanted you to survive when you inevitably had to face the Obsidian Sun p>

Having said all that, the Old Man threw his head back and downed another massive swig of alcohol.

Serena clutched the box desperately, her knuckles turning bone-white.

Slowly, tears began to pool in her eyes.