Chapter 1178

It was a massacre that painted the floors red.

Countless brilliant researchers were brutally slaughtered.

Elyndor’s scientific community suffered a blow so devastating it was incalculable.

Even though she hadn’t been there, Serena could vividly imagine the horrific magnitude of the tragedy.

She held the metal box tightly against her chest, waiting for the Old Man to continue.

He took several more pulls from his gourd, sighing heavily. “Aria knew that if things kept going, it would only lead to more annihilation for both herself and the National Lab. So… to prevent her core technology from falling into their hands p>

“She hid exceptionally well. To the Obsidian Sun, it was as if she had simply vanished from the face of the earth p>

“And she stayed hidden… for thirty years p>

Hearing the truth of the past, Serena felt as though an invisible hand was brutally squeezing her heart.

She couldn’t bear to imagine what her grandmother had felt, destroying decades of her own painstaking research.

And what must it have been like to change her name, abandon her entire life, and bury her past forever?

Serena was a scientist herself. She had built the Elyndor Institute of Advanced Sciences from the ground up.

Because of that, she knew exactly how much raw courage such a sacrifice demanded.

Serena lowered her eyes, her gaze falling back onto the metal box.

Her slender fingers gently traced the surface of the container, as if she were holding her grandmother’s hand.

“Then… why didn’t the Wynn family know who she really was p>

Her grandmother had been a national treasure of unparalleled brilliance. If those people in the Wynn family had known how could they have possibly treated her with such disdain?

Especially Marianne, who had shown absolutely nothing but naked contempt and disgust for her.

She constantly spat that Grandma Aria was a low-class peasant, acting as though her return to Vaelion City was a massive humiliation for the family.

The Old Man scoffed, his face twisting with mockery. “Your grandmother’s identity was Elyndor’s highest state secret p>

“Aside from the top brass in charge back then, and a few of us old hermits who would have died for her, no one else had a clue p>

“As for the Wynn family p>

The Old Man Sneered. “A bunch of greedy, self-serving leeches. Their heads were completely stuffed with schemes and calculations, obsessing over how to claw their way up the social ladder, suck up to the elite, and secure their footing in Váelion City p>

“To them, your grandmother was just a country bumpkin. Why would they ever pay

attention to some old woman farming in the boondocks p>

He was right p>

With the Wynn family’s true colors.

How could they have ever realized who she really was?

Even during the four years Serena had spent with them, she had overtly helped them, funneled resources them, and elevated their status

htless times.

Yet they had remained entirely oblivious, arrogantly assuming all that success and fortune was a result of their own brilliance.

They completely failed to see that everything they had was merely a handout from the ‘country bumpkin’ they so thoroughly despised.

Serena let out a cold laugh but said nothing.

The Old Man’s gaze shifted back to Serena.

His eyes were complex, layered with a deep sense of heartache.

He sighed softly. “Kid, you were actually the biggest surprise of Aria’s life p>