Primordial Expanse: I have the Strongest Talent!

[Would you like to leave the Primordial Expanse?]

Alex didn't even give it much thought as he answered yes to this prompt.

He hadn't even checked Count Desmond's body for any spatial treasures or any other valuable items, but he couldn't really care about any of that right now.

All he wanted to do was leave.

***

Planet Hortus.

A huge, black swirling vortex opened up in the same spot Alex and Mira had departed just a few months beforehand.

Soon after, a figure appeared from the other side.

It was Alex.

Several seconds of silence passed.

Alex just kept looking up, into the void of the deep night sky with emotionless eyes.

There were no tears, there was no emotion at all. Most of all, there was no hope.

"I'm sorry." Alex said with a restrained voice as his gaze continued to linger up above him.

It was like he was afraid to look back down, like he would be forced to face a grim reality — all those faces of the people who needlessly died, if he did so.

He didn't blame himself for their deaths, but he blamed himself for being too weak to save them.

'Strength. In the end it all comes down to strength, it always does.'

The mad laughter of Desmond kept replaying in his mind from the moment those thousands of desperate people turned into puddles of blood.

"You didn't do anything wrong." A voice spoke out from the shadows, followed by the figure of a man whose appearance looked familiar to Alex.

'You again.'

It took him a few seconds, but Alex recognised him as the man from Valentis city. The one who guided him on the right path in his search for the sleeper, back when he took his first mission as an adventurer.

But even though Alex had no idea how the man knew about his situation, nor how he had even followed him from the Primordial Expanse, he simply didn't care.

"How do you know!?" Alex shouted in a loud voice.

"If I didn't fall for those stupid tricks back at Evermoor, if I didn't waste so much time coming up and executing a stupid plan to kill all those nameless henchmen, if I just went straight for the Count as soon as I saw him, those people would still be alive!"

Alex clenched his fists so tightly that they started to bleed.

His emotions, all of his regrets completely poured out to this mysterious man, as for some reason, he couldn't hold them in any longer while in his presence.

"Alex," The man said in a calming, serious voice. "You didn't kill all of those people. The Count did. You tried your best to save them, but sometimes our best isn't enough. You aren't even an adult yet — a child like you should never have to bear the responsibility of thousands of lives."

"But-" Alex tried to rebut, but the man stopped him.

"You saved 17,000 people. If it weren't for you, the number of lives lost would have been doubled, and it probably wouldn't have stopped with just Monty town."

Alex gritted his teeth.

He felt like the man was reprimanding him.

But he also couldn't argue with him.

'Everything he said was right, but why did it all still seem so wrong.'

"Fate."

The man spoke again.

"Fate controls everything. You might think you were fated to save those people, but they could have been fated to die from the very beginning. There is no point in dwelling on what could have happened, instead it is better to focus on what can happen from this point onwards."

The man gave Alex some time to process his words, after all they were a little bit profound for an uneducated brat like Alex.

"You are only feeling so down because you felt personally responsible for saving their lives, but think back — did you feel this way when the entire city of Valentis fell, where millions of people died? No, you didn't. Because you weren't responsible for their lives, and you knew it."

Flames welled up in Alex's palms as he felt anger and rage boiling inside of him.

"ARGGH, JUST SHUT UP!"

In what seemed like a split second, the flames soared towards the man, but in a weird turn of events, there was nothing there.

Like the man was never even there to begin with.

But Alex didn't seem to notice.

'What do you care about how I feel?'

'Fate? Everything is already set in stone? I can't change fate even if I want to? Fuck that, I'm never letting something like that control my life.'

'I could have saved all of those people if I was stronger. Power, I need more power.'

Alex quietly turned around and wandered through the streets.

Everything seemed so meaningless to him at the moment, and he wasn't even paying any attention to where he was going.

***

"That kid left?" A well armoured man spoke.

He had been waiting in line for the reception to the space port, and had been watching Alex's mental breakdown from the moment he stepped out of the portal.

"Yeah… He seemed quite depressed — shouting about 'it's all his fault' and what not. He even started talking to himself at one point, like he was having a full blown conversation with nobody but himself. It's kinda creepy really." The female clerk behind the counter spoke to the armoured man as it was his turn.

"The kid's probably been through some kind of traumatic experience in the Primordial Expanse. Give it some time, and he'll either adjust his mindset correctly, or he'll remain broken like that for the rest of his life. I've seen too many people like this over the years, and it always ends up as one of the two."

The armoured man finished up his conversation about Alex and quickly moved on to his own, as he had a deadline to meet and he couldn't miss the flight off planet.

Like the man said, he had seen many people like Alex over the years, so he wasn't shocked at all seeing him act so crazily in public without any care.

For Alex, this was the worst day in his life that would probably affect him until the day he died.

But for the Armoured man, it was tuesday.