Viktor stopped flying and just floated high up in the sky. A cold, sharp wind blew across his face, making everything feel extra chilly.

  There was now a swirl of complicated feelings in his usually calm and still eyes. The hazy sensation of a long-forgotten memory being remembered, and also the confusion he couldn't quite figure out himself.

  He didn't immediately respond to Diana's question. Instead, he slowly lowered his head, his gaze piercing through the thin clouds at the city far below.

  Salem City looked peaceful in the middle of the day. The sunshine was warm and golden, like melted gold paint spread all over the rooftops.

  The street was full of vehicles moving smoothly, but another scene from the past quietly appeared in his eyes.

  The pnets burned by war, the burnt smell in the air, the constant cries and screams that filled his ears, and all of it instantly broke through the walls he had built in his mind.

  Viktor's s fingertips unconsciously curled slightly, his knuckles turning white. It felt as if something was blocking his chest, making him feel suffocated and uneasy.

  "Ms. Prince."

  After a long while, Viktor slowly spoke. He turned his face slightly, his gaze returning to Diana, and his voice carried a hint of hesitation that was hard to notice.

  "Do you know about the Rite of Passage on Viltrum?"

  Diana paused for a moment and instinctively shook her head.

  She was familiar with the coming-of-age rituals of many civilizations across the universe, some ceremonial and full of blessings, others harsh and filled with trials, but she had never heard of any reted to Viltrum.

  She could sense the weight in his voice, and instinctively held her breath, her eyes fixed tightly on him.

  "On Viltrum, seventeen is the legal age of adulthood, but only those who pass the Rite of Passage are recognized as true warriors, and only then can they have the right to live on the pnet."

  Viktor's gaze became empty, like he was seeing that pnet again, torn apart by war and domination.

  "However, you'll never imagine, the so-called Rite of Passage was never a symbol of growth. It was a brutal sughter."

  He slowly raised his right hand, his palm facing the sunlight above. The golden light filtered through his fingers, casting a shadow across his face.

  "The instructors would throw us directly onto a pnet they had just marked as a target, a pnet they hadn't fully conquered yet. The people of that pnet—old, young, men, women, children—became our 'test targets.'"

  Viktor's voice was unusually calm, as if he were recounting something that had nothing to do with him but this calmness made Diana's heart sink sharply.

  A cold chill slowly crept up her back , quickly spreading throughout her body. She unconsciously clenched her fists.

  "There were no rules, no boundaries, and no mercy."

  He lowered his gaze, his tone still ft, but with a chilling cruelty.

  "There was only one requirement for the test—survive… and kill every single person on that pnet who resisted."

  "Resisted?"

  Diana's voice suddenly sounded dry and scratchy. She stared at him, her eyes filled with disbelief.

  "Those defenseless civilians, those old and children who had no ability to resist, do you consider them rebels as well?"

  "In the eyes of the Viltrumites, any people who are still alive, who haven't completely surrendered and abandoned the idea of resistance, are a rebel."

  Viktor's lips curled into a bitter smile, as if mocking the situation.

  "It's a simple and yet bloody logic. Viltrum itself was in the midst of a civil war that might have sted for centuries, with some people's minds already more twisted and insane than before."

  Titan was the most unique and brutal trial ground for Viktor's unit.

  No one questioned the choice, since it was the High Council who decided to include Titan in the test after the stubborn resistance of the pnet's citizens completely ignited their desire to conquer.

  "Titan is three times the size of Earth, and it has been thriving on this pnet for thousands of years. Their technology level is roughly equivalent to Earth's twentieth century. They ck interstelr travel capabilities, and heavy weapons are few and far between."

  "But unlike Earth in the 20th century, Titan's culture was deeply rooted in a strong attachment to its homend and a zero tolerance for invasion. When we first set foot on this pnet and tried to force them to surrender with force, more than eighty percent of the Titans didn't back down."

  Viktor's eyes fshed with a complex emotion.

  "The army picked up the guns and built defensive lines at the edges of various cities. The ordinary civilians, on the other hand, wielded cold weapons passed down from their ancestors. They used their own weak bodies to create but resilient defenses and fought fiercely against us with overwhelming power."

  This stubborn and almost obsessive resistance completely enraged the Viltrum. In their eyes, such a primitive and backward pnet should have bowed down like ants and surrendered.

  This resistance was a btant insult to Viltrum's authority.

  It made them even more determined to conquer this pnet and crush it beneath their feet. Thus, the conquest of Titan was directly designated as one of Viltrum's coming-of-age trials.

  Viktor's unit, including himself, was one of the teams involved in this cruel trial.

  The unit consisted of ten members, all of whom, except for Viktor, were seventeen-year-old boys, led by two experienced instructors whose hands were stained with blood.

  He floated in front of Diana, slowly recounting the memory he had guarded so tightly.

  "Ms. Prince, Titan had a popution of forty billion."

  Diana's breathing became more and more rapid, her chest rising and falling sharply. She could almost clearly picture the horrific scene he described.

  A group of defenseless civilians with no real weapons… standing tiny and helpless in front of the Viltrum, who had power like gods to destroy everything.

  Their resistance was like throwing eggs against a stone, and every charge meant the loss of another life.

  "No... this can't be true..."

  Diana instinctively stepped back a few meters. She had seen the cruelty of war, witnessed the bloodiness of sughter, and even personally killed many vicious criminals.

  However, she never imagined that there could be a civilization that would treat the massacre of an entire pnet's popution as a test for young warriors.

  That cold, heartless rule broke something inside her world. It changed everything she thought she knew about right and wrong.

  After a long time, they didn't say anything, and even the wind high in the sky seemed to grow still.

  Diana slowly raised her head, her gaze full of complexity as she looked at him with her eyes held in shock, pity, disbelief, and a subtle trace of scrutiny.

  After a long time, she finally spoke again, her voice trembling, unable to hide her emotions.

  "During that massacre of the people, what were you... thinking?

  Upon hearing the question, Viktor's lips curled slightly upward, showing a weary smile.

  "Back then, I only thought that there would never be a better opportunity in the past ten years to escape Viltrum."

  Viktor paused, his gaze drifting far away again, as if he could see the smoke from the battlefield on Titan, and looking down at the people who still pointed their weapons at him when the massacre was almost over.

  "All I felt back then was the pressure of whether I could escape and the desperate hope for freedom. Apart from that, I didn't have any space in my mind to think about anything else."

  "Boom—"

  Those words hit Diana like a loud cp inside her head.

  She was shaken to the core, completely stunned, with her back wavered uncontrolbly, and the color drained from her face, turning pale.

  He didn't miss her reaction. He quietly watched her with a subtle hint of curiosity.

  "Ms. Prince?"

  Diana didn't respond and just held that stiff posture.

  After a moment, Diana slowly lowered her head, her empty gaze falling on the city below, radiating a sense of unnatural detachment.

  That aura was like an invisible barrier, immediately separating her from him.

  Viktor watched her in this state, his lips moved as if to say something, but in the end, he swallowed his words.

  He let out a soft sigh and no longer lingered. After giving one st look at Diana, who remained frozen in pce, Viktor turned and flew toward the distant horizon, quickly disappearing into the clouds.

  Diana was left standing alone in pce for a long time.

  And in the sky above Salem City, the golden tower-like structure built with magic slowly became transparent, ultimately vanishing from sight.

  Doctor Fate's figure stood in the center of the tower, quietly watching the direction where Viktor had flown through an invisible magical barrier.

  Doctor Fate's gaze, hidden beneath the golden helmet, was complicated and hard to read, filled with confusion and a hint of unnoticeable pity.

  "Nabu..."

  He spoke slowly, his voice low and hoarse.

  "The massacre was never his intent. Can someone like him truly be beyond redemption?"