Chapter 34: A Life Worth Living
1. The Days of a Hunter (Tom's POV)
It had been two weeks since Tom's Awakening.
And he had never been happier.
The system worked exactly as it should. Every dungeon run was smooth, every battle effortless. Monsters practically defeated themselves in his presence, their drops perfectly tailored to his needs.
Gold piled up faster than he could spend it. He could provide for his family with ease.
No tricks. No betrayals. No cosmic battles looming overhead.
For once—
He was just living.
Tom leaned back against the wooden beams of the Hunter's Guild, flipping through a list of raid invites. Top-ranked guilds wanted him. His name was already circulating in the forums—"Golden Luck" they called him.
A month ago, he would've scoffed at the idea of being famous in a world like this.
But now?
Now, he was right where he belonged.
"Tom!"
Stacy's voice cut through his thoughts as she jogged up, a huge grin on her face.
"They just updated the dungeon rankings." She waved a holographic screen in front of him. "You're already in the top percentile for newcomers!"
Tom smirked. "Well, when you have an ability like mine, it's kinda expected."
Stacy huffed. "Ugh, lucky bastard."
Tom laughed, ruffling her hair.
Life was good.
And that was all that mattered.
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2. Stacy's Rise (Stacy's POV)
Stacy had never fit anywhere before.
She had always been the weakest. The youngest. The one waiting for things to happen.
But now?
Now she had power.
And she would never go back.
Her Void Sovereignty was growing stronger by the day. She had spent the last two weeks training nonstop, pushing her limits in the battle simulations at the academy.
Today, her instructor had shaken his head in disbelief. "You're progressing faster than any student I've seen before. It's like you were born for this."
And maybe, Stacy thought, maybe I was.
She had never been born into power.
But now, she had earned it.
The next time someone tried to take something from her—
The next time fate tried to erase her existence—
She would be strong enough to fight back.
No one would ever tell her she wasn't meant to be here.
Because she was.
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3. Diane, the Mother Once More (Diane's POV)
Diane had spent lifetimes trying to control fate.
She had played with the fabric of time itself, bending and reshaping it, sacrificing entire possibilities in the pursuit of a better world.
She had worked alongside Mike, watching as he obsessed over the nature of time manipulation, researching humans who showed signs of accessing it.
They had chased something impossible—the ability to rewrite mistakes, to fix what had been broken.
But now…
Now she didn't care.
She stood in the kitchen, watching the sun stream through the window, warming the polished wood floors. She could hear Stacy and Tom talking in the living room.
This world was whole.
It didn't need fixing.
It didn't need rewriting.
For the first time, Diane felt no burden.
The weight of the past, the guilt of her choices—they were gone.
She let herself exhale, pressing her palm against the counter.
Maybe this was what she had been searching for all along.
A world where she didn't have to be a god.
A world where she could just be a mother.
And for the first time in forever, that was enough.
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4. Orion's Rebirth (Mike's POV)
Mike had wasted so much time.
Late nights in the lab. Endless research. Neglecting his family to chase a goal that had never truly belonged to him.
He had worked day and night, obsessed with helping Jerry, thinking he could make a difference, that he could fix what had already been lost.
And in the end, all he had done was lose himself.
Lose Diane. Lose his children.
He had always thought—if I had one more chance, I'd do it differently.
Now?
Now he had that chance.
Diane smiled at him more.
She wasn't buried in her own obsessions anymore. She was present. Happy.
Tom looked up to him, asked for his opinion on combat strategy. Stacy still liked to argue with him, but he could see the way she wanted him here.
They weren't distant anymore.
They weren't waiting for the next tragedy.
They were together.
And for Mike, this was enough.
Maybe he had been wrong before.
Maybe fixing the past wasn't about manipulating time.
Maybe it was just about being here, now, in the present.
Maybe this was his second chance to get it right.
And if that was true—
Then he was never letting go of this world.
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5. A Family Rebuilt (Group POV – The Dinner Table Scene)
Dinner was filled with laughter.
Tom teased Stacy about her overpowered skills. She threw a roll at him in response.
Diane watched them with warmth in her eyes.
Mike couldn't stop smiling.
This was everything.
This was home.
For the first time, there was no war, no cosmic fate looming overhead, no guilt whispering in the back of their minds.
There was just this.
And none of them had any reason to question it.
Not yet.
Not when the world was finally perfect.
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