Apocalypse: Transmigrated with an Overlord System-Chapter 246: Her Name Was Aeris

It did not take much before the memory shifted again and a new scene appear in front of her.

A sun-drenched hallway, floor panels humming faintly beneath her small steps. Liora couldn’t have been more than nine years old in this memory. Her long snow hair hair was tied in two bouncy tails that swayed with every step she took. She wore a crisp white uniform, sleeves slightly too long for her arms, and a star-shaped badge pinned proudly to her chest.

"Little monster, where do you think you’re going again?"

The boy’s voice came from behind her, teasing and familiar.

Aeris turned around quickly, puffing her cheeks in frustration. Her brother stood with a lazy grin, leaning against the doorway with his hands behind his head. He was already tall at that age, all limbs and mischief. His uniform was half-unbuttoned, his tie missing, and his ID chip blinking red—yet again marked for skipping class.

"You were supposed to walk me to my activity room!" she said, stomping her foot lightly.

He chuckled. "I was busy running from mine. Priorities, kid."

Aeris huffed and was about to argue when another figure appeared beside her brother. He moved like a shadow—quiet and precise. His uniform was perfectly neat, his ID chip glowing green. Thin silver-rimmed glasses sat on the bridge of his nose. In his arms, he carried three thick manuals that looked heavier than Aeris herself.

he was Kazren.

Even now, watching through the lens of time, Liora’s breath caught. He looked... exactly the same. Just younger. Sharper jawline still soft with youth, eyes deep and unreadable even then. But the way he looked at her—that hadn’t changed.

Without a word, Kazren adjusted the books in his arms and stepped forward.

"You’ll be late," he said calmly, glancing at the clock embedded in the corridor wall. "Room C3."

Aeris blinked. "How do you know where I’m going?"

"I checked your schedule," he replied simply, not even looking at her.

Her brother groaned. "Seriously, man? You hacked the system again?"

Kazren didn’t reply. He just extended one hand toward Aeris.

"Let’s go."

And just like that, the memory unfolded further...like petals blooming in the warmth of sunlight.

The little Aeris had taken Kazren’s hand with no hesitation, her earlier frustration forgotten. She skipped beside him happily, holding onto his sleeve instead of his fingers. She was always like that. Even if he walked too fast, she would never let go.

Behind them, her brother jogged after them, whining like a child himself.

"Oi! Don’t just steal my sister like that! I’m the cool one, remember?"

But neither of them answered. Kazren didn’t look back, and the girl didn’t stop smiling.

They walked through the glass corridor, the city of Spire stretching out beyond the transparent walls. Silver towers rose high into the sky, transportation pods zipped across magnetic lines, and drones hovered quietly above the fields in the distance. It was a world so different from what Liora lived in. She had already realized this must be spire, the most advanced world.

Inside the memory, laughter echoed again.

A moment later, the scene shifted. The trio sat on a bench near the academy gardens. Liora was nibbling on a jelly stick while kicking her legs, Kazren was reading a manual on Plant Tropisms, and her brother—true to his unreliable charm—was drawing doodles on the back of his report sheet.

"You’ll get suspended if you fail again," Kazren said quietly, not looking up.

Her brother shrugged. "I’ve got talent in other things. Grades are boring."

Liora tilted her head. "Then why are you friends?"

Kazren paused.

Her brother grinned. "Because he needs me to remind him how to live a wonderful life."

"And he needs me to remind him what discipline looks like," Kazren added flatly.

That time, all three of them laughed.

From the outside, the current Liora stood within the memory like a ghost. She couldn’t touch them, couldn’t speak, but she watched it all—every small expression, every soft exchange.

She had forgotten this.

Forgotten how they had grown up together.

Forgotten that Kazren had once been part of her everyday life—not a stranger with blood on his hands, but a quiet boy who kept an extra jacket in his bag just in case she forgot hers.

She wasn’t afraid of anyone back then. Not even the Headmaster. Not even the sky-high exams. With the two of them beside her, she felt like nothing could ever go wrong.

How did things go so wrong?

And most of all...

How could Kazren be the same Kazren?

Her chest tightened. The name. The face. The eyes. The same. Exactly the same.

And yet the man she knew now—cold, distant, and cruel with secrets—felt like a stranger compared to this quiet boy who used to carry her backpack when it got too heavy.

Liora swallowed hard as the memory began to fade into glowing particles. But she couldn’t pull away. Not yet.

Not when her heart was only just beginning to remember.

And then—suddenly—the memory began to ripple, as though time itself had picked up speed.

Liora felt her breath hitch.

She watched Aeris again, but this time not as a child.

In a blink, her younger self grew older.

The image of a small girl with tangled pigtails and ink-stained fingers blurred, shifting into someone taller, quieter, more composed. Her body grew leaner, her features sharper. The childish laughter that once echoed through hallways had long since faded. In its place was silence. A focused silence. One that clung to her like a second skin.

The memory fast-forwarded like time unraveling in strands of light.

Her school uniform was replaced by dark jumpsuits and research coats. Her mornings no longer began with lunchboxes and scribbled notes. Now they started in sterile halls lined with blinking machines and hushed whispers of data streams. By fifteen, all her schooling had been completed—her tests passed, her scores flawless. She had nothing left to prove, so she did the only thing that made sense.

She enrolled in the Space Technologies Research Division.

It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t easy. But it was quiet. And in that silence, she buried the weight of growing up too fast. While other teens talked about music, about crushes, about summer trips, she spent her hours learning trajectory patterns, starship modules, and gravitational pulse systems. She memorized power routing, energy flux alignments, artificial atmosphere regulators—everything that let her keep her mind busy and her emotions buried.

She barely returned home during the week. The campus lab was open at all hours, and her instructors learned quickly that she preferred to stay in rather than return to the house on the hill. Because soon all of them grew busy in there own field as the trio grew up and Aeris felt lonely on that empty house without her father and brother.

Liora saw Aeris returning to one of the weekends because her father was coming back..

It was a rainy night.

She had been sitting near the heater, curled up with a book, when the door slammed open. She turned sharply. There stood Atlas, drenched from head to toe, his arms wrapped tightly around a bundle of cloth.

Her eyes widened. "Brother? What happened to you?"

He didn’t say a word. He simply walked inside with hurried steps and placed the bundle on the couch. Aeris rushed over, pulling the cloth back—and gasped.

A baby.

Tiny, delicate, and sleeping peacefully despite the noise. The baby’s hair was snow white, just like theirs. And when the baby blinked open his small eyes for a moment, Liora felt like she had seen that gaze before. Eyes like Atlas. Like their father. There was no denying it.

"W-Who—?" she stammered, looking at her brother, who stood soaked and silent.

He finally opened his mouth. "He’s mine."

The silence that followed was heavier than thunder.

Their father arrived within minutes, and everything turned into chaos.

Aeris had never seen her father so angry. Atlas stood still as stone, refusing to explain anything. He only repeated that it was his child. He didn’t say who the mother was. He didn’t say where she had gone. Not a single word more.

The punishment was brutal.

Atlas was beaten so badly that he could not leave his bed for a full month. Liora would hear his muffled groans at night. But even in his suffering, he never opened his mouth. He bore it in silence.

Their father tried everything. Investigations, background checks, searching their network—but nothing. No name. No trace. The girl, whoever she was, had vanished as if she never existed.

And in the middle of this storm was the baby.

The tiny life that had no fault. No voice. Just soft cries and small hands that reached out for warmth.

Aeris’s heart broke.

In the end, the responsibility fell into her hands.

She named him Eli.

She wrapped him in warm blankets. She fed him with trembling hands. She rocked him to sleep every night, whispering lullabies into his ears.

Her brother, once loud and careless, became a ghost in their home. After recovering enough to stand, he vanished again—leaving only a note behind.

"Take care of him. I’ll come back."

Aeris had torn the note in anger.

She had shouted at the empty room.

But she still waited.

Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. Eli grew, and so did her love for him. His small fingers wrapped around hers. He smiled when she entered the room. He would cry when she left his side. He called her sister before he ever said papa.

Even though she was only seventeen, she became a mother before she became a woman.

Her life faded into the background. She began to stay home more, taking care of the baby. She learned how to mix formula, how to change diapers, how to carry him while doing chores.

And all the while, one question never left her mind.

What happened to Atlas?

He was never like this. He was silly, unreliable, always joking, yes—but never heartless. Never cruel.

There had to be a reason.

So when Kazren visited again, she waited until Eli was asleep and pulled him aside.

"Kazren," she said quietly, "do you know what happened to Atlas?"

Kazren frowned. His glasses reflected the dim lights, hiding his eyes for a moment.

"No," he said. "I’ve asked. He won’t tell me."

Aeris watched him closely. Kazren was always serious, always calm. If Atlas was fire, then Kazren was the quiet water that tamed it. The two had been close since they were young, despite being complete opposites. She had always wondered how their bond had formed, but never questioned it much.

But now...

"I don’t think he hurt anyone," she whispered. "Atlas wouldn’t." She was sure of it, even through her brother was unreliable. but she trust him.

Kazren nodded slowly. "I don’t think so either. But whatever happened... it’s eating him alive."

That thought chilled her more than the winter wind outside.

For now, all she could do was wait. Care for Eli. Protect the family that Atlas had left in her hands.

As she watched the baby sleep that night, with soft breaths and peaceful dreams, she whispered, "Don’t worry, Eli. I’ll be your sister. Your mother. Everything. Until your papa comes home."

But deep inside her, a quiet voice whispered:

Will he ever come back?