Ten Years of Absolute Rule in the Dark, and My Daughter Says I'm a Failure as a Father

“Your dad's a hero? Ha! He's a coward who abandoned his wife and daughter!”

In the Age of Ruin, Xu Zongjian's name was carved onto the Heroes' Monument. His daughter, Xu Wangjun, grew up amid abuse. Her mother took under-the-table jobs to support her, until the skin on all ten fingers split and rotted. They slept with knives beneath their pillows, surrounded by rumors.

She hated the father called a “hero”! She hated that he had died for empty fame, leaving them to struggle in a living hell!

Then the Federation discovered an anomaly beyond their borders and pulled up live footage from the battlefield!

Above a mountain of colossal beast corpses, a figure shattered the starry sky!

The camera zoomed in. A man stood alone with a sword, his robes stained with blood, yet his back seemed to hold up the entire heavens!

Xu Zongjian! The “fallen soldier” on the monument had never gone down!

He was humanity's last guardian!

And also the man on the screen, the father she had hated for twenty years!

“I’m here. I’ve always been here.” His hoarse voice came back to Blue Star.

The whole world broke down in tears. Only Xu Wangjun bit her lip hard, her nails digging into her palm.

“Why... didn’t you come home for twenty years?!”

“Was being humanity’s hero more important than being my dad?!”

The truth was a knife: the final battle had been a lie! The alien beasts were still alive, and the rift had never been sealed!

Xu Zongjian had guarded the boundary alone for twenty years, building a wall with his blood. Behind him stood a Heroes' Monument piled thousands of feet high, alongside mountains of corpses...

He had shed every last drop of blood for humanity, but left his daughter with no tears to shed!

Xu Wangjun trembled all over. She hated him for abandoning her and her mother to suffer every humiliation... but hated even more the same stubborn instinct to protect others rushing through her veins!

When Xu Zongjian's bloodstained gaze pierced the sea of stars, his whispered words shattered the world:

“Actually... I missed you both.”

Xu Wangjun finally broke down, pounding the ground as she screamed through her tears:

“You only miss us now?! Father... you owe me twenty years! Father... I hate you!”