That night, Silvergard Fortress was once again swallowed by a raging blizzard.
After Duke Richard left the birthing chamber, the servants quickly completed the preparations to move Freya and her newborn son to the main bedchamber.
The physician confirmed that the duchess was in stable condition before giving his final instructions regarding her care.
Edward, Cedric, and Elena eventually returned to their respective rooms as well.
For them, that night marked the beginning of life with a new member of the family.
For Aiden, however, something far more important than his birth and first family reunion occupied his thoughts.
The tattoo on his father’s hand.
The brief glimmer he had witnessed before Richard left the room continued to linger in his mind.
The pattern did not look like ordinary decoration.
There was an underlying order to it, as though every line formed part of a much larger design.
Aiden did not yet know what it meant.
And he had no way to investigate it.
His body was not even capable of lifting its head without assistance.
For now, all he could do was observe, remember, and wait.
After all, although his consciousness belonged to a man who had lived for forty years, the body he now inhabited was still that of a newborn.
He could not force his will upon it simply because his mind was accustomed to dealing with a far more complicated world.
There were limits he needed to understand.
And secrets that were not yet meant to be uncovered.
The first few days of Aiden’s life in Silvergard passed peacefully.
Snow continued to blanket the fortress grounds.
The guards took turns keeping watch from the towers, while border patrols continued their rounds despite the blizzard showing no signs of fully subsiding.
In the main bedchamber, Freya spent most of her time with her youngest son.
Aiden rarely cried.
Most of the time, he slept, woke to nurse, and then drifted back to sleep in his mother’s embrace.
To the servants, he was simply a relatively quiet baby.
To Freya, his calmness was a relief, though it occasionally left her wondering.
“He doesn’t even cry when he wakes up,” Freya remarked one morning.
An elderly maid who was arranging the blankets smiled.
“Perhaps the young master simply has a calm disposition, Your Grace.”
Freya gazed at her son.
“I hope so. I wouldn’t want him to grow up as stubborn as Cedric.”
Aiden heard his mother’s words.
If he could speak, he might have told her that stubbornness was hardly the greatest problem he faced at the moment.
His real challenge was far more fundamental.
He had to understand his new body.
And he had to make sure the six anomalous sources connected through Synchronization did not interfere with its development.
Those six Pantheon avatars were not six living souls residing within him.
They were characters he had once created and developed to the maximum level in a virtual world that should have been shut down by now.
Yet the connection established at his birth was not something he could afford to ignore.
He still did not understand why Synchronization had managed to reach all six avatars, let alone how data that should have remained stored on Pantheon’s servers could now be connected to his soul in this world.
Worse still, he did not know whether the connection was merely passive or whether it continued to influence him.
For that reason, he decided against conducting any reckless experiments.
He would observe even the slightest changes, learn the limits of his body, and wait until he had enough control to conduct tests safely.
For now, survival was his highest priority.
Several days later, a gray afternoon settled over Silvergard.
The winter sunlight could not penetrate the thick layers of clouds.
Through the window, Aiden could see only the snow-covered fortress courtyard and soldiers crossing the grounds in heavy cloaks.
Freya was resting after spending time with her son.
A maid stood guard not far from the bed, while Aiden lay awake with his eyes open.
A knock came at the door.
“Come in,” Freya said softly.
Duke Richard von Silver entered the room alone.
He had changed out of his border patrol cloak and into a black training shirt.
His silver hair was still slightly disheveled, while his rolled-up sleeves revealed arms covered in scars.
Tattooed lines stretched across his skin, beginning at his palms and continuing up his arms.
Richard nodded to the maid before approaching the bed.
“How are you both doing today?”
“Fine,” Freya replied.
“The physician says my recovery is progressing as expected.”
“Good.”
Richard studied his wife for a moment before turning his attention to their son.
“And Aiden hasn’t been giving you any trouble?”
Freya smiled faintly.
“Not as much as I feared. He’s far calmer than his older siblings were.”
“Then perhaps he’ll be the only child of ours who doesn’t drive his caretakers to the brink of exhaustion.”
Freya chuckled softly.
“Don’t jump to conclusions. He can’t even walk yet.”
Richard let out a brief laugh.
Then he bent down to get a closer look at Aiden.
The baby was awake.
His sapphire-blue eyes followed the duke’s movements with the same calmness he had displayed during their first encounter.
Richard fell silent for a moment.
“He still looks at people like that.”
“Like what?” Freya asked.
“As though he’s trying to understand what the person in front of him is thinking.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Perhaps.”
Richard extended his hand, allowing Aiden to wrap his fingers around one of his own.
The tiny fingers closed weakly around his skin.
A simple gesture.
Nothing unusual for a father playing with his baby.
Yet, the moment their skin touched, something changed.
The tattooed lines across Richard’s palm trembled.
At first, the movement was so subtle that it was barely visible in the pale light filtering through the window.
Then a silvery glow spread along the pattern.
Richard immediately fell silent.
The tremor did not originate from the Aura he normally controlled.
He recognized the energy pulsing within his own body, including the ancient resonance embedded in the tattoo on his hand.
The tattoo carried a legacy far older than the history of House Silver.
The legacy of the True Dragon.
Over the years, Richard had learned to control its power.
He knew when the tattoo would respond to the flow of Aura, when its resonance would intensify, and when he needed to suppress the energy to keep it from overflowing.
But this time, he was not channeling Aura.
He was merely touching his son.
And the tattoo had reacted.
Zrryt—!
A spark of silvery light flashed between their hands.
Richard immediately brought his Aura under control.
He suppressed the energy before it could spread throughout the room.
The maid near the door turned at the faint sound.
“My lord?”
“It’s nothing,” Richard replied without taking his eyes off his hand.
“Return to your duties.”
The maid hesitated for a moment but eventually obeyed.
Freya looked at her husband with concern.
“What happened?”
Richard did not answer immediately.
He stared at the tattoo on his palm, then looked at Aiden, who was still holding his finger.
The baby did not cry.
Nor did he show any signs of fear.
He simply gazed at Richard with clear sapphire-blue eyes.
As though nothing unusual had happened.
Richard felt the remaining tremor in his hand gradually fade.
Yet, before the resonance disappeared completely, he sensed something that made him even more wary.
The pressure emanating from his True Dragon tattoo had not been directly repelled by the foreign energy.
Instead, that pressure seemed to be redirected, unraveled, and then absorbed without any significant clash.
Like water flowing around a stone.
Or a defensive system recognizing an attack pattern and adapting before impact.
Richard furrowed his brow.
He had never experienced a response like this before.
Even the experts who had helped him study the True Dragon legacy had never described such a possibility.
And now, this reaction had occurred while he was touching a baby who was only a few days old.
“Did you feel anything?” Freya asked.
Richard looked at his wife.
“There’s nothing you need to worry about.”
He spoke calmly, but his mind was already filled with questions.
Richard did not consider himself easily surprised.
Years of guarding the border had taught him not to rush to conclusions based on a single incident.
Perhaps something had changed in the tattoo’s resonance.
Perhaps residual energy from his patrol was still affecting his control.
Or perhaps there was something he did not yet understand about the relationship between the True Dragon legacy and the bloodline of House Silver.
He would not settle on any explanation without evidence.
But one thing could not be denied.
The tattoo had reacted at the exact moment he touched Aiden.
Within his tiny body, Aiden tried to make sense of what had just happened.
He had felt the change.
When Richard’s finger touched his hand, one of the six anomalous sources connected to him had responded faintly to the True Dragon resonance.
No voice spoke to him.
No avatar took control of his consciousness.
There was only a subtle change in the flow of energy, one he could not yet fully understand.
Aiden resisted the urge to investigate further.
His body was still far too weak.
He could not even move his hands with precision, let alone control the flow of energy that had just reacted.
Forcing Synchronization under these circumstances would be no different from putting his own life at risk.
He had made similar mistakes countless times while navigating the dangerous environments of Pantheon.
He had no intention of repeating them in his second life.
Not yet.
Aiden slowly loosened his grip.
He was not deliberately severing his connection to the six avatars.
He was simply restraining the response that had just emerged, allowing his body to return to a state of calm.
The glow on Richard’s tattoo faded as well.
The duke watched the change but found no new clues.
Aiden once again looked like an ordinary baby holding his father’s finger.
Richard slowly withdrew his hand.
“Interesting,” he murmured.
Freya raised an eyebrow.
“What is?”
Richard remained silent for a moment before giving a faint smile.
“Our son.”
Freya shook her head gently.
“You’ve spent only a few minutes with him, and you’re already looking for something interesting.”
“I’m merely saying that there’s something unusual about his gaze.”
“He’s a baby, Richard.”
“I know.”
Richard gently stroked Aiden’s head before straightening up.
“I won’t disturb him any longer.”
He kissed Freya on the forehead and turned toward the door.
However, before leaving, he paused and looked at his youngest son one more time.
There was something about the baby he could not explain.
Nothing substantial enough to draw a conclusion from.
Just an unanswered question.
And Richard von Silver disliked leaving questions unanswered for too long.
After the door closed, the room fell quiet once more.
Freya had closed her eyes to rest.
The maid returned to her place near the door, while Aiden lay beneath his blanket.
From the outside, Silvergard appeared unchanged.
A border fortress enduring the blizzard.
A home to a noble family burdened with great responsibilities.
And the place where a baby had begun his second life.
Yet, beneath that calm exterior, Aiden was beginning to understand that this world was not as simple as it appeared.
He did not know the origin of Richard’s tattoo.
He did not understand the relationship between the True Dragon legacy and the energy emerging from within him.
And he had no idea whether the reaction had occurred by chance or was a sign of something much greater.
All he knew was that this world had rules he had yet to understand.
And beyond that resonance, something far older than Silvergard Fortress seemed to have received a signal that something which should not exist had appeared in this world.