The Conquerors Path
chapter-552

"With all in agreement, I can start, right?"

I asked, my words earning their nods, yet a presence of unease still lay within all of them. Not having the mind to deal with that now, I turned towards Mira, a nod leaving me to which Mira just nudged me away with Aria.

The two of us quickly appeared in a closed basement, the raw corruption energy here being disgusting and huge.

"I hate this place, Daddy," Aria spoke as her nose wrinkled along with her eyes. To this, I patted Aria's head, my eyes moving toward the minuscule crack in the air, floating in the middle of the room. The corruption energy that should be unseen now in the open and clear eyes as dangerous red tendrils-like energy kept escaping from the crack, its size barely being equivalent to a pinky finger, yet the consequences of its power were devastating to the world.

"Now you just pretend to pass your power to me while you place your hand on me, got it?"

I spoke, to which Aria lovingly nodded her head. Thus, I walked toward the crack as I gazed at it. Its figure is similar to that of a broken mirror, forming a portal yet I am unable to gaze to the other side. A red screen-like covering taking over the other side.

'Now it's all or nothing...'

Musing to myself, I activated the connection, this time bonding myself to Orpheus, thus granting me about 30 seconds of power enough to destroy worlds. Aria placed her hand on my back and pretended to pass on energy to me while my finger touched the crack, the bloodline energy of mine lashing from within me as it covered both of me and Aria completely.

A disgusting feeling filled my head as I touched the crack, something deep within my blood and body both fearing and hating this crack. And under such, I got hold of my energy and pushed it towards the crack. But the moment my energy met the crack, the world froze around me.

'What is it now?....'

[This is bad...']

No sooner had the system's words ended, a pressure like never before fell upon me, even me with my current level of power being helpless as my knees buckled. Then it came, the feeling of death, the world around me twisted as I seemed to enter a white room, my knees still on the floor.

'What is this?'

My mind turned a bit sluggish as two sets of pairs of eyes suddenly opened up above me. Even looking at them, I could only tell they were eyes from their shape, the size of the eyes, their presence of any other detail being blurred from my eyes. And for the first time in a long time, I knew my death was near, even with my immortality of life. These beings, whatever they are, are capable of taking away my gifts and killing me off.

'So is this how it ends?'

It would seem after all of my trials and hard work, this is how I will die. The pressure around me soon started to get higher, and the eyes focused on me like never before, the feeling of death started to get closer and closer to me, until...

+100 affection!

+100 affection!

+100 affection!

'??'

[??]

'What the heck happened?'

[You tell me!]

Seeing the rising affection of those two eyes towards me, my mind stopped for a moment. Even the system seemed more confused than me, but the good thing that happened was that the pressure holding me down disappeared as I found myself back in my position, the crack in front of me now closed, the entire corruption energy here now gone, with Aria still clutching me. Yet even with all this, my mind still stayed in a daze.

'What the heck was that?'

Do I have some sort of special power that seems to make beings of extreme power suddenly form an affection for me? Perhaps I am really dead back in my world and I am still going through a lucid dream at the end of my life? Maybe I am brain-dead and trapped in an illusion?

[It's none of that, and you know it...]

The system suddenly interrupted my thoughts, and within that time, my family and friends appeared in the room, their worried eyes on me. But seeing that I was fine, they all smiled. Suddenly, my brain had to deal with a lot of things which led me to close my eyes for a moment.

'I will deal with you later.'

Giving my warning to the system, I focused back on my family, my smile finding myself at the hug of my mother and her bountiful bosom, her hand patting my head as she spoke.

"Thank God, I was worried..."

I just smiled at her words, not even going to say the fact that I was near the step of death a few seconds ago. Though this once again reminds me of how much I have adapted to this world. In my moments of close death, the only thing that kept passing through my mind was how my death would affect all those girls in love with me. The thought of how my family would definitely break again kept resounding in my mind.

I am more than sure that Clara will definitely follow me in death, and perhaps most of my lovers might even go crazy, and something bad will definitely cover the world. It is within this recollection of mine that Orpheus's voice filled my mind.

'Son! Are you alright?'

'Mother?'

I asked back.

'Don't you worry a bit, your mommy will deal with this. For a moment, I thought I lost you...'

This was the first time I ever heard such raw emotions of fear and passion in Orpheus's words. And this once again showed me that whoever I faced was no easy foe. I'm sure that Orpheus is yearning to just take me away but is holding back for some reason.

'Son, don't worry, nothing like this will happen again...'

With such words, my connection to Orpheus was cut as Grace asked me in a worried voice.

"Son, are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

I responded, a smile gracing my face as I placed a kiss on Grace's cheeks. My action earned a smile from her as I looked at the group here, my eyes meeting all of them as I spoke.

"Shall we start the play?"

....

Third Person POV:

The world soon entered another level of shock and surprise, the news of the fall of the Hillclowd family making its way into the depths of every power, the information of their slavery and misuse of different types of species shocking the core of people related to the Hillclowd family. The waves of despair filled the surroundings of the Rockville kingdom.

While only the news of slavery use filled the common populace, the true powerhouses of the world understood the inner depths of the sin of the Hillclowd family, their name now forever etched as one of the biggest betrayals to the world. As the news of their connection to corruption energy and their practices hit the news.

Within minutes, powerful people across the world, belonging to different powerful places, gathered within the halls of Hillclowd. The main bargaining being done by the War Council as the sins of the Hillclowd family were enough to shake both the realms.

Though once a clear picture started to form of the sins of the family, deep surprise and disbelief started to fill every one. The more evidence all of the powers read, the more chilling the case and situation became.

The pills, the babies, the chimeras, the connection to corruption energy, the inscriptions on everyone, and finally, the most dangerous part, the crack, this made everyone reevaluate the threat covering all over the world.

But their surprise of everyone only deepened when they learned about the closing of the crack, being the powers they are, they did their own research and calculations to arrive at their own deductions which only furthered to birth the greed in everyone's heart. The prospect of closing the crack brings a new light of hope within the hearts of the people.

But that was dashed as soon as the figure of Austin was revealed just to the few trustworthy powerful people of the War Council. The look of Austin being in a near-death state, with his survival barely hanging by a thread with the help of innumerable healing spells, made everyone understand that the idea of claiming the huge crack threatening the world is close to nil.

"This happened because he didn't have enough energy..."

Mira spoke with surprised rage and sadness, her hands lovingly patting Austin's face as the others watched on, the mana in the entire place trembling at the anger of Mira as one of the spokespersons spoke.

"If he is to get stronger, will it help?"

To this, the reddened eyes of Mira seen through the veil focused on the man, the mana around getting tighter as she spoke her words with clear meaning.

"He is almost half dead even with taking in my energy. Do you have any other questions?"

The maddened glare of Mira reminded the other people to take a back step as another person spoke.

"Then we will take him to the saintess of life, this boy is the future of the world, and we can't lose him."

"It's already done, I will be taking him to the saintess and keeping him under my watch."

The roughness in Mira's voice left no question as she left with her nephew, her back looking quite weak and down.