Chapter 1848: Do you need a reason to crush a cockroach?

Aether's POV

I stared at the man who called me stepson.

I blankly stared at him without even blinking, my body frozen beneath the artificial light pouring through the ceiling.

I just stared at him.

Grey hair that came with age framed his face. His slightly wrinkled skin carried the quiet evidence of decades, while his maroon eyes remained fixed on me with nothing but indifference and coldness.

There was no anger in those eyes.

He stared at me up and down for a few seconds before slowly looking toward Epsilon and Iron Marshal.

"Disappointment... That is the only word your performance has earned. I gave you both a stage upon which to prove your worth, and somehow you managed to turn victory into embarrassment," he said, shaking his head mildly.

His voice wasn't loud. It didn't need to be.

Epsilon and Iron Marshal lowered their heads.

Iron Marshal stepped forward to say something, but the man immediately raised one finger.

"Save your explanation."

The single command stopped him mid-step.

Iron Marshal's mechanical armour hummed as its internal servos locked into place. He lowered his head.

Then the man's eyes moved toward the broken Mother System.

Its circular sphere core flickered irregularly. Then his gaze returned to me.

"Even this lesser version of yours forced them back..." he murmured, sizing me up before glaring at his Governors.

His expression hardened.

"That's repulsive. If you cannot handle this one, how are we all going to sustain ourselves in the near future?"

Alpha, Epsilon, and Iron Marshal simply knelt quietly.

He stared at them as if they had committed the biggest crime before finally looking back at me.

Then he smiled professionally.

It was the kind of smile politicians wore when cameras were watching.

Empty.

"Ah... right...I suppose you deserve an explanation. Not because you are entitled to one, of course... but... Yeah... I had been watching you, Aether.

And if you have to thank someone... it should be none other than your best friend that you just said you trust more than your life."

The corner of his lip twitched upward, almost amused, as if he was barely holding back his laughter.

My vacant eyes moved toward Jonathan.

He was smirking at me with a sly grin.

"..."

My vacant eyes remained fixed on him.

He?

My throat tightened.

H-He betrayed me?

Something inside my chest cracked.

Jonathan shook his head.

"Don't look at me like that, Aether. You're making me feel guilty." His voice carried a faint note of disappointment before his smirk returned.

"In fact, I pleaded with your father to spare your miserable life..." He chuckled.

"You should be thanking me."

"Do you know how hard it was convincing him that you were still worth keeping alive?"

"And yet you talked a bunch of nonsense and refused to fuck Sasha and Maiuri. Do you know how much they worked on seducing you?"

He laughed beneath his breath.

"You really thought they were trying to seduce you because they liked you?"

He laughed.

"God, Aether... you were adorable. They weren't falling for you. They were working you."

"Man, they practically spread their legs, and yet you were acting like a saint... Argh! Fuck!"

He shook his head in genuine disappointment.

"If only you fucked them, we could have become best friends even more, and instead, you destroyed half of the Delta and pissed off the President. Tsk, Tsk... Now that's something even I couldn't accept"

"..."

My mind refused to process the words.

What...

What was he talking about?

Those were his wives?

Fuck them?

D-Don't tell me...

All their actions were planned?

The memories came back in fragments.

Their smiles.

Their touches.

Their voices.

Just then, a sly voice came from behind me.

"Don't you think you're betraying your husband by doing this? It's wrong, Sa~sha~."

The voice slid against my ears with deliberate mockery.

I tilted my head.

Sasha was standing right next to me. She wore a sly grin.

She looked at me as though she were watching a wounded animal struggle to understand why the trap had closed.

She said it as if she were trying to mimic someone.

"If you truly want another man, then leave my friend first before starting a relationship with someone else~ Argh... Bitch, please."

Slap!

The impact snapped my head sideways.

My cheek burned.

A thin line of blood immediately appeared where her nails had grazed my skin.

She grabbed my chin and forced my face back toward her.

"You should have fucked me instead of bitching about it! Now look at you... Tsk, tsk... look at you, poor thing... Look at you."

She shook her head with mere pitifulness, as if she genuinely cared about my situation.

That expression disgusted me more than the slap.

Her fingertips slowly traced the blood beneath my cheek.

Then she smiled.

"I love to have your dick inside me... so that you can break my pussy, but instead, you just kept running away like a pussy."

Her voice became colder.

"Honestly, it started to disgust me. Yuck... I was pretending to be innocent, but I really wanted to puke half the time... Fuck me! At one point, we didn't have much choice other than to use a powerful aphrodisiac in the food, and yet even then you didn't rape us... How annoying!"

My breathing stopped.

Rape them?

The memories rearranged themselves inside my head.

The meals.

The warnings.

The times I had wondered why they behaved strangely around me.

"I honestly wanted to rape you if not for him warning us. Tsk, tsk..." she said as she looked at my crotch and let out a huge sigh.

"Such a big cock... and it's going to be wasted."

She stared at my crotch for several seconds before suddenly glancing at Jonathan, as if silently asking whether she could finally do what she had wanted.

Jonathan immediately shook his head.

Then he pointed toward the President.

The man's maroon eyes were already fixed on her.

Sasha's playful expression vanished.

She swallowed hard before lowering herself to her knees.

"Forgive me, President. I overstepped my boundaries."

I blankly stared at the girl I had once believed was innocent.

The person whose smile I had trusted.

The person whose words I had once believed.

Now she was giggling again, her expression twisting into something sly and unfamiliar as she slowly sized me up and down.

It felt as though I were looking at a stranger wearing the face of someone I used to know.

The man who called me stepson reached out and casually ruffled my hair.

"I tried everything..." he said coldly. "Bringing you here. Breaking your heart. Breaking your mind. Breaking your hope."

His fingers lingered against my hair for another moment before he withdrew his hand.

"And yet... why haven't I seen that black thing of yours?"

His maroon eyes narrowed.

"You know... the monster inside you that played in the Delta Tower."

Upon hearing those words, my eyes widened.

How did he know that?

No.

He couldn't.

Everyone around the Delta Tower had been swallowed by the dimensional collapse.

Everyone!

Except me!!

The man simply smirked as if he knew what I was thinking.

"Yeah. I had been on the other side of the room while you played in the portal section."

He spoke as casually as someone recalling an evening meal.

"I watched everything. And colour me surprised when I learned that you are... the husband of Aqualina Naiadae."

He paused deliberately.

"The ruler of three Empires."

A quiet laugh escaped him.

"Hah... You?"

His eyes travelled over my battered body.

"A pathetic little bug who didn't even know how to speak properly... a ruler?"

His expression became one of open contempt.

"Argh... If you can be the ruler, I can already imagine how much IQ those fuckdarts have."

"..."

My hand trembled as I tried to raise myself to my feet.

Pain tore through my chest.

"Don't move."

His voice stopped me.

"That thing attached to your chest... is an energy-core reactor that could erase you from within."

I froze.

Slowly, I looked down.

The circular device was embedded against my chest.

Its concentric rings rotated, each layer moving independently. Blue-white energy pulsed beneath its metallic surface.

The man watched it with detached interest.

"But anyway... Even after Lily's death... you haven't changed a bit."

Something inside me twisted at the mention of her name.

"Was another condition required, or what?"

His tone became almost curious.

As though Lily's death were merely another experiment that had produced an inconvenient result.

My teeth clenched.

"...You are... behind all of this?"

My voice cracked.

"Using my friends against me?"

I swallowed the blood gathering in my mouth.

"Huh?"

My eyes burned.

"What kind of trick did you use against them?"

The man stared at me.

For a moment, he said nothing.

Then he slowly shook his head.

"Oh, Aether... You still haven't got it, have you?"

He stepped closer.

"There was no trick. People do not require deception when their interests are aligned."

He leaned toward me slightly.

"Since the day you left that house... Every step you took afterwards was made under circumstances I had already prepared."

"..."

My eyes slowly widened in utter shock.

Since I left the house?

The words echoed inside my skull.

Since the day I left?

Every memory suddenly felt contaminated.

Every conversation.

Every smile.

Every hand that had reached toward me.

Every moment I had thought someone genuinely cared.

Had... they all been watching me?

Were they... laughing at me when I wasn't looking?

I turned toward Jonathan.

He simply giggled.

Then he winked at me.

"What? You think we are so magnanimous as to stay beside a defective product like you?"

He scoffed.

There was no hesitation in his voice.

No regret.

Nothing.

Just... contempt.

"..."

My vision blurred.

I couldn't hear anything anymore.

I couldn't even hear my own breathing.

All I could hear was that sentence.

Defective product!

Jonathan shook his head with even more pity.

"You should have understood who you are."

His smile slowly disappeared.

"You can never, ever go against your father."

"..."

My eyes dropped.

Tears gathered in my pupils, trembling there before finally spilling down my face.

I didn't wipe them away.

I couldn't.

Everything...

Everything I had believed in...

I had just been played in someone else's hands.

Like nothing.

Like my choices had never belonged to me.

Like every desperate decision I had made had already been anticipated before I even made it.

My chest tightened until breathing itself became painful.

The man before me watched my expression, his lips curled.

Then he casually asked,

"Oh, right... You had been asking about Allen, right?"

He snapped his fingers.

In the next instant...

A whitish-black mech-suit walked into the corridor, carrying the unconscious Nova like a prisoner.

"He is here... Now what?" the man asked as he pointed toward the whitish-black mech-suit.

I looked at him.

No words came out of my mouth.

I simply looked at my friends.

Both of them.

All those smiles...

All those conversations...

All those connections...

Everything I had believed was real now felt blurred, as though someone had poured acid over every memory I possessed.

The man looked at me, hummed quietly, and glanced toward Allen.

Allen stepped forward.

He put Nova down on the cold metallic floor before placing two fingers against her neck.

A tiny electrical discharge travelled through her body.

Her muscles immediately convulsed.

"Argh!"

Nova groaned as her eyes snapped open.

She breathed heavily, disoriented for only a moment before her gaze swept across the corridor.

Then she understood.

She didn't need anyone to explain the situation.

The armed Governors.

The President.

Everyone was here.

Everyone was surrounding us.

Her eyes finally settled on me.

For a moment, she simply stared.

Then her gaze dropped toward the strange device embedded in my chest.

The circular reactor continued to pulse on my chest.

Nova's expression changed.

She looked back at my face.

The man standing before me spoke coldly.

"Genome Beta, due to your negligence and disobedience, I hereby remove you from the Order."

Alpha immediately raised her hand.

Metal shifted around her forearm.

Panels separated.

A black-gold weapon unfolded from within the mechanical armour with a series of precise clicks.

Click.

Click.

Click.

The barrel stopped directly beside Nova's head.

Nova stared at the weapon.

For some reason, her expression softened.

Then she smiled.

"So... this is it... ah."

Her voice was quiet.

There was no hatred in it. No pleading.

She smiled the same way she used to when she welcomed me.

The same smile she used when she teased me.

The same smile I had believed belonged only to the person I knew.

A smile I could never forget.

Her eyes blurred with tears.

She looked directly at me.

"I finally see you, Aethy."

[+10000 AP]

!~Ding~!

[Congratulations on Completing the Hidden Mission: Seduce Nova Kestrel]

!~Ding~!

[Reward: 200,000 Affection Points]

!~Ding~!

[Reward: Skill: Perfected Genome]

My heart stopped.

Nova swallowed.

Her throat tightened as tears gathered in her eyes.

She looked at me as though she wanted to memorise my face before everything ended.

"I want you to know... that 'She' loved you... She would do anything to protect you, Aether... She really loves yo—"

SPLASH!

Her head exploded before my eyes.

!!

Blood and fragments of flesh struck my face.

Warm... Wet.

For a second, I forgot how to breathe.

The sound seemed to stretch through eternity.

Her headless body remained upright for half a second before collapsing onto the metallic floor with a heavy thud.

Blood spread beneath her.

A thin stream ran down my forehead, crossed my cheek, and reached my lips.

I tasted the blood... Nova's blood.

My lips parted slightly.

Nothing came out.

I simply stared at her body.

The man stared into my eyes.

He studied my expression.

Then he tilted his head slightly.

As if my reaction still wasn't enough.

As if watching another person die in front of me had failed to produce the answer he wanted.

He turned toward Jonathan.

He didn't say a word.

Jonathan understood immediately.

That familiar sly smile returned to his face.

"Oh, right... There was one thing you should know, Aether."

My eyes remained fixed on Nova's body.

Jonathan's voice continued.

"I told you Mother is dead, right?"

"..."

I couldn't move.

My eyes were still staring at the blood spreading beneath her.

Jonathan paused.

Then he smiled.

"Actually... she didn't die."

I blinke—

"Allen killed her."

He said it as though he were informing me that someone had simply arrived late.

"...??"

My mind went blank.

For one second, I couldn't understand the sentence.

Then the meaning reached me.

Allen... Killed... Mother.

My breathing became shallow.

I slowly turned my head toward Allen.

He stood there.

"..."

I stared at him.

My lips parted.

I tried to speak.

Nothing came out.

My throat was dry.

My lips trembled.

I swallowed, but even that felt difficult.

He killed her?

My vision began to tremble.

Nova's blood was still dripping from my face.

And suddenly, the most terrifying realisation wasn't that they had betrayed me.

It was that they had been doing it for so long...

and I had never noticed.

Not once.

My eyes remained fixed on Allen.

I wanted to scream.

I wanted to demand an answer.

I wanted to tear the truth out of him with my bare hands.

But my body refused to obey... as if this was too much burden to hold together.

I only knelt there with dried blood on my lips, staring at the man who had apparently murdered my mother.

And for the first time...

I wondered whether there was anything left inside me that could still break.

Jonathan laughed wickedly.

"Hahaha... You should have seen her face when she begged us not to kill her."

His laughter echoed through the corridor.

"Man, even I felt pity when Allen broke her limbs and twisted her inch by inch before the old hag finally held on to the last thread of her life."

He paused.

Then he leaned toward my ear.

"Do you know what she said when her life finally slipped away?"

His voice dropped into a cold whisper.

"I am... sorry, Aether."

Drip...

Drip...

The tears finally slipped down my face, carrying thin trails through Nova's blood.

I didn't even realise I was crying.

They simply fell.

One after another.

As though they had been trapped inside me all this time, waiting for the moment when I finally had nothing left to hold them back.

Why?

Why are they doing this?

What did I do to deserve this?

My fingers trembled.

My chest tightened.

"Tsk, tsk... What a bitch! After hurting you, and she's sorry? Haha," Jonathan continued to laugh wickedly.

I slowly raised my eyes toward the man.

My voice was barely audible.

"...Why?"

The word escaped my throat like a dying breath.

The man tilted his head, wearing a slightly confused expression.

Then his lips curved into an amused smile.

"There is no reason to crush a cockroach, Aether. You crush it because you can."

"..."

I blankly stared at him.

Was that all?

Was this really the reason?

No revenge.

No grand conspiracy.

No justification.

I was simply something beneath him.

Something that could be crushed because he felt like crushing it.

A cockroach?

That's all I was to him.

Beep!

A sharp electronic sound suddenly came from the device attached to my chest.

I lowered my eyes.

The circular reactor opened.

A tiny mechanical compartment unfolded from its centre before a small cylindrical object shot outward.

The man caught it effortlessly between two fingers.

He examined the transparent capsule.

My blood floated inside it.

He raised it toward the light, watching the crimson liquid slowly swirl within the containment chamber.

"Hmmm..." His eyes briefly flickered with interest. "So this is what I needed."

Then he looked at me.

"See you, my dear stepson..."

He turned around without hesitation.

He simply walked away as though his work here was finished.

As though I wasn't even worth another glance.

Alpha stepped forward.

Her black-gold gun was already raised.

The barrel stopped directly in front of my forehead.

Alpha's finger slowly moved toward the trigger.

Just as she was about to press it, the man's footsteps suddenly stopped.

He turned his head slightly.

"She really loves you?"

His voice carried a faint trace of amusement.

Then his smile widened.

"Shall we test that?"

He said it with a haughty tone before continuing to walk away.

My heart suddenly skipped.

What?

What did he mean?

I didn't have time to think.

Click!

The sound came from directly in front of me.

My eyes instinctively lifted... The black helmet shifted back as a deep black glossal long hair fell; two golden eyes stared right at me indifferently,

My pupils widened in shock.

"...Pen—"

SPLASH!

!~Ding~!

[Activating Forsaken Bloodline.]