Consolidation

Since I promised my wife that I would have breakfast with her, I set up a space-locking formation around Lonba and returned to our house. Naturally, I left a clone in the city to find the person and keep an eye on them. Clones were really useful at times like these.

Lien was in the middle of setting the table with the help of Felice and Reiner while I was welcomed by the round sight of my wife’s ass. I couldn’t help but silently admire it for a moment before speaking. “How come you two woke up so early?” I asked, turning towards the kids.

“It’s not so early anymore,” Lien replied as she turned around and brushed her hair behind her ear. Her beauty was a bit too much to handle for me from time to time, and this was definitely one of those dazzling moments.

I regained my focus only after seeing my daughter’s cute reaction. “But it’s earlier than usual!” Felice chimed in, tugging on her mother’s skirt.

“Haha, yes, my dear, it’s earlier but it’s still a bit late,” she laughed at her cute remark. Considering that it was already past ten o’clock, it was definitely ‘late’, though it wasn’t like Lien and I were some early birds. Sleeping in was definitely one of our bad habits but it couldn’t be helped.

“We can play with our mana more this way,” Reiner answered my question, ignoring the women in the house.

“I could have sworn it had to do with that,” I couldn’t help but smile upon hearing his words. They definitely inherited our curiosity and interest in magic.

“Where did you go?” Lien asked.

“I think Leo or one of his accomplices is in Lonba,” I replied.

Raising her brows, she kept staring at me like an idiot for a good second before saying through Link, “Are you an idiot? What are you doing here then?”

“I can’t just dump my wife’s food even if-”

“Aaargh! Don’t be stupid! Go, quickly before he leaves or something! I’ll take care of the kids,” she waved her hand.

“My family comes first for me,” I replied, still doing as told.

“Your father will go out for some time so be good and listen to your mother,” I said aloud and then teleported back to Lonba.

 “Should I go with you? I can take the kids to Mother for the time being,” Lien asked, sounding a bit worried.

“It’s up to you but don’t forget that Lonba is quite lawless. The strong rules over the weak and considering your looks, I’m afraid you’d cause me more trouble than help…”

“Erm, okay…” she replied, turning silent all of a sudden. It wasn’t without reason that Lugh had no authority in Leviathan when it came to management. He was responsible for crafting and maintaining the illusions in our testing grounds. He preferred leaving things to nature, so Lonba couldn’t be called a peaceful tribe, at all. It was probably even worse off now that he spent most of his time in Leviathan and appointed some random manager. He seemed to care even less for people than I did.

Seeing a line of seven people in front of the receptionist, I decided to wait for my turn to avoid suspicion. The line was moving quite quickly, though there was a constant resupply of people who came to do something with the authorities. Five minutes later, I was the next in line when some random bulky guy entered the building and made his way towards the line, pushing aside the people who stood in front of him.

I was a little surprised to see that he stopped right behind me and that the others in line didn’t even raise their voice or look at him badly.

You better not try to push me aside because I’m not going to sit and watch it silently, I thought to myself, feeling him breathing down on my neck like a bull. If I hadn’t changed my looks again when I teleported here, he would be at least one head shorter than me but now he was the ‘big guy’ in the room.

Seeing the woman in front of me moving aside, I stepped towards the receptionist while the guy behind me put his hand on my shoulder and tried to push me away. He seemed to put quite a lot of strength into his push but unfortunately for him, he was too weak to tip my balance even when I had only one foot on the ground.

“One more try and you’ll lose your arm,” I warned him through telepathy, directing a small portion of my magic power towards him. Sensing that he took two steps backward, I smiled in satisfaction and greeted the receptionist, “Hello.”

“Welcome, what can I help you with?” she asked, smiling back at me.

“I’m looking for Tilana Venter,” I replied, releasing a good portion of my magic power. I had a feeling I had to show off a bit if I wanted a meeting else she would just send me away or set an appointment for me.

Her smile quickly turned into a forced one as beads of sweat formed on her forehead from the sudden pressure on her body. “I’ll call her right away. What should I say?” she asked.

“I have a personal grudge with someone from a nearby village and I wish to ask for permission to break the peace agreement and exterminate the whole village,” I replied, knowing that such a pretext would definitely attract my enemies’ attention. Although Lugh didn’t bother managing his tribe properly, he at least made a peace treaty with all the other powers nearby.

Whispering a few words to one of her colleagues in the background, the receptionist turned back towards me and said, “Please wait a moment.”

I felt a bit sorry for the woman for scaring her like that but it couldn’t be helped. A bit later the guy who left earlier came back rushing and whispered into the woman’s ear who then smiled at me and said, “Please follow Heinu.”

Nodding my head, I stepped out of the line and followed the guy who had just come back, giving a quick glare to the bulky guy who stood behind me. Seeing that he was about to speak to the receptionist, I couldn’t help but use some magic to push him to the back of the line. The whole line looked at me and while the others were secretly sneering, the bulky guy looked quite pissed.

“If you cut the line again, I’ll push you out of the building next,” I winked at him. I didn’t like abusing others with my power but since he was daring enough to pick a fight with me, I felt the need to teach him a lesson. The poor guy didn’t know that I marked his body with a tracking spell and the moment he tried to do something vile, I would be there to punish him.

"Come in!" Tilana said aloud the moment we reached the door of her office. Although they called their country a ‘tribe’, it wasn’t like they were any different from other powerhouses. They had proper technology, economy, and everything a country needed. It was just that the strong ones could behave lawlessly as long as it didn’t go past the limit that was supposedly mass murder. That was also one of the reasons I came up with this kind of excuse to meet my target.

The moment I entered this city hall of Lonba, I could tell the god incarnation that I was looking for was in this office, and since the officers’ names were printed on the door, it was easy to find out her name. She was the only god incarnation in the city who I couldn’t sense if she wasn’t within a range of five hundred meters which was a ridiculously small distance considering my magic power.

She was either a master of hiding and masking her abilities or she was connected to Leo one way or the other. I really hoped that it was the latter.

“I want to murder them all!” I growled as I charged into the room, pretending to be angry. For just a moment, I could see the sides of her lips curling upwards before she composed herself and looked at me with wide-opened eyes, seemingly surprised by my request. She had long blonde hair, tied into a ponytail and wore a thin blue blouse with a short black skirt. She seemed to be in her forties but I had to admit she looked quite charming.

“Sir, please take a seat and let me hear your grievances,” she pointed at the chair in front of her table and then waved for Heinu to leave.

After the guy left, she leaned forward and put her hands over mine, “Just call me Tilana, Sir. Please, let me hear what happened and why you want to take such drastic steps.”

Quickly thinking of some random excuse, I said, “I have a son named Thys who went out of the city to practice, along with a guard I sent with him. I wouldn’t have thought that a bunch of bastards from Ziguinchor would kill his guard and abduct my son. Now they are even threatening to take his life if I don’t pay for them!” I pushed her hand away and slapped the table, making it crack in two.

While she was touching my hand, I scanned her body thoroughly and found out that all the cells in her body and brain were new. That shouldn’t be possible in a normal human’s body, even if they were god incarnations. Even newborn babies had older and newer cells while hers were all new as if her body was created recently.

Even if my mana control was much better than hers, it was impossible to scan someone physically without their notice.

“Why are you scanning me?” she asked with a frown. While she was busy thinking about my reason, I set up a space-locking, sound-proof, and a physical-barrier formation in the room to prevent her from going anywhere. Her only way to leave this room was to die or to overpower my magic power and fry all my restrictive formations. Considering that I started drawing the mana from my mana nodes towards Lonba and my formations, even someone stronger than me would have a tough time doing that without proper preparations.

Noticing that something was strange, she jumped up from her seat with her eyes closed, only to see me looking at her when she opened them again. As I canceled my transformation and returned to my original form, the woman’s face distorted in fear.

“Where is the other fucker?” I asked with a smile, grabbing her wrist with all my strength, crushing her bones right away.

“How did you find me?!” she hissed, quickly dissolving her whole arm to escape my grasp.

“I would call it luck, but that’s beside the point. What’s your name? I know that you aren’t Leo, but I can see a wisp of his soul force in your body,” I leaned on the table, keeping my eyes on her.

“Prepare a prison cell for a person with all kinds of formations set up. Don’t save on anything,” I whispered to Lien through Link in the meantime, wishing to seal this woman properly in an even more secure location.

“Right on it,” she replied.

“Just call me Adro,” she replied, taking another step backward.

“Don’t try to run, you won’t escape my grasp,” I smiled at her.

“I’m done. I’ve also set up a protected tunnel straight to the prison from your location,” Lien said as a portal opened right behind me.

Tilting my head to the side, I looked into Adro’s eyes and pointed towards the portal, “Hurry up.”

Seeing that she was unwilling to move, I stood up and walked behind her. “See you soon,” I said as I knocked her out and then threw her over my shoulder.

“That’s not a nice way to carry a woman,” Lien laughed at the other side of the portal.

“Don’t worry, you will always get the princess carry,” I mused, giving a small kiss on her lips as I passed by her and closed the portal behind my back.

“Sure… but instead of staring at me, you should focus on this woman,” she reminded me, seeing that I stopped moving.

“Right, right,” I waved my hand.

--- Adro’s pov ---

“Uuh- my head is about to explode,” I groaned as I regained my consciousness. That bastard Seth overloaded my body with his mana to knock me out and destroyed my mana veins. I was expecting that I could heal myself but to my surprise, my body barely had any mana left in it, just enough to avoid mana fever and sustain some mana-binding that was put onto me.

“What the fuck is this bullshit?” I frowned, feeling my mana circling through hundreds of binding points in my body that did nothing but direct it towards another point and consume a part of my mana to sustain itself.

“It’s a mana-binding seal to prevent you from using magic. Don’t worry, many people have tested it before you and it works perfectly! You can’t break it without another person’s help so just sit on your ass,”  Seth spoke from the side.

“I figured, mother fucker…” I groaned as I turned towards the origin of the sound. As I looked around the room and saw the walls, I realised that I was sitting in a prison cell, bound to the wall by shackles while Seth was standing about a meter away from me. I could also feel that my chest was much lighter than before which made me realise that my transformation was cancelled and I was in my original form.

"Surprised?" Seth jeered.

Looking at the cuff on my right wrist, I tried to control my mana to break it but my mana just didn't want to follow my intentions and continued flowing through the seals. Punching forward with all my strength, I tried to rip off my hands or the cuffs and break free but some strange gravity spell slowed down my movements at the most critical moment, leaving me staring forward motionlessly.

“Dear, I’m here. I took the kids to our parents for the time being,” a brown-haired woman stepped out from Seth’s back and leaned on his shoulder while giving me a quick glance. Seeing that both Lien and Seth were here while I couldn’t do anything at all, I was forced to realise that I either surrendered and begged for my life or I would die sooner or later.

“Okay,” he replied gently, giving a small kiss on her forehead before turning towards me once again.

“I can help you if you promise to let me go afterward. What do you say?” I asked, hoping that I would be able to get out of this alive. In the end, I would rather stay weaker than Seth than to lose my life meaninglessly.

“Then tell me where Leo and Ishtar are,” he said.

“You promise first,” I shook my head. “Make an oath,” I added.

“I’m willing to do that but I’ll mark your soul so that I can find you and kill you if you do something too outrageous. Regardless, you will be able to live in peace and even train to become stronger as long as you don’t do bad things,” he replied.

Thinking about it for some time, I was forced to accept that it was either this or death.

“Fine,” I nodded.

“Then answer my question,” he said with a frown.

Feeling a slight burning sensation in my chest, I looked down but everything seemed to be alright. “Why do I feel this burning in my chest? Is this your doing?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Traitors are bound to die,” Leo’s voice entered my ears.

“No! Help me!” I shouted, feeling the burning suddenly spread through my whole body, filling me with intense pain. My muscles contracted and my veins shattered, making me bleed out internally.

Although Seth healed my body the moment he touched me, the pain didn’t go away.

“He can’t help you. The moment you became my apostle, you turned into my servant along with the others. It doesn’t take more for me to kill you than a thought,” Leo transmitted his thoughts to my mind once again.

“It’s him. He’s burning my soul!” I grasped Seth’s wrist.

His glass-like eyes shone with a strange purplish light as he seemingly looked past me. “I can feel it,” he muttered.

“What are you doing?” I asked, starting to feel more and more worried as my soul continued dispersing.

“I’m trying to sense his position,” he replied.

“Aren’t you helping me?” I cried out.

“No,” he said as he winked at me, and in the next moment, everything turned dark.

--- Seth’s pov ---

“I almost got him,” I clicked my tongue, noticing that Adro couldn’t hold out any longer.

“Did you find Leo?”

Looking at my wife, I shook my head, “I just know that he was somewhere near Washington but I couldn’t find him and he probably left already. I’ll go and look around to try my luck.”

“Alright, but be careful.”

“The good thing is that I still managed to extract a few things from Adro’s mind before he died. The location of their current base and their plan to gather the forces nearby large cities and use Ishtar’s charms to make them fight against each other. I’ve transferred all the necessary knowledge to your AI so you can check it out while I’m away,” I said, kissing her lips.

"Grrr~ nice ass," Lien purred playfully as I turned around and opened a portal to my enemies’ base. 

Stopping in my tracks, I gave her a quick glance, “I’ll return the smack.”

"Okay~" she mused as the portal closed behind me.

There was a cracked table in the middle of the room and piles of large pieces of rocks that fell out of the old stone blocks that made up the walls. As I scanned the building and my surroundings with my mana, I noticed that their meeting point was an abandoned tower from south to Washington. Although I had my doubts, I still made up my mind to lay down a few formations so that I would be able to catch them if they ever came here. Unfortunately, I was sure that they wouldn’t be so stupid.

Just as I expected, even after spending ten minutes going through the nearby areas while looking for Leo and Ishtar, I couldn’t find a single soul, and even the smaller villages where Ishtar started gathering her forces disappeared without a trace. It was possible that Leo lied to Adro and in turn, I also extracted fake information from his brain but I found it unlikely to happen.

My thoughts were soon confirmed when I found a forestry area that was freshly made by someone, presumably Ishtar. Since all trails turned cold, my best chance was to wait for Gil to become more powerful and then use his commandment to find my enemies.

Hurrying back home, I told my wife about my findings and an idea I came up with while I was looking for my enemies. Rather than trying to find Leo and Ishtar by ourselves, with the few thousand people in Leviathan, I believed it was better to ask for help from all the other forces in the world by telling them about the threat those two posed and their goals.

Lien also agreed with my idea so after talking things over with Ma’at and the other sentinels of Leviathan, we sent some of the stronger members on a ‘mission’ instead. I could have sent a message to all the leaders either through telepathy or by using our technology but I believed they wouldn’t take it seriously enough if they weren’t told by personally or by an ambassador. I knew that doing it personally would have been the most efficient, but I didn’t feel the need to waste weeks doing nothing but going around to meet them.

Little did I know that my decision to send others instead of going personally made the leaders feel that they weren’t even worth a meeting and that their position was inferior. Thinking about it afterward, I could understand why. My forces were many times more powerful than theirs, our economy was basically inexhaustible, and Leviathan was a well-known power in the world while their cities and were known only locally, in their own territories.

Leviathan was clearly a force in a higher position but I never intended to promote that mindset. Still, I was too late in realising my mistake because my people have managed to notify every major force about the threat in just three days and the world was turned upside-down as all the cities got filled with wanted posters and descriptions of Leo’s and Ishtar’s commandments.

Naturally, the image was based on Leo’s looks in middle school and the description of their commandments was everything I knew about them, thanks to Dorje. Seeing that my request was taken as some sort of command and that the whole world moved because of it, I was forced to realise that my words held a lot of power now and I couldn’t say whatever I wanted in public. A careless remark or a misunderstood joke could easily make greedy leaders change some things for the worse to please me.

Unintentionally, I turned into the superior of the leaders of various factions which seemed to be obvious even to common people. I came to realise that after one of my dates with Lien that we had outside. People were gossipping about the ‘Mage Emperor of Leviathan’ and all my good and bad deeds. Although I couldn’t remember doing something bad for people, there were always those who found fault in others, even if it was meaningless. Knowing that it couldn’t be helped, I simply ignored it.

As my position at the top of the world started consolidating, eight years passed by peacefully with no signs of movement from my enemies. My magic power and soul force grew a bit quicker than expected with my improved body so I managed to cover the whole planet in less than ten years. 

"Mom, when is it going to be ready?" Felice tugged on Lien’s skirt who was in the middle of grilling the meat that we prepared for the camping.

“Are you hungry?” she patted the top of Felice’s head, seeing her small nose continuously moving. She looked really cute as she just licked her lips as an answer.

“Why do you want to take it from here? Your father grilled quite a lot of meat before I took over. He’s sitting right next to it,” Lien pointed at me.

“It’s because I didn’t give her any. We can eat together once you are done. It’s the last batch anyway,” I replied, shaking my head helplessly.

“Hahaha, you’ll have to wait another three minutes then,” she laughed while Felice was staring at the meat impatiently. Seeing her gaze turning more and more intense, Lien suddenly covered her eyes to cancel the spell that she was about to unleash. We didn’t want a forest fire… even if we could put it out with just a thought.

“Don’t use that kind of fire magic for cooking…” Lien rolled her eyes as she pulled her hand away.

Helplessly, Felice walked back to me and sat onto my lap. Brushing her hair behind her ear, I started blowing on her neck which was one of her weak points, just like her mothers’. The only difference was that while it excited Lien, Felice just found it ticklish so I often teased her.

“Hahaha, no, Father, noo!” she turned her head to the side and tried to push my head away as she laughed. Pulling back, I gave a kiss on the back of her head and stopped teasing her.

“This is punishment because you tried to get around me to put your hands on some meat,” I said which just made her snicker even more.

“What are you going to do if she grows older and starts having suitors?” Lien giggled as she looked at us.

“...”

“Pfft- your face says it all.”

"Dad, are we going back today?" Reiner asked from the side, moving around on his ass.

"Yes," I nodded, unsure of the time myself.

All four of us had our birthday in May so rather than celebrating four separate birthdays, we had a 'family weekend' every May. This was simply because Felice and Reiner were born on the same day and Lien's birthday was five days apart from mine on the 19th of May. The kids also preferred this idea when we came up with it so we went along with it.

We always got presents for each other during the 'family weekend' and often went out to see new places. For this year, we decided to camp out for a weekend in the Great Forest of Leviathan. Neither Lien nor I was accustomed to flashy parties or anything of the sort and neither of us felt that we lost out on something. If anything, it brought the family closer since we spent time together. That being the case, Felice and Reiner weren't expecting to be celebrated by a crowd either which I believed to be a good thing.

Those who wanted to be celebrated and cared a lot for public opinion were most often unhappy people with a desire for true relationships, the kind only a good family could provide. I didn’t want my children to be unhappy so rather than gathering many fake friends, I wanted them to focus on the people that would deserve their love and attention. Naturally, her own family should be in that group and we work for it to stay in her heart by showering her in our love, Reiner being no exception.

On the other hand, the sad truth was that the masses were most often stupid and their knowledge was limited to their local environment so listening to them directly was rarely a good idea. Considering that my children were the 'prince' and 'princess' of Leviathan, as some of the residents referred to them, the people who would one day inherit my position, I wanted them to be headstrong.

It would be too dangerous to leave a power like Leviathan to someone who was easy to manipulate, though that was of no concern for the time being since they were only eight years old.

While my thoughts wandered off, Reiner stopped beating around the bush and finally asked what was on his mind, “Can we go to the training grounds when we get home? Last year you said we could once we turned eight years old but you've been saying no all this time!" he begged me as he hugged my arm.

Forcing a smile on my face, I still didn’t know what to say. There were just too many problems with his request.

Felice and Reiner loved sparring against each other which could easily turn dangerous for the onlookers if they were weak. It usually started with some ‘catch me if you can’ and ended with me having to stop them from casting dangerous spells that wrecked our backyard. They had complete resistance to the elements so it was fine to throw a fireball at each other but that wasn’t the case for most people, even in Leviathan. They simply enjoyed using their huge mana reserves and learn better ways to utilize their magic.

As if their ‘playful’ magic wasn’t dangerous enough, their magic power reached the Warlord rank which meant that a careless attack could easily kill many people purely because their magic power was over one thousand. At first, they started sparring against Lien's apostles who have reached the Magister rank in these past eight years, but Magisters had ten times the magic power of Warlords and since Lien trained them personally, they weren't your usual mages either.

As a result, whenever Felice or Reiner challenged Rose, Lea, or any of the apostles, they were bound to lose in a few seconds. This made both of them frustrated since they obviously couldn’t win against someone that was many times stronger than them and were smart enough to realise if someone tried to let them win intentionally. Very few people enjoyed games when the opponent let them win and they were no exception.

Knowing that there were many magicians at their own level on the training grounds, they wanted to take the fight there and see what they were capable of. The problem was that there were few people at the same level who would fight them. They were my children and nobody wanted to become my enemy by hurting them. I had to admit, I couldn't imagine myself staying calm after someone, for example, punched my son or daughter in the face in the middle of the battle, even if it was considered normal.

I feared that everyone would refuse their challenge which would make them feel like some outcasts and I really didn't want that to happen. My childrens’ happiness was important to me. With all of those problems in mind, I looked at Lien who just nodded her head, helping me in making up my mind.

“Haah- fine. You can go but there are a few conditions!” I raised my finger while he jumped up happily, quickly rushing over to Felice to give a high-five to her.

“What are those?” he asked with a worried face, as his mind finally registered what I said.

“First, either Lien or I will go with you each time until you are old enough.”

“Second, you aren’t allowed to fight weaker opponents. A tiny difference in your favor is allowed but not too much. You can challenge anyone the other way around but don’t expect them to accept your challenge. Nobody is obliged to fight, especially not when the opponents are children,” I looked at him meaningfully.

“Thirdly, you must be very careful and stay calm. You could kill someone with a careless spell and that isn’t laughing matter. Am I clear?”

“Yes!” Reiner punched upwards in his excitement.

Shaking my head helplessly, I looked at Lien who just smiled back at me.

“Will they be fine?” I asked through Link.

“I think that they will be, and we will also go with them, won’t we?”

“That’s true. Maybe I should talk things over with someone at their level in the meantime. It would be terrible if everyone refused to fight them after they waited for so long.”

“Wait, I don't think you should do that. It’s a part of life to be refused and they should learn to accept it even if it hurts. It’s not a big deal either, do you want them to be some crybabies? Ooo~ daddy, the bad guy refused my request!” she said as she pulled up the middle of her lips and started rubbing her eyes with her hands.

“What are you doing?” Felice asked, seeing her making a strange face.

“Fine, I’ll just let it be then. Whatever happens will happen,” I grumbled, realising that I was overthinking it.

“I was just mocking your father,” she giggled as she glanced at me.

“Yes, and I’ll have to punish her for that later,” I smirked, running my eyes over her waistline.

“Are you going to seal her mana like ours?” Felice asked as she turned around and looked at me with her big eyes.

Placing my hand on the top of her head, I smiled as I replied, “No. Her punishment is something different since she didn’t do anything bad.”

“What is it then?” she continued questioning me.

“It’s a secret,” I laughed, seeing her frustrated expression.

“Idiot,” Lien rolled her eyes.

Appearing right behind her, I hugged her from behind with Felice stuck between us and turned off the griller since the meat was done.

“I was about to turn it off,” she grumbled.

“Let me out!” Felice flailed around her arms and legs, trying to escape from my tight embrace.

“Hahaha, you got caught, Sis!” Reiner laughed at her misfortune. Seeing that her brother was ridiculing her, she splashed a few liters of water on his face with water magic.

“I’ll get back at you for this,” Reiner stared at himself with a baffled look on his face, not expecting that kind of response.

“Haha, you deserved that!” Felice pointed at him but since I took a step back and she wasn’t paying attention, she fell on her butt. Of course, I slowed her fall with gravity magic, though she wouldn’t have been hurt even if a tree fell on her, not to mention a simple fall like this.

Picking her up from the ground, I wrapped my arm around Lien’s waist and teleported next to the Reiner. After bringing the meat over with telekinesis and having lunch, we spent some more time in the forest and then returned home. It was really nice to spend three days camping in the forest.

I could have asked the kids if they enjoyed the camping but seeing their smiles, I wasn’t worried about that and decided to do it again in the future.

Now it was time to release my two little devils and see what they were capable of against other trained magicians. I had to admit, I was looking forward to the results.

 

(AN:\\ The next chapter is over 9k words so it won't be this short (in case it felt short...) :S)