Birthday raid

"What are you doing?" I walked behind Lien and hugged her from behind. Giving small kisses on her neck, I couldn't help but smile seeing our house. Hawaii was a beautiful island but being at home was simply priceless.

"What are you doing?" she asked, trying to protect her neck by tilting her head to the side. "No, wait! We've just returned and it's barely past noon. Why do you want me right away?"

"What? I’m not doing anything! Can’t I kiss my wife’s neck?” I continued regardless.

“You can but not now. I’m trying to cook here, you know?” she asked as she stopped what she was doing. Since she thought that I had no intention of giving up on some sexy time, she continued slicing the cucumber restlessly, cutting thicker and thicker slices with each movement. I could see that she was getting more and more aroused since she could barely focus on what she was doing and her breath had become much heavier and irregular.

“Hehe, I had no perverted intentions, I was just playing with you,” I growled into her ear as I pressed my crotch against her bottom and loosened my arms around her waist.

Gripping the knife in her hand, she stopped for a moment and then continued while muttering a few words, “I don’t think that’s playing.”

Pretending that I didn’t hear what she said, I went on as if nothing happened, “What are you cooking? I can see that you’ve fried some chicken meat on oil and… oh, fries as well. Is it gyros today?”

“Yes. Once the fries are done and I’m done with slicing up the vegetables, we can have lunch,” she replied, her voice still a little hoarse. She was definitely looking forward to being devoured. About half a minute later, she finished preparing everything and then turned around to look into my eyes. “There is something I must tell you.”

“Are you pregnant?!” I asked in a hurry but after scanning her body, I realised she wasn’t.

“No… I’ve got my own commandment,” she replied and then looked at me in silence, smiling like a little devil.

“For how long do you want to wait before finally telling me what it is?” I rolled my eyes, seeing that she didn’t continue.

“Aw~ but I can never keep secrets from you so let me savor this moment for a little bit longer. It’s nice to see you looking at me so desperately to know something. It makes you look like a cute little boy,” she started mocking me instead. “Ah, and this is also payback for what you’ve just done to me. Now I’m all excited and can’t focus, you know? And by the way, is this what it felt like for you when you were teaching me and I wanted to know something?”

“Yes…” I replied honestly, hoping that she’d stop dragging it out.

“Damn. Oh well, I’m not going to torture you anymore. I’ve decided to call it Vigorous Protection,” she finally revealed something about it.

“The Goddess of Vigorous Protection, is it?” I smirked, seeing her face turning red as she heard the whole ‘title’. However fun and cool some of these titles may have sounded, saying them aloud was an entirely different matter. If I had to name my commandment aloud, I’d rather dig a hole. It was hard enough to tell it to Lien back then when we got together but I didn’t want to keep it a secret from her. She’d have found out soon enough anyway, considering how quickly my power grew.

“Stop smirking!” she cried out, covering her face.

“Hahaha, see? It doesn’t matter what kind of title you have, it’s kind of embarrassing to say it aloud.”

“Nooo! Don’t turn it into a cringe-fest! Are you retarded?” she cried out, pushing her face against my chest.

“So? What kind of effect does it have?” I asked, patting the top of her head.

“Well, just like you said, commandments are based on our desires and our own realisation. Last night when you embraced me tightly and worked hard to knock me up, I had a sudden idea which grew stronger and stronger with each moment. My desire was to protect you, our future, our children, and everything we have, which caused a powerful surge in my body and soul.”

Finding it hard to say it seriously, she cleared her throat and finished her part in a low voice, “I also wanted to continue doing that with you for a long time, which made my commandment alter a little… I believe.”

“Hmm~ in what way?” I asked, my smile reaching from ear to ear from the amusement that was swelling up in me.

“Doing romantic stuff is going to generate a magical barrier around the people I wish to protect and that is done through a special rune mark which looks similar to the soul language characters. Once I draw that rune on a person’s body, mana will start gathering around them to create a magical array, which is the strongest defensive array you’ve taught me. This defensive array will become stronger if the affected person is stronger since their bodies also draw in more mana.”

“If I had to gauge its power, I’d say that somebody who is at the same level as the affected person would have to waste about two spells just to break the barrier. As for apostles, I can have twelve of them and they will be affected in the same way as people in Leviathan, though the effect is probably going to be stronger. They will feel the need to protect me and will find it hard to say no to me and other similar things. Well, they’ll be like guardians.”

Hearing the whole explanation of her commandment, I was left frozen and flabbergasted. After a few seconds of silence, I finally uttered three words, “What the fuck?”

“What’s with that reaction?” she grumbled.

“It’s just that it’s an extremely powerful commandment, however, I look at it. It can block two spells if you are fighting someone at your own level! Even if it was only one, it’d be crazy strong! Oh wait, but how does it regenerate if it’s broken?” I asked, realising that she forgot to explain that.

“We must have sex. One time, one barrier…” she said in a low voice.

“Oh.” I muttered as my mind slowly processed the information. After a while, I couldn’t help but break out in a fit of laughter, “Hahaha, that’s fucking ridiculous! But I like it!”

Seeing that she wanted to dig a hole to hide from me, I couldn’t help but laugh even harder. 

“You know, it’s really nice to be appreciated, you know? I’m glad that you’re enjoying our ‘sessions’ so much,” I mused.

“But it’s so troublesome! Imagine if I placed it on our children and their barriers would be broken in a fight. They’d always know that ‘daddy and mommy are doing it right now’!” she cried out, making me understand why she looked so concerned about it.

“Erm… I haven’t thought of that. But what people don’t know, doesn’t hurt them. How about we keep it a secret between the two of us?”

“That’s obvious,” she replied. “I just hope that Ma’at isn’t going to find out about it and tell it to others just to have fun and laugh at us.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. I’ll teach you how to block her mind-reading ability. She is the same as me in regards to the commandment. My commandment is very useful for improving at an insane speed but if all god incarnations reached the same level as me, those with special abilities would be at an advantage in a battle.”

“Imagine if a thousand years later, everyone reached my level. Those who could increase their physical power or magical power temporarily would have a better chance of winning a battle than me. Ma’at’s ability is also very useful against most of the people since she knows their next move. I don’t think anyone at the same level could beat her in a fight, for now.”

“But if she were to fight me while being as strong as me, she wouldn’t have any advantage over me since she wouldn’t be able to read my thoughts. On the other hand, my mana would regenerate quicker than hers so I’d have a better chance at winning,” I said.

“I’ve got that but you also shouldn’t forget that your mana regeneration is much better than other god incarnations’ and, since you don’t have to meditate and do all the shit to gain more power, you can spend more time learning magic, which is definitely an advantage,” she rolled her eyes, seeing that I tried to belittle my own commandment.

Sure enough, I had no reason to complain, not to mention that it was hard to catch up to me when my power kept growing infinitely. Thanks to my new body, I could also continue getting stronger without worrying about it.

After a bit of silence between us, she looked up into my eyes like a little angel and asked, “So could you become my first apostle? I’m sure it wouldn’t affect your mind anyway since you’re stronger than me and I wish to protect you as much as I can. I’m also your first apostle.”

Switching between my sense of lust and love, I didn’t know whether to hug her with all my strength or to push her down and help her in making her first barrier. She was too cute, so it was very hard to stop myself from doing the latter but after giving her a big hug, somehow I managed to calm down.

We stood there for a few seconds, hugging and caressing each other’s back until I heard the front door being opened. Turning my head to the side, I waited until my mother reached the kitchen.

“My, did I interrupt something?” she asked, seeing that we slowly let go of each other.

“Nothing of the sort,” I said, waving my hand.

“I’ve got it. When did you get back from your holiday? Us ‘commoners’ were left here while you were enjoying your break,” she grumbled, clearly displeased by that she had to stay back.

“Mother, I’ve told you that we wanted to take a break and the others also had school and training. I also didn’t want to take weak people to the island. What if you ran into some monster and couldn’t deal with it? I didn’t want to be on guard all the time and watch over people,” I rolled my eyes,

“Alright, alright, don’t get angry with me so easily,” she waved her hands.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take all of you to Hawaii later when the missions are finished. I’ve sent a Warlord ranked party to clean up the island of all monsters. Once they return, I’ll let you go there with Father,” I said.

“That’s great! But we aren’t that weak anymore so I’m still saying that you could have taken us with you…” she muttered. Seeing the look I gave her, she sighed loudly and finally stopped bothering me.

“Why don’t you tell me why you came instead?” I asked, still a little annoyed.

“Oh, right. Lana’s birthday is coming up and I was wondering if you had anything in mind for her,” she said, glancing at Lien. “Your mother was very happy when you gave her a present, both last year and the year before. Although just the fact that her daughter is giving her something makes her happy, I imagine you don’t want to give her something lousy,” she added.

“She’s going to turn forty-seven in sixteen days, huh. Time sure flies by,” Lien replied, followed by a long sigh. Shaking her head, she said, “I thought about getting her some accessories since she never wears anything of the sort but Father told me months ago that he wanted to get her a necklace, so I can’t really take that from him. Honestly speaking, I’m still clueless about what to give her.”

“I see. That’s why I came. I had a chat with her in the morning and somehow we started talking about battling and the time when she was still a rising genius in Balan. She sighed loudly when she said that she loved sparring against Michael with her sword. She said that it was so calming for her when she could hold a blade in her hand and focus on honing her skills.”

“I get that you want to protect us, your parents, but Lana is a rather hot-blooded person. She isn’t happy with staying at home and doing house chores. I thought that you could maybe give her a sword. It’s not like it has to be enchanted like the ones Seth hands out to the members. You see, she was my classmate back in the days and she was considered a genius. Seeing that you’re teaching everyone magic left and right but you leave her out just to protect her, she’s probably hurt,” my mother said, opening my eyes about a matter.

“Why did she never say anything then?” I couldn’t help but ask, feeling a little angry with myself for not noticing it.

“Son, do you really think that as your mother-in-law and a person you’ve saved from death would ever ask you to teach her magic, knowing how busy you two are and that you rarely teach anyone personally. We aren’t blind. We know that the residents in Leviathan would be willing to fight just to get your attention and become your disciples. She doesn’t have the face to ask for something and get it easily while others are fighting for it,” she replied.

Looking at each other with Lien, we both shook our heads and sighed loudly. “Family is family, the residents are just people coming from all over the world to become stronger. Whether I teach them or not is up to me. If my family wants my help, I’ll obviously help. Isn’t that obvious?” I asked.

“Well… she knows that you’d help her but she isn’t that thick-skinned. That’s why she has never even mentioned magic in front of you or showed any interest,” she said.

“Cool. Now we know what to get her. As for you, do you have any wishes that you’re keeping from me for similarly stupid reasons? You better don’t hide it from me or I’ll kick your ass!”

“Would you really kick your mother? Ah! I failed as a mother!” she slapped her forehead as if she were in the middle of playing a script.

“Fine, fine… so?”

“Haha, no. I don’t have anything of the sort. I’m very pleased with my current life. My child is happy and close to me, we have a nice house with your father and are living a carefree life. Sometimes it’s a little boring but I always find something that can absorb my attention. Also, don’t think that I wouldn’t ask you to do something if I wanted. You’re my son and are going to stay it for the rest of your life, like it or not. Alas, I’m the boss!” she waved her finger.

As I glanced at Lien, I saw her flinch and turn away, clearly stating that she had no intention of partaking in this kind of conversation. She abandoned me! This was a first!

“I may be your son but I won’t do things that I don’t want to,” I replied, sticking out my tongue.

“Are you being cheeky now? I still dare to smack you, even if you become the emperor of gods or whatever!”

“You’d have to catch me first to smack me,” I chortled as I appeared in front of her and then back at Lien’s side. My mother probably thought that I wouldn’t dare challenge her, but she was wrong! Seeing that I wouldn’t give in to her, she ‘hmph’-ed and then turned around to leave. “I’m leaving now. Take good care,” she waved her hand and left right away.

Well, I’d never even think about hitting my parents, obviously, so if she really smacked me, it’d be a one-sided fight… and I’d lose, sadly.

I guess mothers are always the most powerful creatures, I thought as I glanced at Lien and then at her belly, imagining the future of our children.

“Why do I feel that you’ve thought of something rude just now?” she asked, looking at me with a frown.

“It’s just your imagination,” I replied, waving my hand.

“You’re fishy,” she squinted.

“Yes, yes, I am. Anyway, let’s have lunch and then set up that barrier of yours.”

“Eh? But we’d have to… and it’s still in the middle of the day!”

“Who cares? My lust is insatiable and eternal. My title isn’t just for show!” I waved my hand as I returned to our room. Following behind me and seeing that I started picking out some sexy lingerie for her, she looked at me with her brows raised and then turned around to leave while shaking her head.

--- Four hours later ---

“Shit, I so hate it when I have to make a speech. Why did I even build Leviathan? I must be retarded,” I grumbled as I stood behind the stage while Lien was caressing my chest, a large smile splattered on her face. Snuggling up to me, she just muttered a few encouraging words and then closed her eyes. 

Did I go too far with pleasure touch? Has she gone retarded? I wondered, looking at her blissful face. As if she could sense that I was thinking something rude, she furrowed her brows but kept her eyes closed.

She must be a witch and I’ve been bewitched! Oh well, I wouldn’t mind it even if I was. It’s totally worth it!

As I smacked her ass, she jumped slightly and then looked at me while slowly licking her lips and purring playfully. I came to understand it long ago that as long as she was satisfied and I was the master in bed, I’d also be the boss in everyday life. Many women said that guys were easy to control, they just wanted women, but the same was true about them. I’d never let women control me. It went against my beliefs. Compromises were a different thing, of course.

Well, it wasn’t like Lien ever tried to control me but we didn’t really need to fight about that kind of stuff anyway. We had too many things in common so there were few cases when we disagreed, meaning that we rarely had to make compromises. She was my wife, my sex partner, and my best buddy at the same time!

“Come on Lien, get yourself together. The others are going to notice that there is something wrong with you,” I said as I patted her back.

“I know but my legs are still weak and I just can’t stop smiling. I swear I feel like a retard but I don’t want this warm feeling to stop,” she giggled as she put her hand over her nether regions. “This is why we shouldn’t do it in the middle of the day. I can simply sleep this out at night but now… I’ll have to stop this feeling with magic. Isn’t that sad?” she said, looking at me with puppy eyes.

Rolling my eyes, I touched her forehead and removed some of the excess chemicals from her brain, making her return to normal. Clearing her throat, she said, “That was embarrassing.”

“Was it? I like seeing every side of yours,” I replied, shrugging my shoulders.

“Thanks,” she muttered.

“Alright then, let’s get this over with before the crowd becomes restless,” I said as I took hold of her hand and teleported to the middle of the stage. The other five leaders were seated on the right side of the stage while we stood in the middle, facing a crowd of ten thousand people. I was really freaked out.

Mustering up my courage, I spread a bit of my aura through the crowd which made them quiet down in an instant. Seeing the oppressed faces they were making, I instantly felt a little better and started speaking, “Welcome everyone. Most of you have probably heard of it already but we’ve got the exact location of the Germ’s base.”

“While I found it necessary to have some rest after all the missions and training you’ve had up till now, it is now time to get rid of those pests who have been plaguing our world. Some of you are quite new here so you may don’t know yet but the Germs are one of the five great organisations who are actively plundering cities and are killing people by testing all kinds of spells on them. Children included.”

“If you don’t believe me then feel free to ask some of the older members who have seen it for themselves. They might be able to provide you with a few pictures as well… The people they kill could very well become members in the future who would help us in fighting back other creatures that want humans dead, such as Sylvanus, and their deeds are also terrible enough, so that’s why I want to get rid of them.”

“Be very careful during this mission because your life and death could be decided in the blink of an eye. We’re pairing you up with people you know so most of the squads should know each other but this is the first time that you’re going to work as an army. All of you should watch out for each other and this time not only your own squad but also the others. I must warn you in advance, even if we go in and simply massacre our way out, you should stay on guard until we return to Leviathan unless you want to die.”

“With that in mind, I wish good luck for everyone during this mission and I pray that you all return alive. Even if you lost a limb or two, or anything of the sort, as long as you are alive, we can heal you and make you as good as new. And remember the rules that we’ve taught in school. Don’t fight opponents that are much stronger than you because a single touch and you may die.”

Snapping my fingers, a giant portal appeared behind my back which led straight to the three islands where the Germs hid. “Now then, let’s go,” I finished my speech and jumped through the portal. Hearing their battle cries behind my back, they poured through the portal and then got in an orderly manner like seasoned soldiers, all prepared to fight the enemy.

Once they all got through and set foot on the largest island, they neatly surrounded it and waited for my command quietly. I divided them into squads of five, each containing a person with supportive magic, one middleman, two ranged, and one tough guy. The squads were led by seasoned leaders since I didn’t want rookies to lead during this kind of dangerous mission. The squads had a whole hour to get to know each other before I made my speech so they knew of each other’s abilities.

As I scanned the surrounding area, I could feel thousands of people hiding on and under the islands, some even reaching the rank of Warlords. Naturally, we heavily outnumbered them and the person who I assumed to be their leader was also weaker than me, though he was probably somewhere around the rank of Sentinels.

“Every second squad move towards the center of the islands and get rid of the people on the surface. They’re just weak scouts but be careful not to alert them. I don’t want anyone to flee from their punishment. Once we get underground, I can block them from teleporting away, though it’d be great if we could move around unnoticed. Now go!” I commanded my people and like a bolt of lightning, the strongest squads shot out like bullets, snatching the scouts’ heads before they even registered it.

“Squad No. 41, clear.”

“Squad No. 23, clear.”

“Squad No. 2, clear,” many squads reported to me almost at the same time, clearly racing to be the first.

Well now, raising dragons isn’t the easiest of things to do, I thought to myself. There were three entrances which led underground, so Lien and I got the largest one while Lug and Mia took the smallest and Skadi, Ma’at, and Shawn took the middle-sized one.

“I see a tunnel which goes into the mountainside and then moves steeply underground,” Lug reported.

“Mine is a straight hole leading down. It’s like a pitfall, we can just jump into it,” Ma’at said.

“Be careful, the holes are filled with their bacteria. Those who don’t have powerful protection stay up here and catch anyone who tries to flee. Use the green stones in your pockets in case you get in trouble. No need for captives. Kill them on sight. You may proceed,” I replied, staring at the dark chasm in front of me which was filled with green coloured clouds.

Wrapping my body in a layer of powerful gravity that pushed everything away, I was the first to jump into the chasm, followed by the others. Without using any magic to speed up, we fell for about thirty seconds when I could finally see the ground. On the way down I could see many stair steps that were cut into the wall of the cliff, providing ordinary people with a way down.

The only problem was that the green clouds probably made it hard for the weaker people to see.

"If we get out of this cloud, we'll find ourselves surrounded by their people. Although it's inviting to kill them, I don't want to alert the others and risk some of them getting away. We'll get some people to the four corners of this tunnel system and set up a spatial lock. Once that's done, we can launch our attack,” I sent my commands with my soul force to the squads that were following me.

"Roger that," the leaders of each squad replied.

Using the bacteria cloud to our advantage, we moved through the most dangerous tunnels with ease, killing everyone on the way.

"There is a group of three, five steps ahead of us. They aren't in the cloud but there is a wall on their left which covers them. The third squad shall take care of them while we move on. The fourth squad should stay behind to help them once the spatial lock is set," I issued a few simple commands and then continued moving.

On the way I've left behind quite a lot of squads all over the tunnels, so once we started, we could attack them from all directions and cause chaos.

"Squad No. 71 is reporting. We've arrived at our destination," their leader reported. Soon after the other three squads which I sent to the four corners reported as well, stating that they were ready to set up the spatial lock. It was true that we had enough manpower to simply charge in and kill the germs but I’d rather go all out even against the weakest of my opponents than to underestimate them. On the other hand, I had no intention of letting my people die needlessly just because I was too lazy to think of a plan.

“Proceed with the plan,” I commanded and they set up the space-locking formation which covered the whole underground base. Since I wanted to make sure that it wouldn't be broken, a whole squad was tasked with keeping it in check for each corner.

Lien and I moved to the deepest part of their base, right before the formation was set up, so that we could get rid of their commanders. "Hey, boss! What's this strange feeling?" a blonde-haired flower boy barged into the room at the bottom, probably noticing that there had been some changes in the tunnels.

“Calm down,” the white-haired man on the throne replied. I could feel that the most powerful members of Germ were located on this floor, though they didn't have anyone who was much more powerful than the top five members of Leviathan.

The man sitting on the extravagant and comfortable-looking throne was exuding the same kind of bacteria that covered the whole settlement. I felt prompted to step out and say to the flower boy that it was our present for him but I didn’t want to give our position away. It wasn’t like any of them could be my opponent but it didn’t mean that I had to behave like a retard and underestimate them. I’d rather sneak-attack them.

“What the hell! I can’t teleport!” the blonde-haired boy shouted.

“My lord! Something is wrong!” another man ran into the room and cried out.

“I know, someone has set up a space-locking formation which is engulfing these tunnels. You just can’t teleport,” the white-haired man replied, waving his hand.

Looking at his calloused hands, the second guy who came in tried using magic and after realising that he could, he sighed out of relief. His face was quite calm and collected, going well with his shoulder-long black hair. He was a good-looking man and he was also quite powerful so I honestly couldn’t understand why he chose to group up with these bastards. The flower boy was the same.

“We probably have some formidable intruders. I think that we should group up and get rid of them together. It should take a while for them to reach the lower tunnels so we can go and set up a trap for them,” the black-haired guy replied, looking towards the exit of the room.

“I think so. If we could catch the intruders, we could even use their bodies to become stronger!” the flower boy said with a bright smile on his face. He was pretty dumb considering that he was dreaming about that kind of thing in his situation. He didn’t even know who were his enemies as nobody returned to report to them.

“Don’t be a fool, Leonard. In case you haven’t realised, nobody returned to report to me which shouldn’t be the case unless they can’t. I believe it’s better if we prepare to leave instead of thinking about how to capture them. This might be Leviathan’s doing, I’m afraid,” their leader reprimanded him.

“My lord, do you really expect us to run like cowards after training in your arts for so many years? Those losers can go and die!” the flower boy stomped on the ground furiously.

“Haah- you all are too young and impulsive. It’s no wonder your clans threw you out,” the white-haired man on the throne shook his head helplessly. It wasn’t that he looked old, he just had white hair and beard. He probably used magic to make some changes to his looks.

Having enough of listening to their chatting, I glanced at Lien who simply nodded her head and then rushed forward. The youngster who believed he could change the world didn’t even have enough time to react before his head was separated from his body, and then it all got disintegrated with the PERISH word.

While she got rid of the weakest member, my aim was the black-haired man who unexpectedly turned towards me before I could touch him and jumped back. Well, that was his plan but I wasn’t new to the game either… By the time his body could move, there were vines entangled around his legs and gravity magic was pushing him towards the ground. If that wasn’t enough for the poor guy, I also raised a huge block of rock behind his back, cutting off all his escape routes.

My biggest advantage in battles was my casting speed. He even used advanced magic to quickly turn his body lighter and move to the side but he wasn’t quick enough and I managed to catch him by placing my hand on his face. Sparing no mana, I forcefully poured it into his body, making him explode like a bag of blood. Since the gravity around him was about five hundred times the normal, his remnants all stuck to the ground and with the help of my trait, I transformed it into plutonium and uranium.

Using the newly created molecules, Lien caused a nuclear explosion while I jumped over to her side and created a protective barrier around the two of us. The split of a second later she used her mana to control the neutrons and stopped the explosion from spreading to the upper floors, limiting the destruction to this room.

The white-haired man who sat on his throne before the explosion was nowhere to be seen since he decided that neglecting his defense and running away was more important. It was definitely a reasonable decision on his part since he’d have had to fight two versus one if he stayed here. Not minding the radiation, both of us used advanced magic to turn our bodies super light and altered some of the physical laws to increase our speed.

Instead of going after him through the doors, we passed right through the walls and caught up with him in just a few seconds but the sight in front of us was a sad one. The white-haired man was holding a little girl in his arms, his hand on her throat and his back against the wall in the corner.

“Stop right there!” he shouted when we entered the room. He obviously wouldn’t let go of her even if I asked him to so I just stood there silently, waiting for his next move.

“Uncle, please help me!” the little girl panicked but the man quickly covered her mouth.

“If you don’t want me to kill this little girl and many others, you should turn around and leave, along with your goddamn dogs. Also, leave my people!”

“I’m afraid I can’t fulfill your requirements since you should be the only one left alive by now,” I replied calmly while Lien turned around and left the room without saying anything.

“You should follow her example,” he said, glancing at her back. “And it’s a shame that my people are dead but that doesn’t mean I can’t escape. Now turn around and leave this room.”

Nodding my head, I looked into the girl’s eyes and said, “Don’t worry, we won’t let that ugly uncle hurt you.” Seeing that she also nodded her head, I turned around to leave the room. As expected of him, he was prepared to ambush me and surrounded me with a powerful gravity spell which pushed me to my knees with enough force to make the floor crack under my weight.

Since my bones weren’t ordinary, I had no trouble withstanding even stronger gravity and after balancing it with my own magic, I simply stood up and looked at him. At the same time, he finished his WORD magic and was about to launch it but Lien came through the wall behind him and pushed him to the side.

Not expecting that someone would push him from behind, he had no time to react and fell to the floor face first. The little girl wanted to run towards me but with the help of some wind magic, Lien pulled her into her arms while I appeared next to the white-haired man and crushed his legs.

I believed that he could provide me with useful information if I interrogated him so instead of killing him right away, I grabbed his head and poured a tiny bit of my mana into the mana veins around his brain. Unable to withstand the power of my mana, his veins exploded and his mana started surging out of his body. The usual reaction at these times were that the victims tried to heal their mana veins using the escaping mana to avoid mana depletion and then suffer from mana fever.

He was no different than any other person and instinctively healed his veins but that was the exact moment my trap activated and the influx of mana turned into the source of the formation that I laid around his brain. This was the only way to seal someone’s mana and stop them from using magic. If he chose to suffer from mana depletion instead, I wouldn’t have been able to seal his magic.

Regardless, nobody wanted to turn completely defenseless by losing all their mana so I had yet to encounter an opponent who was willing to wait for all their mana to leak out of their bodies. I decided to call this formation Mana Seal since that was its only purpose. As long as it was present around the victim’s brain, it’d block every signal and make them unable to cast any magic.

The only way to break it would be to let the victim run out of mana and make the formation lose its energy source but that was impossible without an outsider’s help since those with the Mana Seal were unable to control their mana. Picking up the guy, I threw him over my shoulder and turned towards Lien who was busy soothing the crying little girl.

Looking at her figure, I couldn’t help but imagine her doing the same to our daughter in the future. I was looking forward to that time, even if I knew that raising children wasn’t a simple task and maybe it wasn’t even that much fun. Regardless of how much fun and responsibility it was, both of us wanted to experience parenthood.

Clearing my throat, I managed to catch the girl’s attention and both of them looked at me. “Look, the evil uncle can’t hurt you anymore so you don’t have to cry. Could you go back to Leviathan with these two? You could leave the girl with our parents for the time being and you should throw this guy into the prison,” I said, throwing the white-haired man on the ground.

Closing her eyes for a moment, she scanned the area above her and after making sure that none of our people were in the way, she wrote the PERISH word above her head, making a giant hole with a diameter of ten meters appear in the ceiling of the room. The hole led straight to the surface and crossed many other tunnels on the way, also killing a few Germs along the way.

Picking up the little girl and the white-haired man, she jumped up and pushed herself upwards with gravity magic. Once she reached the surface, she teleported back to Leviathan. I knew she would come back soon but instead of waiting for her without doing anything, I moved through the tunnels and went on a massacre. Things were going smoothly since we not only outnumbered them, our members were also stronger than theirs and they were ambushed as well.

We had way too many advantages in this battle, not to mention that I gave a few pills to everyone which could block their bacteria from entering their bodies. I believed that coming well prepared was more important than to attack in a hurry, even if it meant that a few more people would suffer or die in the time being.

Whenever I had the chance, I also captured a few members and sealed their magic, hoping that they’d know something about the other four organisations. I had no intention of stopping until I got rid of all of them.

I was moving upwards through the tunnels with the unconscious germs levitating behind my back when I turned a corner and a bunch of spikes shot out of the wall and almost hit me. Luckily, my new body could simply absorb elemental magic so the spikes just disappeared.

“My lord! I’m sorry!” one of my people cried out, realising that he attacked me. I didn’t blame him since I hid my presence and aura, and he had no way to determine whether I was a germ or one of them. While he was busy apologising to me, his squad members were still fighting a group of germs, so I took his place as the offensive magician and wiped out those hindrances.

Turning towards me, they all lowered their heads as they said, “Thank you for your help.”

“It’s fine. How come you’re this deep? Have you killed all the germs above or what?” I couldn’t help but ask, considering that they were almost at the bottom of the underground base.

“No, Sir. We fell into a trap and were surrounded by about twenty people. After cutting a path out, we managed to get away from them but we have run into the group you’ve just killed. They were too powerful so we thought this would be our end. Thank you for saving our lives,” their leader replied.

“Your name is… Cynthia, right?” I asked after eyeing her for a few seconds. She had long blonde hair and orange coloured eyes, making me remember that she was the goddess of the Sun.

Oh, right, she was tasked with teaching the newcomers during the holiday.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Well, can you show me the way to that trap you spoke of?”

Nodding her head, she issued a few commands to her squad and then led the way. From then on, it took only a few hours until we wiped out the germs. About an hour later I also came across Lien who returned but instead of coming back down through the hole, she made her way down from top to bottom.

Their toughest members were at the bottom of the tunnel system so once they were taken care of, it was easy to get rid of the rest. I also didn’t bother capturing them since the weaker members of an organisation were almost always the people who had the least information. We have also found numerous rooms where they held prisoners and ‘test subjects’.

While the latter had to suffer from the effects of all kinds of bacteria, the former were all beautiful women whose purpose was quite obvious, considering that they were all naked. I really couldn’t wait to get rid of that white-haired bastard. Well, the prison cells of Leviathan weren’t a place where anyone would willingly enter.

Those who were locked up received no food and their room was a twenty meters tall and five square meters, sound-proof metal box. I wasn’t as generous as the people of the past where prisons were closer to resorts than to actual prisons. In my view, those who found no value in life shouldn’t be entitled to have any of the common rights a human was supposed to have.

To begin with, our ‘rights’ amounted only to our own power and what it let us do in our environment. Since they were my captives, they no longer had the right to murder indiscriminately and rape women selfishly, their only right was to sit in their cell and go crazy or suicide by biting their own tongue.

“Did you tie him up after throwing him into-”

“Of course, I even gagged him. I can’t let him suicide before we’re done with our interrogation, can I?” Lien replied, not even waiting for me to finish.

“That’s great then,” I nodded my head. “Let’s round up the remaining people and then leave this place.”

Although they were the weakest of the five organisations, they were also the most annoying, causing the most damage to humans. Despite our advantage in numbers, there were still people who managed to get further away before being caught. By the time we could return to Leviathan, the sky was getting dark, and we still had to take care of the victims that we found in the tunnels.

Honestly speaking, I didn’t want to bother with the aftermath and there were plenty of people in Leviathan who were more empathetic, so I left such matters to them. They were quick to form a group and after finding out the whereabouts of the victim’s families and homes, they sent back those that wanted to return.

There were also people who couldn’t bear the shame and wanted to die. After some consideration, some of the residents asked for my help and told me that I should remove the victim’s memories about the time they spent with the Germs. Since it seemed to be the best option, I agreed to do it, of course, only with the victim’s consent.

I wasn’t surprised that all of them agreed to it when they were asked, but removing memories couldn’t be done quickly and there were over fifty people, so the whole process took me a bit more than two days. Well, it was something to be expected since the consequences of our actions always took much more time to deal with than the action itself. It took only a single day to wipe out the Germs but it took about three days just to accommodate the victims, remove their memories, or send them back to their families.

God only knew how long we’d have to continue helping them before they could continue their daily lives. After all, those who had their memories removed had a gap in their mind and they knew about it. That gap needed to be filled in one way or the other. I felt sorry for them but I didn’t think that I was fit for helping them in the way they needed it, so I left them to my people. The best I could do was that I didn’t bother those who wanted to help with missions and their point quotes were automatically completed for the month. That way, they could focus entirely on what they were doing.

After interrogating the white-haired man who was the leader of the Germs, and some of their core members, we’ve found out about many other smaller organisations that were serving them. I decided that in the next few months, most of the missions would be related to wiping out those organisations. Since I no longer needed them, I went ahead and killed all of them. I would never risk them finding a way to break the seal and then get away without punishment. It was much safer to remove them from the land of the living.

Although they didn’t know where were the other four organisation’s base, their leader met the leader of Necrons when he was younger and he was the one who taught him how to create these vicious tiny life forms that could devour human flesh in the blink of an eye. He was just like a kid who learned a few things from his master and then left him to take over the world.

Thanks to Ma’at’s commandment, we had a clear image of the leader of the Necrons, which was a pretty good thing. There was something even better, though. As it turned out, the Germs were dealing with the Necrons in the dark because they’d come every month to take away the corpses the Germs amassed. Originally I wanted to declare to the world that the Germs were no more but after finding out about this piece of information, I commanded my people to stay tight-lipped about the matter.

Since the Necrons came for the corpses on the 25th of each month, I just had to wait until then and move to the island with my people to pretend to be Germs. If I was lucky enough, maybe I could see and capture a few Necrons as well. I could only hope that nobody would find out about it and spread the news.

While we were busy dealing with all these, Leviathan moved to the southern parts of Asia. Although I could control where it moved, I created a tiny formation around the entrance which hid it in thick cloud and made it move along with the wind. Black holes had such powerful gravity that not even light could escape from them so naturally, I had to hack around with a few formations to make it invisible to people. In its current state, not even I would be able to find it if I was an outsider.

For the time being, we just had to wait.

--- Australia, Sydney, two weeks after the extermination of the Germs ---

*chirp* *chirp*

*chirp* *chirp* *chirp*

*chiiii-*

“What do you think about this place, honey? Isn’t it beautiful?” Lien asked as she turned on her sunbed and laid down on her front.

Taking a deep breath, I could smell the salty odour of the ocean in the air, mixed with a small amount of blood. It wasn’t surprising considering that a snake had just caught a bird right above our head. Of course, the bird wasn’t a normal one either and it was about to strike us from above.

“The place is indeed beautiful but these beasts are quite annoying,” I replied, glancing at her round bottom.

“It was you who didn’t want to stay in the inner parts of the city where you laid the Horrific Formation, so you have no right to complain about it,” she replied, closing her eyes. “If not for that, we wouldn’t be attacked by a beast every goddamn minute.”

“I didn’t mean to complain but if it’s annoying you, we can go to the city.”

Opening her left eye, she sort of glared at me.

“Are you serious? You said you didn’t want to stay in a crowd so we came out here. Now you have to deal with the monsters as per our agreement and you can’t rest so now you want me to say that we should return to the city because I don’t like it here?”

“I didn’t mean it that way, you know? And it’s not like I have to do anything to kill these weaklings,” I couldn’t help but refute her words, only to see that she got even more annoyed.

Sighing loudly, she closed her eyes once again and said, “I’m sorry. I just get annoyed so easily for some reason.”

“Isn’t it because you’re pregnant?”

“It is, and I’m also trying to keep the chemicals in my body balanced but whenever I misunderstand something for a moment or you say something annoying, I get super irritated super quickly, and I speak even before I could control myself. I wouldn’t respond to anyone else right away but I’m way too relaxed around you so I tend to say whatever is on my mind in front of you.”

“It’s fine. Aren’t we used to being honest and outspoken with each other? I also know that you don’t mean it when you talk like this so it doesn’t bother me,” I replied, placing my hand on her face.

Placing her hand on mine, she smiled at me and then kissed my hand. “I love you.”

“Aww, aren’t you two being all lovey-dovey? You’re going to make us feel embarrassed,” Ma’at chimed in from the side, unable to shut her mouth and let me enjoy the moment.

Glancing at her and then at Gil who was trying to use the magic that I taught him, I replied, “Why do you have to be so mean? I was being all happy after hearing her words but you just had to ruin the moment. And Gil, you don’t have to hold back your mana so much. You can optimize your mana usage once you can actually cast the spell…”

“Ah, I’ve got it!” he replied, quickly pouring more mana into his portal. As the two points in space started to connect, he poured even more mana into his spell but his mana control wasn’t good enough so he screwed up in the most crucial moment, causing the portal to crumble and turn into a space crack instead.

Waving my hand, I quickly fixed it before it sucked us in and threw us out at some other part of the planet. Stomping on the ground, he cursed, “I’m so fucking useless! I fucked up again!”

“Don’t worry about it. You’re doing quite well considering how little time you took to learn the basics, though it’s because I told you to take your time with the foundations but you rushed instead. I just don’t understand what makes you so anxious to learn this spell. You can teleport already so why do you need the portal?”

“It’s not that I need it, I just want to learn it quickly. Awilix and Zhong learned the spell they chose so quickly so I also thought that I could finish mine in a few days. I didn’t think that even after two weeks, I’d be struggling with it. I know that I was being rash now so I’ll go back and read the books you lent to me about timing once again,” he replied in a dejected tone, lowering his head.

“Haah- why are you comparing yourself to people who have much more experience in magic than you? Both of them are close to reaching the Magister rank and have over twenty years of experience in mana control and various spells. Of course, it wouldn’t take long for them to learn it, not to mention that the spell they chose was much simpler than the one you’re trying to learn,” I shook my head, seeing him falling into the same mistake as many other residents in Leviathan.

They often compared themselves to the wrong people which made them feel like trash. Although Awilix and Zhong looked young, they were both over forty years old while Gil was only twenty-four years old and he got his commandment only a few years ago.

“But you’re even younger than me and them…” he refuted. At that, not only Ma’at, even Lien raised her head and looked at him as if he was an idiot. I kind of felt sorry for him. It must have been hard to be stared at by two beauties.

“Haven’t I told you about my husband a few days ago? He was like a robot and sacrificed more than half of his life doing nothing but learning magic. At that age, your brain is like a sponge so it’s only natural that he’s ahead of us,” Lien couldn’t help but reprimand him, shaking her head.

“You’re right but still-” meeting her gaze, he quickly shut up and sat down to listen to the book I gave him.

We didn’t use papers to record stuff anymore. Since I moved the tech people and the technology from Light city to Leviathan, we made good use of their AIs, though I didn’t feel the need to create artificial intelligence, so they were limited and could be called ‘clever programs’, at most.

Since I didn’t want to leave it to luck and use them without understanding how they worked, I used magic to learn all about development and how their AIs worked. Not much to my surprise, back then there were developers who wanted to sneak in some extra bit of code that’d steal our spells and save it to their own private storages. We started using them only after that part was removed from their code…

We still had a few days left before it was the 25th of the month and Lana’s, my mother-in-law’s, birthday was also only two days away. For the time being, I decided to take it easy and visit Sydney with Gil and Ma’at. The former had to follow us because he was the winner of the game we organised in Hawaii and I had to teach him magic while the latter grew up in these parts of Australia and wanted to see what had become of it after we created a few safe zones for people.

Sydney was safe for the most part but there were a few zones close to the outskirts of the city which were still infested with monsters. We were in one such area because I didn’t want to enter the city while Gil was still learning. Although he caused us some inconveniences, his commandment would be more than useful once he turned a bit stronger so it was worth nurturing him. He was a little bit retarded at times but who wasn’t… especially in Leviathan. My citizens were more often weirdos than not.

Clearing my throat, I said, “So back to your pregnancy. How do you feel these days? Other than getting irritated easily.”

“It’s fine but to be honest with you, I’m kind of impatient. My belly isn’t even swelling and waiting for nine months would be like a torture for me. I want to see my children, now!” Lien said in a loud voice as she sat up and released a bit of her aura with her last words, scaring away all the beasts in the area.

Well, if I was that bothered by beasts, I would have just released my aura and not even a single one of them would have come our way. That was also the reason why Lien was quick to realise not long ago that she misunderstood my words.

“We’ve found out about your pregnancy only two days ago and we haven’t even told our parents about it. What do you think, what would they say if we appeared at your mother’s birthday with babies in our arms?” I couldn’t help but laugh, imagining their face.

“...”

“I didn’t mean that I’d make them grow and pop them out in two days just because I’m impatient,” after staring at me as if I was an idiot, she finally replied.

“Hahaha, I know but still, just imagine the face they’d make. I bet my mother would happily jump around us while your father would make a dumbfounded face. As for Lana, I’m honestly not sure. She’s a rather serious person. I think that she’d just ‘frown’ while thinking about it,” I continued my imagination.

“Now I kind of want to surprise them… like really,” she muttered, rolling over to her side.

“Eh?” I raised my brows.

“Wait, no! I was just kidding. I wouldn’t do it.”

“No.”

“I’m not willing to do it!” she started flailing her hands.

“Sure. But do tell me if you still decide to just pop them out,” I replied, starting to feel unsure of what kind of birthday Lana would have.

“Hey, didn’t I sound super disrespectful to all the mothers who carried out their children in nine months and then raised them up? Just like our parents,” she asked, clearly bothered by the way she talked about it a moment ago.

“Hmm- it’s not like either of us would feel less attached to our own children, even if you gave birth to them in ten seconds. We’re living in a time of magic and have the power and the knowledge to make it possible to give birth to children super quickly. If our parents and other mothers knew how to do that, I don’t think they’d wait nine months either. I mean, it’s limiting them in moving around and stuff so why would anyone want to wait for so long if they had a safe way out?”

“The only reason I can think of is that you wouldn’t experience the full magnitude of what it’s like to carry out a child. There would be no memories about the first time they kicked and stuff, though that’s only if you give birth to them right away. If you just increase their growth rate, you’d still get to experience all the little things,” I replied, trying to give her a favorable answer.

I was a man so I had no idea what it was like to be a mother or how women felt about it. I didn’t think it mattered to anyone but the mother. If she wanted to go the natural way, I’d gladly wait for nine months and if she wanted to get past it quickly, I’d still support her decision.

“If you’re really so supportive of whatever I choose then I’ve decided. I’ll increase their growth rate to nine times the normal, meaning that you will become a father in about a month from now on,” she said, finally making up her mind.

“Dear, I’ve always supported your decisions unless they put your life at risk, so I’m not going to start picking a fight with you over something like this. Or if you just want to hear my opinion, I think that your decision is perfectly fine. You won’t have to go through too many hardships since it’s only one month but you can also experience everything during that month. You know that I usually prefer the middle road so I can only agree with you on this one as well,” I told her my opinion honestly, making her smile wider and wider.

“Thank you~” she mused as she leaned closer to me and wrapped her arms around my neck. Maybe feeling a little too emotional, she forgot about Ma’at and pushed her tongue into my mouth without a second thought.

“Mhh- wait, not here,” I tried to pull back from her as I glanced at Ma’at and Gil, who seemed to be fully focused on what we were doing.

“Ah, I’m sorry,” she said meekly as she pulled back and covered her mouth, also wiping off the trail of saliva that was still connecting our mouths.

Damn…

“Wha- What the hell are you imagining with me?” Ma’at couldn’t help but cry out loudly as she looked at Gil, whose face was getting closer and closer to a ripe tomato in color than a normal human’s.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to!” he raised his hands defensively.

“Well, it’s… it’s fine. It’s my fault that I’ve read your thoughts.”

“Hey, Gil. Did you know that she’s used to these kinds of thoughts and images when she’s around guys? I can’t help but wonder, what made her so embarrassed?” I couldn’t help but ask since I wanted to get back at Ma’at for constantly bugging us when I still couldn’t block her from reading our minds.

She wouldn’t freak out even if a guy pictured her in the weirdest of roles and positions so her surprise could mean only one thing. She also had a thing for Gil, which wouldn’t be surprising considering that he was the first guy who didn’t avoid her as if she was a plague. Since Gil didn’t know her that well yet, he probably thought that I was questioning his fetishes or something and turned even more embarrassed. What he didn’t see was that Ma’at glared at me and waved her finger in a threatening way.

I knew that if I said one more word, she’d start talking about our fetishes to him but much to her bad luck, neither Lien nor I cared about that. Before I could say anything, Lien picked up where I left off, “Aye, I’m also wondering because she’s used to all kinds of images. Not even weird things would freak her out enough to make her cry out like that. Could it be that she-”

Before Lien could finish her sentence, Ma’at appeared in front of her and covered her mouth with her hand. Leaning closer to her, she said in a low voice, “Shut up.”

“I’m your boss. You can’t make me shut up,” Lien replied playfully, pushing her hand away.

“If you dare…”

“Hahaha, it’s the first time I see you react like this. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t go so far but it was fun to see you being so embarrassed,” she laughed, seeing Ma’at jumping around her with a panicked face.

My guess was that Ma’at liked Gil to some degree but she wasn’t sure of what she wanted with him so she behaved normally around him. She was a beauty and Gil definitely had a thing for her as a person as well, so their ship was close to sailing.

Well, they were both adults so we wouldn’t go as far as to tell them to go out or something. But that didn’t mean we wouldn’t mess around with them until they realised what they wanted! Seeing that both of them were embarrassed, Lien and I looked at each other, and then made a high five, followed by a quick kiss while they were looking away.

Surprisingly, Gil was the first to recover this time and after clearing his throat, he looked at Ma’at and asked, "By the way, I heard you grew up here?"

"If you mean this continent, then yes but if you mean this city, then no, though I've been to this place when I was younger," hearing a serious question, she quickly regained her composure.

"Would you mind telling me more about it?" he pressed on, clearly interested to hear more about her past.

"I don’t mind telling you. Should I start from the beginning?” she asked.

“Please do,” he smiled at her.

“Well then, you should know that the people of this continent had no homes because there were very powerful monsters which could easily destroy cities. We had to move around constantly if we wanted to stay alive but even like that, life was very tough. Your daily life was similar to gambling, except for that the stake was your life, every goddamn day."

"Humans moved around in smaller hunting groups to slay beasts which served as our main source of food. It happened often that one or two people were killed in a battle but there were also people who joined our group. The reason was simple."

"If you ran into a powerful beast, you were done for. Whenever a hunting group was wiped out, the lucky ones who survived and managed to get away, joined other groups. Since life was short for most people, couples formed and separated in the blink of an eye and children were born regularly. It wasn't a good thing considering our situation but I suppose we needed fresh blood if we wanted to survive."

"I'm also the result of a quickie… My parents didn’t even like each other, they just wanted to have some fun, or so I have heard from the others. They died when I was four years old and from then on, I was raised by the hunting group. Once I learned how to walk, I was taught how to survive in the jungle. Of course, I couldn't hunt beasts at that time but I knew how to track down those that were good for hunting and knew how to avoid large and powerful ones."

"Considering all that, you shouldn't be surprised to hear that about eighty percent of the people in Australia were ‘born’ with the tracker trait. I’m no different in that aspect as I can track down anything and tell how strong my target is. I was lucky enough to reach the age of fourteen without dying and that was also the time when I inherited my commandment. That in turn, led me to my meeting with Seth and Lien."

“Isn’t that how you found me as well?” he asked, furrowing his brows.

It wasn’t a secret so I decided to tell him about it, “Before I built Leviathan, I had a feud with a powerful god incarnation who was the ruler of a whole city. He was a notorious person who controlled everyone by blackmailing them with their families. One of these people is called Dorje Ta’Og whose commandment makes it possible for him to see and find people who receive their commandment. He can also sense sudden spikes and surges of energy, which was the reason they found me.”

“I gained too much power too quickly so Thanatos, the leader of Light city wanted to get in control of me before I could become too powerful. Long story short, Dorje joined Leviathan after I killed Thanatos and saved his family and has been helping me in finding god incarnations and talents ever since. He’s a very quiet man who spends most of his time meditating so even I rarely see him. Most of the time he justs sends me a list of the new god incarnations and talents on the 1st of each month.”

“Oh! So that’s how you found out about me!” Gil raised his voice.

“Well, not exactly. I didn’t even know him when you received your commandment. The reason I found out about you was the same as why I found Ma’at. While Dorje was serving Thanatos, he had to note down every new god incarnation and their commandment and after he joined Leviathan, he handed over that list to me. There are still cities and god incarnations who I have to contact, you just happened to be on the top of the list,” I explained it to him.

“I see. So it was luck, after all,” he muttered.

“Haha, yes, you could say that,” I nodded. “Anyway, Ma’at was way too far away from the American continent so Thanatos didn’t bother with her, even though her commandment would be very valuable to any organisation. She was the first person I recruited after I started looking for people who could help me, not counting the people who joined before her by chance. By that, I meant the people who came over from Light city, and Skadi, who I met when we were still running away from Thanatos,” I said.

“So how did you recruit her? Did she have to pass the test as well?” Gil asked.

“Things were different at that time and he also needed my ability so he wasn’t that picky,” Ma’at laughed, hearing his question. “He still made me take that test later, though… and I passed it,” she grumbled as she added.

“I was just curious!” I raised my hands helplessly.

“It’s not like passing that test is a big deal. If you aren’t a selfish dick who thinks that they can do anything and have no mistakes and you have some moral standards, you can pass it easily. But if you think about it, most people are always blaming others and aren’t willing to appreciate other people’s efforts unless there are many others who are looking up to them. Then a popular opinion is born and everyone follows suit without having a thought of their own. Seth is trying filter those kinds of people,” Ma’at said, shrugging her shoulders.

“Oh, I’m sorry for preaching,” noticing herself, she apologised to Gil.

“Eh? It’s not a problem. At least, now I understand why I had to go through all those strange tests after the labyrinth,” he waved his hand.

“That’s good then, though we’ve got a bit sidetracked so let me finish the rest of the story,” Ma’at replied. “After inheriting my commandment, I’ve worked hard to become stronger so that I could stay alive. In just a few years, I had become strong enough to kill most of the monsters and only large groups of apex predators could pose a threat to me.”

“I’ve become quite famous in the area and from then on, many other groups joined the one I grew up in and started following me. With such a large group of humans, we had no trouble killing even the stronger monsters but this soon led to a problem. I was hailed a hero and everyone looked up to me but it didn’t last long.”

“The apex predators weren’t some stupid monsters and were clever enough to understand who posed a threat to them. I suppose they didn’t want another one of their kind to appear so they grouped up to get rid of me. I was one of a kind in their eyes anyway. Can you guess what happened after that?” she asked, her face turning a little lonely.

“Did they kill your group?” he asked.

“Hahaha, that’s not it. The people that called me a hero, left me one after the other and in the end, even my own group told me that I should leave them before I brought death to them. I wandered around in the jungle for about two months and encountered life and death situations regularly because I was hunted by the monsters.”

“Then one day I woke up and noticed a huge presence nearby while all the monsters that chased me the day before were gone. Back then this bastard didn’t know how to hide his aura, so I thought that I had trespassed on the territory of some super strong monster. I tried to leave the place as quickly as possible but when I reached a clearing, that presence started moving towards me with incredible speed. You have no idea how scared I was.”

“Then out of nowhere, he appears behind my back without my notice and then calls out my name. I don’t think I’ve jumped higher ever since than at that moment…”

“Hahaha, I’ve told you many times that I was sorry but you turned around exactly when I caught up to you so instead of appearing in front of you, it was behind you,” I chimed in, trying to defend myself. It really wasn’t intentional.

“Bah! Who the hell would believe that?”

“I do,” Lien replied.

“You don’t count,” Ma’at waved her hand.

“What? But why?” she cried out as she sat up.

“Because you’d side with him even if he was in the wrong,” she replied, sticking out her tongue. “Anyway, he helped me in cleaning up all those powerful monsters that chased after me and soon after Lien has arrived as well. They killed every monster in the area and after finding Sydney, they laid a Horrific Formation around it to scare monsters.”

“All those hunting groups that were wandering around in the jungle moved to the city and started living in the formation. Like the hypocrites they were, they erected a statue for Seth and then called him a hero. Since I was the one who returned with their new hero, they also praised me and told him how I fought for them and helped them. I’m quite sure I don’t have to explain why I accepted Seth’s invitation right away and left these bastards. Anyway, that’s my tale. I’ve been a member ever since,” she shrugged her shoulders.

“Actually, I’m surprised that you didn’t start hating humans instead…” Gil muttered, clearly pissed off after hearing how they treated her.

Pointing at me, she said, “If I have to be honest, I’d have definitely failed their stupid test if I took it right after he brought me back with him. I came to like people only after spending some time with these two idiots and the others in Leviathan.”

“It’s true that most people are avoiding me because of my commandment but that doesn’t make me hate or dislike them. I mean, I can understand them. I’d probably avoid myself, to be honest. Even if I’m avoided by most of the residents, I know that they aren’t two-faced assholes who would call me a hero one moment and then turn their backs on me the next.”

“Those who were truly bothered by my presence have even told me and apologised to me, honestly. Many of them had similarly bad experiences with our dear race and yet they are still helping humankind. If not for experiencing the better side of humans, I don’t think I’d be willing to use my commandment to help anyone, so I can only look up to them for being so kind,” she replied, sighing loudly.

Seeing Gil staring at her without blinking and then Ma’at’s face turning red, I was dying to hear their thoughts but I had no way to replicate commandments yet. “So, are you going to continue learning or should we retire for the day?” I asked, interrupting their lovey-dovey moment.

“I’ll continue learning,” Gil replied with a startled face. He was a bit too focused on Ma’at. At the end of the day, he tried to create a portal once again and finally succeeded, hopefully helping him in understanding that he had to learn the basics if he wanted to learn new magic.

Standing up from my sunbed, I stretched my arms and then picked up Lien who fell asleep. Seeing her jean shorts cutting into her meaty legs, I couldn’t help but grit my teeth and look away, knowing that I wouldn’t get to play with her unless she woke up and got in the mood for it. The following month didn’t look that good for me…

“Seth, can I ask a few questions?” Gil asked in a low voice, sneaking up on me from behind.

“Hm?” I raised my brows as I turned around.

“It’s fine if you don’t want to answer them but here I go anyway. First question. Is your commandment really related to… to sex? I’ve heard it from so many people but nobody knows it for sure so I’ve become curious. My second question. What’s your trait? And lastly, our magic power was measured when you took us to Hawaii but what about yours?”

“Before I answer, I’d like to tell you something. I’m a curious person and I think it’s a good thing but I also know when I shouldn’t let myself be curious. There’s a saying which goes like, ‘curiosity killed the cat’. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not threatening you with anything. I just hope that you won’t get yourself killed in the future in a crucial moment, for example, when we find and attack the Necrons,” I warned him first since I noticed that he liked asking questions that could anger others.

“My commandment is related to it but I’m not going to tell you in what way. The only person on this planet who knows how it works exactly is my wife, and that’s going to stay that way for the rest of my life. My trait is no secret if you tell me yours first,” I mused.

“Haha, that’s fine. You are the one who helped me out so I trust you. It’s called Sensor Touch which makes it possible for me to scan thoroughly the things I come in contact with, people included. Thanks to my commandment and my connection with the rain, I can spread my trait to the raindrops, which allow me to scan everything under the clouds. I can find the weak points of my opponents bodies or the weak points of their spells if there are any,” he said.

“Oh? That’s a very useful combination. Mine is called Blank Alchemy which allows me to transform any material and molecule as I please. The more the target molecule differs from the original, the more mana it costs me. The reason it’s called Blank is that normal alchemists have to touch the materials to transform them. As for me…” I raised my hand and pointed at the nearest tree which had its bark turned into stone in the blink of an eye.

“The only limitation is people. I must touch them to use it on them because their own mana is blocking the transmutation. Of course, that is only if their mana can resist mine,” I mused as I turned a lock of his hair into stone and then pulled it out.

“Ouch! Why did you… eh?”

“As for your last question, I don’t mind telling you because it’s nothing more than a number. Nothing is definite in this world, much less these numbers,” I added. Condensing the mana in my body, I created a mana crystal which was used to measure our magic power and then poured a bit of my mana into it. With a few thoughts, I sent the results of my measurement to his AI and waited until he looked at it.

“This... it’s over five hundred thousand! Doesn’t this mean that you could turn even the Magisters into stone without touching them? Hell, you could kill even the Sentinels! Don’t get me wrong but I’m starting to understand why some people call you a monster and why nobody wanted to fight you on the island,” he shook his head.

“Haha, it’s not that much. There is a being that’s probably stronger than me. Anyway, could you take him back to his room, Ma’at? I still have to play with my dear wife,” I said as I moved my right hand upwards and groped her breast.

“Sure, sure, but could you wait until we leave?” she waved her hand and closed her eyes. A moment later, they teleported to their hotel rooms in Sydney, leaving the two of us alone.

“Are you sure that it was a good idea to answer him loudly? It could bring trouble to your head later,” Lien opened her eyes right away and set up a sound blocking barrier.

“It’s not going to change anything. I’ll let Leo hide for a bit more. After I destroyed Light city and returned to Balan, I was shocked to find out that he killed Mary and left the city in a mess. I didn’t think that I’d ‘sense him’ after such a long time,” I chortled.

"I wonder what are his goals."

“Me too. By the way, could you move your hand?” she asked, glancing at my hand on her breast.

“But it feels so good to the touch.”

“My fist will also feel good to the touch,” she glared at me.

“Hoho~ are you sure about that? Although we decided that I wouldn’t touch you more than once a week during your pregnancy, you’re still in an early stage. Shouldn’t we make up for all the days that we’re going to lose out on because of it?” I looked at her with a smirk on my face as I started fondling her breast.

“You…”

“Dear, you may try to hide how much of a pervert you are but you see, the Link between us is very powerful and I can sense what you truly want, no matter what you say. On the other hand, thanks to my commandment, my sex drive is definitely not normal. Although I use magic to restore my libido during our sessions, it’d return by itself in about half an hour even without magic. Since you’ve become my apostle, you should have realised by now that your needs have similarly increased. How could I refuse to give you the D when I know you want it?”

“Aren’t you a dirty pig?” she grumbled as she turned away.

“Hai, hai~ I am, so let me ‘sing’ you to sleep, though the one singing will be you,” I replied.

“Moaning isn’t singing, stupid.”

---

Two days later, we returned to Leviathan to celebrate Lana's birthday. Thanks to my mother's investigation, we didn't have to think for long about what to give her as a present. We thought about giving her gifts separately but in the end, we decided against it. That way, neither of us would feel bad for giving her a worse gift than the other.

My mother-in-law was quite similar to me in personality, so I was quite sure that she wouldn't like a big party. Most of the time she was training in her free time, and she didn't like to be interrupted for too long. It was best to hand over the presents, have a quick lunch together, eat the cake, and then leave.

"Are you done dressing up?" I stopped in the door and leaned on the door frame. As Lien looked at me, wearing a loose white shirt with the 'BIG MILK' text on it, I started laughing so hard I almost choked myself to death.

"What's so funny?" she asked with a frown as she took out her earrings and walked up to me. Seeing her knockers from so close, I quickly stopped laughing and put my hands on them.

Slapping them away, she said, "Not now."

"I just felt like touching them. So? Are you coming like this?" I stuck my hands into my pockets and ran my eyes down on her simple white shirt and hot pants.

"Well, I thought about wearing nice clothes but I don't want to piss off my father. I bet he would say something like, 'your dress is too short, you should wear longer ones'," she replied, shaking her head.

"Fair enough," I replied. Even if her shorts revealed her sexy legs, nobody could see what was under so Michael shouldn't have a reason to pick on her.

"Let's go then," she locked her arms around mine and then made her way towards the door. 

On the way to our parents' house, I asked, "What about your pregnancy?"

"I'm still in the phase where my body is trying to adapt to the changes which should make me tired all the time but I'm not a mortal, so I don't have that kind of problem," she said it all in one breath.

"Cool. Just tell me if we should stop our night activities, okay? I'm not going to bother you once you get to that stage," I said, kissing the side of her head.

"Aww~ I love you, honey," she mused happily. Lowering her head, she added, “I know we agreed to do it only once a week for a month but if you really can’t hold it back, I can just use magic to restore my libido and we can do it.”

“Haha, it’ll be fine. Your image is burned so deeply into my mind that I can jack off to you anytime!” I replied playfully.

Shaking her head, she just laughed at it and continued walking. After taking a few steps,  she took a deep breath and looked up to the starry night sky. "I love this place so much. The night sky is so clear and beautiful as nowhere else, and it's so peaceful. Even if you built this place for a different reason, it's definitely the best place for us to raise our children."

"I'm glad you like it here," I smiled at her, and then I ran my eyes over the houses of Leviathan's residential area. The lights were still on in many of them, and I could also hear different groups chatting happily in their gardens.

Soon we reached our parents' house and rang the bell. Since it was past eight in the evening, they surely weren't expecting our visit. Maybe Lana was thinking that we had forgotten about her birthday. Little did she know that we were going to give her the most surprise today.

"Hello, my dear daughter," Lana opened the door and jumped into her neck right away.

So I was wrong. She totally knew that we'd come in the evening…

Returning the hug, Lien greeted her, “Hi~ Have you invited Seth’s parents?”

“They’re inside,” she replied, stepping back and opening the door. When it was my turn, she stepped closer and hugged me as well, “How are you two doing?”

“Haha, we’ve got some good news for you but let’s get inside first,” I replied. Stepping to the side, she let me in and then closed the door behind us. My parents were sitting in the living room, chatting with Michael, who sprung up from his seat as soon as he noticed his daughter standing in the doorway.

Once we were done with greeting each other and all the small stuff, we sat down and I brought out Lana’s birthday cake. We made it together with Lien and left it in our fridge but it wasn’t hard to open a portal to our fridge.

“I’m still amazed when I see you doing stuff like this,” Lana remarked, seeing me taking out the cake from thin air.

Sighing loudly, I said, “I’m really blind for not noticing it. Whatever, it’s never too late. Before we cut the cake, I’d like to hand over our present to you.”

“Lien, it’s your turn.”

“What are you talking about?” Lana asked with a confused face.

Opening a portal to our room, Lien laughed as she pulled out the sword I made, “Hehe, this year your gifts are going to be a bit different. First of all, let me present to you this sword which Seth created from the best materials in the world. Although the sword is enchanted, you can’t use them for the time being because they’re locked by a spell. You’ll have to become stronger to unleash its full potential.”

“The enchantments are divided into three layers and you have to break the seal on each one of them personally. You can unlock the first layer when you reach the Sage rank, the second when you reach the Warlord rank, and the third when you reach the Magister rank. There are only three of these in the world and the other two are owned by Seth and me,” she explained.

“As for what those enchantments can do… Firstly, it will start drawing mana towards your body which makes it easier to cast magic because of its abundance. You can easily convert that mana to start firing simple spells such as fireballs in a large quantity. You’ll barely have to use your own mana. When you reach the second stage, it will use a bit of that mana to enhance itself and generate a mana blade, which can disperse most of the incoming spells as long as they aren’t WORD magic. You can just wave it around to deal with the small fry.”

“Finally, when you reach the third stage, you will unlock a whole set of enchantments. There is a defensive formation carved into the handle of the blade which you can activate by pouring mana into it. It’s certainly much quicker than casting it by yourself. Another one is a formation that can move you forward ten meters with light magic.”

“Although light is considered a common ‘element’, it takes some time for your mana to wrap around your whole body and speed it up to the speed of light, but because the sword is going to pull mana towards your body, you won’t have to personally control your environment and can use ‘Light Step’ instantly. As for the last one, it’s a set of offensive runes that can quicken the process of space and gravity manipulation. This means that you can create black holes, spatial rifts, and gravity zones much quicker than others.”

Seeing her staring at Lien blankly, I asked with a big smile on my face, “Do you not like it?”

Turning towards me, she said, “I can’t accept that.”

“Oh, but you will,” I chortled. “Or do you want me to destroy it, after all?”

“Okay, I’ll accept it,” she replied in a hurry, seeing me reaching towards the sword.

The original colour of the sword was dark yellow as it was made from a material that doesn’t exist on the earth, called Sindarin. It was an extremely durable and rather flexible metal with great mana conductive property. Since I was a sucker for black blades, I painted it black with the blood of a plant-type monster which was almost impossible to wash off.

As Lien handed the sword over, Lana swung it around a few times and then looked at it with amazement. It was easy to scan her body and make the perfect sword for her considering her strength, height, weight point, and all the small details that counted. Her physical body reached its limits so I didn’t have to worry about her getting physically stronger.

“Oh, and here is its sheath. It can contain mana inside so when you draw it, you can use that mana to launch a super quick and super strong attack as well! This effect isn’t sealed or anything but it is obviously limited to your power. The stronger you become, the stronger it will be,” I added as I opened a portal to our room and picked up the sheath.

“I’m sorry, I forgot about it,” Lien laughed, realising that she took out only the sword.

“Well, it’d be dangerous to walk around with this thing without a sheath. It’s very… sharp,” I grumbled, remembering how many times it cut me while I was enchanting it. Its mana dispersing blade was quite annoying since my current body was mostly made up of mana cells, in other words, highly condensed mana. Whenever I touched it, I lost my fingers and had to re-condense them.

If it was so effective against my body, I didn’t even dare to imagine what it’d do to normal human bodies. To be honest, I had never tested it against humans but it sure as hell chopped up monsters like vegetables.

“Thank you, I like it very much!” she said with a bright smile on her face, sheathing the sword and placing it next to the sofa.

“There two more ‘gifts’, though both of them could be called announcements,” this time, it was my turn to speak up. “The first thing is that I’m going to teach you magic so that you won’t have to rely on the sword alone and can take advantage of the third layer of enchantments. I can see that you can’t wait to decline it so let me tell you that you aren’t allowed to decline this one either,” I said, raising my finger.

“As for the second one…” turning towards Lien, I let her say it.

“I’m pregnant, with twins.”

“You’re what?” Michael jumped up from his seat.

“Nice!” My parents congratulated me right away while Lana fell deep in thought, just as I expected.

“How come they are twins?” she asked after a moment of silence, clearly suspicious. “Don’t tell me they’re also a boy and a girl? I bet you can tell it.”

“Hehe, of course, I can. I mean, I helped two of them into my womb personally,” Lien replied, forgetting all about her father.

“That’s so unfair! I wanted a son as well but things happened and we couldn’t make a little brother for you. Oh, well, congrats!” Lana said, hugging Lien once again. “I can’t wait to see my grandchildren,” she added, just as excited as the two of us.

“I know right? When they go off to work, we can take care of them and play with them,” my mother jumped up and down in her happiness. It was nice to see that they accepted it so easily and they weren’t as surprised as I thought.

“Why are you making that surprised face, Son?” my mother laughed, seeing my face.

“Hmm, I just thought that you’d be more surprised or something,” I replied.

“You two are quite infamous in this city about a few things… and we also know what your commandment is. Do you really think we’d be surprised by something like this? I’m just happy that you two love each other so much,” she said, patting my shoulder.

Covering my face, I regretted saying it right away.

“Wait, wait, wait! But aren’t they too young?” Michael stepped into the fray.

“Too young? Well, it’s true that Lien has turned nineteen not long ago but your daughter isn’t a child anymore and knows what she’s doing. They may be young but they are running a huge place like this and even if they will run into some problems in the future, we’ll be here to help them. What’s there to be afraid of?” Lana soothed him.

“You’re right, honey. I was probably overthinking it,” he nodded his head, taking a deep breath.

It seems like Lana is the master in their household… I thought to myself, seeing him calming down and listening to her right away.

Glancing at Lien, I decided that I should be careful not to fall into the same position. Mothers were more dangerous than wives!

Once everyone calmed down, we cut up the cake and then had a small feast. Soon after we said our goodbyes and retired for the night. As it turned out, we were famous perverts in our own goddamn city, even though we rarely did anything perverted in front of others.

Since we were labeled as perverts anyway, I went ahead and took care of my wife that night as well. She slept with a big smile on her face…

As I closed my eyes and prepared to sleep, I remembered that we missed out on one thing. We forgot to tell our parents that the twins would be born in a month. Deciding that it’d be a surprise, I stopped thinking about it and fell asleep.