77 Well Sh*t...(3)
One year since the 'familial' bonding of Mark with his wife and her mother, he now receives regular visitations from the woman, Duchess Paris. The Duke did not mind much as he only received news that his daughter is now pregnant.
But in reality Mark just had Francine wear the bump to fake the pregnancy, since he had now slowly started to introduce the two to his 'truth' which made them slack jawed.
Due to that the two were becoming more attached to Mark, courtesy to his manipulations. He did not want the Duchess to sleep with any man again, just a possessive nature Mark has.
He had prepared an enchanted necklace to use on a handmaiden who will be used by the duchess to substitute her whenever the Duke is drunk and could not tell the difference of the illusion.
And recently Mark has now started clinical trials for the cure he has to turn all the vampires into Dhampirs. Neferata was also slowly brought into his fold as he made sure his 'sessions' with her were 'deeply' understood.
Slowly and surely he is expanding which earned many hate from other nobles. And it went to the max when he was named as the new heir of the Duke, courtesy to his now vibrant Mother-in-law.
The sons of the Duke were angry for sure but they were not role model nobles either. He had rumors spread and defame the sons using the vampire network which were mostly true rumors.
Also rumors of them of trying to poison their father to take the seat of Duke, which is believed by many as the Duke is showing signs of age already. But it was all Mark's plan, even with the stability the Duke still found no way to improve the realm.
Mostly relying on the taxes Mark had given but it was always wasted by the sons who liked throwing balls and parties. Thus prompted him to take the place of the Duke, of course it was him making the Duke weaker, who wanted an incompetent ruler anyways.
And the people were more accepting of him; he slowly and surely started to manipulate the nobles of Mousillon to be in his side. And it was easy since he was a great leader and now famous man that is being worshipped by many.
And since Francine was heard to be pregnant then an heir was for sure to appear making more lean to his side. Well their activities were quite heard by many in the castle as it was not frowned upon if the woman wails in pleasure the whole night.
Many nobles say it would inspire the peasants to make more children. Mark rolled his eyes at this, he knew such acts were also known in Earth during the 18th century where slave owners would have sex in the balcony of their manor in full view of their slaves.
Saying it would make more slaves but for Mark it was just white guys trying to show off to their black slaves their Massive Ego since many white men got insecure of their smaller equipment compared to their black slaves that have heavy machinery.
But he did so nonetheless, so the Duke would know of it making him relieved. This also sparked many nobles to offer up their women to be concubines to Mark while some even wanted to schedule a wedding for the unborn 'child'.
But he did not accept anymore, it was hard to force an heir of a Duke for such things since maybe only the King could give such orders. But it was known that there were no princesses born to the royalty, so no marriage offers were made.
And his great leadership was heard of many making lots of peasants migrate to his lands. This made many nobles hate him but they could not do much, they had heard of the influence of this guy and many are starting to believe.
His cult which is mostly situated in Brettonia has spread all over to the empire, many scholars flocked but was not able to learn much from Mark. This brought more haters but Mark ignored them as he could not blame haters for doing what haters do.
They don't have much say anyways as his believers defended him, also he got three more guardians of the forest anointed. Two were his knights who proved themselves to be responsible warriors and one that was quite unexpected, a questing knight that Mark found to be a great definition of courage and chivalry.
It was that knight who was now the Count of Fume, thanks to Mark having no such requirement to call of your worldly attachments to become a guardian many wanted to become one.
Their feats now spread all over the kingdom, the Guardian Hand which was Hans' nickname now. Has traveled with his companion the Damsel now went to save many people from various troubles. His most famous would be taking down a large bandit group that was terrorizing on the route to Parravon.
Only criteria Mark wanted to promote a guardian of the Forrest is that they have a great sense of responsibility and would protect the innocent with all they can. His motto is the words of uncle ben himself, 'With great power comes great responsibility.'
This was also added by his priest in their preaches making more people like the Herrimaults to join in his guards. Many nobles that were also proper lords approved of such that they were now inclined to help Mark in relocating some peasants to his fief.
It wasn't until half a year when the Duke has announced his retirement making Mark officially the new Duke of Mousillon. It might have been the smallest of the Duchies but it is thriving now, the celebration was coupled with the first ever Dhampir that existed in the Old World.
Which was Melissa, though she felt disappointed she was not taken by Mark but she cheered up when he heard him say she'll get what she wishes for if she could help him in turning all of the Lahmian Vampires.
Since the last vial of Blade's blood was used on her then she needed to be the new recipient coupled with Neferata who also was another source of DNA that could help turn them into Dhampirs.
After all of this Mark had to slow down, he knew his rise was too fast and from what he needed right now as to get all the Lahmian Vampires in Ulthuan and Naggaroth. They are the last he needed to meet as the ones in the Old world now worshipped him.
And after mastering Dark Magic he now is focusing on the life Magic, but before he could focus on all of this he needed to vanish. All because he had fulfilled his mission by introducing a large variation of beast which he had bought, it stalled because he lacks mostly were insects and birds.
Mostly the phoenix eggs he got and Great Eagle chicks made it possible, so he now could change the position of the Mansion. The only place that could lead to him, so he had it transferred inside the Forest of Arden and placed many wards to hide it from anything.
But before he could he prepared a replacement which has an anywhere door connected to his backyard. Thus with theatrics, drama and a great performance, he was last seen to have been in the seas being brought up by a long ray of golden light.
All he left was a baby boy(an Illusion) that would grow to be the best Duke of Mousillon(Would be Mark with a younger appearance). This would bring about the era of Marcelus Hartman Johnson II, Duke of Mousillon, Grand Theogonist of the cult of the God Marcelus, but that is for the future.
It was also recorded that the former Duchess Paris and Duchess Francine was heard to have gone with the wind. Tales of knights going to the Forrest of Arden and Forest of Chalons and coming out as guardians were also told by bards.
Where Mark had gone to many thought to be the Realms of the Gods and because of this he now goes with many titles, God of the Forest, Titan of the Mountains, God of the Dhampirs and many more.
Not many knew where he went to but all knew that he still influences this world by giving out visions to people chosen to become guardians, but the whole truth of it? Only Mark knows as he now spends his time in his 'divine realm' with his own confidants.
[Five months later]
After Melissa, the rest of the Lahmian Sisterhood vampires were able to be turned into Dhampirs, making them able to walk in the sun again. It also boosted Mark's powers as they can now pray and all it would lead to is to him.
Their souls now tied to his being meaning he could make his own version of Valhalla. And he plans to make them into his personal guard like how Odin has the Valkyries, only his would be made up of beautiful Goth girls in Victorian dresses wielding spears while riding black haired unicorns.
Mark wanted to make them ride rainbow colored unicorns but none were born with such hair color combinations. For now only Black, Silver and white are available, it then hit him that he is making unicorns like cars with different designs.
Other than that he could now feel the divinity within him develop and attach to his soul power and so called mind palace. This gave him mental protection and enabled divine power to flow in his veins, making him stronger which he found out after bench pressing at least ten tons.
He could happily say he is a god making him laugh evilly like a third rate villain but he did it alone. And with all this free time, Mark is focusing on upgrading his equipment; he would have to increase the advancement of his laboratory.
So his schedule is to build things, f*ck his women, study, scheme, f*ck some more, contemplate and develop. He knew it would take decades until he could have the changes he wanted to have the world to some into fruition.
And the Empire was key to this, but he must first have those three Emperors to lose influence. As much as he has a lot of nobles in his pockets, it was still not enough as the three emperor was more like a war of religions.
From worshippers of Taal, then the Ulricans and the Sigmarites. These cult fueld this war because they wanted their religion to be the best and leading the Empire with their beliefs unchallenged. Mark really wanted to break the head of the Grand Theogonist of each cult.
This was like the dark ages of earth but more juices up with priest that could use magic and has greater fanaticism in their religion. So even if his believers were present in the Empire he had them lay low and just preach of his teachings discreetly.
He didn't want jealous priest of the other cults to go point at his believers like witched that needed burning at a large pile of firewood. Other than that he is gaining more influence in Kislev as he now got an honorary nobility from the Tzarina herself.
And he had asked for the lands in the far north for his fief, a small village that was situated in the path that led to the Baersonling's camps. It did raise confusion to the Kislevites as they were worried their food provider was getting in danger settling there.
They had heard of the Duke being a god that was worshipped in Brettonia and he now had risen to the realms of gods. But they were abated when a strong group made up of Mark's finest started clearing the area of Northmen raiders.
Mark found that buying slaves were getting hard do he went for the source as he wanted to slowly gather enough to make a massive army. He also started to build a large wall like structure to block the armies of Chaos that might march down from the Chaos wastes.
Also he wanted to erase the Skaven in the Hell Pit, the main producer of the Rat Ogres. He did not want such things to spread to the various clans of skaven and it would be good training for his men. Who were all now given some minor enhancements from the compound V.
No one know much of what happens in the north anyways and Mark gets more men to add to his army. It did gain controversy how such a long line of tall walls were built in just one month, so it gained many who wanted to investigate and his believers used this to preach more of his greatness.
Mark was sure that he had stopped many of the Skaven plans for spreading diseases as his men were also equipped with gas mask when they are fighting underground. All this happened in the span of five years since his 'disappearance' in the mortal world.
Now it was the 1560 of the Imperial calendar, but before Mark could continue his expansion, the newspaper headline that came in DC made him jump from his seat.
[Maxwell Enterprise miraculously gained many investors in one night!!]
(A/N: MC might have appeared as cold here but that was the plan, since he knew he was a past self of another him then it made him feel a bit confused. So right now he is ignoring what 'He' has said as it made him have some questions that have no answers. Later it would be tackled by the MC in time but right now he is in a state of denial knowing that he is not the original him.)