Chapter 75: Return of the Past

A bracelet, a ring, a bead, or even something else. An item possessed by some old grandpa who used to be some big shot. This was a very common troupe within some stories in Alex's last life. As soon as Wudong seemed to start talking to himself, he had already exposed his secret to Alex.

Wudong looked on in fear, not knowing what to do. Alex's face on the other hand lacked any emotion that expressed his feelings for the situation. He just didn't care enough about it. Already he had trapped the young man like a spider trapped his food, there was no escape from this.

"You should give up," Alex incited him. "That way I give you my word that you won't be harmed as long as you promise to not chase after Ya Fei anymore. She is my betrothed now."

'What?!' Wudong was confused at this, why would Alex do something like this? But then he concluded. 'Yes… Ya Fei should have put him up to this. Dear Ya Fei, what kind of promise did you make with such a cold man? He would never spare someone like me. So Ya Fei… doing all of this for a man like me…'

"I will take your deal," said Wudong, dispelling his Ki to show his truthfulness. But unlike his actions, Wudong's thoughts were the opposite of that. 'Just you wait for me, Ya Fei, as soon as I get more powerful I will-'

Fwish!

Suddenly Wudong's head was obliterated and his soul was immediately destroyed as soon as it was about to get out of his body.

"Wow, can't believe he fell for that?" Alex was shocked for a split second. He never before would believe that someone would be stupid enough to instantly drop his guard like that. Usually, that question was only so he could later lead on the conversation to agitate the enemy.

"The world is a big place. How the hell did he reach that far being so stupid?" Alex was genuinely baffled by this. He had always assumed that no man could reach this high by trusting the words of an enemy so easily. Even the lucky Heroes would need some intelligence to back up their escapes from impossible dangers.

"Because I didn't warn him of your intentions," the figure of a translucent old man appeared out of the bracelet. "He used to only be an untalented servant. If it wasn't for my advice and help, he would have been dead a dozen times over."

"So you're saying that the root of this problem was you?" Alex asked nonchalantly.

"What?! N -No, of course not!" The old man's soul became panicked. "I told him many times to not come here!"

"But you just said that he listened to your advice, as you had saved him many times already," Alex elaborated as he saw the old man's eyes fill with dread. "Let me tell you something, old man. Don't worry, it doesn't matter what you said or did."

The old man's spirit breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you-"

"Because I would kill you anyway." Alex finished. "I never let my enemies grow stronger to challenge me. Just like I destroyed the naive kid's soul, I will do the same with you. You will never reincarnate, your existence will cease to exist."

After saying those simple words, Alex swiped his hand. Having finished the spell while he and the old man talked, this was the only useful talking that happened during a battle. The one where you try to buy some time to cast a spell in case the enemy was stupid enough to listen.

Chains came out of small dark holes, the chains were red as if blistering with heat. The old man was tied down by them and screamed in pain as his soul got destroyed. Alex was unbothered by this and instead took a whisk of memory from the old man's souls. Within a split second, he entered his Mind Palace and viewed the whole life of the old man like a movie and finished it in less than a second.

Hundreds of Martial Arts, Cultivation Techniques, and Pill Recipes had become available to him.

"Damn, this old man was a big shot in his life. Some rival of the Human Emperor, though nothing special when compared to that kind of figure. The old man had helped the Human Emperor seal the Beast Emperor and given his life during the war.

In his last moments, the old man had been regretful for dying in his prime of forty years old." Alex loudly summed up the old man's whole life story. This was something that didn't happen in-game in his previous life.

Normally anyone in his place would have at least panicked a little. After all, his future knowledge was slowly but surely starting to become useless. But Alex was the epitome of calmness, to him it didn't matter. Worrying for something inevitable like this was not productive. Instead in his mind, it was better to prepare for the inevitable time when his memories and future knowledge will completely fail to predict anything.

By now his God-like predictions of the future have only been so due to his game knowledge. That had been a huge advantage, it would be a lie to himself to not admit that. But good things didn't last forever.

...

Ya Fei looked around the massive mansion as some homunculus maids escorted her around.

"Your bedroom will be very luxurious, a long-sized bed and seventy maids you could call to whenever you want." The homunculus guiding her explained. It even pointed out some small details on the mansion and what she should do if something wasn't to her satisfaction.

All of this was weird to Ya Fei, already she could feel the invisible chains starting to constrict her. Every maid that looked at her felt like Alex was gazing through those eyes.

His control was already starting to suffocate her and Ya Fei couldn't do anything about it. Or more like…, she didn't want to resist. Alex would guarantee the life of her brother and herself, what more could she ask?

"You seem stressed." The homunculus noticed. "Is something bothering you? There is no need to be secretive between us."

Ya Fei thought about the situation and sighed. "Yes, I am a little worried. After all, you are all just here to observe me due to Alex's orders."

"Hm?" The homunculus seemed confused by that, and even though its face was emotionless, she tilted her head to the side. "That isn't true. The Master's goal in creating us isn't to observe you or even have us act as spies. His goal is…"

She stopped herself. Not saying any more in front of Ya Fei. But this made the latter even more curious.

"Ah, this is surprising." Alex suddenly appeared out of nowhere, a happy smile was on his face as he walked down the hallway. "A homunculus is showing free will? Now that's something I should celebrate."

"Sorry Master," the homunculus bowed. "I almost spoke out of turn."

Alex shook his head. "No, no, please continue and do whatever you want."

"Uhhh…" the homunculus was confused by the order. What should she do? A simple question for any normal human or intelligent creature. Homunculus on the other hand had intelligence superior to most humans, yet they couldn't grasp the notion of being able to choose for themselves. "Master, this is difficult, please choose for me."

"Nope, that isn't happening young lady," Alex refused her outright. "So now choose!"

The homunculus looked around for a little bit and clenched her teeth, having come to her decision. "Lady Ya Fei, Master doesn't intend to keep an eye on you by using us. We are a separate experiment called 'Project Phoenix'. Usually, golems, summoned pets, homunculus, and any other artificially created lives can't grow stronger.

Their physical strength, nor their Mana can grow. Meaning they will forever be stagnant. But Master is trying to change that, he wanted to step into the authority of God and create a soul, a true soul, not one that was taken from someone else with its memories wiped out."

Though the Wayne Kingdom Royal Library didn't have a lot of books on Magic, this was something big. Ya Fei understood that and knew that artificially created life can't grow stronger was a fact, just like saying the sky is blue.

Still, though, Alex was attempting something so outrageous. Creation of a true soul? That was playing within the domain of Gods, something that would be considered heresy. No normal person would have the guts to study such things as Life and Death in this world. It would invite the wrath of the Gods for such arrogance. The last time such research had been successful, Vampires had been born in the world.

Yet Alex did this all the same. As if the will of the Gods didn't necessarily matter to him. "Good, good, Number 234, you have chosen for yourself for the first time. So your name will be Ain."

"Uhhh... I think there is already a homunculus with the name Ain, sir." The newly named Ain said.

Alex waved her off. "Yeah, she was the first of my creations. Just change her name to Number 234."

He had lost interest in his first creation. By now since she had been the longest to be alive, she should have been the first to develop the ability to choose freely and go against his orders even in a small way. But instead, another homunculus did it before her.

So since this happened, Alex had a revaluation. Previously he had tried to create emotions by trying to find the right chemicals the brain, liver, and heart would create. That way he could allow the homunculus that he creates to feel anger, pain, sadness, happiness, etc.

But now he understood that it had been a very scientific approach. Instead, he should let things develop naturally and observe them. That way he doesn't have to go through trial and error that would take years to make the right combination to create a free-thinking and free emotional being.

[You have created a Free Willing Creature (Minor Rank)]

[Due to creating such a creature you have challenged the power of ■■■]

[■■■ has decided to not pay attention to you]

[You gain 3,000,000 Exp due to the act of rebellion against ■■■]

[+ 1 Intelligence for creating Life of Free Will]

[+1 Wisdom for having gained a look into the Records of ■■■]

Alex smirked at the notifications, in his last life the person who had done something similar had never disclosed where this road led to. Yet, that same person had also grown to become the Number 1 Player in the game and held that title for over three years, but he then retired from the game and his character was deleted.

"Anyway, Ain, spend more time with my Ya Fei. That way it should help you with your emotional development." With that said, Alex walked off, he didn't even bother to ask Ya Fei about Wudong. He had read the young man's memories and saw that when they were kids he and Ya Fei had promised to marry each other.

But as kids, that was just a game. Wudong might have fallen in love with her due to Ya Fei's kindness. From the outside, it seemed like a written romance manga between childhood friends where they had promised each other when they were young.

Still, the reality wasn't that easy-going, by now Ya Fei had completely forgotten about Wudong and even if she hadn't, in life one can't just go around doing whatever they wanted. Because at the end of the day, both would be miserable.

After all, a promise that they made while kids weren't going to guarantee anything. Sadly real life wasn't like a story and many things change along the way. Time passes, and things change, feelings change, no one would stay stagnant.

Whether it was the death of a loved one or the love of someone. These things will dissipate with time. Lately, Alex had come to understand his feelings and other people's emotions better as he tried to replicate these same emotions in his creations.

After that he went away from Ya Fei, he had already gotten what he wanted from her. Also, this whole marriage thing wasn't even necessarily about her.

As he thought that, Alex looked towards where Ya Fei's brother was playing and a dark smile appeared on his face as he looked at the young man. Suddenly the young prince turned his head and looked at Alex, immediately a malicious smile also appeared on the young prince's face.

"Crepy little shit," said Alex before he went to the mansion's basement and in there it was dark. Nothing could be seen even by the most observing eyes.

*click*

Alex snapped his fingers and immediately the lights turned on. There were hundreds of vats within the basement, they were filled with a strange liquid and each of them had a human inside of them. But that wasn't all, because each of these humans was at one of the stages in their life. From a fetus, a baby, kid, man, grandpa, and skeleton… and these all had a resemblance to Alex. They were physical bodies created by Alex's DNA, essentially they were his clones.

Each of the capsules filled with liquid also had machines attached to them that showed the game stats of each body.

"How long?" Alex seemingly asked nobody. But the space next to him rippled.

"{You are breaking your deal.}" The hell's creature whispered in his ear. Its diseased breath almost felt like molten lava hitting his brain. This made Alex wince in pain.

"I never said I wouldn't try breaking our deal," he stated. "Remember my words? Let me repeat them for you: This body shall never bear children, this body shall never live to see my hair going gray and growing to adulthood. THAT was our contract."

"{That's cheating…}" The Hell's Creature of disease didn't seem happy at this. Alex's body shook and dark spots started spreading all over his body, dark blood came out of his nose.

"Hey now, are you breaking your part of the contract?" Asked Alex, even though his body was breaking down he smirked. "Please do so, that would be beneficial for me."

As soon as he started coercing Hell's Creature, it stopped. Alex's smirk widened. "That's called checkmate."

Aerie, that was the name of Hell's Creature of Disease. It was downdraught at the situation. He had been tricked by a young human, who seemed to know too much for his age. His contractor also seemed to be having the time of his life as technically, Alex now had the Hell's Creature's protection even though now he would be sacrificing way too little for the deal.

"{The Hell's Creatures will know of this transgression, none of them will ever make a deal with you from then on.}"

Alex shrugged. "So what? I don't need you guys anymore~ hahaha~"

..

..

Years passed on and the Soul Sect developed, though it had been created for only six years. Many people joined and the organization's strength grew to extreme proportions and now the Royal Death Battle would soon be in all-out war.

But on the other side of the world, the Beast Forests and Mountains, within the tallest mountain that seemed to almost pierce the sky… shook.

BOOOOM!!!

Then crumbled, the tallest mountain crumbled like a piece of paper and its rubble flew as if gravity was working in reverse. In that instant, every beast in the Human Continent, from the ones who were enslaved by humans to the ones rampaging without sense felt a chill go down their spine.

A bug figure comes out of the rubble out of the mountain. "Two thousand years… HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

The winds around the vicinity picked up just from a normal laugh of the creature. "Human Emperor! You dead bastard! It was my victory!"

The Beast Emperor, the one who had surpassed normal norms of power in the world had awoken. Four years before that normally he would have escaped.

BOOOOOM!!!

The energy gathered around the Beast Emperor and the mountains around him shook, space cracked as if reality itself was falling apart. This wasn't even at attack, just a normal movement of the creature considered to be the strongest in the Human Continent for over 2000 Years.

"Let the Beast War Continue!" said the Beast Emperor calmly, but these silent words were whispered with the ears and instincts of every beast in the continent. Turning all beasts rogue and start killing the humans closest to them.

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A/N: This was supposed to be 2 chapters, but decided to combine them to not leave you in a cliffhanger. The Beast Emperor has woken up at an earlier time and unlike the game, there are no players to fight in the war.

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 Don't forget to throw some power stones :)

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