The Tang Family Patriarch

Wu Bao teleported to the Tang Family residence.

He gawked at the blatant luxury and ridiculously over-the-top defenses.

When faced with the barrier around the Tang Family residence, Wu Bao simply absorbed it. The inanimate seal became his own.

When faced with the elite bodyguards with decades of combat experience, Wu Bao simply crushed them with a never-ending stream of potent seal attacks.

When faced with an array of ordinary machine-guns, cannons, and other weapons that didn't require spiritual energy, Wu Bao shrugged them off like they were mere mosquitoes.

He walked into the pavilion calmly, already retrieving his seal breaking notes from the memory archive. Who could stand in his way?

"I would stop there if I were you, young man."

Wu Bao froze in his tracks, his eyes trembling.

The patriarch of the Tang Family held up a little electronic tablet in his hands. On the screen was a live video of his mother.

"Wu Bao, I presume? Good! It's nice to finally meet you. Ah! Before you attack me, I should tell you that your mother is in a special room hooked up to a dead man's switch. Should I will it or I become incapacitated, she will die."

Wu Bao gulped.

The patriarch calmly and confidently handed him the tablet, as if he had nothing to fear at all.

Wu Bao stared into that little window. "Mother?"

"..." she stayed silent, but the aversion of her eyes told him the camera went both ways.

Many thoughts spun through his mind. He could fight, but the patriarch might activate the switch early.

Wu Bao looked at the patriarch, but realized he couldn't see his seals. The damn patriarch had defenses! Even if he got knocked out, Wu Bao wouldn't have time to disarm the switch.

Stealing all of the patriarch's seals with the dragon seal was an option, but it required at least thirty seconds of physical touch.

"Why are you doing this? Let her go!"

The patriarch relaxed back into his chair. "At the pinnacle of power, you find that there are many ancient monsters in the world. Mutual destruction is a common concern, so we have to find new ways of fighting… and winning. Thus the circle of power ends with intelligence being favored above combat.

"The only things that can harm us old masters are seal breakers and extortion of the things we love. I am impervious to both, yet you are just a young and naïve child. It's time to mature into the real world of power. Now sit down so we can talk business."

The patriarch patted the desk in front of him. A lengthy contract was already on display. It was an act-binding seal similar to Mr. Zang's.

Wu Bao looked around the room, searching for anything that he could use against the old man.

"Let my mother go, or I will destroy your entire property. I'm warning you, I can do it."

The patriarch let out a laugh. "I bet you could, but this discussion should not dissolve into meaningless violence."

"That's rich, coming from the likes of the Tang Family."

"You may be facing the Tang Family right now, but you're also facing me. The Tang Family is more than just their property. I can rebuild this estate dozens of times over. My reach extends all over the world, while you… you only have one mother." His laughter turned sinister. "Would you sacrifice everything you have in an instant for everything I have in a lifetime?"

"I would!"

The patriarch narrowed his eyes. "Come now. Don't lie to an old man who has found many intelligent seals over his hundreds of years of life."

Wu Bao clenched his fist.

He sat down in the opposite chair.

"What do you want me to sign?"

"This is an act-binding seal. As the heavens have decreed for all act-binding seals, it is completely voluntary. You will become employed by the Tang Family and given proper residences for both you and your mother. We only ask that you destroy our enemies when we order, and oppress everyone else so they can't grow in strength. You can easily take their seals and make them powerless."

Wu Bao scowled. His lie detection seal didn't make a single sound.

"You can start with all those bullies who hurt you while you were growing up, calling you a cripple, laughing at you, beating you up. You can even take care of the adults, so long as no one is from the Tang Family.

"As the head of the family, I have a better-developed sense of justice. Those people are truly despicable, and deserve to be punished. Well, with us supporting you, not even legal avenues can stand against you. You will be the Tang Family's well respected unstoppable sword. We are not so unreasonable or tricky when it comes to strong people such as yourself. We will treat you and your mother well."

"Both of us?"

"I guarantee it. It's written in the act-binding seal after all. If someone offends you, you can kill them even if they are from the Tang Family. These are the conditions of the seal."

Wu Bao's frown returned to neutral. He examined the seal in front of him and found that everything was true.

"There are no hidden conditions?"

"Of course not," the patriarch answered truthfully yet again.

Wu Bao hesitated.

A voice shouted from the tablet. "No! You must not agree!"

He gasped. "Mother… I hate to ask this question, but why not? This is a chance to change our life. This will get me the power and the recognition I've always dreamed of while accomplishing the revenge I was already prepared to do. Plus, the benefits will extend to you too."

"You are being tricked into losing your freedom and your values. You will become a pawn to the Tang family."

"If I may," The Patriarch interjected politely, "It is true that you will become a pawn to us, but who can blame me? In the weeks following your awakening, you have become powerful, dangerous, and unpredictable. This contract will protect us from you, while also giving you the respect you deserve as well as our full cooperation. That's what it means to be a pawn, a part of something larger, a community of pawns on the same side working together. Besides," the patriarch grinned knowingly, "we all know you aren't a pawn. Once again, this contract will keep you from being treated like one. You and your mother. So what do you say?"

Wu Bao sighed. "Mother. I'm sorry. It seems that we and the Tang family have gotten off to a bad start."

"No, Wu Bao! This is a mistake!"

He shook his head. "I know it's a mistake, but you don't get it. It's not like I have a choice in this matter, anyway."

There was a moment of silence.

Wu Bao moved his hands toward the seal in front of him.

The patriarch waited patiently, a victorious smile on his face.

"I love you," his mother said through the tablet, "and I apologize for everything. I hope you can forgive me for putting you through all of this. It's my fault for not listening to you at the school, and it's my fault for revealing your powers to these people. Forgive me."

"Of course I forgive you."

A tear streamed down her face. "I love you."

"I love you too…" Wu Bao paused. "Wait! Mother! Mother!" He threw the contract aside and picked up the tablet.

His mother's breathing became heavy, as if there was no air in the room. She swayed from side to side while trying to look at Wu Bao's face through the screen.

"The weak should never… be bullied… by the strong. Be proud… of who… you are, Wu Bao... and be free."

Then his mother collapsed to the floor.

She seemed to struggle staying awake, staring at the screen.

Finally, she closed her eyes.

The patriarch made a surprised expression as the connection to his dead man's switch disappeared.

'What?!' he thought inwardly. 'That woman only had one seal! It was actually a suicide seal?'

In Wu Bao's heart, something snapped. His mind went blank and the stress of the past few days, no, his whole life, finally registered. There was nothing holding him back anymore.

"RAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

The surroundings erupted with fire, tornadoes, lightning storms, and many more elemental energies. The action-binding seal in front of them vaporized.

The patriarch braced himself as Wu Bao punched with all his might. He went flying through the wall of the pavilion. The patriarch activated his flying seal and stabilized himself.

Then he quickly clashed with Wu Bao before he could start destroying his stuff. Even though he could rebuild his estate, it would cost a fortune. In a feat of raw strength, he threw Wu Bao toward the wilderness on the other side of the mountain to fight with him there.

"Get out of my way!"

Wu Bao appeared above him. A claw-like fist, which had all kinds of feathers, scales, and furs, while also clad with the armors of rock, ice, and metal slammed down on his head.

The patriarch hastily blocked, but his body rocketed away despite that and sank several meters in the ground.

Wu Bao dropped a giant fireball on the patriarch's location and a dust plume blotted out the sun. Suddenly, a lightning bolt pierced Wu Bao's body, ignoring many armor seals and protection seals.

The patriarch activated his lightning tribulation seal several more times while he flew out of the hole in the ground. His body showed like liquid gold, his eyes and hair emitting a brilliant light. He hadn't been injured in the slightest.

Wu Bao took a few direct hits from the lightning tribulation seal, but activated a certain seal at last. A barrier like a checkerboard appeared above him, stopping the lightning tribulations cold.

The patriarch's jaw dropped. The only seals that could block his lightning tribulation were inanimate seals.

Wu Bao didn't activate any treasures, so what kind of barrier was that? Also, how was he absorbing spiritual energy like that?

The two of them clashed again.

They flew several kilometers to the nearby city and leveled a few skyscrapers.

Wu Bao was so heartbroken, he couldn't think about the casualties.

He picked up a few steel beams with his multiple telekinesis seals and started beating the patriarch like he was playing one-man tennis.

The patriarch literally broke the encirclement with his sheer might, then tried to bury Wu Bao under concrete and metal.

They both fell into the sewers where they continued to obliterate a few subway trains.

When Wu Bao was standing in the sewage water, he felt something bite down on his arm. It was a crocodile!

He tore it off and mashed its body into meat paste, then he used a blood-element seal to manipulate the paste into a deadly weapon.

The patriarch also used one of his more obscure seals, a metal element seal, to collect the purest bits of metal from the environment. He fashioned it into a weapon and electrified it.

The two weapons collided.

A crater started to form where they were exchanging endless blows.

Inside his mind space, Wu Bao was using his seal breakers to clash against the patriarch's defenses. It wasn't successful. The patriarch had clearly invested a lot in his seal defenses.

Finally, the military arrived, bringing a strange device and aiming it their way. The machine's seal powered up, ready to stop them both.

Wu Bao's eyes flashed with delight. He stole the seal and aimed at the patriarch.

For the first time, the patriarch cried out and tried to flee.

'So that's how he did it earlier! He can take the powers of inanimate objects too! I must run. I must run before-'

The patriarch froze in mid-air. Time had stopped for him.

Curious, Wu Bao glided toward the patriarch until he hit a strange bubble he could not pass. Delighted, he moved and shrunk the bubble until the patriarch's hands and feet were on the outside. The golden light faded from those appendages.

Wu Bao used his blood sword and cut all four of them off, then resumed time.

The patriarch had a pain seal, but he screamed anyway. He looked in shock at his missing limbs.

Wu Bao froze him again. Then shrank the bubble and cut his arms and legs at the next joint up.

The patriarch unfroze. He let out another shocked scream as his limbs got even shorter. To him, it was happening instantaneously with nothing he could do to defend himself. He swiftly activated his golden body to regenerate.

It didn't matter. Wu Bao activated the time seal and cut the man again, this time at the shoulders and the hips.

He unfroze the patriarch. "Dammit! I will make your life miserable for this, Wu Bao!"

He let him regenerate back to full health, then froze the patriarch and took the freshly grown limbs.

"Gah!"

Repeatedly, Wu Bao let the patriarch regrow his limbs before freezing and cutting them off again. Eventually, the patriarch started to run out of spiritual energy.

"Don't! Stop! You're going to kill me!"

"Oh, please." Wu Bao scoffed. "If I wanted to do that, I would've frozen your brain and cut off your head. I want your seals after all."

"Nooooooooooo!"

Wu Bao depleted the patriarch's energy, then stole all of his seals.

"M-my longevity seals! Without them, I will only live for twenty more years!"

"Woe to me for killing a crank who has lived for a thousand years already. Twenty more will be plenty of time for you to watch your empire crumble."

Wu Bao grabbed the patriarch with a telekinetic hand and flew back to the Tang Family residence to overturn every brick.