The Eternal Family

Deep in the night.

Ace groggily opened his eyes, breathing heavily, sweating, and feeling weak all over his body, he struggled to even see what was infront of him.

[The flowing blood of Eternals has chosen you as its vessel and eventual successor.] A black screen rippled through his blurry vision.

He gulped, his mouth felt salty, and he could feel his head pounding against his head with a vicious pain. An intense urge to throw up was steadily climbing up his weak body.

Dark flickers of images flashed through his groggy head, waking him up — memories of that dark sea…

the monstrous waves all around, the clenched rope painfully taut as he struggled to not die, the vessel that barely clung on in the storm, its wooden edges breaking at every other powerful wave.

Those ominous dark clouds, thunder, and heavy downpour.

His helplessness as he gazed at the dark whirlpool that looked like a mouth ready to devour the world.

Breathing weakly, he swallowed, he could still feel the rope in his hand, the salty taste was still there, and his heart was still beating with never-before intensity.

Water…

I want water…

His parched throat hurt, his vision cleared a bit, and he looked around; he was sleeping in a clean white bed, its bedsheets roughed up and some bloodstains on it, his head was a bit muddy, but he was sane enough to feel about his surroundings — He was in a bright room, a royal room, simple yet regal, with only books and flower pots around.

"…Home," he muttered, and then his eyes trembled, his heart shook.

Home?!

What home?!

What was he doing here when just some moments ago, he was dying against the storm, fighting for life inside the Bermuda Triangle?

His head throbbed, and the pain intensified.

Clenching his teeth to bear with it, he looked to his left; at a mirror, as if he knew where it was, and his black, deep, dark eyes widened.

His face intensely shivered.

He froze.

A face looked back at him, black night-like eyes, dark circles underneath, and a pale deadly complexion, even slightly blue.

'Poisoned,' he figured, his eyes widening further, he could even feel the faint taste of blood in his mouth.

Mixed with the salty taste of the fear of death creeping in.

Head throbbing with pain, the puzzles suddenly clicked together, "I...I…have been reborn," he muttered under his confusion, his mind felt blank, stupid, and funny, yet at the same time, excited, exhilarated, and… confused.

He weakly turned around to look at a black light infront of him, the words, alien words, directly entered his mind, written in blood-like characters: [The flowing blood of Eternals has chosen you as its vessel and eventual…]

The moment the words registered in his head, a cold sensation passed past his head; he grimaced.

The cold watery chill passed through his brain, through his mind, like a cold, icy nail hammered onto his head, and his mind started to get blurry; countless images, new memories, began to surface in his mind — memories of this body, the body of the Null Prince, Harry Lust Vincias.

From the day of his birth to the day of his death,

The heartfelt love of his mother, the protective love of his younger sister, the days they had spent alongside, the love that had only increased after he was revealed a meaningless null — The love that shined brighter than anything he knew from two worlds combined.

The royal family, The Gifts, The Gifted, the strong, the weak...

The famous lands of the continent of Mystri...

All of these visions flickered in and out of his mind like a flame, yet their brilliance left an indelible trail of memories in their wake.

Memories that he — who was afraid of death more than anything else — would sell his life to keep if he was asked.

Huu….

He gently breathed out, his heart heavy, yet filled with emotions… emotions that Ace, the indifferent Entrepreneur would never have felt.

The world suddenly felt bright, colorful, and filled with hope; he felt truly alive and truly breathing.

He felt as if it was supposed to be like this, the two souls were supposed to be one in the first place. He was supposed to be born in such a world…

He felt as if he was Harry as much as he was Ace, he felt as if he had been both Harry and Ace in the first place.

Nevertheless, he had no time to ponder on such philosophical shit.

The poison was coming at him.

Grinning inside through the thirst, hunger, pain, and revelation, he glanced at the system. That one cold feeling, "It came from you, right?"

That certainly reduced the impact of the poison, it had made his head clear, and even made him remember the life of Harry, so, if he could get it to do that same thing more times?

The dark screen, majestic, transparent, and filled with regal elegance, mere inches away from his face, flickered with words, "Host, please choose your Eternal path — Pleasure, Slaughter, Business, Slavery, Teaching, Learning, Destroying, Creating, Righteous, Evil, Excitement, Love hate, slothful sin…" the blank, black interface contrasted with the red words, he read it, it was alien words.

Unknown language.

Nevertheless, he read it as if it was English; as if he knew it from birth.

'Path?' he wondered, his mind sharply questioning.

But the system didn't answer him, it just stayed the same way, silent and frozen in place.

Dark like the underbelly of the deep sea.

Ace gently lifted his weak hands and clicked on a path that seemed the most harmless, "Business".

The screen rippled and changed: [Business: Create a Business empire for yourself and trade with important people, make them your loyal partners. The stronger the empires you own, the more (points) you can earn. But keep in mind, your money is your strength. You grow weaker the poorer you are...Y/N]

Intrigued, he clicked the points bracket with his weak hands, and the bracket expanded: (Points: Energy accumulated and transformed into a neutral state, can be used to increase the potential of living creatures from their foundation, allowing the host to increase bodily capabilities with a cost to benefit ratio.)

So that means I can use the points to increase my body's capability? He wondered.

Was this system my Gift then?

But it seemed too generous, too complex for a gift.

Gifts were not like this as far as he knew, they were simply strong.

Almost all except him had a Gift of their own.

Moreover, was Harry believed to be a null, a person without a gift, for no reason?

And why did it activate right after I was reborn?

Looking at the screen, he then pondered, 'Business seems like a good path to earning these points but… it also seems like it is a big trap, like, grow stronger with money?' if he had the strength, he would have chuckled; he was the prince of the Lust kingdom, Harry Lust Vincias, his family stood at the apex of power in the continent of Mystry,

His family owned money.

He had infinite money.

Gold coins could be taken in bulk from his backyard.

So can he grow infinitely stronger? Naah, he doubted that.

Not to say, get important people as his business partners?

This was not Earth, this was the world of the gifted, the "important" people here had gifts that could literally burn down countries, flip the seas and drown the lands in rain.

And with such god-like people, he had to trade what? Harry had never heard of anything such people craved except power… and power, he wanted all of it for himself.

Pushing the thoughts to the back of his head, he clicked on a blank part of the system, it went back and he looked for the other paths, [Love-Hate: Make your lovers hate you, and haters love you to earn points by which you can make yourself stronger, the more emotional, the more points you earn. Y/N]

"Too twisted!" he exclaimed in his mind, irritated at its potential.

Ace wouldn't have cared about others; he was just an indifferent, wealthy, and influential entrepreneur, but now?

He was not just Ace; he was as much Harry as he was Ace.

And at this moment, maybe due to just having gotten Harry's memory, he was more Harry than he was Ace.

And Harry had people he genuinely cared about, people whom he would die to protect, people he trusted would do the same for him.

He didn't consider the ruthless conquers he claimed by his name on earth as much of a great thing, in fact, he found it a bit Hillarious.

What happened to all that influence, power, and riches he sorely worked hard to earn in his lonesome past life?

He didn't even have a child to inherit it.

The sharks must be circling it with red eyes now.

And this time, in his second chance, he wanted to do it better… he didn't want to lose his one true family.

Emma, Lilly, Valeria, he couldn't comprehend a life without them. Even Anna was precious.

He would never let his family… the true ones, be hurt due to his pursuit of power; one life of solitude was enough.

[Pleasure Path: Earn points through every pleasurable encounter of life, including pleasurable lustful encounters, satisfying moments, and similar pleasure-inducing situations. Y/N]

He licked his dry lips, 'It's kind of like passive income, I can just live and earn points living,' He scrolled down while still thinking about it.

[Destruction: Destroy and earn Destruction Points to grow stronger, Destroy everything until destruction turns into creation and attain your own drop of Eternal Blood, Y\N .]

That was too ruthless and somewhat....edgy.

What does even the destruction of everything mean?

[Creation: Create things; every new creation, from paintings you draw to children you birth, will offer you points to strengthen yourself until Creation transforms into destruction and you attain your own Eternal blood].

'Ugh….Does creation transforms into destruction mean you destroy the drawings and kill the…" No way, he shook his head with a grimace and moved on. That was just disgusting.

He increased his pace, his eyes were getting bleary — the poison was reaching for his head again: 'Fast, fast, fast, fast…' he thought in his head.

The paths unrelated to emotions all had a bad goal in which he became a lonely but overpowered person, so he scrolled through some more but in the end, the poison was heading in too fast and he could no longer remain calm.

He could feel the thumps of his heart growing ever the more violent.

His eyes skimmed past, [Righteousness: Be righteous to earn points; follow a set of righteous codes followed by your society; being unrighteous makes you weaker.]

No, just no.

[Evil: Be evil, Do the evilest things according to your society's ideologies; being Righteous makes you weaker.]

If I could combine both Evil and Righteous paths, it would have been interesting…

[Sinful Sloth: Be a sloth, be lazy to earn points. Weakness — vulnerable to danger, you become incapable of movement after you stop moving once the system is unsealed.]

He shook his head inside, all of these had their weaknesses, and at this point, the choices were limited.

Fuck it!

He gritted his teeth and clicked on a balanced no-weakness option, "Pleasure". And accepted, Yes.

The poison was already too in for him to wait more, and the other paths like teaching and such were too far from his interests, whereas, pleasure seemed simple and straightforward.

His heart waited with anticipation and his mind which was again growing bleary due to the poison, focused its senses. A cool watery-wave-like sensation passed through him.

From the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, goosebumps rose and fell…

The feeling passed by…

[Eternal Blood going dormant]

[Pleasure Path Commenced.]

[Use one million pleasure points worthy of energy to commence your second path.]

Harry chuckled to himself, his voice relieved and exhilarated, his caramel skin matted with sweat. taking a deep breath, he looked towards the mirror; it now reflected his healthy visage.

Caramel skin, black shoulder-length hair, sharp eyebrows — even though not swordlike — and a fit body that looked fit without being trained. In not one word, a young man of inherent handsomeness.

Probably even the issue with his dick had been fixed.

Smiling eagerly, he turned and looked at the system, his mind was clear and pure, like a calm pond, yet also like that tempestuous ocean, ready to devour and destroy the ones that dared to cross its line: [Pleasure System... Fusion is ongoing... First fusion successful.]

[Body has been transformed to align perfectly with the Eternal Path of pleasure.]

[current potential of the body:

Strength: 1

Defense: 1

Agility: 1

Stamina: 1

Soul Limit: 1

Abilities[Gift]: Lustful absorption.

Pleasure Points: 0

(1 Point on potential is equal to the maximum capability any mortal human adult can reach through training, it's the limit of mortal strength.) ]