Chapter 452 - 450:“Fuck.”
The refreshing air of Aetheris Prime was a welcome experience after the cold reaches of space had taken away most of any feeling that wasn’t cold and silence.
We had appeared right back at the devastated region Malachi and the Caldera youth had fought, but—
"Should I even be surprised?" The place wasn’t devastated anymore. It had been restored completely by the workers. Even the massive colosseum had been rebuilt to its former glory. If one didn’t know, one wouldn’t believe that it was nothing but a pile of rubble and debris a while ago.
"Hey! You guys are finally back!" Salazar’s disgruntled voice came from behind us as the group finally turned around.
There, standing with his arms crossed over his chest like a housewife that had caught her husband sneaking into the house late at night, Salazar leveled our group an unimpressed look. The others—Maximoff, the two princesses, and surprisingly, the emperor himself—all stood behind the posturing Chronari.
"Yo! Salazar, what did we miss?" I called out, trying to duck the obvious questions coming my way, but—
"What did you miss? WHAT DID YOU MISS!?" The Chronari instantly lost his marbles at my words as he began hyperventilating.
"You bastards blasted off into space to face who knows what level of exciting foes, yet what did I get?" The agitated man shoved a finger into my face as he continued, "I had to stay back and play babysitter. That’s what you missed, you bastard!"
Damn.
I could only stare at the heavily breathing Chronari in speechlessness. Why was this guy so mad? Babysitting people was a less stressful job than what any of us had to deal with, so shouldn’t he be happy?
"Ahahahaha!! I feel you, man. You should’ve seen those guys. Their chains and freaky abilities were top-notch. One even turned me into a pincushion before I blasted him to hell." Paku laughed as he patted the clearly annoyed Chronari on the shoulder.
Salazar turned to look at me, face expressionless. "Next time something shows up, you’re staying behind."
I could only nod to pacify the guy before he got upset again.
"You’re really going to stay out of a fight and allow others to have fun instead?" Shaia asked in her always-teasing tone.
"Of course not. I’m just trying to let peace reign."
"Tehehehehe... thought so."
Tuning out the laughing beauty, I turned to those behind the now-calm Chronari, precisely at the Princess Nyssara.
"That was a good fight you had back there, Princess. I was impressed." I smiled, addressing her earlier match.
"Ehh? Ahh... yes.. thank you for the compliment, and thank you for your assistance earlier. I appreciate it."
"Don’t mention it. What are friends for?" Done addressing the blushing woman, I turned to the emperor, who clearly had something in mind. "Durmont, it seems our talk will have to be pushed forward a bit. What do you say?"
"Dear guest, I would be honored." The man seemed to have received the news he’d been waiting for all this while as he swiftly agreed.
I nodded my head before calling out to my resident bookworm. "Sana, my dear, are you done?"
"Who’s your dear? Stop calling me names I didn’t approve. And yes, I’m done. I am fairly up to date with the current happenings within our current region and beyond."
"Good, then let’s go talk with this emperor." It was time to find out what was going on here.
...
...
We were currently within a very expansive hall as the emperor and his family sat across from us, a wide blue-gold table sitting between us.
Malachi and the others were trying their best to look sophisticated, but they looked about as comfortable as fish out of water. Seeing them squirm within their seats as they tried not to embarrass themselves was honestly too funny, I was having trouble holding back my laughter.
Lucien, the little man, didn’t have any such scruples as he was once again in his miniaturized spaceship, causing havoc within the room.
"You think he likes that thing a bit too much?"
"Don’t tell me you’re jealous of a spaceship now?" The disbelieving voice of Shaia cut through my thoughts as I ignored the woman, contemplating how I was going to destroy that thing without the little man finding out.
"Dear guests, I appreciate you taking the time out to bother about our situation." The emperor’s voice cut through my thoughts as I finally pushed aside the ideas swirling inside my head.
"Don’t get it mistaken, Emperor. I’m merely intrigued because those who seem involved are a particular group of people I have a bone to pick with."
I needed to make it clear that I was interested in all this solely because it involved those Calderans—the same ones the bastard that had taken Mel captive came from.
I already said I wasn’t letting this go, and now I’ve finally found a good excuse to go on a rampage.
"Regardless of the reasons, you are still doing me and my people a grand favor. I can only express my gratitude."
"I haven’t promised anything yet, so I wouldn’t get my hopes up. Now stop beating around the bush and get to the point, we don’t have all day."
"As you wish. First of all, let me give a proper introduction." Saying this, the man stood up. "I am Emperor Durmont Varellis, 72nd Emperor of Aetheris Prime and descendant of the Cosmic Calderan Empire."
"Hmm?" I couldn’t help but raise a brow at that introduction.
"Descendant? I thought you guys were a subordinate planet to the Calderans?" I turned to my side, where Sana was seated, eyes questioning.
"Let him continue." Was all she replied. I shrugged, then turned to the man.
"It is as you have said, we are indeed a subordinate planet to the Calderans, but we are, as well, descendants of the same. Thus, we share the same bloodline, though diluted and extremely thin." The man answered before I could even ask again.
"Diluted and extremely thin bloodline? Huh?" Why was this template sounding familiar?
"I shan’t bore you with ancient history. I do not believe you would care for it, but a long time ago, a man from the Caldera family passed by my world. Then, seeing our attainments and advancement in technology, he decided to, in his ’good graces,’ take us under the wing of the Calderans. Naturally, the people of back then refused, after all, who would hand over their autonomy and be subordinate to someone else? But alas, the rule of the universe has always been, ’the strong take what they want, and the weak must bow.’ That is what happened back then, and we were finally forced into submission, coming under the rule of the Calderan Empire."
"Yeah... speed it up. You’re eating into my word count. What happened after that? Why did you call yourself a descendant of the Calderan Empire when your planet was already a people of its own before they were forced to submit?" I asked, stopping the man from giving me his family history.
"Well... that is the thing. The Caldera family, like most other cosmic powers, did not take over our world and simply request resources and servitude. No, they began slowly integrating themselves with us. Their men mated with our women, birthing offspring that bore the Calderans’ Omni-Beast Suppression bloodline, although they used some means to ensure that the bloodlines we received were extremely diluted and only suited to subduing and assimilating oceanic beasts."
"Wait... hold it." Now I knew why this template was looking extremely familiar.
"Don’t tell me, the Calderans, after doing this, would take away any child birthed with a bloodline surpassing a specific grade?" I asked, speechless.
"Eyy? How did you know?"
"Fuck!" I cussed out loud.
"Fuck this bastard!"
And here I was finally feeling free from this bastard author’s shit takes, just to find myself dumped headfirst into another one.
"Is something the matter?" The emperor asked, realizing my reaction was a bit too much.
"Nothing... nothing... just go on. So the Calderans took the talented children away. That doesn’t explain why I felt so much hate from the crowd earlier today. They seemed to genuinely hate and abhor the Calderans." I skipped everything and went straight to what mattered most to me.
"This..."
"That’s because of what those bastards do to the children they took away." Sana decided to interject.
"Hmmm? Didn’t they just integrate the children into their family? What else did they do?"
"That was the idea initially. That was what they did, until something changed." She stopped here. "Go on, Emperor. Tell him what they did."
I looked at the emperor, now fully invested.
"Hooo..." The man had to take a deep breath as his emotions threatened to spiral. "The Caldera family, those bastards... they took every child with a bloodline above the Mythic tier away, bringing them into their own family. But we were fine with that. Letting our children grow higher than what our little world could offer, we were okay with that. Until something happened. The Calderans suddenly changed."
"Changed how?"
"They... they..."
"They decided it was more efficient to kill every male child with a Mythic and above tier bloodline instead, whilst keeping the women as breeding cows for their talented youths." Sana’s voice held barely restrained rage.
"Huh? Why would they do something like that? It seems incredibly foolish." I was stumped. Why, all of a sudden, would you start killing potential powerhouses you could add to your force?
"That’s because, according to what I could find, someone—a native of another middling planet—awakened a Mythic bloodline of the Calderan branch. But instead of going away like he should’ve, he decided instead to eradicate the entire delegation the Calderans had sent out. This sparked a rage across the entire family, as they decided to punish everyone else since they weren’t able to destroy the planet the man came from."
"No... you couldn’t possibly be talking about that..." There was no way it was this absurd. No way did I just find myself in such a scenario.
"You guessed right, Dante. The location of the planet the man came from coincides perfectly with where Terra had once been." Sana looked me dead in the eyes as she spoke each word. "That man, if I’m not mistaken, should’ve been your father, Regulus von Draken."
"Fuck..."
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A/N: And regulus strikes once again. Even dead, bro is still causing problems for Dante. Now imagine when they bring him back, dear lord, lol, anyways....
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