Chapter 143: Atreus Bloodline

Kaelen stared at his mother, and the only thing he could see was fear written all over her face.

"K-Kaelen, what happened?"

"I bet you didn’t see that one coming. You look so pale; I thought you’d be happy for me. After all, isn’t this what ’we’ wanted?" He replied calmly.

Jessica was momentarily stunned. "D-Did you do this to punish me?" She blurted in disbelief. "Everything I’ve done was all for you—"

"And everything I’ve done was all for you too, Mom." Kaelen interrupted. "Though I never expected this outcome, I have enough evolution points now to gather the ingredients for the immortality potion."

"Kaelen—"

"I’m going to save you, Mom."

"Kaelen," Jessica raised her voice, making him pause. "You don’t understand."

"Then make me understand. Stop lying to me. Why can you create a system? How can you go back in time? Why did you kill 80% of humanity? Why did you mess with my memories?"

Jessica was taken aback by Kaelen’s last question. "W-What did you just say?"

"Are you surprised? During my battle with Felix, I remembered everything. Your secret conversations with Dad before he took me away. Your occultic family. Everything pointing to the fact that I should’ve never been born."

"W-What? That’s not true, Kaelen," Jessica said as she shook her head convincingly. She quickly stepped forward towards Kaelen, intending to hold him, but he simply took a step back, avoiding her.

This made her freeze in her steps, before she broke down in tears into her arms. "Kaelen, I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I promise you that everything I’ve done has all been for you, my son."

Kaelen stared at her with a stoic expression, with no intention of consoling her.

He wasn’t trying to make her feel bad or anything like it, and knew deep down she truly cared about him and meant no harm, but this was the only way to squeeze information out of her because Kaelen was absolutely certain the feat he pulled off wouldn’t go unnoticed by the mysterious figure behind everything.

It didn’t.

Their first move was to shortlist Akkad for Global Descent sooner than they should. Not just because the tutorial world was cleared now, but to punish.

These people had openly declared war against him, and Kaelen wasn’t backing down now.

"You’re about to lose that son if you don’t start talking. Tell me everything you know... tell me about Evolution Online." Kaelen said as he approached her and pried her fingers away from her face to wipe her tears with his hand. "I promise to protect you and everything you built. But I can’t do that without knowing anything about my enemies."

Jessica stared into his eyes for a moment, before she exhaled softly. "Let’s take a seat."

Kaelen guided her to the nearest couch and sat right beside her with his arm around her shoulder.

"Kaelen, can I ask you one question?" Jessica asked calmly.

"Go ahead."

"What are your intentions?" She asked softly. "What do you plan to achieve?"

Kaelen paused to think about it for a moment.

"It’s okay. You don’t have to answer it now, but I want you to always have that question at the back of your mind, till you eventually discover the answer you’re looking for."

"Now let’s get into it. What do you want to know first?" She asked.

Kaelen thought about it for a moment. "The system. They call you Founder because of it, and Felix said you’re the one who actually created the Reward System inside. You lied to me."

Jessica grabbed his hand. "I’m sorry about that, but I didn’t entirely lie to you. The most important item I needed for it actually came from here, but in order to get my hands on it, I had to gain their trust first."

"I come from an ancient, powerful clan of women. Atreus. For centuries, our purpose hasn’t gone beyond being subjected to the servitude of powerful men on Earth who earned the rights to our system and planted their seed in us to conceive a successor for the Atreus bloodline to keep the tradition going. Thanks to the Atreus family, we created powerful lords and warriors who used their strength to conquer worlds, enslave their inhabitants. Humankind became infamous for their tyranny and was feared across the universe. No one dared to stand up against them, until several worlds came into a powerful alliance just to bring humanity down and bring an end to their tyranny. They succeeded, but didn’t just stop at burning down our planet. They made sure the Atreus family were all captured and executed. Humanity’s survivors fled and were chased across the universe, until we found refuge in Akkad, who accepted us with open arms and hid us from our enemies." Jessica paused to let it sink into Kaelen.

Kaelen already knew the rest of the story and had a better understanding of humankind’s history. Except, what did that have to do with Evolution Online and the death of 80% of humanity’s population after dominating Akkad?

Like she’d read his mind, Jessica continued. "There’s only a handful of the Atreus family still alive, and I’m the last of my bloodline who is required to conceive of the next successor." She paused to look at Kaelen. He didn’t interrupt her.

"According to tradition, the family elders pick our master. It wasn’t your father... It was the Emperor."

Kaelen’s eyes widened slightly.

"As a little girl, I’ve always hated the family tradition. I hated the thought of having my life in the control of another. They made being slaves a glorious agenda for the sake of humanity. I hated every bit of it and everyone involved. That was when the first wave struck, devastating modern civilization and killing 40% of humanity before humanity’s strongest warriors rose to fight back."

A sharp glint flashed across his eyes. "That means you weren’t the one behind it, right?" He asked hopefully.

He could finally prove Felix wrong. Even if she did go back in time, there was no way she possibly killed 80% of humanity—

’Wait... did she just say 40%? I thought it was 80%?!’ Kaelen paused to stare at his mother, who had a cold glint in her eyes now.

"They did it the first time. They took just 40%... because they weren’t capable enough."

"W-What?" ℯℯ𝑙.

"I did it the second time. The plan was to wipe out humanity from the face of this world, but I hesitated... and that’s my only regret."