Chapter 1170. My Heir Is Growing Inside the Woman You Called Mother

Chapter 1170: 1170. My Heir Is Growing Inside the Woman You Called Mother

Apollo made a strangled noise, a sound that shouldn’t have come from human vocal cords. It was something caught between a wet sob and a feral, animalistic growl.

His fist slammed down against the violet floor of the domain with such desperate force that the consecrated surface spider webbed beneath his knuckles, sending cracks racing outward like lightning through glass.

Blood seeped from between his fingers where the impact had split his skin.

"But the others," Rex continued, his voice carrying that infuriatingly thin, razor-edged grin.

He was enjoying this slow, methodical dissection of a hero’s psyche. "Talyra. Aisella. Mireya. Nerith..."

"Those four aren’t dead as you can see..."

"Death would have been a waste of resources, Apollo... They were always far more useful alive."

"What do you mean..." Apollo whispered.

The words barely existed; they were ghosts of sounds. His mind was already racing ahead, anticipating the shape of the monster’s next strike, but his heart refused to believe it.

He was already braced for the impact.

"I took them from you," Rex said.

There wasn’t a single gram of remorse in his tone; there wasn’t even a flicker of guilt. It was the statement of a collector describing how he acquired rare specimens. "One at a time."

"I orchestrated it with the precision of a clockmaker... do I have to repeat myself?"

Rex leaned forward, savoring the moment. "Talyra and Aisella on the island."

"Remember that undead attack? The one you all mourned as a tragic stroke of misfortune?"

"That was the moment when I ’heroically’ chose to save them instead of securing the artifact."

"I arranged that entire assault... I deployed those constructs myself from the Underlayer two days before the first corpse even fell."

"I created the crisis so I could play the savior and claim your precious women as my spoils."

Apollo’s breathing became a series of ragged, choking gasps. Each word felt like a physical blade twisting in his gut.

"Mireya," Rex said, tilting his head as if recalling a pleasant dinner. "I acquired her through leverage."

"She witnessed me executing Legion prisoners who had already surrendered, men who had laid down their arms."

"She saw what I truly was, and I made sure she understood that her continued safety depended entirely on her cooperation."

"By the time the leverage was no longer necessary, she didn’t want to leave...."

"She had become complicit. She had become mine."

Rex’s eyes gleamed with a sadistic light. "And Nerith..."

"At the edge of that gorge in the canyon... While you were all convinced I was helping your expedition, guiding you through the treacherous terrain..."

"I was simply positioning her... I was making sure she was exactly where I needed her to be."

Apollo’s eyes went empty. The light behind them didn’t just dim; it extinguished.

Apollo’s gaze was hollow, reflecting the emptiness of a man who had looked into the sun and discovered it to be made of ice.

Every revelation was a theft. Every word Rex spoke was reaching inside Apollo’s chest and tearing out a piece of his past.

Rex could see it happening in real time; the man was reviewing months of memories like a film strip being fed through a shredder.

Rex recalled the quiet mornings when he felt safe, the celebration dinners that made him feel loved, Talyra’s hand resting on his arm during long meetings, and the sound of Nerith’s laughter echoing across a campfire.

Every fond recollection, every warm moment of connection, was being contaminated. They weren’t memories anymore; they were evidence.

They were data points in Rex’s grand design.

"They love me," Rex said, closing the final inch between their faces.

His breath was hot against Apollo’s cheek, a mockery of intimacy. "That wasn’t an act, Apollo..."

"That wasn’t manipulation either... They actually love me... They... chose me."

Rex’s voice dropped to a venomous murmur. "And they have continued to stand by your side this entire time, pretending to be loyal friends and trusted allies, but only because I asked them to."

"Because it was useful to me to have them close to you... I needed them to watch your every move."

"I needed them to study your every hesitation, your every fear, and report every single weakness you possessed straight back to me."

The revelation was the final blow. It wasn’t just that his friends were spies; it was that his deepest vulnerabilities had been harvested by the people he trusted most, all under the direction of the monster who had orchestrated his entire life.

The last thread of Apollo’s sanity snapped with the sound of a breaking bone.

Apollo broke.

It was not the contained, stifled weeping from earlier. That had been the sound of a man trying to hold himself together.

This was something else entirely, something primal and devastating. The sound that tore from Apollo’s throat was a raw, unfiltered howl of pure, unadulterated anguish.

It wasn’t just one voice; it sounded like a chorus of the damned, echoing off the impossible absence of walls in the domain, folding back over itself until it sounded like dozens of people were grieving in perfect, horrific unison.

Apollo doubled forward, his spine arching in pain, his forehead slamming against the pulsing violet floor. His fingernails clawed uselessly at the consecrated surface, seeking purchase in a reality that would not tear and escape from a truth that would not leave.

He screamed until his vocal cords shredded, until his voice cracked into a wet, bleeding rasp, and yet he kept screaming a sound of a soul being flayed alive from the inside out.

Rex stayed crouched in front of him. He didn’t flinch and he didn’t look away. 𝑓𝑟ℯℴ𝓂

His eyes glowed with a faint, predatory violet light, watching every spasm, every convulsion of grief with an expression of deep, quiet, unhurried satisfaction. This was a connoisseur watching a masterpiece unfold.

He had planted this seed months, perhaps years ago. He had watered it with patience, with calculated cruelty, with the steady drip of false kindness.

The time had come for the harvest, and Rex intended to savor every single grain.

He waited. He waited until the howling had eroded into ragged, hitching sobs that sounded like breaking glass.

Only when Apollo was physically spent, trembling and broken on the floor, did Rex speak again. His tone was as level and unremarkable as a man commenting on the weather.

"There’s one more I haven’t mentioned," Rex said.

His head tilted a fraction, as though he were genuinely weighing whether to continue, playing with the last shred of Apollo’s dignity. Then, the grin spread across his face wide, cruel, and hungry. "Amelia."

Apollo’s entire body locked. The shivering stopped instantly, and the air in the domain seemed to freeze.

His head came up slowly. The hollow emptiness in his eyes was gone, replaced by something far worse: a new fear.

It was smaller, sharper, and infinitely more personal. It was the particular terror of a man who had just realized there was one final door in his house, and he had forgotten to check if the monster was already inside.

"My mother," Apollo whispered.

His voice was paper-thin, cracking with a terror that made his hands shake uncontrollably. "Don’t, Rex, please... don’t tell me—"

Rex let out a soft, mocking laugh. "Oh, Apollo... You always were so slow and so... blissfully naive."

Rex leaned in closer, his voice dripping with venomous amusement. "You spent your life thinking you were the noble protector, the righteous son."

"But even your ’righteousness’ couldn’t save her from the truth."

"How does it feel, I wonder? Knowing that while you were out playing hero, chasing glory and pretending to be the world’s savior, your precious High Priestess was learning exactly how to kneel to a real power?"

Rex’s eyes flashed with sadistic delight. "You always did have excellent taste, though..."

"I suppose I should thank you for passing down those instincts... It made her so much easier to break."

"Stop it," Apollo breathed, tears streaming down his face, mixing with the blood from his split lip. "Stop it, you bastard!"

"Why? Because it’s true?" Rex cut in, his voice sharpening like a blade. "Months ago, High Priestess Amelia Brightsoul, the most respected figure in the Temple of Life, the beacon of purity you worshipped, had belonged to me since long before any of this."

"She didn’t need to be coerced, Apollo... She needed to be awakened."

Rex’s grin became something demonic, stretching too wide for a human face. "And she’s not alone in her devotion."

"She’s carrying my child right now..."

"My heir is growing inside the woman you called ’Mother.’"