Chapter 157 - Memories

As they reached the designated location, a massive black whirlpool suddenly formed — its center revealing a tunnel-like space that seemed to beckon inheritors forward.

It was likely the opening.

Sesrir looked at Cale and sighed heavily.

"I can pretty much guess those people are following us. They will likely enter this place too. You see, I... can guess this was your aim from the start. You were just playing with me. But alright, as long as it saves my life."

Cale smiled amused.

"Haha, spoken like a true adventurer! What’s life if not a big adventure? If they follow us inside, they’re in for a big surprise, heh. Because I not only know most of this place, I can easily get out of this too."

Without hesitation, he dove directly into the tornado’s center, plunging tens of kilometers deep into the ocean itself.

Inside the void vortex of red water’s tornado, Cale felt an overwhelming influx of emotions crash over his consciousness.

’Heh... is this some kind of test too?’

Seconds felt like hours. Though he could sense Sesrir somewhere nearby, he couldn’t see him at all. In fact, he couldn’t see anything beyond absolute darkness—a void that seemed to consume all light and perception.

And in that darkness, something broke.

Hundreds of thoughts that he’d been suppressing due to circumstances; or simply because he didn’t want to acknowledge them, began appearing one by one, forcing themselves into his awareness with relentlessness.

None of them were pleasant.

Why does he remember his past life so accurately?

What happened when the system went through that mysterious update?

How old actually were his father and uncle?

If they were this strong, Emperor Stage cultivators and 6th Circle mages simultaneously; then why did they die in his previous life?

As far as he knew, both possessed fearsome battle prowess, but they were only that. Many things remained similar to what he remembered, while many had changed.

Didn’t he have at least thirty legitimate siblings and around one hundred illegitimate siblings, all holding positions in the kingdom’s military or official government posts? None of them appeared to visit someone as insignificant as him in both his lives?

The legitimate ones carried the Midgar name with pride. The others used Gold as their family name.

But to think he hadn’t met a single one of them?

How?

In his past life, many had appeared when the kingdom was in peril. Why were they absent now?

Or perhaps...

Perhaps he had thought they existed in this life, when they actually didn’t?

’That... that can’t be... right?!’

No! If such a thing were possible, he wouldn’t have merely traversed time — he would have changed his timeline itself!

Was such a thing even possible? Why the hell not? Cultivation was the foundational virtue of this world. If one became strong enough, they could ascend to godhood itself. So what was creating a timeline compared to that?

But he wasn’t a god. He was merely a puny mortal.

From what he knew, he did have siblings in this life. There was Emma, and others like Kaiden, Nezek, Ailen, Javier, and a few more.

But where were the older ones?

All these were younger than him — still living with their mothers, not yet sent out to various positions by his father to gain experience and establish influence.

There were at least eight older brothers and sisters in total.

He hadn’t pondered the question deeply before, but at this point, it would be reasonable to assume they were dead.

Killed by the invaders.

He knew a few of his siblings had died after the inheritance sites opened in his previous life, but he hadn’t been in Vaeloria himself at that time. In this life, it was the same, he left that place right away.

So, there was no way of knowing.

It wasn’t that he was a heartless person. Many of his siblings maintained good bonds with him despite the scheming and shadiness that characterized their family dynamics. They still showed a measure of camaraderie born from blood relation.

And his father too — although as pathetic as he could be at times, wouldn’t simply stand by watching many of his children die without taking action.

Yes, he was a hundred-year-old monster of cultivation, but Cale doubted that his pride would allow such passivity. The father Cale remembered was only a small part of something far greater and far more dangerous.

’Sigh... what does that even matter?’

But he couldn’t care less about them in the end. If they could help him grow stronger, he would absolutely make use of them.

Otherwise, it wouldn’t be much of a problem to go and kill all his siblings now. Only a few would be capable of challenging him at his current level anyways.

’I need to check how many of them are still alive.’

It wasn’t that Velard was particularly super strong. It was that the Midgars held overwhelming military control, not just over Velard, but over the other three neighboring kingdoms as well.

Since even the emperor himself was a Midgar, if Cale’s father had accepted it back then, he would have become king.

But like Cale himself, he was a pursuer of strength above all else, possessing near-zero inclination toward romance, familial love, or even concepts like allies and subordinates.

Both of them believed that if you were strong enough, you would never need such things.

And Sirius... Sirius held this belief even stronger, perhaps approaching something like a mental pathology.

If Cale was revered in their family for inheriting the ancestral dragon’s blood, then Sirius was like the martial ancestor of their entire lineage. He had seized the throne by killing nearly the entirety of his family and many branch families — accomplished at the age of nineteen, acting with just himself and his brother.

He was a warmonger in the truest sense.

And of course, Cale both revered and despised him with equal intensity.

Because no one could ever guess where Sirius’s true body was located. If his plans were interrupted, Sirius could simply reduce the kingdom to trash and continue his eternal pursuit of strength elsewhere.

Such was Cale’s family, a chaotic, dangerous, and fundamentally alien to normal human thinking.

’But there should be a few of my ancestors still alive... right?’

He doubted that too.

In his past life, Cale hadn’t directly joined the demonic cult.

He had been captured along with his master. They both escaped together. He bid farewell to his mentor and returned to Vaeloria only to discover that Sirius had sold out the entire country in his relentless pursuit of greater strength.

Only then did he join as a low ranking soldier and an outer disciple.