The Innkeeper

Chapter 1981: Full Story IV

If the heritage Serene received had caused immense destiny fluctuations, which somehow ended up attracting significant attention and events, that would kind of make sense. Lex’s own system, for one, was not a simple thing. The A.I. invasion was also pretty random, as far as Lex could tell.

Then Earth became a battlefield between Deities and A.I. and from what Lex remembered, the dead zone that used to encompass earth had disappeared, causing many changes in the area.

If one looked even further back, it was entirely possible that the very presence of the heritage, to begin with, is what caused Earth to have such extraordinary events. Bastest, for example, was no simple prisoner.

The fact that she, as a Demi-Dao Lord, had been so depleted of energy before being trapped there, preventing her from leaving, was not a small matter. Who knows what other secrets the planet still might hold?

Lex hadn’t been back there in a while, and hadn’t really bothered to investigate it properly either.

"Belle had already been born by the time Damian came, yet because it was my first proper attempt, I failed to give her a proper physique. Instead of getting the Divinity Physique I planned on giving her, she attained incredible affinity for angel bloodlines. Using that as a basis, we replaced her normal, human heart with the heart of a Valkyrie.

"Since she was a newborn, and her body had not gone through any growing stages yet, I was able to make the replacement seamless, allowing her to adopt the heart as if it were her own. With that, plus the experience I had from before, I was confident that I could give my next child a physique.

"We began our preparations, meanwhile living in our fantasy of having a small close family. But problems soon found us. Since your fathers cultivation had dropped, he was unable to hide from his family. Damian showed up, incredibly angry over Leon’s disappearance. It was as if his disappearance had caused Damian some loss, which it probably had based on how he used his kids. When he saw that Leon had dissipated his cultivation, his fury reached a whole new level.

"The problem was, now with Leon weakened, and me weak to begin with, we had no way of resisting anything at all. Just as Damian was about to kill me, and severely punish your father, he noticed Belle. Sweet, pure little Belle, who even as a baby had traces of divinity about her due to her heart.

"In her, he saw a whole new world of possibility. He told us that he would return when Belle was eight to take her away and raise her with the Williams family so that she could be properly trained.

"We were fooled. We were genuinely fooled. We really believed that was all he had done. Or to be more specific, Leon suspected that Damien had us under strict supervision, but that was all. Even he, despite having a poor relationship with his father, could not have imagined what Damian had truly done.

"Unbenownst to us, he left dormant spiritual cues in Belle’s mind, akin to laying the groundwork for brainwashing her. His purpose was twofold. He wanted to ensure that Belle would be completely obedient to him, a lesson he had learned from Leon’s rebellious behavior. Secondly, he wanted to use her to spy on us.

"The reason he gave us eight years... was not because he had mercy on us, or wanted us to be able to spend some time with our kids. Instead, it was because he was giving us an opportunity to act behind his back. He was baiting us to act behind him, so that he could learn exactly how it was that we managed to ensure Belle had such a unique body.

"You see, the chances for someone with a physique to pass down a physique naturally exists. It can be sort of like bloodline. But for someone with a physique to give birth to someone with an entirely separate physique, or perhaps unique bloodline, could not happen without external intervention.

"We... we foolishly fell for his ploy. Upon an encounter with Damian, we felt even more rushed. We needed to quickly gain the ability to hide ourselves. If we could unlock the level of the heritage that would grant us protection, then in eight years, when Damian returned, he might never find us.

"But first came the preparations to hide from the surveillance we were expecting, I devised a way to make simple clones which could fool others. Like that, we escaped the sight of those on Earth watching over us, and yet, with Belle right beside us, we did not.

"That led us to our second attempt at a child. Since I had more experience in bloodlines already, due to Belle, I decided to give you a special physique - one which resonates with bloodlines. I succeeded, eventually. But I succeeded a little too well."

Serene paused to sigh as she thought back to that regretful time. Lex kept a plain expression, focusing a tremendous amount of his power on scanning for any lies his parents might want to tell. Up until now, he had not managed to detect any, which only proved just how scummy Damian really was. Then again, Lex already knew that.

Eventually, she continued.

"By the time you were born, Belle was already three years old. For three years, we were incredibly focused on my study and research so we were not able to give your sister the time and attention she truly deserved. She began displaying random mood swings, and an abnormally aggressive personality at times.

"We... we tried to see if there was anything wrong. I checked her body again and again, but discovered nothing wrong. I was a mere, early stage Nascent Soul cultivator then, so there was no way for me to detect the traces of Damian’s cues. Even the physiques you developed were done through resources we got from the heritage. So we just thought that is how she was, right up until you were born, and you resonated with her bloodline, enhancing it.

"That... is when Belle went mad, and her psyche fractured. That is when we realized that there was something terribly wrong going on, but to a degree, it was already too late."