The Young Master in the Shadows

Chapter 501: The real past

Praying for his father to survive the upcoming ordeal, Victor returned to his mansion, naturally sneaking through one of the windows and heading to his study. He didn’t want to alert any of the little maids for now.

“Welcome back!” Margret said. She wore a revealing red dress and lay lazily on a couch while flipping through a magazine.

“Since when do you read tabloids?” he asked, raising one eyebrow. Knowing her, she wasn’t the kind who liked such things.

“It’s for research purposes…” she sighed. “Look!” She turned the magazine to show him the cover.

PRINCE ARCHIE, THE NEW ARCH DUKE’S UPCOMING WEDDING!

MARRYING THE POLICE OFFICER WHO RAPED HIM!

IS HE REALLY IN LOVE, OR IS HE JUST ANOTHER MASOCHIST?

“Archi and Lea are getting married already?” Victor asked. They were surely moving fast!

“Yeah… Not just them, a month later, your friend Gary is going to marry too!“ she sighed. “The invitations for both of the weddings have already arrived,… Do you plan to attend?”

“...” he paused. “Will try to… I will have to speak with that guy Axel first to make a plan to not appear in two places at once!”

“You plan to recruit him?” Margret asked.

“He is a fellow time traveler after all… We can’t leave him be!” Victor sighed. “They are close to finishing that dungeon, so he should return in a few days,” he said as he watched their progress through Lin, who was with them. Why did that dungeon seem too easy? Never mind that… “Already finished with her?” he asked, eyeing the tied-up Alpha who, at the moment, was kneeling naked underneath Margret's feet, acting as a cushion. A knockoff one that glares holes at people, so Margaret had to gag and blind fold her.

Somehow Victor felt sorry for her as he noticed the red wax and whipping marks all over her body, but… She deserved it!

“I got bored. She is acting obedient due to the Slave seal, but she is not going to surrender anytime soon!” Margret sighed. “I wanted to try the other toys for some action, but Hilda stopped me…” she pouted.

“I was the one who told Elise to stop you… If you were to shove that thing in her mouth, she wouldn’t be able to speak for a week!” Victor spat, looking at the dangerously looking metal ‘cane’ she laid to the side.

“... Hmph…. How do you expect her to learn if she doesn’t suffer a bit!” Margret complained. “Where did you go earlier?”

“I had to find a good place to release my family members whom I found in the other world…”

“What? You had family members in another world?” Margret asked. Although she knew that Victor was in another world tasting all kinds of ‘delicacies’, she had no idea he had family members there…

“A few years ago, they passed through the same gate I did and got lost there, and I just happened to find… And I married one of them…”

“I saw it in the system console…” Margret nodded. “Lily contacted me back then… She was not happy…”

“I already explained things to her,” he sighed. "I think you will like your new 'Sister'..."

“We will have to see about that!” she sighed. “Wait… That new wife... You said they are your family… So… is she your cousin or something?”

“She is my stepmother's daughter… Her father is a demon!”

“...” Margret paused for a moment. “Man… You are really living the dream…” she chuckled. Wasn’t that every man’s dream? Well, according to the number of pornographic works written about that subject, it should be!

“I am…” Victor nodded. “I will tell you about these matters later… Now, if you may leave me with this traitor for a bit! I need to ask her a few questions,” he said, looking at poor Alpha, who shivered a bit upon hearing him mention her.

“Is it something I can’t hear?” Margret frowned.

“Not without losing your mind… There is some kind of a curse if anyone were to learn this knowledge.”

“Oh…” Margaret frowned.

“I will see what I can do about it later to tell you… Now…”

“I understand!” Margret sighed as she slowly stood up, then walked two steps toward Victor, hugged his neck, and kissed him. “I will be waiting for you in my room…” she winked to him as she walked out. “The toys are in the 5th drawer to the left… The whip is below the couch… And… She likes to be spanked!” she added just before closing the door behind her.

The study was silent… Only Alpha’s heavy breathing through the ball gag could be heard. She was clearly trying to curse at Margret!

Victor walked toward the kneeling, furious girl, inspecting her naked body. He had to confess, she was pretty hot.

“...” As she felt his hot gaze on her body, she shivered as drool seeped from her mouth gag.

He reached out, removing her blind fold and the gag, allowing her to take a deep breath, then glare at him.

“My dear Louise… You are very sexy!” he said.

“...” she glared at him defiantly.

He flicked his finger, cutting her rope, then turned and sat on the couch as she freed herself.

“Come, sit!” he said, patting his lap. “

“...”, throwing away the rope, she turned to look at him.

“This is an order!”

Biting her lip, she walked toward him and sat on his lap with her back to him. It was as if she was saying, YOU CAN TAKE MY BODY BUT NOT MY HEART!

“For what you did… I should have killed you…”

“...”

“Butt I don’t want to do that… Do you know why?” he asked.

“...” She just looked away.

“...Answer!” he ordered, pinching her thigh.

“Because you are a pervert…” she spat as she reached down to stop his hand.

“Well… You are pretty enough to give me second thoughts about disposing of you!” he said as he pulled his hand back, then began to move his finger along her back. “But you are wrong… What I hate most is traitors!”

“...” she frowned as she tried hard to ignore his finger. “Then… You want the info I have… Don’t you?”

“You will have to tell me whether you are willing or not…”

“You want to use me to take advantage of my family!”

“I have Hana…”

“...” She shivered a bit as she bit her lip. Thinking about things, he really had no reason to keep her alive. “Then why?” she asked.

“Because I like you…” He said, partially telling the truth, and partially beginning to scam the girl. “I don’t mean just your body, which is totally hot by the way…”

“...”

“I mean the way you are… The way you hold yourself and the way you keep fighting…” he said. “You are like a wild horse that wants me to tame!” he said as he began to move his fingers along her bare back.

“... “ she shivered as she turned to glare at him. All men were the same. “So you basically think of me like some kind of an animal….” she spat.

“Stop bending my words… I think of you as a free spirit!" He pinched her waist. “So imagine how sad I was when you betrayed me…”

“Ouch…” she quickly held his hand again to stop him, but didn’t dare to retort. He was right.

“How about we strike a deal?”

“You make deals with horses now?” she asked, quoting his earlier words.

“I don’t discriminate!" he said, pulling her hand, making her fall onto him. Before she could push him away, he hugged her with his other hand, locking her onto his chest as he rested his chin on her shoulder. “You like it hard, don’t you?” he said, changing his approach. This girl was not going to go easy.

“... Go fuck yourself…” she said as her eyes began to grow teary. She knew that what she feared most was going to happen, and she couldn’t resist at all.

“No need for foul words to turn me on…” he said before biting her ear, his hand massaging her thigh. She tried to hold his hand off, but due to her power being restricted, she couldn’t resist at all.

“Ah…. Stop… Don’t…”

“You don’t like it?”

“SHUT UP… WHO would…” she bit her lip.

“Then tell me… What am I going to do to you now…” he asked, blowing in her ear. “If you guessed right… I will give you a couple of days to rest!”

“...”

“...You don’t know?”

“You are going to do what a beast does and rape me…” she said as she bit her lip angrily with tears in her eyes.

“Wrong!” he said, pinching her thigh. “In principle, I never force a girl to do it against her will!” he said, telling the truth. This was something that he swore in his past life after seeing what happened to his wife. He never forced himself against someone and would never do that! He would just let them come to him on their own…

“Then what are you doing now…” she spat angrily as she remembered that Victor really never forced himself onto any of his wives. But she had long figured him out. He just dug a hole, sat in it, waiting for them to fall right into his embrace!

“I am just negotiating…” he said as he began to move his hand again. “Also, I am giving you a thigh massage to relieve your fatigue…”

“Bastard!” she said as she finally noticed that his hand was really not going past a certain line, but that didn’t make it any better; it was the exact opposite, making her very frustrated! “Then… What are you going to do after that?” she asked nervously. “You are going to convince me to give myself up to you?” she asked as his hand began to go up her thigh again.

“Not exactly… I am going to strike a deal with you!”

“...”

“...”

“...” she frowned. “What kind of a deal?” she finally asked. She knew that she was playing to his rhyme, but she was basically a fish on the shopping block.

“You become my concubine willingly… My sex slave and my pet…. In exchange, maybe I will forgive you for what you did in a few years…” he said. Although she betrayed him, no one got hurt in the end, so he decided to take his time and tame this girl the hard way.

“What would happen if I refused your ‘GENEROUS’ offer?” she asked as she tried hard to push his hand away.

“You will put me in a very hard place…” he said. “I will have to leave your destiny to Margret…” he sighed.

“Hsssssssssssss….” Alpha gasped. She wouldn’t want to spend any extra second with that sadistic bitch!

“It’s your choice…”

“...” she bit her lip. She would have long killed herself if she were in his place. His offer really appeared ‘generous’, but she knew deep down that it wasn’t. Instead of taking her by force, this bastard wants her to completely surrender, in body and soul! “So in the end, it is all about getting to fuck me…. How is that different from not forcing yourself against me!” she complained.

“Look… You were the one who did this to yourself… You have long lost the choice of returning to the way things were!” he said seriously. “In the past, I was planning to make you slowly fall for me… And even if you didn’t, as long as you kept being loyal, I wouldn’t have minded that… But you had to go and try to harm my wives…”

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“...” she knew he was telling the truth. She was feeling her own self beginning to fall for him, that’s why she wanted out. Too bad her attempt failed miserably!

“It’s your choice…” he said as his hand swiped her leg, finally crossing a certain point, making her cross her legs uncomfortably.

“Then… How would you trust me if I became your wife…” she asked as she looked down, deciding to ignore the strange feeling in her body.

“Not a wife… A Concubine! You will have to go through a System Dragon Concubine ritual!” he said. “That ritual would place a prohibition on you that in case I die, you will also die… I will be able to suck away all your life and attributes if I need to!” he said. This ritual was different from the ritual he did with his wives; it was more cruel but still required the other party's full cooperation. It also involved doing some very obscene things...

“Hssssssssssssss………….” she gasped.

“... “ he squeezed her body hard, whispering in her ear. “You pay for what you did…” he said kindly, delivering her the harsh reality of her situation.

“Can…. Can you give me some time to think about it?”

“I will give you three days… “ he sighed. That fate thread was really affecting him. He knew it quite well.

“I need them to think… So…” she quickly said.

“....” he sighed. “Fine… I will tell Margret not to bother you,” he said as if reading her mind. “Now… Let’s talk about the stuff you remembered… Tell me everything!” he said.

“... Ah…” She didn’t expect him to quickly accept. “I… Can you let go first…this pose is…”

“You will get used to it… If you accept my deal, we will spend a lot of time in the future like this!” he said, hugging her tighter, though he stopped teasing her with his hand to allow her to talk.

“...Ah….”

“Now… Speak…Just make sure not to mention SE's name directly!”

“Oh…. So you know?” she turned and looked at him as she asked.

“Just a few things that even you might not have any idea about…” he chuckled. “Tell me why you know for now!”

“...” Alpha hesitated. “It is about the real history of this world according to my family’s legacy….” she finally said.

“The real history…” he paused. “Ok… Then start from the beginning…”

“The beginning of what…” she said as she tried to move her body a bit, pointlessly trying to get out of his embrace.

“Let’s start with… A THOUSAND YEARS AGO…” he proposed, letting her find her own comfortable position.

“Ah…” she sighed. “So you know even about that….”

“... ”

“.. Well… This is all according to my family, so don’t blame me later if there were some mistakes!” Alpha said as she closed her eyes and began to speak.

“Go ahead…”

“Can you move your hand away first…”

“...”

“I can’t concentrate…”

“Fine..”

“Ehm… One thousand years ago, the world’s state was basically the same as described in history books, composed of many medieval warring kingdoms, all fighting for supremacy; however, that’s when everything began to change, as one day a supreme being appeared, moving from one state to another, subduing its kings with both reason and brute force if needed. She called herself… SE…” Alpha said, remembering not to mention the Spirit Empress' name. “She explained that the world was about to change as a new variable would enter it, granting all people powers beyond reason and would threaten their rule… They would no longer be kings if any random peasant acquired the power to destroy their castle!”

“The system…”

“Yes… At first, many didn’t believe her, but convincing them was easy and in the matter of 2 years, she managed to make all kings and emperors sign a contract of servitude to her, creating the Spirit Empire that ruled in secret though a few aristocratic families under it… She called them the Guardians, and a few of them were the predecessors of the current oligarchs!"

“Wait… Didn’t my family come from another world?” Victor frowned.

“No… Partially… I will get to that point…” Alpha said as she squirmed, unfortunately, in his arms. “After stabilizing her place, the SE held a grand meeting and began to explain many things to her new followers… First of all, she said that she came from another world that was destroyed and ravaged by demons and had a warning that this world would surely follow…”

Victor couldn’t help but smirk a bit. That Spirit Empress did technically come from another world.. The future…

Alpha, of course, couldn't see his face, so she continued to explain. “ The SE explained that System integration, which started with Artifacts suddenly appearing all over the world, was not a natural phenomenon, but the precariousness of an invasion! In fact, they were the ones who introduced the system to this world!”

“...” Victor frowned. “Who were they… And why would they give the world the method to oppose them?” he frowned.

“...The SE only said that there are many pastries involved, like demons and some greedy other worldly powers, she was not sure who started it though…. As for why give the world the system, it is because of its nature…” She paused as if waiting for him to ask.

“What nature…” he decided to humor her.

“The system by itself is a good thing, a kind of magic that integrates with the world and allows its inhabitants to use their potential to the max and even grants them the power that shouldn’t exist in their world, the problem is, by the way the system does it… ‘It extracts the Essence and the Concepts of the world, turning them into tangible objects, ’” Alpha said, then paused again and turned to see his expression.

“Hssssssssssssssssssss….” Victor didn’t disappoint. In seconds, he realized what she meant.

“Yes…” Alpha, forgetting her situation, smirked, satisfied by his reaction. “Introducing the system to a world was like cooking it, allowing all the nutrients and secrets that were hidden and almost impossible to extract to surface up as Skill books, Artifacts, and even Sparks!”

“Oh…”

“It would allow even the weakest invader to gain a lot by simply killing any world resident, just like killing monsters in a dungeon would drop something… “

“Oh…” Victor squinted his eyes.

“SE explained in that meeting that stopping the system would be impossible… But she also told them hope was not lost. According to her, before she started to create her empire, she managed to seize control of this world’s fledgling System node, making her its master… She exploited a bug in it, downgrading it to an old Version, which pretty much slowed its world conversion progress as it tried to upgrade…. Of course, no one understood what she meant back then…” she sighed.

“Yeah… It will be a surprise that some medieval king would know what a downgrade was… Anyways, when will this upgrade finish and what will happen then?” he asked, remembering the reckoning and finally understanding why this world system was old and stupid.

“No idea…. The SE method was to force the upgrade data path through slow clients… The Players… “ she said. “The more players there were in the world, the faster the upgrade, that’s why she destroyed most of the awakening artifacts and created the Player Council, in order to control the number of available players! Still, it was only a matter of time…”

“Eh…” Victor paused. Didn’t that mean that his attempts to awaken more players and let the world know about all of this were technically hastening the Reckoning?

SHIT!

No… Thinking about it from another angle, since the world was already destined to end after 20 years, hastening it a bit to do more preparations would not be a bad thing… But…

From now on, he should probably be more careful….

“Now you realize what you did?” Alpha smirked. “Ouch!” she screamed as he pinched her butt.

“You were the one helping me…” he sighed .” Couldn’t SE remove all the players from this world and end this farce? “ he asked with a sigh.

“Some people asked her that, and she answered that this would have forced the system to go back to the original upgrade method!” Alpha sighed.

“Then… Keep just one player!”

“That would have been ideal, but this world was not safe… As the system slowly worked, many agents of those invaders began to enter the world… “ she explained. “Some were random people escaping their destroyed worlds, while others were weak demons who came here to eat what they could find… Those things needed someone to put them in place! “

“Oh….”

“The SE used the System to create a delicate balance… First, she gave the Guardians a few defective awakening artifacts, allowing them to create a set number of players every year… In exchange for having many rights, they would have the obligation to eliminate invaders, both sneaky ones and those who she couldn’t destroy through the world rules and had to lock up using the System’s dungeon mechanism!”

“... I see…”

“After setting this system up, SE began to manage things for a few years, creating all kinds of secret facilities and such!” Alpha said. “Then it happened… An army of demons appeared and began to wreak havoc upon the world… It was clear that some bigshot demon who managed to slip into this world finally realized what was happening and decided to fight back… SE was taken by surprise as she had already set a rule to deny demons’ existence in this world, but she didn’t expect those bastards to come in using some strange rituals, allowing them to possess humans, turning them into players in the process…” She sighed.

“Oh…”

“ SE and her armies fought hard, but they were far outnumbered, and as the battle progressed, things began to become dire… There was a need for more players, but SE was not willing to compromise, especially with the demons swelling their numbers… In the end, she found a method to give every one of the Guardian families an extra gift! A bloodline of a worldly creature. It was a way to make sure that even those who couldn’t awaken as players would have enough power to fight demons, and with that, after many died, they managed to kill most of those demons or forced them to abandon their new bodies and hide in soul form all over the world!”

“I see… Wait… That technique….”

“Yes, it is the same technique the von Zwei family had been researching, though it is clearly far worse than the original one used by SE!”

“Oh…” he sighed. So the legend about them being from another world was mostly a lie… Damn it! It was just some bloodline technique after all! But still, this stuff must have been really good. If he were to get that technique or help Hana, who was researching something similar to finish the project, he would get many benefits…. ” Then, what happened after that?”

“Not much… After the war, the world began to form around a new order, and those families who fared greatly in the war were handsomely rewarded, while those who sided with the demons were eradicated!” Alpha said. “The current oligarchs, in addition to a few others that perished later, were the leaders of the new age!”

“And SE?”

“After about 100 years, she announced that she had an incurable curse and that she would die in a few years…”

“Like anyone would believe that…” Victor frowned. This is a little unbelievable.

“Some did, some didn’t… But what mattered was that she really died with her body shattering like glass in front of millions of people!”

“Ah….” Victor didn’t see that coming. “No one betrayed or killed her?”

“Who could!” Alpha said. “You must have heard some things and mistaken them with what would happen later!”

“Care to explain?”

“SE before dying did three things… The first was to make sure no one would remember her but those at the very top. No one knew why this was…” Alpha sighed. “The second was to announce the establishment of a few Sects that would secure world peace… The guys who ran those places were people no one had seen before, so many speculated that they came from another world and made some deal with SE, but no one was sure…”

“The heavenly sect….”

“Yeah… Those guys were the major power, but they seemed to be really respecting whatever deal they made with SE….” Alpha nodded.

“And that last thing?”

“The third and last thing she created was a system for inheritance. A system that was meant to secure the world and allow it to build its power and prepare for when the system finished its upgrade a 1000 years later,” Alpha explained. “Every 300 years, a tournament would be held and those who win in it would gain the chance to enter a specially created dungeon called the Jade Spirit Tower… In it, an emperor would be chosen. He would not only earn the right to control the System node but also get an artifact called the heart insignia that gave a huge boost to Authority points, and also get to learn many secrets about the world!”

“OH!” Victor opened his eyes wide, finally understanding what happened in the Jade dungeon back then, why the Von Krone family took control that fast… One of them must have managed to earn that legacy! It was clearly not Lily’s uncle Aarak, that guy must have been placed as a front…

Wait… Heart insignia? Authority points….. Did this have anything to do with his Ancestor’s heart that the poison lord took?

Victor frowned. There are still many things that he was not clear about. Even Lily, who watched what happened back then, was not clear about this, indicating that whoever took that legacy must have purposely kept everyone in the dark, manipulating things from the shadows!

“The first tournament happened, and the first emperor ascended from the von Krone family…Those guys must have gotten a lot of secrets…” she sighed. “It was an era of harmony… The Second emperor came after him from the von Zwei family… Those guys' era was not that good, but it was not that bad either…” she said with hatred in her voice. “The third emperor came from a family called the Von Eines…. However, his ascent was troublesome as in the process, he killed a Von Zwei prince who was the best candidate to be the Emperor!” she spat.

“Oh…” Victor frowned. He never heard of that family. Something must have happened….

“For 50 years nothing happened, but all of a sudden, about 250 years ago, the emperor seemed to have gone crazy; he used the power of the system node to open a gate right into the middle of the imperial capital connecting to the Abyss, the world of the demons! Those things flooded in overnight, and the entire capital was razed, many died, many families lost their heritage, and all their players! The emperor himself was killed by the last surviving Imperial guards in order to forcefully close the gate!”

“Eh!… WAIT!… Wait!…. “ Victor said as he relaxed his grip on Alpha, things took a nose-dive too suddenly. “First of all… What Imperial capital?”

“Oh… It was a grand city named Eternia, and it housed most of the players in the world… Nothing remained of it when the emperor detonated himself; its position should be in the north.. The place is now called the Silent Valley… When the abyss gate was closed, a huge explosion erased everything around it… Some people have another theory, though, saying that that piece of land was not destroyed but simply transported with what remained of its inhabitants to another world… They included many higher-ups from the different families who were there to suppress the demons. They have life jades preserved in their ancestral homes. Many of those jades pieces are still intact, or at least were at the time of this info. It is proof that their owners didn’t die in that explosion!"

“Hsssssssssssss….” Victor gasped. Now he finally understood why those elders from all the families, people who should have lived for ages, were no longer around. And that valley where the capital was…. Wasn’t that the position of the northern gate after the reckoning? “What happened after that?” he quickly asked as many things began to click in.

“The chaos was too big, many grand families that had a long history were totally erased, forcing the Players council, who lost most of its members, to change how things worked…” she said. “First of all, all the surviving families were allowed to triple their number of new players every year… “

“Oh!” Victor nodded. So that’s why all males who had a pure bloodline in their family had to go through the ritual!

“Secondly, they finally allow the sects that remained silent to that point to join the Council and participate in the upcoming Tournament in order to use their force to stabilize the world and eliminate any demons who managed to run away… “ she explained. “In the end, the current system was established!” she sighed.

“And about what happened to that emperor… Did he really go crazy?” he asked as Alpha turned to look him in the eye.

“My family, the von Richter, used to be the ones responsible for investigating that… But just as we began to uncover a few leads that it might have been some big plot, those bastards from the Von Zewi who clearly had something to do with it, managed to fabricate claims that my Von Richter family was the cause of the disaster as we were trying to research a new way to gain power though demons and that we scammed emperor into trying this method… All lies…” she hissed.

“Oh… So that’s why….”

“Yeah…. At first, many forces stood against those claims, but the Von Zwei, through some manipulation, finally managed to turn all the powers against us and in the end… At present, the world stands at peace in a delicate balance, though it is all a facade! Ever since the fall of the Emperor, many powers have been preparing for the next tournament when the next battle would start!” she said, finishing telling him the truth.

“I see,” Victor frowned. He always felt that the Von Zwei family was extra sketchy! “So that’s why you wanted to take over my power…”

“Um….” she nodded, biting her lip. A secretive yet amazingly powerful power like the one Victor was creating would definitely be a trump card in the next upheaval! “If…. If what you said about you being a time traveler is correct… Would the Von Krone really be the ones who will win?” she looked him straight in the eyes and asked. “Who is the next emperor?”

“...” he pinched her cheek. “You will have to be my concubine to know that answer…” he chucked.

“...” She just glared at him as she considered her options.

Victor sighed… Ignoring Alpha for now, he really needed to think things through. If what she told him was really the truth, his plan needed a major rework.

Still… He had a few questions that needed answering...

"Is that everything you need to know?" Alpha, as if wanting to get away from him, asked after a few minutes.

"... No... I still have three questions..." Victor said as he pondered. "If you can answer those, many things might change!"