CHAPTER 64: PAPA’S PROTECTOR

Rhys sat on a broken crystal bench inside a ruined library. The starlit void of the Sanctum was visible through a large, shattered window.

The final battle in the desert felt like a distant, confusing dream. He had woken up here, in this silent, floating city, with a new powerful bloodline humming in his very soul.

He was trying to piece together what had happened. His last clear memory was of the Titan’s giant foot coming down.

He remembered his Master, Elder Solon, standing in its path. At the time, it felt like a heroic sacrifice. But now, in the quiet of the Sanctum, he felt a deep sense of unease.

Something was wrong with that memory.

The heroic act now seemed to be a master plan to manipulate his emotions, and he almost fell into it.

’His plan was foolproof... except for a few anomalies,’ Rhys remembered the Elder’s words. ’And his eyes... when he looked at Yuki...’

There was no warmth there. There was only cold, calculating caution.

And the way he had looked at Rhys himself when he called him dumb... it was not the look of a kind teacher. It was a look of pure, vicious contempt.

He felt that he had missed something. A very important piece of the puzzle.

He tried to contact the System for answers, but there was only a cold, static message.

[System undergoing critical update. Please wait...]

Rhys felt a familiar frustration. The System’s silence was annoying. He looked over at Sera. She was sitting a few feet away, her small back leaning against a fallen pillar.

She was not playing with her shiny ores. She was just staring at her own small hands with a distant look in her pitch-black eyes.

Rhys was genuinely happy to have her nearby. It’s a great feeling to know there is someone who’s never going to betray you and will support you in anything.

Looking at her silver hair, he remembered Yuki and recalled Sera’s evolution ability. Rhys was taken aback.

’Don’t tell me Sera ate Yuki.’

His eyes widened. No way, right?

He walked over and sat down in front of Sera.

"Sera," he said, his voice calm and serious. "I need you to tell me exactly what happened after I lost consciousness. I feel like I am missing something important."

Sera flinched. She looked away, her gaze fixed on a crack in the floor.

"I don’t know, Papa," she mumbled.

Her voice was very quiet as her fingers tapped each other. She was really hiding something.

’Did she really?’

Rhys looked down at her belly.

’Can a whole adult human even fit in there? Like, I know it’s hypothetical, but still...’

Rhys narrowed his eyes, making his face look a bit scary as he leaned in to speak in a questioning tone, "Sera. Look at me. You were there. You saw everything. Tell me the truth."

Sera recoiled, tears brimming in her pitch-black eyes. Rhys hardened his heart and ignored the tinge of guilt for scaring her.

He wanted answers. And to get an answer from children, this was the best way. He believed it.

Sera hesitated. She looked at her small hands. She was quiet for a long time. Then, she looked up at him. Her sad expression was gone.

It was replaced by a pure, childish anger. Her dark eyes flashed.

"That coquettish bitch is a plotter! She wants to steal Papa!" she shouted, her small voice echoing in the ruined hall.

Rhys was surprised by her tone. It was full of a strange anger, but there was no resentment.

"Yuki?" he asked, his mind racing. "What did she do?"

"The old man was about to enact his plan!" Sera said, her voice full of killing intent. "He was going to mix with the evil spirit. He was going to become strong and then steal Papa’s body.

But that bitch acted on her own, thinking she was the greatest sacrificer in the world. Hmph. She froze his body and let the big rock monster step on him. She ruined the old man’s plan!"

Rhys stared with wide eyes. Sera tugged his sleeves as she made a puppy face.

"But... that wasn’t necessary. I can protect you on my own, Papa. I am stronger than her."

Rhys rolled his eyes, giving a fake, helpless sigh. But his face broke into a smile as he rubbed her head.

He fell silent. He did not feel shocked or defensive. He felt a cold, terrifying clarity.

The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place in his mind: the Elder’s strange teachings, his overly friendly nature, and the extraordinary acting that even the System had failed to sense.

Rhys had been manipulated by the old man.

And the funniest part was that despite thinking of himself as the one with the greatest paranoia, he had failed to see it at all.

’That motherfucking master...’

"What happened after?" Rhys asked, his voice now cold and steady. "What about the Elder’s soul?"

Sera’s expression turned even angrier.

"The old man’s ghost tried to run to you after his body broke. He still wanted to take your body, Papa. But that stupid bitch wouldn’t let him."

She looked at Rhys, her eyes full of a strange mix of jealousy and frustration, as if she was telling a story about a rival who had done something stupid but effective.

"She gave me her core to eat," Sera said, pouting.

"It was a big, shiny, cold thing. But that core was too strong for me to digest alone, so the System also absorbed a lot of it...

She made a contract with you to protect your soul. It was a stupid plan. She wasted her powerful core just to stop a bad old man’s ghost."

Rhys listened to Sera’s childish, resentful explanation, and the full, horrifying picture became clear.

Elder Solon had never intended to save them.

His plan was always to merge with the Tyrant and use its power to possess Rhys’s body.

Rhys felt a storm of emotions. He felt a deep, cold rage towards Elder Solon. The man had not been a master; he had been a predator.

He felt a profound, aching grief and a heavy sense of gratitude for Yuki. She had been a strange, dangerous, and possessive being, but in the end, her strange possessiveness had saved his life.

And he felt a deep, crushing guilt for not realising the truth, for being so blind and so foolish as to trust the old man.

Rhys also learned a great lesson.

Like that old man said... he wasn’t as smart as he imagined himself to be. He was a nobody, a useless piece of shit who got lucky because the System had chosen him.

Only because of the ’plot armour’, in the words of novel readers, was he still alive and kicking.

He had become arrogant after becoming a bit stronger, forgetting the reason he became strong wasn’t merely because of him.

Rhys just happened to be the luckiest one to have such a trait and get a system which could use his trait to its fullest.

Now is the time to understand all his shortcomings.

After all, one couldn’t always get a second chance, and there would be a moment where no plot armour could save him.

As he was grappling with this new reality, a new light appeared in his mind.

The System was back online.

[I was gone for a few hours and you’ve become a bit more of a man, Host. System blushes.]