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Volume 6

Chapter 272: Semi-Family Reunion

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Ellie sounded apologetic and somewhat guilty of something, and she cried so hard that Siva also felt the tears forming on his own eyes.

“Mom, please, don’t cry… stop it. No matter what it is, you didn’t do anything wrong…”

“I did something, Siva… to your mother… Terra.”

“What? What do you mean? Aren’t I your son, Rex Kingsley?”

Ellie raised her head and she cried even more. She hugged him tightly and just as she was about to say something, the white door behind her opened and from there, in a world of blue lines or strings of numbers and black background, he saw his dad enter… wearing a tear-eyed face.

“Siva.”

“Dad!”

“Technically, I am not your father. In fact, Terra is not your mother as well. But in a different sense, you are also my son.”

Siva was taken aback and he trembled at the very implication of the things his father said.

“Dad…”

“Let me finish. When this universe was born, no, was first created, there existed three governing programs responsible for the development of the worlds… namely: Brahma “The Creator”, Vishnu “The Sustainer”, and Siva “The Destroyer”. While Pegasus’ avatar, “The One”, was in charge of placing the [Mana Code] that could be used by the Brahma program to create fates and establish independent worlds, there exists my avatar, The Warden… an external program responsible for eliminating and isolating possible threats to the development of said worlds. You, Siva, however, was supposed to be a mere program used only as the last phase when this universe had served its purpose and it was time to end everything…”

“Dad, what are you talking about? I am Rex! I am Baron’s older brother! I am your son! What do you mean I am but a program?! Siva… Siva is just my avatar’s name!”

Ellie gasped and she stood up, hugging him tightly and then turning her head back to glare a sharp pair of eyes at Neth Kingsley.

“You were supposed to let me handle it!!” She tear-ladened rebuked him.

Siva, confused, look at his mother and then to his dad that closed the white door behind him and uttered a long sigh.

“I’m sorry but… as much as I don’t want to accept it, in him is also my son and I missed him too…”

As he spoke, Neth walked in and hugged his son that’s being hugged by Ellie. The trembling pair of arms that hugged his family clearly spoke his own unspeakable pain that won’t lose to how much Ellie was missing her own son.

In Siva’s mind, he recalled that moment when he came back home bruised from fighting the bad guys that’s been spying on them on the streets.

He really missed his parents who hugged him at that time. They were supposed to go on an important gathering but they cancelled that event and comforted the agitated Rex Kingsley.

And so… who would say that he wasn’t their son?

He could clearly recall that memory and these two made him remember that memory dearly.

Are these not proofs that Rex and Siva is the same person?

Besides, his father also said it… and Siva could only dismiss the fact that Ellie also spoke a line that is something close to “letting her handle it” because Neth already dismissed it as well.

In short, Siva just didn’t care.

He will trusts his heart that these are his parents.

Siva’s agitation calmed down a bit and he raised his arms out to hug the two. But the warmth of his family in his arms only lasted for a moment before the white door opened again as Janus’ familiar face peeked from behind the white door.

“You cannot stay here for long.” He said coldly, even only glancing at Siva before his gaze locked on Neth.

“I know.” Neth answered regrettably.

“One minute. Tops.” Janus said and just as he was about to close the door, Siva yelled to call.

“Old man… you’re not… dead…?”

“…..”

“???”

“The Janus you know is dead. I am but his side that knows no emotion. And my sole existence is dedicated to keeping that world behind you alive as much as I can. If you’re going to honor my twin’s existence, then when you wake up, please don’t destroy the world he died to protect.”

Having said these words with cold indifference, Janus closed the door and reminded Neth one last time, “Fifty Five seconds. I can’t hold off his scan for a longer time than that.”

“Yes, thank you.” Neth said with sadness.

“Dad? What’s happening here?”

Neth sighed and placed a hand on Siva’s shoulder then looked at Ellie with a sad and longing gaze.

He told Siva, “Son, I know you’re confused. So I want you to remember that your mother, no, your mothers did what they had to do for you to survive that calamity. Rex…. no, Siva, you are my son, so I want you to listen to me. Protect this world and no matter what happens, do NOT ever let anyone else enter that door.”

Their gazes turned to the black door and in Siva’s heart was injected a strong notion to annihilate all the demons of Terroa.

“I promise, dad. I will not let them get to mom.”

“Good. As a man, you must protect what is important to you with all your life.”

“But dad… how are you…”

The white door opened and Janus interrupted Siva’s sentence as he opened the door to the chamber.

“Twenty six seconds. Neth, I can’t let you risk it all in this little moment… just tell him what you need to tell him and let him do it.”

Siva wanted to ask what was going on with that time limit but the urgency and severity on Janus’ tone as well as the reaction on Neth’s face told him that it was as important as his task on protecting his mother and Terroa.

Neth glanced down at Ellie, “Can you make sure to at least make him remember it?”

“I’ll try my best.” Ellie nodded.

That assurance was good enough. Neth’s face bid a frown of resolve and held Siva’s upper arms with a father’s grip.

“Listen carefully, Siva, try your best to remember it all as much as you can. This world holds the secret to the evolution of the Human Race in the real world. The Terran Universe had collapsed and only Terroa is the sole planet that stands in the way of Pegasus’ evil schemes. Just like how you and Rex became a single existence, he will assimilate Mefisto and use the billions of years of knowledge in this world to control Earth. He as able to revive Mefisto using memory fragments from his prototype outside. But Mefisto wouldn’t be whole no matter how much Pegasus revives him. You have to do what you can to stop Mefisto from being completed. You have the last bit of Mefisto’s memory fragment and he will stop at nothing to complete himself. If he succeeds, he will destroy Terroa, kill Baron, then enter this chamber to kill your mother before he enters the real world after killing me and Janus. Do you understand your mission?”

Siva felt really confused. Why does his father addressing him as if Siva and Rex were of two different persons?

But… as much it was painful to think about, there was no loathing or disgust on Neth’s tone and he was looking at his son as a man while he said those words to him.

At least, Siva could tell that he was being entrusted something important by his dad and this was a mission given to him from his father.

Neth being here despite dying in the real world is just like the feeling on how he was seeing Ellie, his mother, in this world… no in this chamber… right now.

Is this something that happened four years ago?

If so, then it would explain why his mother is not aware of the current fact that Ellie, in the real world, is already dead.

No, she already knows it but she was still skeptical about it and so asked Siva earlier about it.

But still, why did Ellie apologize to him as if she had wronged Terra?

Isn’t Terra and her the same person?

Wait, if she treats Terra as a separate entity from herself, then it would explain why Neth also treats Siva different from Rex.

And yet… in the end, the two of them ended up treating Siva as Rex Kingsley as well.

Although it hurts that it was on the pretense that he, Siva, and Rex Kingsley, were joined by some sort of circumstances 56 years ago as Ellie said, Siva can just dismiss those things because he was still able to receive a genuine embrace of love from his parents at this moment.

No matter what had happened in the past, the real them are dead in the real world and he can’t bring them back no matter what he does.

So why should he carry any form of resentment from them? It would only inflict negatively on him in the end because as much as he wanted to throw his immature tantrum to their graves, the real them wouldn’t be able to pamper him back.

And so, at this moment, whether he will remember it all or not after he ‘wakes up’ just like his parents were saying, he doesn’t care anymore.

Right now… he was living at the moment. He was savouring the presence of his parents who had magically appeared in this place.

Siva was treating this as a dream so he was savouring it as much as he can.

Thus… he can’t let his father down.

“I understand.” Siva nodded strongly.

“Good. Good lad…” Neth embraced him again and Siva did the same.

“Ten seconds, Neth.”

Neth parted from Siva and then turned to Ellie. “I have to go now.”

“I will always be here.”

Ellie went to kiss and hug her husband and Neth walked towards the open white door.

The background of black in the front of the falling bluish-green lines of numbers felt like he was looking at a different dimension.

Yet, before Neth entered that other dimension, he turned to Siva and said: “Don’t worry about the bastards spying on you… I have been preparing to take care of it for some time now. Now that I know your IP address, you can rest assured that no one else in the world will know who you are.”

As he spoke, he entered the other side of the white door, walking to a hallway made of angled lines of bluish-green binary syntaxes of zeroes and ones.

Janus was on the door, serving like an attendant.

But just as he was about to close the door, Siva called out to him, “Dad! I won’t let you down!”

In his vision, Neth’s departing figure at this very moment had overlapped with that figure that went to take Terra away in the cellar dungeons.

The only difference is, while that Neth only did a gesture as if saying “adios”, his dad here and now turned around at him and gave him a wide teeth-showing grin along with a thumb’s up.

This proved that this Neth Kingsley is his father.

“Hehe. I know you won’t. You’re my son!”

When the door was just about to close, Janus’ eyes made contact with Siva’s and the old man’s cold and indifferent expression gave him a nod of affirmation that Siva took with an understanding.

“He really is not the old man.” He murmured.

Ellie, who’s been standing there with tears in her eyes looking at the white door, sniffed and then took her son to the table as they sat down while wiping her tears away with her hands.

“You might be confused right now.” She said then looked up, seeing a bar saying [96% Complete].

“Not really.” Siva said, shaking his head and giving her a wide smile. “I know that this is just a dream and that I won’t remember anything that happened here. Dad’s always given my advice to not always resort to violence because it will always add another seed of violence but… only now that he’s gone am I slowly trying to understand what he really meant by it. Me seeing him now is a blessing on itself so I won’t hold any kind of resentment because he is my dad.”

Ellie placed a gentle hand on Siva’s hand and gave him an assuring and thankful nod.

“Son, you… there are many things that I really want to tell you right now but I can’t because it is not yet the time and you won’t even remember it because of the limitations set in this place. But I will still try my best to make you remember what your father have entrusted you with.”

Siva felt helpless… yes, it was painful that he felt that Neth was distinguishing Siva and Rex as two separate people. But in the end, Neth still hugged him and called him “son” so he was sure that Neth was just saying something important in a different sense to him.