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Chapter 369: A Twisted Love

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It wasn’t even night, yet, the coldness in his body was being negated by the warm blend in his hand.

Surrounded by the smell iron and the stench of death, it was easy to lose one’s senses and think of many things at the same time.

For those who’ve tasted the waters at the edge of life and death, it was a familiar feeling.

For those who had weird fetishes like him who always see this kind of event as if it was nothing, it was a familiar sight but a different perspective.

This kind of scene was normal for someone as coolheaded and calm as Augustus Laniary. Even if the end of the world is happening in front of him, he wouldn’t even shrink back and instead will beam a wide smile while sipping the same blend on his cup as it passes off.

He was one who enjoys his plans happening, like watching a sea of dominoes fall down to its place and creates a big beautiful picture of a mess. He loves that kind of feeling.

They call it a condition, a syndrome, but he calls it a hobby. It was his solace. It was his purpose. It was the reason he was alive.

AG had long ago embraced his nature.

He loves it when his plans are causing chaos. And of the different kinds of chaos he’d conducted in the past, a calculated chaotic situation is the most beautiful of all the kinds there is.

Blood was nothing more to him but a decoration or an ensuing product of a well-planned chaotic situation. In fact, if he can help it, he’d rather not see blood and instead only see the product of his efforts: chaos birthed by his well-placed plans.

Of course, he had plotted so many chaotic events that he had gone bored with them.

And so… he upped the game.

But for every kind of man in existence, there is always an origin to which it all started from. It may be a condition, an event, a family member, or an accident... for Augustus Laniary, it was his Father.

He was 9, during a time when he was being trained as a businessman by his Father, that he encountered a particular file on his computer.

[Project Salvation]

It was a design of sorts; centering on a universe-like world that existed within a single person.

—a possibility that a person has the ability to be a [God] within a tangible personal world.

It was a hypocritically hypothetical world.

And yet there was a certain charm to it. Because of how the Humans developed their technology, it was possible to map out a certain trend and also a certain pattern, to which it leads to a certain kind of probability where everything stated in the plan called [Project Salvation], could come true.

To become an absolute ruler of a world where it was tangibly true and could affect the real world…

It was a utopia of sorts and it could exist in the real world and not exist in it at the same time.

It can serve as an alternate world for people to escape to; it can also serve as a refuge to those who’d been fed up by the realism of the mundane and dull truth of the cycle of life.

Within it, one can become the [God] of his own universe and no one in the real world can make him or her control or dictate his/her decisions; with the best part of it all is being able to connect that hypocritically hypothetical world to the real world —connecting your dream world to reality!

A possibility of a multi-universe on Earth!

Project Salvation was that kind of item…

It has that kind of charm.

Because AG had an unusual knack to remember things just a first glance, the file he accidentally saw stuck in his mind yet he couldn’t make sense of any of it.

It was only when he was 11 when he was brought to Geneva to meet one of Father’s partners that he had heard the same project once again.

Curious, he listened and even learned who the partner was: a high government official.

Back then, the UNICORN was in its infancy stage.

[Project Salvation] was supposed to save mankind from its repeating history of warfare. This history had to stop, Father says, I will stop it.

Since then, it became an obsession and Father stopped teaching AG what he needed to learn with an excuse saying that he had already learned what he needed to.

For young AG, it was nonsense. He wanted more to get his attention than learning anything at all.

Everything will be alright. He told young AG. The other families will stop bothering us after this last war that I will bring to their doorsteps.

AG didn’t like it but Father wouldn’t teach him anything anymore.

He became angry. He started to do exactly what The Father told him NOT to do. He wasn’t able to forget that day in Geneva.

AG continued to be bothered by the contents of their conversation and eventually developed the subconscious desire to cause chaos —all in order to be seen, to be noticed by Father— because he was doing exactly what he wanted stopped.

Through the years, the reason why he loved what he was doing has been forgotten and only the fact that he enjoyed it more when everything was going according to plan mattered most.

His biggest project yet, expected to be the cause of the biggest disaster that will cause the biggest chaotic situation yet in history… was already on its last stages of development.

All it needed now is that one last piece of gear to be placed where it should be placed.

It was the last piece…. but it was the hardest to find… the hardest to develop.

………….until Rex Kingsley came.

He came barging in to that lab like some heroic figure, unknown to him that he was trying to chew on something bigger than his mouth. The young Rex Kingsley didn’t know exactly what he was doing and caused trouble even to his parents.

But that event was one of AG’s most wonderful days where an unknown variable in his plans had caused not frustration but utter bliss.

It was madness!

It was the most chaotic situation!

And he loved it!

Eventually, he summoned Pegasus’s absolute ire and so his woman was shot in the chest while he himself suffered a severe concussion and had to undergo an intense surgery to survive.

To pull him out of his coma, he was subjected into an experimental medical procedure.

But to make sure it will succeed, his parents had to dive in as well to guide him in that virtual world.

Pegasus, unable to move on to his obsessive spat of anger at the humiliating event, tried to interrupt the procedure and almost caused the death of two of the most brilliant minds in medical history.

Thankfully, it didn’t happen and the family of three woke up without finding anything amiss.

—except for him and his discerning pair of eyes!

Yes, they are all the same people and no swap in bodies or disguises were made, but they are all ultimately different people when they emerged out of the dive-testing room.

Ellie became gentler. Neth became stern, and the biggest change of all was Rex Kingsley… it’s like he had become a seasoned veteran of battlefield.

His deep eyes were the same but his frown, his discerning glances, his wall of silence, and all his few responses to the doctors’ prompts… were all different than the overly passionate and immature Rex who had barged in on the lab.

Most of all, although it was faint and almost very impossible to detect, someone who had tasted the waters in the sea of life and death could also smell it from someone who had the same scent.

Rex Kingsley smelled of blood and slaughter, and his overly suppressed murderous desire was like a giant bright lamp in AG’s seasoned vision.

He knew that something very big changed in him inside that virtual world.

When Rex Kingsley had learned that the woman he had barged with into the lab was shot dead, Rex immediately collapsed and was in a coma for two days before waking up.

But that Rex Kingsley was also different. It was like there were three people in a single body, and only he, Augustus Laniary, was the one able to see what actually was different.

Eventually, AG came back to the lab room and as he checked what was different in the test results in the dive-machines —the prototype NLD— of that time, he saw the answer in a piece of paper.

[Project Salvation] is a success….

Pegasus’ [Mefisto Extraction Experiment] is also a success….

But most of all, AG had finally found the last piece of cog to complete his grandest plan.

It was only him who managed to know this secret so he kept it from anyone else and deleted what traces of this proof is left to where he found it.

Time moved on.

From the dark, he observed Rex Kingsley.

He also observed those who were trying to hurt, and possibly kill him, from the shadows and only allowed those who Rex can handle to reach him and dispatched those who he can’t —all in the cover of the shadows of the city.

AG studied Rex, his past, his history, his manner of life before and after the incident.

Of them all, there are so few changes and differences between the Rex before and the Rex after; but to AG, it was all too obvious.

The Rex Kingsley before the incident was just a normal boy with a passion for sports and a heart for serving the people; but the Rex Kingsley after the incident had a tendency for violence and once he was ignited, it was hard for him to stop.

It’s as if he was in love with the feeling of battle. It was as if he had been fooling himself by staying in this world of the mundane.

AG was convinced: something happened to Rex Kingsley inside the now popular game. He was sure that Rex was longing for something else that wasn’t possible in the world that he was currently living in… and he knew where to put him back.

Terroa was the place. It was where he will meet his calling. For his plans, AG had to bring him in.

He had to tame the monster.

He had to move now before Rex loses direction and goes on an irreversible path of self mutilation.

AG was just about to make his move when the big disaster happened. The Kingsley Doctors died and Rex’s anchor to rationality was in the brink of dying. AG knew he had stumble upon a large chunk of obstacle that must be removed.

It was a huge setback. He had to adjust his plans.

He didn’t want to expose himself from the dark because he was afraid that if he becomes the sole focus of that hate, Rex might not act the part in the schemes of his plans.

But if he doesn’t act and guide him properly, Rex might lose it and it might become too late when he finally gets the chance.

It was a gamble.

AG had to make the move.

Still, in the bigger scheme of things, it actually do not matter that much. He can just use this chance to take him in. And so, he showed him the light of salvation. He acted half as an enemy and half as an ally; all for the sake of igniting his potential.

Thus……… their history was made.

But now, after a few turns of sudden events, the very unexpected visit of a person happened and now, AG was facing the man who was the start and end of everything.

“You finally make your move…” yet he felt calm.

He was happy.

The circumstances were different but he was still happy deep inside. Wasn’t this the reason he had made all these plans this whole time?

Isn’t his attention his original target?

Now that he was in front of him, his attention all focused to himself, why does it seem different from the way he wanted it to be?

AG was confused and just like how he always did it in the past, in order to get his bearing, he sat there and waited on his sofa, made a blend, and looked at the situation in the bigger perspective.

Still, he knew that there was no escaping. There was just a small talk before the action begins.

“Why ae you here?” he asked, enjoying both the smell of the blood of his bodyguards and as well as the smell of the milky-brown blend on his cup.

Yet, instead of answering his question, the man in question only began his lecture about the history of mankind.

*****

“As the God called “Reason” becomes the reason to go to war… conflict of interest will once again become the reason to repeat history.”

The man sat down on an invisible chair.

His body is made up of [email protected] laser projections but unlike the normal [email protected], his was as tangible as a normal human being.

The man was his Father, the person who goes by the name “Goldwyn”, the one who had picked him up from the streets and brought him up as his protégé… the same man who owned a city that was named after his own name.

“Thus, a sovereign body, a reigning entity, had to be established. To perpetually step down on all of those who oppose it, a [God] must be created. A true living [God] must be born!”

When he spoke to here, the man looked at AG with a pair of overly doting and parent-like pair of warm eyes —a gaze full of love.

“Do you understand, son?”

AG spoke calmly, “I’m not your son. Your son is dead. You’ve killed him because he’s incompetent and you brainwashed your own granddaughter to play the game you’ve manipulated from the shadows.”

“Heh, you really are my son. Just from the simple fact that you defy my wishes is proof enough to speak of that you are indeed my son. And also to correct you on one thing, my son, that moron, had committed suicide. In order to save his child, I had to manipulate information and make it look like an accident so the child wouldn’t be broken when growing up.”

“See? What’s the difference?”

“Everything. Everything is different.”

“…”

If that’s the reason, then his love was indeed very twisted from the very beginning. There was no point arguing with him.

AG sips his blend, its sound making an awkward silence in the space between them. Goldwyn, in fact, was also waiting for him.

“……”

“…………”

“Sigh… AG, you really are my greatest creation. A soul that I created with a unique vision of reality, with a unique way of seeing things, with a unique mind who can think differently… who’s to say that you are not the most brilliant man in existence?”

AG felt warm at the compliments but he also felt a tinge of anger so he tried to cajole him to go mad.

“Father… look at you… you look like a monster with those tubes attached on your body. What’ve you been doing all these years? And what is this sudden lecture about human nature? You barge into my house, kill my guards, and bring in these things… and…. and……. what is that? Is that a Cryo-tube? Are you seriously going to—”

Three large burly men entered the room carrying a casket-sized cylindrical equipment.

It looked like the same “capsule” that he had put Baron in back in Fort Magsaysay.

“—heh… seeing that sparkle of care in your eyes is enough for this monster to feel happy; alas, it is a pity that for the sake of Salvation, I have to shut your eyes for a bit. But please do understand that all of this is for you and Loni, and my whole family to survive. The other Families aren’t as quiet as all of you think they seem.”

AG gently puts the cup in his hand back in the square saucer on the table. He then calmly looked at Goldwyn.

“Father, if I comply to this arrangement, what will happen to my toys?”

AG still had so much to do.

“If things go according to plan, then they should be alright.” Goldwyn said, calmly waving his hand.

“What about my project?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”

Their plans were different. He can’t let Goldwyn take over his life’s work just like that.

“I won’t let you.”

“Don’t be stubborn.”

The man was still clam. In fact, there was still the doting gaze he was giving AG and this is making him feel more awkward. He still hated him greatly.

He saw the smile on his lips and mocked, “Why are you laughing then? Father, you really created such a monster… he won’t let things slide.”

—he was talking about [Rex Kingsley].

But the reply took AG aback. “There is a purpose for all of it. It’s all for the sake of good intentions but if he indeed is the [monster] you claim him to be, then it is the job of a [God] to stop him.”

“Are you going to be that [God]?” AG’s voice was calm but full of mockery.

“……”

“What? Why stay quiet?” he lifted his cup and sips another batch of his blend.

“Well, if I’m a monster just like you said, then it’s not my job to stop him, isn’t it? Besides, it’s not like its part of the plan to stop him. It’s quite the contrary, actually. His existence is vital to Project Salvation. In fact… he is the most central figure of it all and without him, it would all be worthless.”

“…”

Having said that, Goldwyn gestured behind him and three burly men moved and grabbed AG. But would AG let them? He fought them with the skills of martial artist but to his surprise, the three men were all also masters on their own field and they were in a level that even AG who can overpower a Graham with skills and techniques, would be hard-pressed.

And there were three of them!

Even after using all of his cards, AG was still caught and was sedated.

He was put inside the cryo-tube against his will.

“Sleep now, son. When you wake up, the era of Gods would have already begun.”

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The dark hand behind the curtains…

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