The Eternal Family

The drifting serenity that had emerged was a crucial necessity for both Harry and Emma as they slept in each other's arms.

Harry was staring at the ceiling and Emma had been crying for the past ten minutes. They were both struggling with their emotions. However, they held on to each other as a clutch so that they wouldn't get swept up in fate's tempo.

Their heads were filled with hopeless thoughts, and their hearts weren't at peace. Both were making decisions that might have a lasting impact on their lives while being outside of their comfort zones.

Nothing was going well on their sides, everything.....was going wrong.

Biting his lips, he didn't speak anything for a while and just let everything sink in. He couldn't make sense of anything!

His hug tightened around Emma's waist, he could feel her weeping on his shoulders, and he could feel her tears staining his neck.

Yet, he couldn't comfort her.

He was just as depressed, if not more.

He was having trouble with himself. What happened to Verma? What is happening? Why was he here...

Back in the first timeline?

He clenched his jaws and looked for the system,

A screen blurred infront of him. Dark, majestic, and detached from reality.

It appeared and showed him his stats:

Strength: 0.3/4

Defense: 0.23/4

Stamina: 0.3/3

Agility: 0.1/3

Soul Limit: 20

Pleasure Points: 1.

He looked at it with a frown, Emma felt his changes, but she was too emotional at the moment to be capable of any such thoughts, she just hugged him tight like he might disappear if she didn't

And Harry patted her head, he wanted to first know what was going on. Lives were on the line here after all; and the lives of people he deeply cared about at that.

He had grown attached to and cared about Verma, Evis, and Eva among other people who existed in that timeline. Yet, In this timeline, they were all either deceased or gone. Emotional wounds could be healed, but the dead can't be returned to life...

He wanted to know, No, he was desperate to know. Just what had happened...was this all an illusion?

He looked deeply at his stats, things started to make some bit of sense,

Strength: 4

Defense: 4

Stamina: 3

Agility: 3

This stat level was the one he had before he went unconscious in the first place; before the system introduced Unbinding and time travel – infinity warp – and all of the things that came after.

He had a good memory, he could remember those days vividly, like it had just happened yesterday.

Even though Soul limit kept blurring as if a glitch.

He looked at the system for any further details, his heart beating like an about-to-explode bomb as he found what he was looking for, he thought in his mind to open the details of the new text, but it didn't work.

He gritted his teeth and clicked on it instead of thinking of it,

'The system seems to have lost its Ai,' he noted.

Disasters Survived: 1.

[Disater - Aura Of Time.]

[Earned Rewards:

Released from the shackle of time.

(Obvious Benefits)

Abilities or methods that could make the host age using time energy shall no longer work against the host, Time Energy Resistance.

Abilities or methods that could help the Host increase his longevity shall no longer have major side effects. The Uncanny Immortality.]

The system flickered and showed further details, Harry speechlessly read on,

[Gifts Absorbed:

Clone.

Enhanced Self Healing

Enhanced Hearing

Enhanced Vision

Enhanced breath

World Of Mind

Rainbow's Beauty

Wings of Freedom

Wood manipulation

Self-Inspection.

...

Evolved Lustful Absorbtion.]

The system flickered one final time and showed another detail: [Eternal Benefits: Host can store a part of host's soul into the Eternal Blood that resides inside the Host's body. Giving basic intelligence to the system interface of the blood,

Do you wish to proceed?]

Harry closed his eyes emotionlessly, and muttered, "Proceed."

he had been fooled like a fiddle, he chuckled...

Emma turned to gaze at her side, she looked at the side profile of her son's face, but this time, awake, but then, she saw Harry's eyes leaking droplets of water, Harry was...crying silently.

She abruptly stopped crying herself.

No...son.

Wiping his tears with her hands, she shiveringly shook her head, "No Harry, You shouldn't shed your tears yet, We haven't saved our Lilly after all..."

Harry's focus abruptly shifted, and he asked with a fierce tone, "What happened to Lilly?!"

Emma calmed his anger slightly down and said, "She is not in mortal danger."

He calmed down slightly. And Emma continued, wiping her own tears from her face, Harry's hands were too heavy to do that...

"I have a lot to speak with you Harry, but...before that, tell me, will you fall into a coma again?" she asked, her voice quivering.

Harry shook his head, "Absolutely not."

Emma nodded and left his embrace, stood outside the bed before saying, her voice relieved yet exhausted, "The heaviness in your body is due to a Gift cast on you by the Royal Doctors, it was used to keep you alive without food or drinks, eating something should remove it...I will go and fetch some food."

"Make the maids bring it," he said, he could see she was exhausted.

Emma shook her head, and said in the same tired tone, "It is better if I do it myself, I don't want you waking up to be known by everyone..."

"Has the situation changed that much? What about Anna?" he asked.

Emma shook her head and said, "Just wait here for me Harry." He had no choice but to do that because his body was for now, very heavy and frail.

Emma walked to the door, threw a final glance at him, and left the room, the door closed behind her. Her tearstains vanished and hid behind a layer of skin like jade.

Harry calmly breathed out with his heart still seething with unreleasable anger and looked at the system, "Has the Ai been installed?"

[A part of your soul has integrated with the Eternal Blood. And now the system has basic intelligence.] it stated.

"Do you have emotions?" Harry asked, his voice cold and callous.

[No.]

"Can you unlock or gain emotions somehow?"

[No, The Eternal blood constantly releases an aura of slaughter, Burning all emotions that the part of your soul births. But if released and taken back to the host body from the blood, it can bring about slaughtering thoughts in the host.]

"How intelligent are you?"

[As intelligent as the host.]

"So you are like another part of me now?"

[In a sense, I was a part of you from the beginning.]

"Hmm...I see, then tell me everything we know about this 'Disaster' thingy," Harry said in his mind.

Having an Ai in the system was too good to be kept away, it was literally another mind. But with more in-depth memory and hopefully limitless storage.

[The Disaster:

A sudden and unexpected occurrence that came out as an unfathomable aura from inside the system, a pow—

"Did it truly come out of the system?"

[No, the aura came from something outside of the system or host.]

"Continue," Harry said as he blinked, he already knew it, but he wanted to see what things he had missed.

[Disasters, the system or host's knowledge bank lacks many details about this. But the system at least has some basic knowledge, Do you want to see them?]

Harry nodded.

[Throughout all worlds that have abilities, there existed some people, some extraordinarily lucky individuals born with abilities that completely defy the common sense of the whole world.]

Screen flickered,

[For example, the host.]

It showed him the details about Lustful Absorbtion but he skipped it.

And it continued on to the subject, [The system had classified abilities into three categories,

One, Normal

Two, Eternal

Three, Abnormal

Abilities Like Enhanced senses are natural abilities that can be added to the first category.

DreamWalking is an ability that is a good example of the Eternal category.

And Lustful absorption belongs in the last, Abnormal category.

Abnormal Category is abnormally, or normally rare. Only a single one is seen in most worlds.

And in all these people with abnormal abilities, a constant attraction of disaster existed, the system knows three such disasters,

One: Time.

Two: Space.

Three: Fate.

And The System believes the host had just passed one of such disasters.]

"Who creates such disasters, and...how did I pass it?" He wondered, the system wondered alongside him.

They were both only similarly intelligent,

So they both came up with some answers, and the system started to show its thoughts, Harry read on:

[Some Eternal level (Unknown level) creature should be the one who is doing this.]

Harry nodded, all such shit came from them.

This was the same conclusion as his own.

[As for the host passing the test, there is only one possibility.]

Oh...he hadn't thought of one yet, intrigued, Harry read on,

[The Host was successful in keeping himself sane.]

"How so?"

[Throughout the Disaster time period, your thoughts were influenced by some major lies told by the then fake system, in other words, the system that had got an Ai out of nowhere.]

Harry's heart shook, it had got an Ai out of nowhere and he hadn't even questioned anything...he took it as natural.

[You were guided by the system from the moment you went unconscious, you had fallen into the illusion at that point.

For example, The System asked if you wanted to go through Infinity Warp for free and that it is a feature Non-Eternals could only enjoy once.

Whereas in the current information stored inside the system, it is said that, No non-eternal can ever travel through time.]

"So I was fucking duped by it from the start?" Harry gritted his teeth in frustration.

[the illusion was a very realistic one, to the point, even the system couldn't interfere.]

[More instances were adding on to this fake data of you going back in time, solidifying your belief,

For one, Verma's existence.

Two, the influences left behind by the supposed future you of another timeline in which you were an Awakened level being on the Disaster timeline.

And all of it, was leading you onto a path,

The whole narrative of the fake world was to make you move in an intended direction,

To Become like that supposed strong future self. Becoming his copy.

And half of the way, The host followed that path and did everything to become stronger, similar to that character.

You wanted Verma and the other woman, all to be yours, but then...on the day the disaster ended, you made a decision, you are not him.

You chose not to become someone but stay true to yourself.

The host didn't lose himself in the scheme of time to steal his Identity. But instead prevailed and kept true to himself, found his own self who felt inferior to others but still kept moving forward.

The host didn't lose his sanity to lust either.]

Harry forcefully smiled, "I chose myself, I chose the way to walk on rather than steps to follow on...huh?"

[...]

"Are the things that happened in that timeline real?" He asked, he had decided to change his name, but did names even matter?

[The system lacks information, but the past pieces of information and new information align together very well, so it should be true.]

"Were there some clues in that whole timeline that I missed? That could have led me to find out it was just an illusion?"

[Yes, it had many.

One is the lack of an "Eternal Companions" bar on the system, it was a bar that said Eternal. Throughout time, how can it get lost due to time travel?

Two, Your actions not leading to consequences.

How can fucking ten women lend no clues to your whereabouts? Verma was always with you, she couldn't have many subordinates then either,

As she had mentioned she only gained her memories just some days ago.

Verma kept trying to make you fall into lust,

For example, offering her slave to you.

"It's enough," Harry gritted his teeth, whoever that Eternal was, he will make them pay in blood for fooling him like that one day.

They made an illusion of a woman, a woman from his fantasies. The one he found worthy enough to tell his secrets.

All for?

As a fucking disaster.

No matter what, such bastards had to pay.

Harry calmly lay down as he then looked at all his gifts, he even had "DreamWalker" now...but then, his smile stiffened.

"Where is jade transformation?"

[Jade transformation, Emma's ability, has never been absorbed.]

"So...even that was an illusion?"

So he had never conquered his mother in bed?

Click, the door opened and Emma walked in with a steaming broth in her hands, she smiled faintly and closed the door before bringing the food to Harry,

"Eat it slowly, there might be some problems with your body," Emma warned.

Harry smiled and shook his head, 'I first have to save my Lilly and beat the ass of the one who is doing mischief now, that should calm my anger down...' he thought.

He had to control his lust,

Ah! He suddenly thought of something.

Lustful Absorbtion's Stage 2 was mainly about controlling his lust in the first place,

"So the three tribulations of lust and shit mentioned by Verma were just shit?"

[Probably.]

Kek, Harry chuckled...

ραndαsnοvεl.cοm That is one load out of his mind.

He had been thinking they were so idiotic in the first place...

But sure as hell, this disaster was truly grand,

It almost made him fall completely in love with an illusion.

Huff...he atleast learned something.

He then breathed in, hmm...the broth smells so good.