I stood in front of a mirror, my eyes glowing bright gold while I looked at my DNA structure. It was a ball of light, filled with darkness that was spreading everywhere, that bloodline that Hextia had was within me as well but it was still a mystery.
There was more than just the unknown and the cherub bloodline, there was an angel's bloodline as well as an archon bloodline, I assumed they came from my mother and the elixir I had taken. There was even a spec of dragon bloodline, guess the stories of my father's ancestors knocking boots with a dragon were real after all. It was intriguing at first to see all the bloodlines I had acquired at first but I realized that unknown bloodlines were steadily growing.
Though it only was .00001 percent every other second, it still meant that eventually, I wouldn't be an angel anymore, and I was uncertain as to what that meant for my future. I always dreamt of becoming an archon and unraveling the mysteries of my race but it seemed I was going to have to give that up for a different mystery.
I sat down at my desk and watched the camp outside my window, they could now live simpler lives now that they were under my care, I envied them for it. They had suffered a bit but now they were free to have families and so long as they paid off their contract they could enjoy the fullness of their freedom.
I tapped my metallic fingers across my desk as I pondered the thought of living a simple life with my parents, no old enemies, or far away siblings.
I sat and thought about it till the fires dimmed in the camp and my room became dark, Rin and Sett came into the room at the same time giggling away. They turned on a lamp and came over to me and pulled me off to bed. I hugged the two beautiful women until their warmth and care lulled me into a much needed rest.
I woke up to sweet kisses from Rin before Sett dragged me back to the wall for another shift of healing. The days I spent at the wall and finally in my lab or with these two caring women started to blend together and they went from weeks to months, I ate, healed, slept, and researched. We learned that Rins's unknown bloodline actually came from a demon bloodline and we bought a suitable cultivation technique for her to practice.
Surprisingly she started growing two adorable horns and a slick black tail, no wings as of yet but I enjoyed checking for her, at first she had flipped out thinking that as an angel I would care if I had a demon lover. It took me quite a bit of convincing words and lovemaking alike to get her to accept the fact that her origins wouldn't keep me from caring about her.
After three months of healing at the city wall, the invasion force broke through and infiltrated the outer city, the leaders of which never mounted anything beyond F grade cannons on the outermost defenses so we were forced to make a retreat to the wall protecting the middle district. Luckily there was enough space for the citizens to barely squeeze in, those unfortunate souls who couldn't find a place to stay conveniently found work at one of my restaurants or contracted themselves for a place to work on the farms at my home, of course, these things took place in the shadows.
If I openly recruited the destitute the slave traders might band together and prove to be a thorn in my side. I could be a madman but I wouldn't risk everything for the starving public.
My level rose steadily until I reached level 8 before the experience goblins and healing began to drop off significantly, the same went for Hextia though she could now control all 7 splinters plus a few of my specially designed exploding puppets. I had finally settled on a tiny bunny design that had an extra energy crystal that could be remotely ignited causing a shockwave that would cover 5 meters, the skeleton was designed to break off into sharp splinters and act as shrapnel. They made quite the entrance on the day of their debut, they weren't too hard to craft except for the detonation runes, one mistake there and the lab would be a mess.
Luckily for me, the master set of crafting tools came with a barrier for incidents like these, which helped me keep my face and my oxygen addiction intact, the blast would still hurt and knock me away while moving any stray instruments to the ground but it beat dying.
An adventurer was laid out on a table in front of me, pieces of the femur were poking out from his thigh with the occasional arterial spray coming from the wound, a minor heal spell took care of the bleeding for now while I and another healer and two nurses reset the leg. The middle-aged man screamed through his teeth and struggled during the entire process, looking down there was a large spray of blood on my clothes, luckily I had stopped wearing expensive robes after the first few days.
As I was wiping my hands and face with a hot towel I heard the familiar sounds of my rabid rabbits and they unleashed their payload followed by a raucous cheer from the walls.
After washing up I passed by the middle-aged man and performed another minor heal spell, I targeted his heart where an abnormal growth was threatening his life. I had the normal tissues grow rapidly so that it moved the abnormal growth away from the heart and healed any damaged tissue until I moved it from his heart until it reached a noncritical area where I made an incision and plucked the deformity from his body and healed him back up.
It sounded easy but the mana required had me sweating bullets, if it had gone on for a few more minutes I would have collapsed and the growth would have caused a blood clot and he would have probably died before I could recover my mana. I took a special vial filled with a fluid used to help keep tissues alive from my spatial pouch and placed the abnormal tissue inside before putting it back into my spatial pouch. I had finally gotten one, I had been taking care of the Kirin egg on my day off and I had been playing with the puzzle box my father had gifted me for my last birthday.
I finally got it to open by flooding it with mana and finding a small power crystal hidden within, after activating it opened up and there it was, inside the bag was a single note from my dad.
"Bet it took you more than a year to open it up!" was all it said. I could even imagine the smug look on his face and that annoying laugh when he played someone.
I checked the middle-aged man again before walking out of the tent, Hextia had her splinters retreat from battle and they only had a few scratches on their armor, for a long while they had always come back looking like they had been turned into pin cushions.
Once we had collected our pay from the guild we boarded my shuttle and flew back home, as we came closer I could see my own outer wall nearly finished. The walls had patrols at all hours of the day as the raids from both goblins and kobolds increased. There were a few plots of land outside the wall but they weren't used as much as the plentiful fields inside, the majority of my lands were inside the wall while the rest was more a buffer between my family and the city.
The next step for the wall would be to mount cannons in strategic locations so as to have even fields of fire without congesting one area over another. We took our time examining the wall and the newly built homes branching away from my manor, a small town was slowly forming. Taking a closer look you could see where a few of the clans that had submitted to me had taken residence around the manor, they would have their own territory to protect and govern on my behalf once everything was completed. Once we landed Owen was waiting for us by the door, he was incredibly pale as if he had seen a ghost.
He didn't say anything, he grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me into the house. This was the first time Owen had ever been heavy-handed with me, with the grim look on his face and his eyes checking every shadow I wondered what could cause the old man to show so much anxiety. Once we reached his office Hextia left two splinters in the hall while the rest came inside, Owen locked the door behind us and went to the window and closed the thick curtains.
��There is no easy way to tell you this master Alioth, but I received messages from your parents and from their enemy, the one from your parents is to not get involved with their affairs while the one hunting them sent something much worse."
Owen sat heavily before starting a hologram.
There was an angelic race member strapped down to a table, his wings were visible and nailed down by large rusty nails. His face looked familiar but not one I could put a name to, it wasn't until the torturer walked into the recording and started asking questions about where my parents were that it dawned on me that this was my elder brother. There were several hours of torture before he gave up what little information he had on our parents' whereabouts, by the time they had finished with him his wings had been broken and cut from his back.
He no longer had fingers, toes, and they had scalped him with dull blades. The worst of it came when they started removing his organs, after which they killed him and dumped his body on the floor.
I threw up in the waste bin next to Owens' desk only to hear a gruff voice filled with pity, "The worst is yet to come, young master, it is best you steel yourself."
I spit and wiped my mouth and eyes, the room that was covered in filth and blood from my brother came back into view but this time they dragged in a screaming woman. Her torture began as one could expect, I clenched my teeth as they shamed my sister to no end, I could only endure watching for a few minutes before I stood up and crushed the desk ending the hologram.
'I am going to butcher those bastards!'