'Urgh...…'
With several lights covering his vision, Hai struggled to open his eyes while he tried to remember who he was and where he is.
After some minutes of struggle, his mind eventually calmed down and he started to remember things.
He remembered who he is and what happened before he fainted.
Opening his eyes, Hai looked around and saw that he was back in his room at his mansion.
He is laying on the bed while covered by a blanket.
Moving his right arm, Hai felt a piercing pain run through his whole body.
To him, someone who went all kinds of torture, to feel pain, this is something new.
Moving his blanket slightly, he saw that his chest now had a scar that seemed like it was blasted open.
"…" Not paying much attention to the scar, he turned his gaze a bit to the side.
There, he saw Elena sleeping naked under his sheets.
He smiled sweetly and hugged her with his left arm.
'Urgh…'
It still hurts like hell just to move.
While Hai struggled to not let out a grunt of pain, Elena's eyelids fluttered.
They trembled a bit and eventually opened.
She gazed around confusedly for a few seconds but when her gaze landed on Hai and she saw him awaken, her dizziness vanished and she threw herself at him.
"Young master!"
'URGH!' Hai fought hard and managed to hold in his pain.
"E-Elena, hon. I love you too, but could you please not hug me so tight, it still hurts."
Elena quickly realized her blunder and let go of him.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Elena backed away a bit from him while apologizing.
"…"
"…"
After a few seconds of silence, Hai opened his mouth.
"I'm sorry for making you worry and for miserably failing to fulfill my promise." Hai bowed his head slightly at Elena.
Elena seeing this, panicked for a second but calmed herself when she saw him being a bit down. She knows that her young master is feeling guilty about what happened, even though he also understands that the matter was out of his hands.
Touching his head, Elena felt his hair's softness and rubbed her hand as if comforting a child.
Hai's thick skin is really a godly thing, he didn't even had embarrassment in his eyes while being head patted.
"Young master, as much as you feel guilty, so do I. You fought against that man and lost, but I couldn't even stay awake. So, I'm more guilty than you if we look at the situation like this."
Hai's eyebrow twitched.
This woman is doing reverse psychology.
*SIGH*
Letting out a sigh of resignation, Hai understood that she will also blame herself if he is to purse this matter further.
"Okay, okay, I give up." He said in a defeated tone.
Elena smiled and snuggled closer to Hai without pressing him much.
Hai let out a smile and leaned back on his bed.
They kept their silence while enjoying each other company.
Hai closed his eyes for a bit and entered his inner-world, the place where his mana core is.
When he saw his core, he felt his heart drop slight.
There was no core.
"…" He held in a sigh of annoyance and kept looking inside his inner-world.
He looked everywhere but his core had vanished.
When Hai was contemplating how he should start training his magic yet again, he suddenly felt a headache.
His eyebrows twitched but he didn't show any sign of pain as to not worry Elena.
After a minute, the headache subdued and started to fade away.
Hai let out a small smile.
"Chris, you son of a b*tch." He muttered low enough that even Elena didn't hear it.
What Chris had done to him was borderline killing him and making him go through a rebirth process.
When Hai was reborn in this world as Jin Hai, he could do anything and even reach the apex, but he would still be limited as his body was Jin Hai's, the minor villain of Ye Chen.
Hence, he would have several limitations and would need to go to great lengths to overcome them.
Now however, his body is that of Hai, the reincarnator. His body now is his and not something "gifted" to him by the world so he could do his role.
Although his core got destroyed, his cultivation as a mage returned to zero, Hai isn't disheartened. Rather, he is pumped up. He would have an easier time raising his strength now.
However, as much as he is pumped up, Hai is pissed off.
He is pissed off at the world's will for manipulating him even when he thought he was free.
He is pissed off at himself for being arrogant in thinking that he was in the control when all he did was just be a smart clown.
And he is pissed off at the entity that brought him here.
In the information that Chris gave him, Hai understood that there is really an entity that brough him here for some reason.
And this same entity was manipulating Hai all this time.
How could Hai, someone who trained martial arts on Earth and learned several life philosophies be so indifferent about his own suffering?
Was he a masochist?
All this time, Hai didn't notice but he was slowly forgetting what he knew and learned on Earth. His mind was being occupied with the thoughts of several hundreds or thousands of plans for when he was finally free.
He even did all of his plans during the runs, like suspecting of the system and all.
However, would Hai, as cautious and smart as he was, ignore his personality and beliefs changing?
Hai wouldn't be so blind or stupid to do it.
And with Chris' information, he finally realized.
This world is something that is based in one or more novels.
Those novels are supposedly from Earth.
This means that this world is a world whose anchor is Earth or/and the other planets the novels came from.
Hence, this world is fiction and reality at the same time.
The world's will is basically the admin of the planet.
It wanted the best for the planet and wanted to evolve.
It looked at the worlds where it "originated" from and saw how ugly they were.
At least how ugly Earth was.
If a planet is self-conscious, will it want to end like Earth? Being slowly destroyed?
Of course not.
The world's will was not different.
It wanted to live on and prosper.
It wanted to grow and evolve.
And for this, it had to reach the apex.
It had to be perfect.
It had to create a utopia.
And what best course to doing this than with advanced technology and someone ruling as a supreme being?
If the protagonists achieved the apex of the world, they would transform the world in a "better place" because the world's will had "programmed" them to do so.
The protagonists are nothing more than the world's will's proxies.
And this is where things got messy.
If they were the world's will's proxies, the amount of fate and fortune around them has to be immense, after all, they need to carry the whole world on their backs.
And if someone has that much fate and luck, wouldn't they attract attention?
If an entity can bring Hai into this world, then isn't that entity at a god's level at least?
If so, then aren't gods a real thing?
Then, how come no god has ever approached the protagonists?
After his fight with Chris, Hai noticed that there was much more to the world's will than he knew about.
Although he doesn't know about everything yet, he knows that the world's will wanted the gods away from it, as gods tend to act according to their whims and this will heavily affect the "perfect" utopia that the world's will wants to do.
Hai's actions weakened the world's will enough for deities and some lesser gods to descend on this world and act.
This is what irks Hai.
From what Hai understood, the entity that brought him here is something at a really high-level. So, it would need a way to descend on this world.
This is where Hai came in.
When he was brought here, the entity knew that he would try to live in peace after he fulfilled his role, hence, he was slowly being manipulated.
He was made to hate the world's will, the protagonist and his harem.
He was made to have a high level of distrust for his system.
He was made so he would screw over the world's will.
However, Hai always thought that he was in control.
That he was the one pulling the strings and making the puppets dance at his tune.
He didn't know that he was the one who was playing at the tune of the entity that brought him here.
Hai is mad at this, but he is even madder at himself.
How could he be so stupid to fall for something so simple as arrogance?
Is he really the Hai he knows?
*SIGH*
Sighing, Hai lifted his head.
"Hon, how much time has passed since I blackened out?"
Elena raised her head.
"2 days."
'2 days, huh.'
"Did Stella say something?"
Elena nodded her head.
"She said that the mission was a success and that she is laying down the groundwork for us to go into the next phase." She said and picked her phone.
"Say to her that I'll be unavailable for the next days."
Elena simply nodded and didn't question further.
"Hon, a completely off-topic question. Would you mind if I had more women besides you?"
Although harems aren't an uncommon thing for both men and women, Hai still wants to be sure that Elena is okay with it.
Elena looked at him without showing any surprise.
"You are seriously asking me this after you made me forget more than half of our first night?"
"…" He chose to remain silent.
"I'm okay with it. Rather, I support it. I don't think I can handle you alone. If it isn't for the medicine, how knows how long I would stay on bed."
"…" Again, he said nothing.
"So, yes, you can have more women and I won't feel bad." Elena said the last part as she knows that he cares about her more than anyone else.
Hai nodded and gave her a quick kiss.
"Thanks, hon."
Elena smiled and said nothing.
Hai picked his phone and called Hong Li-Wei.
"Hello?"
"It's me."
"Oh, Hai. Are you feeling better now? I heard from Elena that you fainted."
Hai looked from the corner of his eyes at Elena.
"Yeah. By the way, are you free this weekend?"
"Eh… Yeah. Why?"
"You and me are going on a date."
"Oh, ok- Wait, what?"
"You heard me right. See you on the weekend."
"Wait! Who said I want to go on a date with you!?"
Hai stopped.
"Eh… Who said you need to want it?"
"Eh?"
"You are going, I'm the boss here, I give the orders. See ya."
Hai hung up the call.
Then, he called another number.
"Boss?"
"Yeah, it's me. How are you doing big man?"
"I'm fine boss. What do you need me for?"
"Oh, I want a small service from you and your boys. I want you to bring someone to the address I'm going to send you at this date."
Hai sent him the details.
"Okay, I have received the details. Who do you need us to get, boss?"
Hai smiled.
He looked at Elena and patted her head.
Elena just closed her eyes and enjoyed the caresses.
Hai is going to use the puppet against the puppeteer.
He looked outside the window and saw that it was raining.
He thought back to all he had suffered through all his runs.
Especially the one in which Elena died.
He looked at Elena peacefully laying naked on the bed and enjoying his caresses.
"A man named Ye Chen."
It's time to finish some business.
.
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A/N: Hello there, I hope you're having a wonderful day!
Ta-da! The chapters came out sooner than I thought they would.
So, what did you guys think about this chapter?
Was it good or not? Comment it if you liked or not, I want to read your opinions and interact more with you guys.
Also, another thing: A special thanks to the reader Thanatos999. I had a brief talk with this reader through the comments of one chapter, and he asked me about if the protagonist (Ye Chen) and his troupe would be punished or not, as he felt that I was letting them off too easily. I initially planned to do just mental and psychological torture to them but after talking with Thanatos and reflecting a bit, I realized that I was either going to do something too bland or subpar if I continued with my initial idea. Hence, I changed my ways and made some modifications on what I'm going to do. Once again, thanks Thanatos999. 😎👍
Next chapter we'll have some good satisfying moments with our dear Ye Chen.
That is all for today, I hope you have enjoyed the read.
Thank you all for reading! 🍷😎