The Innkeeper - Chapter 1983

Chapter 1983: The first twist
Lex’s expression remained neutral. Of course he knew that Belle named him. And of course he knew that his sister was a maniacal brute, but an incredibly intelligent one. At least her clone, on earth, eventually learned how to control her aggressive impulses and instead focus her instincts towards whatever goal he set at the time.

“So the cues left behind by Damian were suppressed, and she recovered, but became a little more aggressive,” Lex said, summing up his parents’ words. “What next?”

Serene sighed, but continued nonetheless.

“With your birth I unlocked a new level of the heritage, but not enough to successfully hide us. Plus, your father was gravely weakened, so we needed a new plan. Naturally, we needed to continue unlocking more levels of the heritage, and at that point the only thing we could do was to continue to make physiques.

“However, by then I had unlocked enough knowledge that I could do some more experiments. While focusing on the new knowledge I gained from you, I also began working on better clones. I also started to specialise in the spirit so that I could heal Belle, as well as hide any memories she had of you in case Damian came back before time.

“And that is exactly what he did. By the time Liz was born, your father was still too weak to carve characters into her body, so we stayed hidden within our barriers which would keep her bloodline from being detected. Just as extra precaution, since you were already hidden through the characters in your body, we made another set of clones who took you away and lived like a normal baby.

“Honestly, back then, it seemed like too much precaution, but it paid off. Damian showed up before his eight year promise, and immediately saw through the clones that were being supervised by his forces. It took him… all of but five minutes to scour the planet for us. If you hadn’t been hidden by the characters, he would have surely detected you too.

“But it was little solace. Damian immediately discovered that we had suppressed his cues. Moreover, although he could not tell what was special about Liz just yet, he could still tell that she was special. That’s when we had the great falling out.

“He claimed that as the blood of the Williams family, the children owed a debt to the family, and had to be raised there. They would receive the best upbringing, but they would also spend their lives working for the family to make up for the loss that Leon had caused.

“In fact, he did a lot more than that. He tried to implant spiritual cues in our minds too, but Leon’s physique, and my special cultivation made it so that we were largely immune to his efforts. As if enraged by his failures, he used other means.

“Although he did not drop the pretense of doing things for the family, he crossed every other line. He captured me, and captured your father too. He was going to enslave us, since he had basically realized that we had some way of producing kids with special bloodlines and abilities. In his words, he would be the family head to bring the Williams family to a new peak.”

Lex’s eyes suddenly opened as he listened more intently. This was definitely a part of the story he hadn’t heard before. It made sense, though.

With Damian’s character the way it was, there was no reason to hold back once he was sure of something. Instead of hoping they kept having kids, he could simply kidnap them and send them to any number of Sanguis Pluvia bases where they could be experimented on. All their secrets could be revealed, one at a time.

Considering what he had done to Belle, this was nothing to him at all. Lex had never realized this before. Then again, he’d hardly thought about his family much either.

“How did you survive?” he asked. “You used something from the heritage?”

Serene and Leon both shook their heads.

“I told you, the moment I got the heritage, fluctuations appeared in destiny, attracting powerful forces and events. As it happened, in that exact moment, a man appeared, and he was quite strong.

“He proclaimed himself my teacher, and beat up Damian until he was forced to retreat. In a single clash, the mysterious man had the advantage, but Damian still had Belle and Liz, so the mysterious man was forced to hold back. He continued pretending to be my master, and tried to get Damian to back down, yet Damian was no fool either.

“With the backing of the entire Williams family, and possibly even the Jotun empire, Damian had a lot of leverage. But since the mysterious man seemed to be a Heaven Immortal, he compromised. He agreed to stick to the original deal, taking Belle away for now, and said that he would allow each of our children to spend the first few lives with us so they can develop a bond.

“Then he would take them to the Williams family to be trained, and would allow them to return to us once they reached the peak of the Nascent Soul realm. The deal was far from perfect, but there was nothing we could do about it – especially since that mysterious man had no actual relation with us.”

A threat of a Heaven Immortal was not a light one, and especially not one that the Williams family could have taken lightly. But in reality, Damian had the backing of Sanguis Pluvia, so he was not afraid to negotiate, and make a deal, temporarily causing the situation to remain as it was. That was the conclusion Lex reached about Damian’s mindset at the time. It was the only thing he could think of that explained why he didn’t have his parents kidnapped out right – it was because it was not yet time for Sanguis Pluvia to come to light. Having to deal with a Heaven Immortal would definitely bring them out of the shadows.

Serene took a deep breath, and continued the story.

“Once Damian left, we were distraught since Belle was gone, yet we could not show it just yet. The mystery man might have saved us, but he could have just as easily kidnapped us as well. Yet that is not what he did. Instead, he introduced himself to us as a powerful Oracle.”