Chapter 93: Mountain of Loots

After leaving Stronghold 3, Kaelen neither returned to Stronghold 1 nor did he go back to his mansion in Stronghold 5. Rather... he made a stop at Stronghold 2.

He hovered over the abandoned stronghold for a moment before he descended into the city and chose to move around the dilapidated streets on foot.

A few small beasts seemed to have snuck in through the broken walls and taken refuge there. They scurried away on seeing or hearing his footsteps, but Kaelen didn’t bother chasing after them. Rather, his mind was occupied with flashbacks of the state of the prosperous stronghold ten years ago, before the assassination disaster that ended an entire civilization.

Then he finally stepped into the Cross family estate, and instead of the peaceful memories, they made a sharp turn downhill to the chaos that befell the stronghold that fateful night.

The wildfire, the blood, the screams, and chaos.

Kaelen moved through the estate like he was moving through it that night, reliving the memories like they were happening around him at that moment.

He came across the training grounds where his father trained him in the ways of the sword to trigger his awakening, then finally his old room where his mother trained him in the ways of magic.

Kaelen looked around his vast room, mostly intact except for being covered with mold from years of neglect. Then he sat on the hardened bed and did nothing for a long moment as his life began flashing before his eyes from as far back as he could remember up to that moment.

His parents had been tried to be assassinated all for items inside a game Kaelen was only coming to realize was more serious and real with every revelation. And just when he thought he could finally get answers from the man who drove the blade into his father’s chest, Kaelen got nothing.

Not because he didn’t break Governor Grey enough to reveal anything. He did. But each time he tried to say something... he died mysteriously like a curse had been placed upon him.

Kaelen killed the Governor 24 out of 36 times. The remaining 12 times, he was taken by a strange force Kaelen could neither interfere with nor trace to its source.

Whoever created Evolution Online was more powerful than Kaelen gave them credit for, and he was certain by now they were already aware he was onto them.

There were only a few ways situations like this could go down:

They either ignore him like a grain of sand in a cosmic agenda.

They try to recruit and onboard him into the mystery game...

Or they try to eliminate him.

Kaelen wasn’t gullible enough to believe it wasn’t that serious, because from everything he’d witnessed so far, it was more serious than that, and these people could go to great lengths to protect their secrets.

He didn’t know who or what they were, but the one thing Kaelen did know was that they were not of Earth, and were possibly behind beast waves that doomed modern civilization.

But whoever they were, these people had made one mistake...

That was messing with his family.

His top priority at the moment was to find the whereabouts of his mother, and possibly his father. Hopefully, they’d still be alive when he did.

But after that, to all those who thought they could use Earth and do whatever they wanted for their benefit, be it men or gods... Kaelen was going to look for them.

He’d find them.

And he’d destroy them and their planets just the way they destroyed Earth.

Kaelen resolved this within himself and took out a World Authority Fragment. He activated it and immediately disappeared from the spot.

He appeared outside his dark castle, which he’d set up for storing his loot. He stepped inside and moved across several corridors before arriving at the familiar door that swung open in his presence, closing behind him as soon as he stepped inside.

Without standing around, he went back to his notification tabs and began selecting an option for all the ignored loot bundles he’d received.

[You have received the Quality-enhanced loots: ...

[You have received the Quality-enhanced loots: ...

[You have received the Quality-enhanced loots: ...

[You have received the Quality-enhanced loots: ...

The notifications spammed his vision, but Kaelen ignored all of them as he emptied his inventory as soon as he was done enhancing all the loot bundles, dumping them onto the ground in a massive pile that created a small mountain of glittering items towering above him.

The next stage would be to start sorting them out accordingly, but Kaelen didn’t have to do that himself now. After all, he now had servants—and even a prisoner—that made the castle come to life.

"Arise."

Swoosh—

A fierce wind blew across the Treasury, spreading shadows across the floor of the room as several figures began rising out of them.

He didn’t just summon a few of them, but every single Shadow Summon he’d obtained since he got the ability, filling the entire room with his army of over 5,000 shadow undeads, with SKD standing before them like a true commander.

Without a word from Kaelen, but with a simple mental command that didn’t require him to waste his breath, the army split up and began marching towards their respective posts in the castle, while the rest moved towards the mountain of loot and began sorting them according to their colors.

SKD’s job was to ensure the entire shadow summon army was doing the right thing, before he took his place at Kaelen’s side like a bodyguard.

Meanwhile, Kaelen decided to check his accumulated evolution points balance while the shadow summons were at it.

He took out his phone and quickly navigated to the black app with a white infinity symbol.

Kaelen wasn’t expecting much, as though he’d made more evolution points than he could keep track of, he had also spent a killing on advancing 28 times under a single day.

Nineteen times to defeat the Supreme Elder Dragon, nine times to kill the Emperor.

[Evolution Points Balance]:

64,000,000,000,000

"Sixty-four trillion evolution points..."

Kaelen was certain he’d make twice as much as this, but lost them to advancing that very same day.

Though the numbers looked huge, Kaelen wasn’t certain they could comfortably carry him to Tier 50 evolution realm. The stronger he got, the less the numbers that once made him excited mattered.

If Kaelen didn’t find a more efficient way of making evolution points, he might get to the point where he could go days or even months trying to save up for the next evolution, even with the 10,000× Reward Multiplier System.

It wasn’t out of greed that Kaelen felt he was still weak at Tier 41, but because of the revelation of higher powers at play in the shadows of Evolution Online.

The same people who offered money in exchange for these evolution points, and made humanity believe they’d won in life by selling their evolution points for money that didn’t matter in the cosmic game.

Kaelen had been one of these people before he began to learn the hard way.

The most valuable currency in this world wasn’t money... it was evolution points.

And if these people could go as far as to deceive an entire planet for their evolution points, then Kaelen had to step up his game to make more than these people received from who knows how many planets they had under their thumbs.

For that, Kaelen needed more than just the 10,000× Reward Multiplier System. Something that could make a real difference after going through his system, something that Kaelen could rely on... if he were to ever lose the system someday.

Just as those thoughts crossed his mind, Kaelen was pulled back to reality when a concentrated mana suddenly swept across the Treasury and across the World Authority Fragment, making reality momentarily glitch.

When Kaelen snapped his head towards the source, he was surprised to see it was an item amongst his mountain of loot.