Chapter 1429: Doom at Your Doorstep

If those ancient petals had opened beneath Earth’s heavens, every ancient being capable of recognizing the Lotus should have turned their attention toward this world. Instead, the heavens above Hell’s Paradise Island had convulsed beneath a terrifying tide of World Essence, the island had changed, and then the greatest part of the phenomenon vanished almost as quickly as it came.

Now golden currents flowed into the world and powers that had never known World Essence before were being touched by it, their purity and potency changing beneath its passage while the entire island slowly became something it had never been.

Yet no Primordial Lotus remained above the heavens for Danton to behold.

That absence guarded Phei better than any lie.

Danton could accept some ancient reaction from an Original Progenitor whose Soul carried knowledge far beyond the present age, he could even accept that the first stirring of such a being might pour World Essence into the island in ways no one had predicted.

What he struggled to accept was that the Primordial Lotus itself had descended, chosen someone, bestowed its blessing and then disappeared while the ancient world beyond Paradise remained silent.

So his thoughts returned to Marcus.

The Lord’s avatar stood before him while Marcus was outwardly composed enough that another man might have believed he had spent the entire night exactly where Danton found him.

The Lord watched him for several long breaths before speaking.

"Your Bloodline."

Marcus raised his eyes. "What about it?"

"Do you feel any change?"

Terror crossed Marcus’s gaze but neither saw it.

The Cosmic Dragon Slave Mark had taken command of Marcus’s tongue, his actions and every intention that might lead toward betrayal, but it had not taken the horror of it from him and Marcus remembered everything Phei had done to him from moment he entered his Soul Realm and the Heaven-Stealer— the appalling Primordial Rank hourglass!

His dormant Angel Progenitor Bloodline had simply been taken.

Something that had belonged to him since the very begging— something from which all male angels had descended from had disappeared so completely!

The heavens changed when he opened his eyes; the Primordial Lotus descended above Phei and beneath the Lotus something new awakened within Phei.

’A Genesis Angel!’

Marcus knew what those words meant.

He knew enough to destroy almost every conclusion Danton and the Lord were building around the World Essence phenomenon!

And yet he could tell them nothing:

"No," Marcus answered.

Danton’s brows drew together while the Lord’s golden-white eyes sharpened upon him.

"Nothing?"

Marcus shook his head. "I only felt what happened across though me. Nothing more."

Silence settled through the room.

Neither man liked the answer.

How could they feel such a thing and not think of Marcus?

For years the Heavenchilds had waited for the two Angel Progenitors to awaken on the Destined Day. They had prepared for the day those ancient eyes finally opened but even, without that day, ritual or sacrifice, the entire island was suddenly drowned beneath World Essence and both Danton and the Lord had allowed themselves to hope that the miracle had come on its own.

Perhaps the Angel Progenitor had stirred; that was what they searched for now—

The first glimmer of Angelic light within his eyes, the faintest sacred pressure moving through his body. World Essence bending toward him of its own accord—

They found nothing!

Even so, neither Danton nor the Lord could dismiss the possibility entirely. Original Progenitors were not ordinary cultivators awakening some new power for the first time. Their Souls had already lived beneath distant heavens. Their Bloodlines were at a rank the present age could scarcely imagine, and what slumbered within their mortal lives did not have to awaken according to laws understood by those waiting for their return.

Some fragment of Marcus’s ancient Soul might have stirred before the rest.

The possibility was thin, but it remained more believable than Danton thinking the Primordial Lotus descending above Paradise, caused such a profound phenomenon and choosing someone neither of them could identify.

Neither man understood that there would never be an Angel Progenitor Bloodline awakening within Marcus.

The Bloodline they awaited was gone.

Phei had taken it while it still slept, before Marcus ever received the chance to awaken even the smallest part of it. The ancient Soul remained within him, along with fragments of memories stretching back through distant ages, yet the Bloodline which Helel should have awakened and became his former mighty no longer belonged to Marcus Heavenchild.

And Danton and the Lord could not feel some terrible emptiness where the Angel Progenitor Bloodline had once been, no matter how much they probed him!

Marcus remained beneath their scrutiny while a colder realization settled within him.

The Heaven-Stealer had taken his Bloodline so completely that these two could stand before him waiting for it to awaken and never understand that there was nothing left to awaken.

’How useless!’

Only one thing should have betrayed what happened:

His Soul Flame!

Deep within the Heavenchild treasury, among the flames tied to every descendant of the Main Family and Immediate Families, Marcus’s Soul Flame had gone dark when the Bloodline was stripped away.

Had anyone entered that sacred chamber during those minutes, the extinguished flame at its heart would have announced calamity before Marcus ever returned to the estate.

Eira had already accounted for it!

Marcus’s Soul still lived, and the wick remained. Using a trace of his own Soul Essence, she rekindled the flame before any Heavenchild could discover what had happened.

By the time another eye entered the treasury, Marcus’s Soul Flame burned exactly where it had always burned.

—the only ancestral sign capable of betraying the theft had been restored before anyone could witness it.

Danton stood only a few paces from Marcus with suspicion gathering deeper behind his eyes while every road that might have led him toward the truth had already been closed.

Far away, Eira watched found the sight almost unbearably satisfying.

Marcus knew everything they wanted to know.

He knew the Primordial Lotus had descended upon Phei and its blessing had awakened within Phei’s Soul.

He knew a new Bloodline had awakened within Phei like he’d always possessed it and only needed a push to awaken it. He knew the endless golden sea of World Essence that had once filled his Soul Realm now belonged to Phei, gathered within the Essence Sea the Young Dragon had formed after devouring it.

Every answer Danton and the Lord sought rested inside the mind of the man sitting before them!

The Cosmic Dragon Slave Mark simply made that knowledge worthless to anyone except Phei.

Marcus could do nothing clever enough to reveal what his tongue could not.

The moment intention turned toward betraying Phei, the Mark took command before that intention could become action.

There was another Angel Progenitor who could have shattered the lie—

Shekinah!

Had Marcus’s twin already awakened she would never have mistaken the descent of the Primordial Lotus for some unexplained disturbance in World Essence. She would have known those sacred petals and what it meant for the Lotus to appear above someone, and she would have understood at once that what happened above the Endless Forest had nothing to do with Marcus awakening.

But Shekinah still slumbered— in the Cycle of Reincarnation her soul floated!

Among the Angel Progenitors, Marcus alone presently carried enough memory to not only understand what had happened but also the only one with enough knowledge about the Primordial Lotus beyond the legends and tales everyone thought they knew.

And Marcus belonged to Phei.

Sienna knew what had descended. Ashworth had seen enough to understand it while Maya and the Monster had hidden the true form of the Primordial Lotus almost the instant it blossomed openly above the Endless Forest. Eira herself had stood beneath its radiance, Dragon Lady had watched the heavenly flower unfold above her brother, and the Undead Queen together with Cassiopeia had witnessed enough to understand that something ancient beyond their knowledge had chosen Phei even if neither possessed the knowledge of what it truth was— NONE!

The only person who knew enough to speak with certainty had been enslaved.

The other still slept.

Eira allowed her awareness to drift away from Marcus’s room and return toward her Master.

The last traces of white-gold radiance still clung to Phei while World Essence continued flowing through Hell’s Paradise Island.

Only hours earlier, Hell’s Paradise Island had possessed none of it. Now golden currents ran through everything. And whenever those currents approached Phei, they answered him with a natural ease that had not existed before.

World Essence simply flowed according to his will.

Eira’s smile deepened.

Danton wanted the remaining Original Progenitors awakened because he believed their return would restore what the Legacy Families had lost and raise their strength beyond that of their enemy— Phei.

But Phei had already taken the Bloodline meant to awaken one of such Progenitor!

The Lord still feared some hidden Immortal God standing behind Phei, some ancient existence secretly granting him treasures, protection and powers beyond anything a seventeen-year-old should possess.

Yet the danger standing before them required no hidden god!

Phei Ryujin Tiamat had already placed two Original Progenitors beneath his Slave Mark, and he had learned that even their Bloodlines could be taken.

Danton was right about only one thing.

They needed haste!

They needed the sleeping Progenitors awakened before the balance shifted any farther. They needed those ancient Souls awakens and their Bloodlines while there was still time to gather enough strength for whatever was coming.

He simply did not understand that Phei had already reached two of them first.

Eira watched Marcus remaining calmly beneath the searching eyes of Danton and the Lord, both still waiting for the first sign that Helel might finally begin returning.

They had no idea that the Bloodline meant to carry that return was already gone.