It was like any other day under the roof of the Ruse Household Mansion. This is the place Adrian has been calling home for the early and following years of his stellar descent into the sphere of Prime Planet. Albeit large, stacked with an abundance of rooms, they seemed utterly bleak and empty.
In the past, this mansion was bustling with swarms of soul ensnaring beauties. Mistresses and concubines, ever since the wife passed away, a psychological illness plagued the Mister, and apparently, he could no longer conceive with a partner.
Many attempts brought naught but negative prospects. He indulged himself with women of every kind, every proportion, every temperament; all in vain.
Only his first love, his wife, provided him with a daughter. A prodigy so to speak of. The apple of his eyes, pure and unblemished. Knowing that fate had robbed her of the kindly knitted string of a family, the Mister was crestfallen and desperate to provide her with a sibling.
Not just any sibling. If he was to adopt, his adoptive son ought to be outstanding. Then, Adrian happened.
After a military camp in the wilderness, the lone daughter made it back home to find a proud man with a fierce stature strolling through the mansion with unscaled ease of mind, prompting her beautiful eyebrows to fuse and knit.
For an obvious reason, men weren't allowed to tread casually into the mansion. Heaven of saliva-inducing women ran back and forth between every corner, and they all belonged to her father.
That's right, she treated them as nothing but objects to cure her father's psychological illness. Nothing more, nothing less. The man didn't seem to notice her, he kept his back towards her pensive expression as he picked a random room where a concubine dwelled.
The next moment, the lone daughter had her face flush red as she heard the loud claps of flesh intertwined with abrupt, sharp moans ripple from the room. That was Rebecca's first impression of Adrian, and that was the last day a concubine slept under the roof of this mansion.
…
Walking through the same hallway now, thinking back to meeting Adrian in the most bizarre and shameless fashion about three years ago, Rebecca didn't know how to feel about his so-called death.
Behind her, a woman who shared the traits of ink-black hair and fair skin, save for the amber eyes mismatching Rebecca's sky blues, seductively embraced the latter's thin waist with a meaningful grin.
"You miss your brother, she-devil of the academy?" The woman asked, chuckling lightly.
"I hate his guts." Replied Rebecca, her voice cold and indifferent. Before her classmate could utter another word, Rebecca stepped forward, escaping the clutches of tease. Though, as she neared the infamous door, her pupils lingered over it through the corner of her eyes.
"Yeah, right," Sonya rolled her eyes, not buying into Rebecca's flat-out lie. Since whenever someone brought notorious gossip in regards to Adrian's name, Rebecca's temperament plunged into a cold abyss, any one of her friends would see that she cared deeply for this stupid brother of hers. As for how deeply, only she herself would know. "Doesn't your father know anything about him, perhaps? Don't tell me you bought that crap about his death, it all sounds too fishy if you ask me."
Sonya, like any other intellectual student who had the time to calmly process the conundrum, managed to highlight a few loose ends in this entire sudden funeral poly. Only those smitten beyond redemption or aren't that rational in their thought process had accepted Adrian's death like sleeping dogs, trying to wrestle with the revelation and move on.
"If he was alive, he'd have contacted me." Muttered Rebecca in a whisper.
"What?" Sonya didn't quite catch her answer, so she perked her head and inquired.
"I have tried. However, he shrugs me off and says I should focus on attending the ceremony for some reason."
Sonya's eyes flashed with a weird glimmer. With a grin, seemingly understanding something, she asked, "And? Are you planning to go?"
"No, it's pointless." Rebecca denied, though she inwardly thought that if she went ahead, Adrian might try and contact the household while she was in a separate world.
Sonya felt like slapping her forehead. Her father insisting is already a clear hint, was Rebecca that blind?
"If your father knew about his son's whereabouts, and you happened to ask a question that perhaps irks the entire continent, how could he outright answer without drawing suspicion?" Asked Sonya, her eyes beaming with innocent curiosity.
"Hmm," Rebecca stopped, thinking for a moment. After a brief thought, her body jerked, albeit subtly.
"I don't know," Rebecca said, her pace upping as she walked as though she was running.
Sonya didn't say anything, she casually tossed her right foot forward, made a one-eighty, then walked back where she came from.
"I wonder how much I could sell this information for," Sonya thought to herself with a grin, "I'd be rich." With a gentle hum, knowing that Rebecca would most likely busy herself with the ceremony, Sonya thought she might as well take part in it as well.
…
Dusk rolled into a silent curtain of night illuminated with a cluster of stars. Adrian, Christian, Scar, Razor, and Seth had long set out on their journey.
"Where should we go?" Asked Scar, not too much into silently following someone's lead. "Also, who was that you were calling?"
"Just wait for a pillar of light." Answered Christian, dodging the second question, which prompted Scar to frown whilst Adrian chuckled coldly.
"What pillar?" Asked Scar again, seeing nothing but dunes of sand stretched in every direction. Suddenly, the atmosphere gave the illusion of being oppressed, magical substance in the environment began to quiver and oscillate almost visibly.
A similar phenomenon embraced the ambiance of every nook and cranny throughout Prime Planet, the most palpable sensations clutching over the thirteen colosseums. Following a deep rumble, over a dozen beams of light pierced through the skies; some saw it descend through clouds, some saw it breaching through an ivory flare of dusk, and some saw it race through the darkness of night.
"That pillar," Christian pointed towards what seemed like a celestial spear with an immeasurable circumference from this distance.
As the group began walking forward, they felt their vision had blurred, their reach of eyesight suddenly encroached with streaks of violet lightning.
"Adrian…" Christian stuttered in disbelief, looking back at his comrades sprawled across the sands, jolting and spasming with electricity-wreathed bodies.
"Don't worry, I'm just giving myself a head-start over you guys." Adrian grinned. The moment they allowed him to seep his power into their bodies, he installed a backhand for this moment. It didn't matter if they were stronger than him, all he needed was a moment of vulnerability.
"Once you're awake, say hi to my adoptive father," Ignoring the shock deep within Christian's eyes, Adrian reached through the latter's pockets, retrieving five black cards, presumably the passage tickets into the 7th colosseum. Taking one of them, Adrian placed the rest where they rightfully belonged, then patted Christian's shoulder.
That simple pat shredded through Christian's muscles into a numb mess, causing him to drop unconscious like the rest. Letting out a deep sigh of relief, Adrian crouched, the muscles in his thighs inflating considerably before he burst towards the pillar of light without reservations.
"I hope my adoptive father knows what he's doing," Muttered Adrian as his pace increased.
In the pillar of light were a new beginning, a new world, and a new life.
He'd be damned if he'd spend that experience as a labrat under keen observation.
If he couldn't assert dominion over a continent in this lackluster planet, he'd just do it elsewhere.