楼上的上瘾女士

"Hello father," Melinda said to Devon just Clement Silva stepped forward towards his paralyzed son and there was a look of worry on his face as he wondered if he had caused his son some irreversible damage by sending him after the Sapphirine Cult.

A lot had happened since he sent the twenty to Sapphire city and the whole situation with the cult had taken a backseat in his mind mostly because he had trusted in the twenty he had sent and expected them to have much better luck compared to the Silva family.

He looked from his son to Melinda and things clicked in his head quickly as he looked over at Hal who winked,

"You- The Cult" Clement found it hard to get the words out mostly because his desire to express indignation was clashing with the urge to be docile whenever in Hal\'s presence.

"You can have him," Melinda said and tossed Adrien at his father who caught him.

\'So how are things?\' she asked Hal telepathically.

\'It is done. The Elders of the Silva family have been pacified and through them, the entirety of the Silvas who are currently in the Silva Duchy capital have been pacified.

By my order, the Silvas will relinquish power to the Danes and accept to be subordinates of their \'own free will\'.

The process will be long and will not end with just a public declaration but it is an essential part after which everything else will fall in place\' Hal told her telepathically.

Her father tried to get her attention and although Melinda heard him, she ignored him while her telepathic communication with Hal continued,

"What about my family?\' she asked.

\'What about them?\' Hal asked with a raised brow.

\'Well, you\'ve pacified the Silvas, surely you plan to pacify the Danes as well\' Melinda said.

\'Ah yes, of course, that is a must but it is not urgent. I have you, I can overpower your father and uncle whenever I wish, and should I decide, I can have the Silva Elders I now have at my disposal pacify the Dane Elders.

I could also have Arya create Devil pellets the likes of which I used with the Doxons and start a chain reaction of pellet feeding that eventually takes over the entire Dane family.

We have more things to worry about though\' Hal said.

\'What\'s that?\' Melinda asked and as he was about to begin speaking, Hal stretched his hand and tapped her forehead to give her knowledge of the occurrences that had happened in the Imperial city.

\'The Imperial family is powerful. More powerful than we previously thought or were prepared for.\' he said.

Melinda said that she was quite in awe of the Empress\' strength and revealed that while she always knew her mentor was not a new powerful, she had not really known to what extent that strength was.

\'So are you planning to continue with the game? The game of setting the Dystopians against the Harons and the Haron continent.\' Melinda said to which Hal replied,

"Of course. It\'s a good plan but I see now that there\'s no way that the two continents can truly mutually destroy one another.

One will come out on top over the other and we will have to face that one eventually.

With all of my means at the moment, there is a limit to what I am able to do. A limit to how much manipulation I am capable of. I need to get stronger. We all do\' Hal said.

\'So what are you suggesting?\' Melinda asked.

\'I am suggesting a recluse. Our cultivation rate is monstrous but at the moment these oldies still have the advantage of age over us. We need to close that gap just a bit.

A compound Time warping Array that affects a massive territory is what I am planning. Games are fun and all but I must remove myself from them at some point.\' Hal said.

\'And when does this recluse begin?\' Melinda asked with a smile that Hal returned to a shrug,

\'Don\'t know yet.\'

The telepathic communication broke when Isabella approached.

"You... did it," she said to Hal who observed something in her tone that he decided to comment on,

"You sound uncertain," she said.

"It all seems unreal somehow. They are so demure" she said and gestured to the Silvas.

All she knew was that somehow, Hal had instigated a conflict among them (the Silvas) and once an Elder got defeated, they shut done briefly, reawakened, and then would be fighting on the side of the Danes.

Of course, she chucked it all to the fact that Hal was Dystopian... It had her wondering just who her family was involved with.

She had only told her family that his plan would involve Dystopians and while she did not hide that the implications of this was that Hal was likely working with Dystopians, she had not told them he had revealed himself to be a Dystopian... A matter she was still a tad confused about.

She was the only one who knew the Danes might just have made a deal with the Devil... Alas, despite the distaste her bloodline had for Hal, she found herself intrigued by him much more than ever before.

This definitely had to do with the fact that he had just gotten back what her family lost more than five hundred thousand years ago and why would it not?

...

As Hap had told Melinda he would do, he ordered the Silvas to give up the Duchy rulership and to the Danes with a public declaration of surrender all of which claimed the Danes were superior to them.

The general populace of the Silva Duchy considered this to be a weird change and a suspicious one...

Why would the Silvas, who had kept a tight hold on power for hundreds of thousands of years suddenly give them up in a day?

Why was this happening on the same day that the Duchy capital was attacked?

Why had the Danes specifically picked the day the Silvas (as well as the capital as a whole) were attacked to stage their takeover?

No one was suspecting that the Danes had possibly known the Dystopians were going to attack... The general populace just felt the Danes had decided this was the moment the Silvas were at their most vulnerable which was kinda true.

It was not exactly moral but neither was anything done for power in a world where strength reigned supreme.

The Nexus world should be a lawless Dystopia but rules were forced and put in place by governing powers to gain more coherence in their power and authority over the general populace.

The allies who showed up to support the Silvas and had been forced back by attacks from the same Silvas they had come to assist were convinced that the Danes had planned this for much longer and had been much more sneaky and insidious than anyone could have thought.

They were convinced that the Danes had organized a coup within the Silva family and that coup somehow saw them take power.

Anyway, whatever the reasons and means were, the Silva Duchy was renamed on that very day and returned to what it should have been had it not been for the Silva takeover assisted by the Harons.

From Silva Duchy to Dane Duchy...

This was the first in the long line of changes that needed to be made but it was the most important to the Danes who saw it as them regaining their identity.

"To us!" Damien called and raised a goblet full of a drink of high-quality cultivational resources.

They were in a large hall that appeared to be fit for a celebration which was the mood of the entire Dane family at the moment.

The damages to their territory were hardly paid attention to at the moment (they were minimal anyway) as every high-level individual of the Dane family was present.

The old fogies (the Dane Elders), who were usually very quick to slump off into seclusion, had goblets raised and had wide, impressive smiles on all their aged faces.

"To us!" they all chorused.

"We have done it! The Duchy is ours! Next step, the continent!" yelled one Dane Saint and many paused to look at him.

It was no secret to any Dane that there was a desire to take what the Harons have (control over the continent), but to say it so blatantly was odd.

That said, no one reprimanded his words and after a second or two, celebrations continued.

Isabella did an elegant clearing of you her throat to call attention to herself before raising her goblet,

"We all have my grandson-in-law to thank," she said with eyes directed at Hal who was keeping his distance from where they were all mostly congregated.

He had one arm on Melinda\'s shoulders while his other hand was holding a goblet which Melinda refilled with the large jug in her hand.

She refilled his empty goblet and then did the same for herself before taking a good gulp of the drink.

Damien stared at Hal from behind his goblet with suspicious eyes but Hal just stared right back at him.

"Ah yes, of course, we should be... Grateful" Damien said.

Hal grinned,

"You bet your ass you should be grateful," he said.

"What?" Damien asked.

"I said you bet your ass you should be grateful," Hal repeated and then broke eye contact to glance at all those in the hall,

"I made this all possible.

If I wish, at any point in time, I can take it away.

You will do well to remember that whenever you think of interfering in the killing of the asshole and worthless piece of garbage you call a son."