HLnovel Chapter 147 - 146 : A stuborn bloodine
Chapter 147 - 146 : A stuborn bloodine
Inside the VIP room, the silence was heavy enough to crush sound.
Tiered rows of luxurious seats curved around a wall of floating crystal screens, each one showing a different angle of the forest‑city battlefield. Men and women who controlled kingdoms, empires, and fortunes sat there, dressed in robes, armor, and tailored suits, their auras normally enough to suppress an entire hall by themselves.
Right now, every one of those auras was forgotten.
For a moment, none of them could believe what they were seeing.
On the central projection, the image of the Imperius family’s pride shattered.
Arina Evan Imperius—the youngest prodigy of the imperius family—was on her knees in the dirt, sword fallen from her hand, body trembling and unable to stand straight. Her hair was disheveled, dust streaked her face, and blood stained the corner of her mouth.
Above her stood a black‑haired boy, relaxed and upright.
Arthur.
They had all watched, fully expecting him to be eliminated the instant Arina entered the fight. Instead, they had watched her attacks fail to break him, her bloodline be exploited, her technique dismantled piece by piece.
He now stood over her like an unbreakable wall.
No matter how many times Arina had tried to cut him down, she had not been able to open even a proper crack.
Murmurs rippled through the room.
"Is that... really Arina?"
"The Imperius brat actually lost?"
"And to him of all people..."
Adrian Evan Imperius could not speak.
He stared at the screen, every muscle in his face stiff. The boy on the projection—calm, ruthless, looking down on Arina without a hint of hesitation—overlapped with an older image in his mind, one of a thin child gripping a wooden sword with shaking hands.
The gap was absurd.
’The boy who could not even lift a blade properly,’ Adrian thought, ’has now defeated our family’s youngest prodigy... and he did it without a single recognized Imperius technique.’
His throat felt dry.
’How can someone change this much in just a few months? Did I overlook something about him from the very beginning?’
Another, colder thought followed.
’Father will not be pleased with this outcome.’
Around them, the focus of the nobles shifted.
"That boy... isn’t he Yuna Akatsuki’s disciple?"
"I heard she picked up a disciple this year. But thought it was just rumours."
"To bring someone to this level in such a short time... what kind of monster is she training?"
Pride, irritation, interest, and wariness colored their voices in different mixes.
Sylvia Evan Imperius listened, eyes fixed on the screen. The corners of her lips tilted upward in the faintest of smiles when she heard Arthur’s name spoken with more respect than mockery.
Adrian noticed.
"You look happy," he said quietly, his tone flat. "It is our daughter that is losing."
Sylvia did not look away from the projection.
"What about the boy then?" she asked.
Adrian’s jaw tightened. His fingers dug slightly into the armrest.
He did not answer.
He only turned his gaze back to the screen—
Just as something new unfolded and drew every eye back to the battlefield.
—
In the forest‑city below, Arthur loosened his grip and let Arina’s body go.
She dropped with a reverberating thud, hitting the torn earth and rolling once before coming to rest on her side, hair falling across her face.
Translucent windows appeared in front of Arthur’s eyes.
[ Blood Absorption — Activated. ]
[ Target: Arina Evan Imperius ]
[ Extracting blood essence... ]
[ Bloodline Extraction — Initiated ]
[ Target Lineage: Imperius Star Blood Lineage ]
[ Detected Bloodline Ability: Distance Rejection ]
[ Bloodline Assimilation — In Progress ]
[ Origin King Bloodline: Beginning evolution. ]
A progress indicator flickered into existence.
[ Assimilation: 1%... 2%... ]
The number crawled upward at a painful pace.
Then the numbers slowed to a crawl.
Arthur felt the change immediately.
A strange heaviness seeped into his limbs, like invisible weights had been tied to his muscles. Heat rose in his chest and spread outward, his blood feeling thicker, heavier, charged with something dense and unfamiliar.
’Tch. It’s taking more power than I thought,’ Arthur thought, frowning.
His breathing deepened slightly. The forest around him felt a shade less crisp, as if the world were pressing gently on his shoulders.
He could feel his stamina draining, bit by bit, into the evolving bloodline. It was not enough to cripple him yet—but it was enough to warn him.
’Half my strength is already gone,’ he judged. ’I need to end this quickly. What the hell... it never drained me like this before.’
[ Ding! ]
[The host feels drained because the new bloodline has not fully synchronized with the body.]
[The bloodline is rejecting the host’s current vessel.]
[However, the Origin King Bloodline is suppressing the rejection and forcing the evolved bloodline into submission.]
[To prevent internal collapse, the system is redirecting the host’s stamina and mana toward stabilization.]
[This is a temporary restriction, not damage.]
Arthur’s veins darkened for a moment, then pulsed with a deep crimson light.
The new bloodline thrashed inside him, refusing to settle.
Then the Origin King Bloodline moved.
A heavy pressure spread through Arthur’s body, cold and absolute, crushing the resistance before it could grow.
Arthur exhaled slowly, his fingers trembling.
"So it’s trying to reject me..."
[Correct.]
Arthur smiled " what the hell is up with this imperius lineage. Even their bloodline is just like them."
[But dont worry host the Origin King is far superior.]
He glanced again at the stubbornly slow percentage.
"It’s going to take some time," Arthur muttered aloud.
Arthur exhaled through his nose.
"It’s going to take a while," he muttered.
The system answered at once, tone dry.
[ Of course it will. This is not some low‑rank village bloodline. ]
Arthur let out a short, humorless laugh in his thoughts.
’Funny,’ he thought. ’I am finally going to have a bloodline from the Imperius lineage. It was the one thing I always wished for—and hated myself for not having.’
He looked down at Arina, at the Imperius crest embroidered on her tattered uniform.
’Now that it is actually happening, I am not even happy about it.’
The system made a small, amused sound.
[ Well, you were really useless without me, weren’t you? ]
Arthur’s mouth twitched.
’I keep forgetting you’re just a creepy voice in my head,’ he said inwardly. ’Your opinion doesn’t mean anything.’
[ Rude, ] the system grumbled. [ After all I do— ]
It stopped mid‑complaint.
Arthur’s attention had already shifted.
In front of him, Arina moved.
Her fingers, scraped and shaking, dug into the dirt. Bit by bit, she pushed herself up, fighting against the numbness in her limbs. First to her knees, then to her feet. Her right arm still hung useless, her legs trembled so much she looked like she might collapse again at any second.
But she stood.
"It... can’t be," Arina whispered, voice raw. "I can’t lose to you. This can’t be happening. You are just a useless weakling."
Her ember eyes burned with a mixture of hatred, disbelief, and something dangerously close to panic.
Arthur watched her, then smiled faintly.
"Cry a little harder," he said. "It makes the show more entertaining."
Arina’s lips curled, but before she could answer, a mechanical announcement echoed through the sky above the island.
[ Only 100 candidates remain. ]
[ The island will now begin to shrink. ]
The ground vibrated softly under their feet. In the distance, trees tilted and stone structures shifted as the outer sections of the forest‑city began dragging themselves inward.
Arthur glanced up for a moment, then lowered his eyes again.
"Looks like the fun is almost over," he said.
His gaze settled back on Arina.
"It’s time for you to disappear from here."
Her breath caught.
She stumbled backward, one foot dragging, eyes wide and locked on his face.
Qi gathered around Arthur’s fist, coiling in tight, pale streams of energy that wrapped around his knuckles. The air near his hand distorted slightly from the compressed force.
"Do not worry," he said calmly. "I will make it painless."
"Stay away from me!" Arina shouted, taking several more unsteady steps back.
Arthur vanished.
To Arina, it was as if he had skipped space itself. One instant he was standing several meters away; the next, he was directly in front of her, fist already swinging toward her face like a hammer.
Her pupils constricted.
She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for impact.
One heartbeat passed.
Two.
The blow never landed.
Arina hesitated, then slowly forced her eyes open.
Arthur’s fist was still there, only a few centimeters from her face.
But it had been stopped.
A hand wrapped around his knuckles, fingers closed with casual certainty, holding his punch as if it were nothing more than a mild annoyance.
A red‑haired boy stood between them, his stance firm, eyes calm despite the pressure radiating from Arthur’s attack.
Damian Stormborn.
Mana flickered around his arm in a restrained ring, reinforcing the grip but never exploding outward.
Next to him, slightly to the side, stood another boy with blue hair and sharp features. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword, and his gaze was fixed on Arthur with cold hostility, as if he would cut him down the moment he moved wrong.
Victor Blackthorn.
The two of them formed a wall in front of Arina, one of muscle and raw power, the other of lethal precision.
Arthur blinked once, then let out a soft sigh through his nose.
"Oh, come on," he said. "Not you guys again."
[ Bloodline Assimilation progress : 50% ]