Odin Town.
A forest path outside town.
Long Xuanye carried a heavy bundle of firewood on his back, his steps light.
The load pressed down hard on his shoulders, making his bones and muscles creak faintly, but he was in good spirits.
The mountain breeze swept past, carrying the fresh scent of leaves and brushing away the sweat on his brow.
His thoughts drifted farther away with the breeze.
He wasn't from this world.
He was a transmigrator from the Azure Planet, now living as Long Haochen's twin brother in the novel Throne of Seal.
According to the original story, the two brothers should have lived together in this remote border town, scraping by in poverty.
But that man, Long Xingyu, had come looking for them a full two years earlier than he had in the original story.
The family had been reunited.
As a transmigrator far more mature than children his age, Long Xuanye had started training in the basics of the Knight Temple early on, bringing his younger brother, Long Haochen, along with him.
Their lives had become much more comfortable. Their mother, Bai Yue, smiled more often, and he and Hao Chen no longer had to save every last drop of the precious Essence Cultivation Liquid for her.
Still, whenever he thought of Long Xingyu...
Long Xuanye couldn't help feeling helpless.
He couldn't muster even the slightest affection for the man who was his "father" in name. Their relationship was held together by nothing more than outward respect.
As a transmigrator, he knew the man's true thoughts all too well.
From the start, Long Xingyu had never regarded the two brothers as his own sons.
The Demon God Emperor's bloodline.
Those four words weighed like a mountain on the man's heart, twisting him into someone stubborn and warped.
He would raise the two brothers to adulthood, and then what?
Send them to kill each other—father against son—before the Demon God Emperor.
Long Xuanye was speechless.
What a stupid idea.
Long Xingyu was exactly as he'd been in the original story: stubborn and cold.
The man was the one with something wrong in his head, yet he insisted that the boys weren't his sons. In the novel, Long Haochen—the rising star who represented humanity's future—had fallen into mortal danger several times, and Long Xingyu had been able to stand by and do nothing...
Just then,
A blinding light suddenly flared before his eyes.
Within it, a line of text slowly appeared.
[God-Tier Choice System activated]
Two new lines of text appeared within the light.
[Choice One: Take the firewood home. Reward: External Spirit Power +1000 points.]
[Choice Two: Throw away the firewood and wait in the forest until nightfall before going home. Reward: Innate Inner Spiritual Power +1 point.]
In an instant,
Long Xuanye's face turned deathly pale.
The system, called the "Divine Choice," was a cheat he had awakened several years ago.
And it had one ironclad rule.
The greater the reward, the more dangerous the corresponding choice tended to be.
Long Xuanye still remembered the first time the system had awakened.
That day, it had presented him with two clear choices.
The first was to stay home, with a reward of +1 Innate Inner Spiritual Power.
The second was to go shopping in the neighboring town, with a reward of +20 Innate Inner Spiritual Power.
A twentyfold difference.
After a moment's thought, he had chosen the first option.
"You only get one life. With such a huge gap in rewards, there's definitely a catch."
As it turned out, his caution had saved his life.
Not long afterward, terrible news arrived.
A small band of demons had raided the neighboring town. The entire town had been wiped out, and no one had survived.
From that moment on, Long Xuanye had figured out exactly how the system worked.
And now...
He stared fixedly at the screen before him.
A thousand points of External Spirit Power...
One point of Innate Inner Spiritual Power...
The difference between those rewards was beyond comparison!
That could only mean—
Going home meant facing tremendous danger!
Long Xuanye was stunned.
A chill shot from the soles of his feet straight to his scalp.
What was at home?
His kind, gentle mother, Bai Yue, who treated him as her own son.
His younger brother, Long Haochen, who shared his blood and was deeply attached to him.
They were the family he treasured most in this life.
How could he watch them get hurt while he hid in the woods and saved himself?
Long Xuanye instinctively brought up his status panel.
[Name: Long Xuanye]
[External Spirit Power: 107 (Quasi-Knight)]
[Innate Inner Spiritual Power: 87 (Unawakened)]
[Abilities: Thrust (Proficient), Sweep Slash (Proficient), Pure White Blade (Skilled), Guard (Skilled)...]
Over the past few years, he had carefully built up his strength through one cautious choice after another.
Though he hadn't undergone Divine Awakening, his basic knight combat skills were already far beyond those of his peers.
But compared with the system's reward of "a thousand points of External Spirit Power," his strength was laughable.
The reward was practically spelling it out for him.
Going home meant certain death!
No.
Wait.
There was...
That man at home, too.
Long Xingyu!
Although the man had no real fatherly affection for him or Hao Chen, he truly loved their mother, Bai Yue.
With his strength, who in all of Odin Town could harm Bai Yue and Hao Chen?
The demons?
That was a joke.
He was a Seal Knight!
So... the tremendous danger the system was warning him about wasn't aimed at Mother and his younger brother.
It was aimed at me!
Good! That's good!
Long Xingyu must have taken Bai Yue and Long Haochen away for a while. So as long as I don't go home, I'll be fine.
Long Xuanye's nerves finally settled.
"Crack."
He tossed the firewood to the ground and strode without hesitation into the depths of the forest.
The screen before him quietly changed as soon as he made his choice.
On his status panel, the number representing his Innate Inner Spiritual Power ticked up slightly.
Night fell quietly.
Odin Town.
The familiar wooden house was dark.
Long Xingyu stood by the window with his hands behind his back, his posture straight as a sword. Moonlight fell upon him but could not illuminate his deep, shadowed eyes.
His gaze rested on the bed.
Bai Yue and Long Haochen lay there quietly, breathing steadily as though asleep.
He had used a special technique to knock them both unconscious for the time being.
Long Xingyu's expression was cold, without a trace of tenderness.
The Demon God Emperor's bloodline... There was no doubt about it.
For the past two years, he had observed them constantly.
Haochen was pure-hearted, with a talent one in ten thousand. He was a perfect piece of jade.
With just a little polishing, he would become the sharpest blade in my hands.
A blade capable of piercing the Demon God Emperor's heart.
But that Long Xuanye...
Long Xingyu turned his gaze toward the empty doorway.
That child was far too calculating for his age.
Whenever he looked at me, there was always a hint of wariness and scrutiny he couldn't hide.
It made me deeply uncomfortable.
"This child cannot be allowed to live."
Long Xingyu murmured to himself.
Long Xuanye's talent was not as good as Haochen's, but it was still far beyond that of ordinary people. If he were allowed to grow, he would become a grave threat.
He had already laid out his plan. All he had to do was wait for Long Xuanye to come home, then cripple his Spiritual Power and eliminate the future danger.
After that, he would take Bai Yue and Haochen to the Temple Alliance and begin his real plan.
Time passed, one moment at a time.
The moon reached its zenith.
Then sank.
The night passed.
The familiar footsteps never sounded outside the door.
Long Xuanye did not come home.
Long Xingyu furrowed his brows slightly.
The sky paled, then turned to dawn.
The last trace of patience in Long Xingyu's eyes faded away.
"Forget it."
"He's nothing but a good-for-nothing with barely a dozen points of External Spirit Power."
Long Xuanye had never revealed the extra strength he'd gained through the system. After all, he had no way to explain it.
In Long Xingyu's eyes, that "unfilial son" was, at most, just a little stronger than Long Haochen.
He gave a cold snort.
He had already put measures in place in this remote border town.
Cut off all supplies, then take away his family's protection.
How could a powerless child survive?
Within three days, he would starve to death in the street or become food for the beasts in the forest.
He gave it no further thought. Bending down, he picked up Bai Yue from the bed. With a gentle wave of his other hand, a surge of Spiritual Power lifted Long Haochen, suspending him at his side.
In the next instant, his figure turned into a faint shadow and slipped silently through the wooden house.
But only minutes later,
Long Xingyu appeared again, a vicious glint in his eyes.
Originally, he'd planned to cripple Long Xuanye and then let him starve to death. Now that the plan had gone awry, Long Xingyu decided to take extra precautions.
He casually tossed a pitch-black beast with blood-red eyes onto the ground.
It was a hungry Shadow Leopard, on the verge of going berserk.
It was at the peak of the first rank. Even an exceptional knight attendant with fewer than eighty points of External Spirit Power would be doomed if they encountered it!
Only then did Long Xingyu seem to have put his mind at ease. He let out a long breath.
The Demon God Emperor's bloodline had to be eliminated root and branch.
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