Harem Of Eternal Yandere Beasts: My Legendary Wives

Chapter 71: The Old Bastard

The world stopped. It didn’t literally pause, but the sudden reality of the situation made it feel close enough. No one spoke, and no one moved. Even the surrounding academy formations seemed to grow quieter as everyone watched and waited. Caelum had just asked a question he should not have been able to ask—a question only Orion should understand, and one that should have been completely impossible for an outsider to conceive.

"When your System speaks to you..."

The words lingered in the air, echoing clearly in Orion’s mind, heavy and undeniably real. "...does it still call itself the Old Bastard?"

Selene frowned, her brow furrowing as she broke the silence. "What System? What are you talking about?"

Vale snapped her gaze toward her niece, her voice sharp. "You don’t call yours a System?"

The silver-haired girl blinked, genuinely confused. "No. It’s the lineage core interface. Why would anyone call it a System?"

The brief exchange left the senior faculty looking entirely perplexed. They exchanged uneasy glances, realizing they were missing a fundamental piece of the puzzle. *Interesting,* Orion thought, his mind working through the implications. *Very interesting.* The lineage wasn’t uniform; the manifestation of their inheritance differed from person to person.

Caelum laughed softly, a low sound that carried no mockery. It held only an old, weary understanding as his gaze remained fixed entirely on Orion. "Of course. You’re his primary successor. That explains the structure."

The statement settled heavily between them. It wasn’t because Orion understood what it meant, but because he didn’t. The gaps in his knowledge were becoming dangerous.

Meanwhile, the blue System notification remained fixed in his vision, unusually silent and unusually serious. That specific development worried Orion more than the intruder’s presence. The old bastard always had something to say—a cynical comment, a joke, a sarcastic critique. This sudden gravity was unnatural.

"Who are you?" Orion asked, stepping forward.

The question wasn’t truly directed at Caelum’s name, his specific branch, or his recorded history. It was about the connection, the mutual recognition, and the impossible familiarity bridging the physical space between them on the stone steps.

Caelum seemed to understand the true intent immediately. His brief smile faded, and for the first time since arriving at the Hall of Founders, he looked genuinely old. It wasn’t a physical aging—his face remained smooth and youthful—but a spiritual one. He bore the unmistakable look of someone carrying decades of heavy, unshared memories.

"A mistake," Caelum answered simply.

The response surprised everyone in the plaza, including Orion.

"A mistake?" Vale repeated, her eyes narrowing.

Caelum nodded slowly, his hands resting loosely at his sides. "The Frontier Branch spent generations searching for answers regarding our origin. We dug through ruins, translated dead scripts, and pushed our cultivation limits to the absolute brink." His eyes drifted toward the massive doors of the Hall of Founders, tracking something distant and remembered. "We found what we were looking for. We should have stopped there."

Inside Orion’s chest, the Sovereign Core pulsed hard, a rhythmic thrum that vibrated through his pathways. The sensation felt almost like anticipation, as if the core itself already knew the narrative or remembered the conclusion of Caelum’s thoughts.

"My grandfather believed the Sovereign Path ended at Stage Nine," Caelum continued, his voice steady and devoid of emotion. "He believed that was the absolute peak of mortal existence, the final boundary of our bloodline. He was wrong."

Silence stretched over the stone stairs. "What comes after Stage Nine?" Vale asked, the question escaping her before she could think to suppress the professional curiosity of a scholar.

Caelum’s expression darkened immediately, the ambient light around him seeming to dim. "Nothing."

The answer came too instantly and too forcefully to be a simple negative. Then, he corrected himself, pausing as the shadow of a memory crossed his face. "No. That is inaccurate. It is worse than nothing."

Every hidden instructor around the Hall tightened their grip on their respective weapons. Even without a formal explanation of his words, they could feel the rapid shift in the atmosphere. The pressure was dropping. Something important was approaching, and it was dangerous.

"The Sovereign Path was never meant to be completed," Caelum stated flatly. The words hung in the air, feeling entirely wrong, unnatural, and impossible to the ears of dedicated cultivators.

"That doesn’t make sense," Selene countered, crossing her arms defensively. "Every technique has structured stages. It has a foundation, a progression, and a peak."

"Yes," Caelum agreed.

"It has clear progression that expands our capacity," she pressed.

"Yes."

"It makes a cultivator stronger with every breakthrough."

"Yes, it does," Caelum said, looking at her. Then, his lips curved into a sad, empty smile. "So does a cliff before you step off the edge."

Absolute silence reclaimed the plaza. Nobody liked that answer. Not the students watching from the distant barriers, not the instructors on the roofs, and certainly not Vale. It challenged the core philosophy of their entire society.

Then, the interface in Orion’s vision finally reacted.

◈ MYTHIC SUMMONING SYSTEM ◈

I dislike him.

He’s being unnecessarily dramatic.

Technically accurate. But still dramatic.

◈ ◈ ◈

Orion nearly smiled. The old bastard had finally returned, and somehow, that familiar cynicism felt reassuring against the mounting tension.

Caelum’s eyes narrowed slightly as he tracked Orion’s micro-expressions. He couldn’t see the glowing blue text floating in midair, yet he clearly recognized the exact moment it appeared. "He always does that," Caelum murmured. The statement was casual and natural, spoken like someone discussing an old friend or a familiar enemy they had spent a lifetime studying.

Orion’s attention sharpened instantly. "You can hear him?"

"No," Caelum replied immediately, a hint of regret touching his tone. "Not anymore. I lost that privilege fifteen years ago when the resonance severed."

The words carried the weight of long decades of total silence.

"What happened?" Orion asked before he could stop the impulse.

Caelum became quiet. For several seconds, he simply stood on the stone steps, watching Orion, remembering his own past, and choosing his next words carefully. Then, he spoke.

"The exact same thing that’s going to happen here if nobody stops this process."

The academy grounds suddenly shook violently, a deep tremor traveling through the bedrock.

Every defensive formation activated simultaneously, casting brilliant, overlapping shields across the sky. Emergency alarms erupted in a deafening chorus from the watchtowers, instructors began shouting conflicting orders through communication networks, and students screamed somewhere in the far distance. The entire campus exploded into chaotic motion.

The communication crystal beside Vale lit up instantly with a frantic red glow. She answered the high-priority line, and the remaining color drained from her face as she processed the incoming report.

"What happened?" Selene demanded, her hand resting on her hilt.

The instructor looked toward the western horizon, past the protective academy walls and far beyond the borders of the capital city, targeting the distant mountain range. "The perimeter watchtowers," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the sirens.

"What do you mean?" Orion pressed.

Vale looked at Orion, then at Caelum, before finally settling her gaze back on the mountains. "I mean... there’s nothing left of them. The structures, the arrays, the guards—they’re gone."

The Hall of Founders trembled beneath their feet. The ancient building groaned, dropping dust from its centuries-old stone pillars as the academy formations brightened to their maximum physical intensity, drawing every scrap of power from the central nexus.

And then, every person present felt it—a presence. It wasn’t Caelum, it wasn’t Orion, and it wasn’t anyone currently residing within the academy walls. It was something else entirely. Something vast, distant, ancient, and rapidly approaching.

For the very first time since Orion had awakened the Sovereign Core, the old bastard sounded genuinely afraid.

◈ MYTHIC SUMMONING SYSTEM ◈

*...Oh.*

*That’s not good.*

◈ ◈ ◈

The message vanished, replaced a millisecond later by a secondary alert. The letters formed much slower than usual, as if the interface itself required processing time to calculate the reality of the impending threat.

◈ EMERGENCY WARNING ◈

The Seal has been damaged.

Estimated time until breach: Unknown.

Recommendation: Run.

◈ ◈ ◈

Caelum closed his eyes, looking as though he were finally hearing the exact words he had spent fifteen years dreading in his isolation. When he opened them, he looked directly at Orion, his expression perfectly still.

"We’re out of time."

Then, the mountains exploded.