City of Desire [Kingdom Building]

Proofread By Thomas F

"It had begun," informed Zela, right at ten.

I nodded but didn't walk out of my office. They had started milking the core, and how long it would last depended on the master.

It could last for a few minutes to hours. The moment the master dies, the milking ends.

The life of the legacy and masters are inescapably connected. This connection is so strong that the process is excruciating for the host.

It is why I hate it so much. It is despicable and disrespectful to the Master and legacy that gave their kingdom and sovereign so much. Despite providing those benefits, the sovereigns don't even let the legacies die in peace.

It makes me angry whenever I think about it, so I took a deep breath and calmed down.

I cannot do anything about it other than control my actions. If I become powerful enough, I will do something, but until then, I will only bear it.

Hun!

I was looking through the casino's finances when I suddenly stopped and looked at the clock.

Mok's Tavern is dead. I had sensed it.

'Seventeen minutes,' I thought, a little surprised. I thought it would continue for an hour, but it didn't last for a third, which is good news.

I didn't waste any time and got up immediately.

I had just stepped out of the office when I felt the core of Mok's Tavern appeared over the establishment.

It looked like the core of the Velvet Garden. It is round and made of essence, but it's not. It had lost its shape; the core that loses its shape turns round.

My core is a sun, not a round blob like this one.

As it appeared, I saw it entering the domain of establishment, where the planet swallowed it immediately.

Click!

I opened the door and saw Caena sitting in the middle of the spell with her eyes closed. She focused on the core, which she had started harvesting.

The core is inside the planet, with two streams coming out of it. One is going to the Velvet Garden core; this essence contains the vision that aligns with mine.

The other stream goes into another planet, the storage planet. This will be our harvest.

"We will get an hour at most," she informed.

She didn't have to inform me; I could sense the pull of the other legacies on it. If it had been a complete core, we would have had more time, but the bite had already taken from it.

The bite was relatively small, barely over 1%.

We harvested 17% of the Halcyon's core before it lost its shape. Shape maintenance depends not on the harvest size but on how one does it.

In this case, the master had intentionally made it lose its shape. It makes things less painful.

We, on the other hand, prefer it to retain its shape. As it has the full vision of the legacy, losing the shape scrambles it, making it challenging to harvest.

The shape is more important, but it has already been destroyed. This is going to make things difficult for us, especially me.

Caena had said she had improved the spell compared to the last time.

It is visible, given the speed of the harvest. It is faster than I had thought it would be but slower than Halcyon's.

Unlike with the Halcyon core, we didn't have a casino operated by his blood connected to it. We could only form the connection by sending the girls to the legacy.

There is also resistance from the core. There wasn't any from the Halcyons.

Still, the spell is working far better than I had thought.

It isn't easy to harvest the core, but we are doing much better than others. We are doing through the spell rather than pushing our will into it.

The spell isn't even at full power yet. This time, it is more complex.

We will see whether it will work.

If it does, I will be committed entirely to swallowing Tranquill Bathhouse. If it does not, there is a good chance I will not go ahead with it.

I had spent too much on it, but I will back down because nothing is more important than my legacy.

The other party is powerful with artifacts and other measures. I am also preparing my own measures, but this spell will be the greatest.

They are my greatest strength, and I would trust no one other than them against the Tranquill Bathhouse.

"The spell is ready," she informed, and I sat down. "Activate it," I replied.

I felt its power as she did. It is overwhelming. This is why doing something like this is highly discouraged by the synod.

Masters have turned mad due to it.

Everything disappeared around me. Suddenly, faint images and ideas that were not mine surrounded me. I connected to the core and experienced its vision.

It is overwhelming and chaotic. It would have been overwhelming if it had its shape, but losing it added chaos.

It is vast and chaotic. It felt like I was experiencing thousands of things overwhelming me.

Even in this situation, I could feel the vision of Mok's Master, who birthed the legacy out of a humble tavern. He had a beautiful vision, and I felt it; I couldn't help but feel respect for him.

However, I kept a strong wall between me and it as I fought and experienced this chaotic overwhelmingness.

It was hazardous as it could corrupt my vision. That is why, the next moment, I reached for my anchors—the people who gave me the confidence to face any problem.

I felt them, and the spell connected me to them through the strings of the spell.

Cath, Revina, Drev, and others.

Soon, the strings connected to forty-eight people. There are hundreds, even thousands, but it is an experimental spell. We need to be cautious; besides, I don't have the capacity to handle that many.

Each of these forty-eight people is part of the establishment. They understand my vision well and will keep me anchored in this storm.

"I am ready," I said.

"Begin," she replied, and I felt the second part of the spell activating. As she did, I brought my aura and connected it to the power of my legacy.

We had practiced it. So, unlike the first time, my aura would not shake the entire legacy. It remained contained in a small room.

Once I became one with my legacy, I forced my will onto the broken core with my aura and power of the legacy.

It was resisting, but I pressed my will harder on it. It kept resisting as before, but finally, I could see the gap and move into it.

Immediately, I gained control over a tiny piece and began to expand it while removing the essence from the core.

It kept resisting, but I kept pushing harder and harder, slowly expanding my area of control bit by bit.

Time passed, and I pushed and pushed. I felt tired; I was using my aura. Even with the legacy's support, it is very tiring, but I am not letting go.

So, I continued pushing despite getting tired. I kept going, pushing myself. I had never extended so much before in the practice.

I could feel the size of the core shrinking with my efforts, but I couldn't tell by how much. If I focus a little bit on it, maybe I could, but I will not spare even a moment of focus on anything that is not 100% necessary.

I don't need to know right now. Caena will tell me after I am done.

So, until then, I will need to keep pushing myself, and I just did that.

Hun!

Minutes passed when suddenly, I noticed the core shifting some of its power toward my anchors.

It alarmed me. The spell protects me, but not them. If it reaches, it would be disastrous. I cannot let that happen.

So, I pushed half of my aura along with the power of the legacy to block them but immediately realized the problem.

They are strings. I can't spread aura on them like a surface; I will need to split it and form the protection around them.

I immediately split my aura into two, four, eight, sixteen, twenty-four, and thirty-six.

Then split to thirty-ninth. The fortieth was hard, and it took me quite an effort to manage it.

I split into the twenty-ninth part and the thirty-sixth but faced difficulty at thirty-seventh, but I did it and then split it at eighty-eighth.

I looked at the building power of Mok's core, and it was coming. Right now, I have created walls of aura that are stopping it, but not for long.

I need to create the protections around those connections, or it won't be good for them.

So, I gritted my teeth and split the aura into another part and then another. I felt like I was breaking my soul and wanted to stop, but I couldn't.

If I stop, these people would be in danger. The people I care so deeply for.

So, I kept splitting my aura, no matter how painful it got or how much I began to bleed through my orifices before finally I split it into the forty-eight parts and covered those connections with it.

As I did, the last wall broke through, and the power of the Mok's tavern slammed into strings.

"Ahhhhh!"

I screamed as it happened but didn't let go. Covering the strings is the only part. I have to maintain it while conquering more of Mok's core.

It prevents me from harvesting more core essence and weakening it further.

It's hard. It was harder than even when I fought against the bandit with the artifact, but now the stakes are even higher.

Not about this, but with Bathhouse. If I couldn't bear this small spell. How will I be able to bear the big one with my battle against Tranquill Bathhouse?

So, every moment, the thoughts of giving up rose. I crushed them, held on to my aura, and spread it around the Mok's core to get more essence.

I don't know how long it has passed, but I felt the resistance waning before the broken core shook hard.

A moment later, it broke away from the shackles of the planet holding it and moved out of the domain of the legacy.

As it did, it divided itself into hundreds of pieces, and those pieces flew toward the legacies all over the continent and the world.

While I slumped down on the ground with my consciousness slipping away, I didn't even care about my clothes, which were wet with sweat and blood.

I fell into unconsciousness before my head hit the ground.

…

Eudo

"What was that?" I asked myself as the feeling of heaviness disappeared.

"Have you felt something?" I asked Devin beside me. "Were you feeling something?" he asked, sipping his glass.

"Yes, some strange heaviness. It was light but powerful and seemed to hover over my very soul," I replied, activating my skill, but it left no trace behind.

"Maybe you imagined it?" he asked, but I shook my head. I did not imagine it; this is not something I could imagine.

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