<div> "Where does he hurt?" A young man asked a little girl, about seven years old. She was covered in bruises and it looked like someone had repeatedly beaten her up.
 "It does not hurt anywhere, grandfather. I am not hurt." The girl replied.
 "No. You're definitely hurt. No more training today." The young man dismissed the girl's words and stood up while he retrieved his sword.
 "I can still go, grandfather," The little girl cutely but desperately said. She didn't want her training session to be cut short but the young man cared for her more than anything or anyone else in the entire world. Although he was willing to go along with training even though it also meant hurting her.
 He wasn't new to pain and he had beaten up people he loved the most in the world but he never hesitated because it was for their own good. But when it came to the little girl, this little one specifically, even he couldn't show all of his ruthlessness.
 Even when she was saying that she wanted to train more, he refused because he couldn't stand seeing her in pain let alone inflict more than he had to. So he did what he never had done before; he refused the girl for the first time in her life.
 The little girl was well-known throughout the continent. No entity on the continent said no to her because she had the archangel standing behind her. A monster who even the monsters bowed down to.
 That little girl had gotten everything in life. Every whim of hers was granted so she wasn't familiar with refusal. Today, however, she was.
 She wasn't a spoiled girl and was very mature for her age. She didn't do anything to annoy her mother so even from her she hadn't heard a no. But from the young man, the one person she least expected to hear a no from, she had heard it for the first time.
 "But I want to be as strong as you. I cannot if I rest." The girl cutely argued and chased after the young man who was going to the palace.
 You can become as strong as me, or maybe even stronger than me. But that wouldn't make you strong. That would only make you powerful. Truly strong are those who don't fall. You didn't fall today, which means you are strong already." The young man was adamant about not listening to her.
 "But grandfather~~" The girl whined but the young man wasn't going to listen to her. Instead, he picked her up and took her straight to her mother, "Bind her to a bed. Make sure she does nothing but rest for the next few days to come."
 <div style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:10px;text-align:center">
 <div>
 
 </div>
 </div> "Yes, father," The woman hurriedly replied and took the little girl. The girl resisted and whined, even trying to charm her mother but her mother didn't listen to her. She did exactly as she was told and there was no training for the next few weeks.
 ~
 A few years passed and the girl was now thirteen. She was strong. As strong as hell. She had become strong enough to rival her father, the king of the kingdom of angels.
 The unspoken king of the entire world.
 Today was her thirteenth birthday. It was a day of happiness and a day of political deceit.
 However, no prince, no king, no hero tried to approach the little girl.
 The reason?
 The monster standing behind her.
 It was a well-known fact to the entire continent that if you ever approached Alvira, the angel of truth, you would be castrated and forever forgotten. Some brave princes and heroes were lost to history before their time was up due to this reason.
 Shortly afterward, the time to give gifts came. Everyone gave a gift, a present that rivaled one another, and even the little girl's own family showered her with expensive and one-of-a-kind treasures but not one even came close to the gift from the young man.
 As he handed her that sword, that white lustrous sword he had crafted with his own hands, the world instantly knew. There was no rivaling that sword.
 Even the gods couldn't come together and make that sword let alone those mortals.
 "That is… amazing, father," The middle-aged man, Malcolm was a little jealous when he was talking to his father afterward.
 The young man smiled and a scythe magically appeared in his hands. He handed the scythe to Malcolm who never expected to receive it, ever, because he knew he would never be able to deserve it.
 "Raise your people well, Malcolm. You're a good king. But good kings fall faster than tyrants because they forgive a lot more easily." The young man said.
 Malcolm nodded and asked, "You sound like you are going somewhere, father."
 The young man nodded and said, "I have to leave for some time. I will return in a few years, but until then, be the man I raised you to be. Be the angelic king."
 <div style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:10px;text-align:center">
 <div></div>
 </div> Malcolm nodded and the subsequent day, despite the heartbreaking cries from Alvira, the young man left with a heavy heart along with promises that he would return for sure.
 Only, he never knew that he would return too late.
 ~
 "You know there were times when I dated models and backdoor myself into married movie stars." A handsome man who showed to be at the age of thirty-two at most said while his head was buried in a plethora of files.
 "And what now?" Bruce asked the man.
 "I got married." The man replied.
 "What? Catherine isn't into that stuff?" Bruce asked, amused by the man's plight.
 "The dream remains the dream. Every time, I feel like it's staring back at me, straight to my face, taunting me to do something but I can't." The man annoyingly said.
 "Then get a new one," Bruce said with an amused smile.
 "It's a package." The man annoyingly said before he added, "And what about you?"
 "I was never into the weird stuff." Bruce came clean.
 "Really? Because with how insatiable you are, I thought you have tried everything." The man remarked.
 "I'm not that much of a freak." Bruce replied before he asked, "Why did you call me?"
 "Why do you think?" The man asked.
 Bruce remained silent but just stared back at the man. They both stared at each other before the man had to give up and said, "Andrew is going down a dark path. Stop him, before we do."
 "He's a kid, David. He doesn't know what he's doing." Bruce obviously defended his son.
 "No, he's a kid who knows exactly what he's doing." David replied before he added, "I mean, we expected something like this from Gabriel who has a curious mind to stick his head into the middle of the sun but he never ever attempted anything like this even when he was going through that weird phase of ancient magic, thinking we would have to deal with another lunatic."
 <div style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:10px;text-align:center">
 <div></div>
 </div> Bruce didn't know how to reply to that so he said, "Since when do you care?"
 "When we don't know, he can go out and commit genocide. As long as we don't know, we wouldn't care; I wouldn't care. But he's going around, doing everything right under our noses." David said before he added while closing a file, "We have to stop him. We can't have him murdering babies."
 "It won't come to that," Bruce said with a tired expression.
 "You know, all this time, and you haven't said that you will stop him before he does anything," David remarked to which once again Bruce had no reply.
 "I know you're his father, and I know what it's like being a father. But since I am, it is also precisely why I understand why I would be upset when he would be going around trying to gather newborn babies as sacrifices for ancient magic." David gave a long speech while also proving his point.
 Bruce remained silent to that as well. He hadn't lost an argument this many times even when he was young and powerless but now, he was all-powerful but was still losing arguments because his son was doing all that.
 But the part he couldn't understand was…
 "You hate that, don't you? Losing. Especially in an argument." David said before he leaned and said, "But you don't hate it this time. You don't care whether you're proven wrong or right. Fatherhood has made you weak."
 Bruce remained silent for most of the time and stood up and turned to leave. However, just before he left, he turned and said, "If worse comes to worst, I will stop him. You can count on that."
 David nodded and replied, "I sure hope so. But if it didn't, then I hope you understand what I would do at the time."
 "You're gonna step in yourself?" Bruce curiously asked.
 "No. I'm just going to ask someone else to." David replied before he added which faded the smile on Bruce's face, "Someone who doesn't kill babies."</div>
 

<div style="margin-top:10px;margin-bottom:0px;text-align:center">
 <div>
 
 </div>
</div>

Chapter 734: Do Not Read

"Where does he hurt?" A young man asked a little girl, about seven years old. She was covered in bruises and it looked like someone had repeatedly beaten her up. "It does not hurt anywhere, grandfather. I am not hurt." The girl replied. "No. You're definitely hurt. No more training today." The young man dismissed the girl's words and stood up while he retrieved his sword. "I can still go, grandfather," The little girl cutely but desperately said. She didn't want her training session to be cut...

Stuck in a Chinese novel

Chapter 734: Do Not Read

Stuck in a Chinese novel - Chapter 734: Do Not Read