Seth felt as though he was drowning in a swamp of mud, the pressure mounting each second he delayed.

He couldn’t even speak.

They had made their will known, and he had no choice but to obey.

A few figures in the room could already sense what was happening.

Sanders Duskreaver, who sat a few chairs away from his brother, frowned strangely.

’It isn’t like my brother to watch as this happened to his child.’

It was only when he turned his gaze Simon’s way that he understood.

It wasn’t that his brother didn’t react — it was that he couldn’t!

Simon’s face was flushed red, veins popping across his body as he fought against an insurmountable gravitational force that threatened to crush him the more he struggled.

The chair beneath him creaked, unable to bear the crushing force of his weight under such ridiculous gravity.

The scene switched to Seth...

His Will spilled, wrapping around his figure in a protective layer, but it was still of no use.

The pressure mounted steadily, and very soon he would be crushed!

He gritted his teeth, a venomous promise ringing in his mind:

’I will remember this!’ 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

With that, he had no choice but to surrender.

Seth wasn’t a prideful person — or more accurately, one could just say that his pride wasn’t worth dying for.

He quickly summoned the Level 1 Essence Crystals he had been rewarded, along with the Awakened Rank drop item he acquired from slaying the Charmed Beast.

Suddenly, the pressure around him vanished with the wind, causing him to collapse, gasping on the ground.

"There, that wasn’t so hard now, was it?" A chuckling voice rang out from one of the elders.

Another elder, who had yet to speak until now, suddenly spoke in a weak, sickly voice. "The Evolution Crystal too. Hand it over."

"Tsk tsk tsk, old Rodi, you’re quite ruthless, aren’t you? That’s his path to awakening, and you want to take it." The bright-voiced elder chuckled.

The one called Rodi spoke calmly. "The boy already holds hatred in his heart. We might as well go all the way."

"True! True! Since it’s like that, I sensed quite a formidable artifact just now. It should be a weapon set of sorts. Though its rank is low, its grade is high. Hand it over, lad." The elder with the raspy voice added shamelessly.

"Haha, I sensed a Legend Class Path Crystal too just now. Boy, hand it over — it would suit my grandchild quite well." Another chimed in.

Seth could only gnash his teeth silently. What was he supposed to do?

Veins popped across his tensed muscles as a crushing pressure slammed him back to the ground.

Simultaneously, a crash rang out from where Seth’s father was seated.

The poor man was now bloodied from rupturing countless blood vessels.

But the rage in his eyes didn’t calm. To humiliate his child so thoroughly before him — the father — they might as well kill him first.

Just when Seth thought the oppressive gravity would truly kill him, a force shielded him.

All four elders glanced toward one among them.

"Avan, why did you intervene?" The elder called Rodi rebuked harshly.

Avan stared at the four calmly. "Simon awakened a Monarch-grade gene skill. He is one of the most talented in the family. I doubt the others would be pleased if they come and find out you killed one of our promising gems."

"What use is a talent if he can’t be used?" One of the elders hissed furiously.

To which Avan calmly replied, "You are not the one to decide. When Gigram returns, he will decide himself. Simon is from his line, after all."

The rest could only keep mute on hearing the name Gigram.

In truth, they weren’t the only ancestors to seal themselves in wait for the apocalypse. The only reason they woke first was because they were the weakest.

Avan disdained their acts of extorting from a child, but who was he to stop them?

He could only hold their hands from killing. As for the rest, he could only be a spectator.

Seth’s frame was slowly being crushed into the marbled floor. He could already see his vitality on a countdown as cracks spread through his bones.

These elders wanted to rob him empty. It infuriated him to the highest degree, but there truly was nothing he could do.

Clatter!

His Grim Executioner’s Legendary Set, his newly acquired Legendary Class Quest Crystal (Template), his Evolution Crystal...

He had to hand them over. He could only pray they wouldn’t sense his Oracle Crystal.

Fortunately, thanks to the mechanism of the item, it remained in an inactive state until he summoned it.

So even if they sensed it, it would be no different from a random rock to them.

Everyone silently watched as Seth was humiliated and extorted.

Some pitied him, others enjoyed his despair, and the rest remained neutral.

With the way the world was now, that was just how things worked — the strong preyed on the weak.

Unfortunately, Seth was an illegitimate child. If he had been pure blood, he would have been treated as a prodigy. But as a bastard, no one cared.

The act of removing his status as a bastard might as well be useless. They merely did that so they could keep him in the family house.

It was common knowledge that the five ancestors, for some reason, couldn’t leave the vicinity of the Duskreaver family mansion.

Everything outside was out of their control. Their act of giving Seth Duskreaver status allowed them to keep him within the walls of the mansion without breaking family rules.

The rule stated that while illegitimate children could enter the Duskreaver family mansion, they couldn’t spend a night or reside within for more than twenty hours.

But now that they had claimed him and acknowledged him as a true Duskreaver, it gave them a leeway they didn’t have before.

After damaging Seth enough for his vitality to be sparse, one of the elders waved his hand. "Take him to his new room. He is not allowed to exit the premises, and make sure to feed him thrice a day."

They stared calmly as guards came and carried Seth’s limp body out.

Killing a child might be beneath them, but they weren’t arrogant enough to believe Seth couldn’t become a threat in the future.

After all, this was a boy who had been among the few to clear a corruption zone.

His talent was undeniable. His only flaw was his impure bloodline — something that evoked a high level of disgust in the hearts of the elders.

Such a stain in their bloodline was an insult to their lineage.

Avan stared helplessly as they dragged Seth away.

He knew where the hatred for impure bloodlines stemmed from, and he could understand.

But venting on a child didn’t change the past. And besides, they had killed the mutated bastard anyway.

He sighed silently. Sadly, he wasn’t in the position to reprimand the others.

Unknown to the others, as Seth was dragged away, stripped of all that was his, and about to be imprisoned for the rest of his life...

A golden screen flickered in his eyes.

[A Flash Sale has been detected!]

A subtle, faint smile crept onto Seth’s lips.