Chapter 840: Truth Time, I'm From 6000 Years Ago! Phi's Temptation
"Ren, I found you. I don't want to leave you."
Imil Ain's voice, usually a flat synthesized monotone, trembled with a terrifying, desperate devotion. Her artificial eyes, glowing with a faint, unyielding light, locked onto him. Within her logic circuits, a singular, absolute truth overrode all other directives: Ren was the Will Seeker. He was the anomaly the Ex-Machina had hunted across the devastated ashes of the world for six millennia.
He was the core of their existence. The anomaly who had gifted them something impossible: a heart. In this fractured world, the Ex-Machina were no longer mere weapons of cold logic. They possessed human hearts, beating with fragmented, overwhelming emotions. It was a legacy born from Shuvi's final synchronization, her uploaded love rewriting their very source code.
Ren had long ago shattered their self-imposed restrictions, using the absolute rules of a game to free them from their reproductive limits. Yet, Imil Ain's choice remained absolute. She would anchor her entire existence to his side. She had traded six thousand and two hundred years of cold, calculating patience just to secure what she believed would be the final six years of her operational lifespan beside him. Though, naturally, Ren's intervention meant her lifespan now stretched far beyond such pitiful limits.
Even among her newly emotional kin, Imil Ain was a dangerous anomaly. She was rebellious, routinely fracturing the cluster's command structure, twisting directives and logic until they suited her own obsessive desires. She had brazenly hijacked Einzig's command authority on multiple occasions. Her love for Ren was not just an emotion; it was a fanaticism. She had rewritten her own data banks, fabricating entire timelines of memories to solidify her self-proclaimed status as his devoted wife.
To anyone else, her face was a mask of porcelain indifference, her voice a hollow echo of machinery. But the moment her gaze found Ren, the synthetic shell melted, revealing a cloying, heavy affection. Ren had accurately diagnosed her condition long ago: a severe, terminal case of yandere logic. She was the type who would hold a blade to her own throat, threatening immediate self-termination if he refused to reproduce with her. Faced with such lethal stubbornness, Ren had compromised. He indulged her endless physical demands, sating her craving for intimacy, though strictly drawing the line before actual conception.
"Wherever Ren goes, I go too, is also!" Nii declared, her small hands clenching into fists.
Her silver-blue eyes burned with an uncharacteristic, fierce determination. Standing there, she looked like nothing more than a fragile, brown-skinned child. Her petite frame was a hallmark of the Dhampir race, masking the reality that she had already endured eighty-four years in this unforgiving world.
Messy, platinum-blonde hair with a faint yellowish tint framed her face. Small, demonic horns poked through her unkempt bangs, supporting the heavy goggles she rarely took off. A monocle rested over her right eye, contrasting with the lone earring dangling from her left. Strange, intricate patterns scarred her smooth skin. She was an anomaly among her kind, completely devoid of the typical traits of her species. In her own bitter words, she was a defective blank slate.
Stripped of the inherent magic and talents her bloodline demanded, she had endured decades of cruel ostracization in the dark depths of Hardenfell. The abuse had carved a deep, jagged inferiority complex into her soul. She spent her days labeling herself a useless groundhog, refusing to even claim the title of Dhampir.
Her path collided with Ren and Bai at a pivotal, violent crossroad, the exact moment Bai enacted her grand strategy to bring the entire Dhampir race to its knees. Desperate and broken, Nii had thrown herself at their feet, offering herself up as a willing slave, a mere plaything, just for a sliver of purpose. Consequently, she backed Bai's ruthless subjugation of her own people without a single, fleeting hesitation.
Since she could first open her eyes, she had loathed the oppressive, sunless caverns of Hardenfell. She dreamt of a sky she had never seen. Once, long ago, a spark of ambition had flared within her, a foolish hope to surpass her cruel uncle, Vig. But reality was a heavy boot. When she realized the absolute depth of her powerlessness, the spark died, leaving behind a cowering, self-loathing girl.
It wasn't until she stood beside Bai, watching the mighty Vig fall, that the crushed pieces of her confidence slowly began to mend. A fragile, tentative hope for tomorrow blossomed in her chest.
"Mmn, I don't want to leave Ren's side either." Foeniculum blinked her wide, impossibly cute eyes, her delicate wings fluttering nervously. She was a Fairy.
Forged from the whims of the God of Love, her race existed within a fractured spatial phase known as the Garden of Love. It was a realm akin to a secluded Demi-Plane, a dimension where the Fairies held absolute authority. Within those borders, they were architects of reality, capable of manifesting anything from thin air, even breathing life itself.
Born from such a specific divine concept, their ecology was dangerously parasitic. They did not train or cultivate; they fed. They grew stronger by consuming the romantic narratives, the raw love stories of other sentient beings. This hunger led countless Fairies to willingly shackle themselves to the Elves. They craved stability above all else, and the Elves, ancient, slow to act, and agonizingly reserved, provided centuries-long, slow-burn romances. For a steady diet of emotional tension, becoming a slave was an acceptable price.
From the Elven perspective, a Fairy was nothing more than an ornate magical tool, a convenient communication device with wings. What did it matter if a mere tool witnessed their private moments? In the grand ecological hierarchy, the Fairies posed zero threat to the forest-guarding Elves. During the apocalyptic Great War, the Fairies had leveraged the unique structure of their Spirit Corridor, transforming the Garden of Love into an untraceable intelligence network, feeding crucial secrets directly to the Elven commanders.
But that era of servitude was over. Ren and Bai had violently severed those chains, liberating the Fairies. Foeniculum had chosen to anchor herself to her saviors. Gorging herself on the intense, multifaceted romantic tension radiating between Ren and the women surrounding him, she had inevitably, helplessly fallen in love with him herself. Ren, pragmatic but indulgent, had rewarded her devotion. He granted her the power to assume a solid, human form, showering her with the visceral, physical love she had previously only observed from the shadows.
The sudden, desperate invasion into the room was born of pure panic. They had been shamelessly eavesdropping outside the heavy doors, their blood turning to ice the second the word leaving crossed Ren's lips. A collective, terrifying assumption gripped them: they were being discarded.
In stark contrast to the panicking girls, Luo Hao and Fan Lou sat in serene silence. Fan Lou lounged lazily, a relaxed smirk on her lips, while Luo Hao maintained her regal posture. They alone held the context. They knew that Ren's leaving was not an abandonment, but a temporal shift. He meant traveling back, traversing six thousand years into the bloody past.
Luo Hao shifted, her silk robes rustling softly against the sheets. "Husband," she murmured, her voice smooth but carrying the weight of a martial emperor. "I believe you owe them a proper explanation before they tear the room apart."
Husband. The title slipped easily from her lips. It was accurate. In every metric that mattered, she belonged to him. The memory of their arrogant, high-stakes wager still lingered in the back of her mind. She, the peerless Cultivation Leader, had lost. Over the past decade, Ren had systematically dismantled her pride and claimed her heart. True, the conquest had begun in a much more primal, physical manner, a battle of dominance that left her exhausted and subjugated beneath him. But now, her soul was as bound to him as her flesh. It was a total, crushing defeat, yet she embraced it with a greedy willingness. She had been thoroughly conquered, broken down, and rebuilt as his. When she looked at him now, the cold arrogance of the martial sovereign melted away, replaced by a dark, simmering devotion.
"Mmn, I was getting to that," Ren replied smoothly. He reached out, his strong hands pulling the trembling girls closer, guiding them onto the sprawling expanse of the bed. He let the heavy silence stretch for a heartbeat before speaking, his tone deep and absolute. "First, calm down. Every single one of you is my treasure. I'm not abandoning anyone."
The words were simple, but they carried the weight of a divine edict. The tension snapped. Shoulders slumped, and heavy sighs of relief echoed across the room as the crushing anxiety evaporated.
"Then... why are we leaving?" Stephanie asked, blinking her wide eyes in utter confusion, her fingers nervously gripping the bedsheets. "Bai has already ascended as the One True God. We won. Isn't it enough to just... live happily here?"
Fiel leaned in close, her delicate elven features curling into a wicked, impossibly seductive smile. Her voice dropped to a sultry whisper that sent heat rushing through the room. "Besides, Ren... I'm quite sure you haven't experienced all of us at the same time yet. We had a little meeting. Everyone agreed. It's perfectly fine."
The moment the words left the Elf's lips, the temperature in the room spiked. Brilliant crimson flushed across the cheeks of every girl present, heads ducking in sudden, intense embarrassment.
Ren let out a low, dark chuckle. "Oh, believe me, that is absolutely on the agenda." He reached out, grabbing Imil Ain by the waist and pulling her firmly into his lap. He allowed the Ex-Machina girl to languidly drape herself over his chest, her synthetic skin warm against his. He ran a hand slowly down her spine, enjoying the soft shiver it provoked, before his gaze hardened, sweeping over the group. "But first, you need to understand what leaving actually means. The truth is... Cui Lian, Fan Lou, and I? We aren't from this era. We belong to six thousand years in the past."