Helena bowed again, deeper this ti—like she was offering her spine to be broken, should he will it. Her voice trembled, not from fear, but reverence… and guilt.
"Every family," she said, "was ordered to tornt you. Not kill. Not cripple. But break you—piece by piece. Crush your pride. Shatter your confidence. Tear down the parts of you that believed you were just… human. Desperation. Rejection. Isolation. Emotional starvation. That was the only way." Her eyes flicked up, just once.
"Only then would you awaken. The Prince of Existence, cast into despair so dark even the gods wouldn't look. That pain—it was the key."
That felt like so stupid shit, right there.
Parker stood silent. Still. His jaw tightened.
"They wanted you to hate your own existence," she continued. "Because this Ninth life… wasn't supposed to happen. THEY tampered. THEY interfered. THEY tried to erase this one. But your mother…" She trailed off, breath shaking. "She made a second plan. And she told us—make you bleed, until all that's left is the truth."
Parker bit down on his lower lip. Hard. Blood touched his tongue.
THEY. Again.
Those motherfuckers were everywhere. Pulling strings in shadows and threads of destiny like it was a fucking knitting circle.
But one thing didn't sit right. He'd made preparations for his Ninth reincarnation from his Sixth life. Set things in motion that would carry across lifetis, through tilines. He'd even left echoes—whispers buried in corners of ti that only he would find. Why… why would his mother think he wouldn't awaken even after all those preparations?
As if sensing his unspoken thoughts, Helena stepped forward. And without a word, she shared it.
A mory. No, a vision.
Not hers. His.
Pain lanced down his spine as the image slamd into him—a flash of blood, claws, and screams. The claw marks on his back. Not so childhood wound. Not a freak accident. A seal. Carved by werewolf's craw hands in the hospital. ant to trap his soul in forgetfulness. It wasn't just about reincarnating—it was about caging.
Now he understood the reason why the werewolf had left those marks on him.
It was a seal!
The seal— that only through raw, soul-ripping desire—to survive, to rise, to change—could he break it.
And he had seventeen years later.
That day, the system had co to him.
Not by chance. Not by luck.
But because, for the first ti in that cursed Ninth life… he wanted out. More than ever.
That desperation? That pain?
It triggered everything! Only then did the preparations he had set in motion worked.
His preparation kicked in. The system found him. And the cycle began anew.
But Helena was right.
The system had made things too easy…he'd gotten comfortable, coddled, powerful too fast?
He never would've awakened.
His mother knew that would happen and... That's why his mother made a second plan. Just in case the world wasn't cruel enough to do it for her when Parker got so much money… she would make sure it was.
That was the vampire's attack—that savage, humiliating mont when he was dragged across mansion marble from from Ere's portal, bloodied in front his girl and maid, left for dead like trash. That wasn't random. That wasn't fate. That was her.
The All-Everything Mother. The Ruler of Existence. The one who sat outside of ti like a puppeteer with galaxies as her thread.
She had known.
She had known the future, the past, the possible, the impossible—and she had chosen this. She'd pivoted the flow of ti itself. Bent causality like it was silk, and made sure the vampire's claws would find her son. Made sure Naomi would be taken. Made sure he would be shattered, right there, in front of all of girls.
Because breaking him… was the only way to rebuild him.
Every humiliation. Every betrayal. Every burn in his chest that made him feel like nothing. That was her plan. That was the thod. Not madness. Not cruelty.
Calculation.
Because without it—without that goddamn darkness chewing through his soul—he wouldn't have awakened. He would have died as a footnote. Forgotten.
But not anymore.
Not after all this.
Not when the first claw mark vanished—and with it, the first layer of the seal. That wasn't just pain. That was initiation. The cycle had begun. The true one. And now?
Parker was halfway through sothing the gods didn't even have words for. He sat still, breath low, eyes distant—not from weakness, but from weight.
Have you ever felt like a character in a novel? Like every step you take, every breath you draw, has already been outlined by soone else? That you're not just living, but being written?
Parker wasn't a hero. He wasn't a villain. He wasn't those chosen ones either.
He had moved through life thinking it was his own choices but now it felt like every damn step he took was already inked by soone else's hand.
Like your choices weren't really yours—but lines in a script you never got to read, let alone edit? Every step predetermined. Every decision foreshadowed. Every breath—just punctuation in soone else's narrative?
The feeling of a story soone else was writing. The tragic protagonist of a divine lodrama, where pain had plot value and betrayal was just character developnt. But now? Now he understood.
That was Parker's life. Only difference? He wasn't just so protagonist fumbling through fate. He was the Prince of Existence.
And did his mother's actions piss him off?
Not even close.
He wasn't just a character.
He was the Prince of Existence.
And his author?
Was his mother.
The being beyond all knowing. Beyond realms, beyond systems, beyond prophecy. The kind of entity that didn't just bend the script—she wrote the damn law that made stories exist.
Because his mother—yeah, her—she didn't play by the rules. She was the goddamn architect behind the rules. She wasn't omniscient—she was beyond omniscience. If she said sothing, then hell, that wasn't just prophecy, it was law carved into the bones of reality. So when she'd said he wouldn't awaken back then, it wasn't cruelty. It was certainty. A universal lock. Unless... unless he followed her plan.
If she said sothing wouldn't happen, then that reality never had a chance. That wasn't fate. That was absolute.
So did Parker hate that?
Not even a little.
And sohow, that made him smile.
He didn't flinch at the idea that his mother had intervened before his awakening, had moved pieces in the background to ensure the story didn't end before it began. He was glad. Grateful, even. There was sothing strangely comforting about being part of her design—like falling off a building and knowing gravity belonged to your bloodline.
Yeah. He was actually glad she'd interfered. Because the Parker from before? The clueless, dormant version of himself? That kid would've been swallowed whole by the abyss. She saved him from that. That's what a real mother does—not cuddle, not coddle, but correct. In her own savage, divine way.
Talk about a loving mother.
But that didn't an he was feeling rciful.
But forgiveness?
Hell no.
Because while she may have set the dominoes, they still pushed them over.
Orders or not—loyalty or fear—they made him bleed. They made him kneel. They mocked him, broke him, fed him to the wolves, and now they wanted to pull the loyalty card?
Just because she told them to play the roles they did doesn't an he was gonna forget. Or even pretend to give a damn. Obedience didn't an innocence.
Because he never told them to be weak.
And in this world? Being weak was more than a flaw—it was a fucking cri. A sin that invited punishnt. You were either the lion or the lamb, and no one rembered the lamb. The world made damn sure the old Parker learned that. Hard. And he'd be damned if he didn't teach it back.
The world had taught unawakened Parker a lesson every damn day: weakness is a cri, and the strong eat the soft-hearted alive. Every bruise he bore, every insult he swallowed, every humiliation he buried deep in his bones—that was the price of powerlessness.
So now? Now it was their turn to pay up.
It didn't matter if they were just doing what they were told.
The world didn't care when it was him.
And neither did he.
So no—he wasn't about to let it go. If anything, he was gonna pass the sa lesson down like a gospel sermon made of fire and pain.
They were young, by cosmic standards. No older than five hundred. Earth-born, Earth-stuck. Probably never even peeked outside the veil. And if they thought this planet was rough? Cute.
These leaders, these so-called elites of the Origin Families have never seen the blood-forged worlds outside this infant realm. They thought Earth was harsh?
Earth was a fucking tutorial.
Earth was a damn kindergarten.
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