Chapter 519 First Test
Chapter 519 First Test
"You good?" Anna mumbled, entering their bedroom.
"Yeah... I think." Ashton replied.
He had done what he set out to do. But even then, there was no peace for him. Something was wrong, but for the love of his life, he couldn't figure out why he felt so uneasy.
"Calm down..." Anna whispered in his ear while embracing him, "Everything's going to be fine. You did well... that's all that matters. Nirvana is free and, by extension, your kingdom to reign."
Ashton nodded; he knew his responsibilities had skyrocketed, as did his strength. He ruled over half of the earth with Nirvana and Lycania under his control. That coupled with his favourable relations with Alucard, it was safe to say the planet was firmly dependent on him.
That said, he now had the technology to clone himself and offer a vessel to Astaroth. The only issue was, how would he transfer a part of his conscience into a new body?
Astaroth and he were ingrained into one body. Therefore it wasn't as simple as cloning a new personality.
For example, when Mera was cloned, the new vessel had to develop its own personality, intelligence, and whatnot. It was partly because the technology to transfer one's conscience into another didn't exist, at least not on earth.
The fact Astaroth had no clues it would mean even the Xyrans weren't advanced enough to pull off something like that. In Ashton's mind, the Precursors were the only ones who could do something god-like as transplanting conscience from one body to the other.
Vulcan might know about an artefact or something the Precursors left behind that could help him. Though, Ashton wasn't delusional enough to think the Drawf would readily give him what he needed.
"Hey, are you even listening?" Anna flicked Ashton's head, "I can't believe it! How can you ignore a succubus?"
"I wasn't ignoring you," Ashton smiled, before flicking her back, "Just wondering what comes next. After all, there's not much left to do on earth."
"It's time to leave, I guess. Oh well, there's a lot we need to do out there as well, don't we?"
Anna was correct. A lot needed to be done, and time was limited. But one task took precedence over the rest-getting rid of that bounty hovering over his head.
There were two ways of taking down a bounty. One was by paying it off, that is, by giving the guild a hundred times the bounty money, and the second was by killing the person or organisation that issued the bounty.
Going down the first path was impossible, as only a hand fun of people had that kind of money to spend. Unfortunately, Ashton wasn't on that list, which meant he only had one option: to get rid of the Metal sharks and the Cult of Cosmos.
However, it was easier said than done. Metal Sharks were an organisation with little to no information about them. Even the Orion Empire had no clue about their whereabouts, let alone the identity of their prominent leaders.
Even if Ashton mobilised the entire ONI to get information about them, it could take years, and they might fail altogether. Eliminating the leaders wasn't going to be easy, either. It would be better to lay low for a while and build up his forces. Unless...
"It's time to contact them. If anyone can find out about the cult and the sharks, it's them."
"The progenitors?" Anna asked.
Ashton replied positively, "If those sickos can bombard a Xyran city, they can do anything. More importantly, since the Progenitors and the Sharks are involved in the same field, they'd likely know something about them."
With renewed hope, Ashton was oddly excited to challenge the deep space again with new allies and enemies awaiting his return.
***
A few days passed, and everything remained as usual in Nirvana. Viper and Alina rescued the remaining humans and Inhumans while the vampires helped the undead adapt to synthetic human flesh.
Synthetic flesh was nothing but organs cultivated using human stem cells. It was a technique Avalina came up with but was later perfected by her assistant. Though, for safety, it was decided the humans in the undead territory would move to Lycania.
Since Lycania's population had declined by nearly 40% due to corpsification gas, it was a welcomed move. This way, Lycania would gain some much-needed workforce to rebuild the country while it would also help the undead get attuned to synthetic flesh.
However, not everybody was happy with Lycania being turned into a predominant human state. While Ashton could suppress them by force, it wasn't good in the long run.
One solution was to turn a lot of humans into werewolves to manage the population difference. It would also fulfil Johnathan's desire as, for some reason, he wanted a lot of people to inherit Ashton's genes.
That said, forcing someone to transform wasn't a welcome move either. Although it would have been easier to suppress humans than the werewolves, Ashton didn't want to push either of them into something they wouldn't be comfortable with.
[First test as a ruler, what will you do now?]
"You're not helping..." Ashton absent-mindedly mumbled.
[It's not my job to look after everyone you adopt. Although I could offer you a suggestion or two based on my administrative experiences-]
"Killing anyone isn't an option."
[Why do you think every solution I offer involves genocide- Wait, never mind, I know why.]
Ashton chuckled before getting back to work.
Astaroth was correct. The situation was just one of many problems that would follow. He couldn't always depend on others to solve his issues for him.
The logical thing to do would be to divide the nation into two. But then resource allocation and management would become a problem.
"It'd be best to make Livan an independent state."
[You mean-]
"Yeah, make Livan sort of earth embassy for the outworlders. That way, the werewolves won't have an issue with the humans managing the place." Ashton mumbled while stroking his chin, "In return, the Giholos can keep the humans in check. A win-win situation for everyone!"
[Hm... it could work. Not to mention, humans would be better hosts than a bunch of rowdy werewolves.]