VILLAIN'S RISING

He felt as if someone was gently tapping on his forehead at regular intervals to wake him up from his sweet slumber.

The warmth of the hand gave him a satisfying sense of comfort.

Sluggishly, Sam opened his eyes. The daylight sweeping in through the gaps in the curtains made him wince.

The last night was long. Maybe he got a few too many drinks. But the call was worthy of a huge celebration.

After narrowing his eyes, Sam looked around.

He found himself lying on a king-sized bed covered with red silk sheets matching the baraque-styled interior.

On his right, he saw a beautiful redhead russian girl using his arm as a pillow, gently caressing his chest.

On his left, he saw another bewitching russian white-haired beauty sitting by his side, tapping lovingly on his forehead.

Yes, both of them were naked of course.

“Remind me, what’s your name?” Sam said in his lethargic morning voice, pointing at the two girls one by one. “Both of yours?”

“Ah, hehe~” The girls covered their mouths and let out a series of a short graceful chuckles.

“Yeah, haha,” Sam joined them for a few seconds before returning to his stoic expression, “No, seriously. What are both of your names again?”

“You don’t need to know our lowly names, my lord.” The redhead said before planting a soft kiss on Sam’s cheek.

“We don’t deserve that honor, my lord.” The white-haired girl joined in and softly brought her lips to Sam’s forehead before kissing him.

“Oh-kay!” Sam shot up, pulling himself away from the comfortable snug of two young maidens. “I guess I now know why Russia takes pride in their supermodels. But anyway, I have work to do right now.”

He then got up from his need and opened his giant wardrobe. He pulled out a set of all-black lavish clothes and a long coat.

He then turned around to look at the two girls and spoke, “You both pleased me last night. You’ll live in the castle and serve me from now on as your reward.”

A few years ago, this statement could’ve come off as some sort of harassment or some twisted pervy fantasy. But now, it was considered an honor.

The two girls, both of their eyes brimming with happiness, nodded excitedly.

“As you wish, lord!” They both said in unison.

Sam nodded before putting on his pants and buttoning his shirt. He then slung the long coat over his shoulders like a cape and stormed out of the bedroom.

Walking down a large and luxuriously long hallway adorned with all kinds of fancy materials, Sam sighed.

The upcoming meeting was going to be boring. But as the head of the table, he had to attend it.

After reaching in front of a large door, Sam sighed again. With nowhere left to run, he twisted the door knob and swirled open the door.

-“Sire!”

-“Brother”

-“”Master””

He was greeted by a small crowd of 7 people standing neatly around a round table. The seat at the center from the far end of the door was vacant as it was his.

He nodded, gesturing to them to sit down, and walked up to his seat before taking it.

Aside from Marcel, Lucas, Michael, and Kiara, three more were present at this table. Two boys and one girl.

They were his generals.

After getting comfortable, Sam looked around the table and said, “What’s new?”

“First, let me ask you this, sire,” Lucas went first with a serious look on his face. But soon, that serious face formed a goofy grin as she shot, “How were the girls?!”

“Awesome!” Sam replied with the same energy before giving a high-five to him.

“Boys, can we focus here, please? I believe this takes priority over some russian chicks, right?” Kiara interrupted them.

“Oh yeah, sorry.” Lucas nodded.

“Yeah, carry on,” Sam added.

Shaking her head, Kiara cleared her throat before continuing, “The rebellion groups all over the world have been shut down. The last of them, who called themselves the Knightmares, have been caught to be added to the army as per your orders, master. You can turn them into your slaves any moment–”

Before Kiara could continue, Sam interrupted, “No. Scratch those orders. Execute them.”

Upon a few palpable seconds of silence, Kiara retorted, “Master, the Knightmares have some very, very powerful ability users. We could use them.”

“No, Kiara,” Sam firmly shook his head. “We need to make an example out of them. We need to show the world that rebellion shall not be tolerated no matter how strong of an ability you might possess. Better yet, I’ll strip them of their abilities and then kill them.” For more chapters, please visit pan(da-n0vel.c)om

After a bit of hesitation, Kiara nodded. “By your wish, master.”

“Man, it would’ve been awesome if you had been able to turn every human on this planet into a hive-minded creature connected to you as you had planned originally,” Lucas commented in an upset tone.

“Totally,” Sam slammed his hands on the table. “But as I’ve been told, linking billions of consciousness to my mind all at once could break me.”

“Yeah, I know. Bummer.” Lucas sighed. “It’s still funny, though, how you didn’t think of that while making your master plan.”

“Do you not love your dear life anymore, Lucas?”

“I’m extremely sorry, sire.”

“Guys!” Kiara yelled, waving her hands. “Focus!”

“Right, what’s up next?” Sam asked, comfortably leaving back on his chair.

“The governments of India, Korea, China, and Japan have surrendered after your victory over Russia. With that, under one year after defeating the heroes in Los Angeles, you have achieved your goal. You have conquered the world, erasing borders off the world maps.” Kiara reported with a smile. “Mars, on the other hand, has tightened the security around their atmosphere in case you try to invade their planet next.”

“Good,” Sam nodded while scratching his forehead. Suddenly, he burst out into a short chuckle. “Haha! Try to invade? Of course, I’ll invade them next. On top of being originally from this planet which makes them my subject, their technology is very advanced. I have a hunch I’ll be needing that.”

“Huh? Why would we need their technology, brother? Will we be traveling to outer space and conquering alien planets?” Michael joked.

But instead of a response, he got silence from Sam. That once again made the room’s atmosphere heavy as everyone looked at him for answers.

Feeling everyone’s gazes on him, Sam spoke, “Since I can manipulate the concept of life itself now, I can sense there are countless other sentient species other than us. Whether we would be conquering them or not—”

Before Sam could finish, Michael jumped up from his seat, shouting: “Yes! Interstellar conquest!”

That was the cue that made everyone at the round table sigh in embarrassment. They all gave Michael ‘the look’ and made him sit back down in his seat.

“Anyway… as I was saying, whether we’ll conquer them or not depends on what you three have to say.”

Sam turned to Tracy, Rudra, and Ryuusuke.

They were the three new arrivals on Sam’s general ranked demons. Aside from being very, very strong ability users, the three of them were quite smart.

Tracy was Mexican, Rudra was Indian, and Ryuusuke was of Japanese lineage.

Tracy was a short, petite girl with long creamy white hair. She wore round glasses over her big, sharp-looking violet eyes and she had an excellent ability called [Hyper-Intelligence], which allowed her to possess the gift of devouring knowledge.

According to Sam, if nurtured properly, she would go on to possess ‘Absolute Intelligence’—the greatest, most supreme level of intellect a being can attain.

Then there was Ryuusuke. He was a tall, messy black-haired Asian boy with sharp facial features. Although not as impressive as Tracy, he possessed the ability of [Technokinesis], which allowed him to manipulate technology.

Much like Sam, he needed to have at least a little bit of understanding of the technology in order to manipulate it. But he was a god in cyberspace. His mind was always linked to cyberspace, so nothing could go in the world without him not noticing. That also means there’s no knowledge in this world that he didn’t know.

At last, there was a tan-skinned boy of lean build and medium height named Rudra. He had deep imperial blue hair and matching eyes.

His ability was [Heliomancy], which lets him draw energy from the sun and store it in his body to perform a plethora of tasks.

He was the only one among the newcomers whose ability didn’t inherently make him smarter. Yet he was able to keep up standing side by side with his two peers.

There was also a shadow general named Riley, the son of White Walker, but his existence is more of a myth than a fact. Only Sam knows whether it’s true or not.

Or at least that’s what Sam likes to believe in order to make him look cool, but it’s more of an open secret at this point.

“Master, the thing is,” Tracy pushed back her glasses with her index finger and said, “I’ve found the traces of its existence.”

Ryuusuke followed her up and said, “Me too. I’ve hacked into some, let’s just say, hard-to-break-into governmental official cyber secure databases. And yeah, I found the mentions of Akashic Records.”

“I feel like there’s a ‘but’ coming here,” Sam scratched his chin.

As if waiting for that cue, Rudra spoke up, “But here’s the problem. Every useful mention, every trace of this thing called Akashic Records we’ve found is recorded in a foreign language.”

“Yes,” Ryuusuke chimed in. “I’ve run them against every linguistic archive of the world, and I’ve still got nothing. So either some lunatic completely made up the language, or it’s just not any of earth’s language or something even closely related to that.”

“Haaaa,” Sam let out a long, exhausted sigh before he turned to Tracy and put up a serious look in his eyes. “Tracy, as the smartest one out of everyone here–”

“Cough! Cough!” Rudra coughed loudly.

After giving him a long annoyed look that screamed, ‘I will kill you if you do that once again,’ Sam resumed, “Tracy, as the smartest one out of everyone here, can you or can you not decipher the texts?”

“Deciphering a possible alien language from scratch with no reference? Sounds like my regular Sunday.” Tracy shot a cocky smile. “Although, no, seriously, I can. I’ll need time.”

“How much?” Sam asked.

“I’m gonna be honest here… at least eighty-two years,” Tracy answered.

After a bit of silence, Sam nodded. “Good thing everyone here on this table is immortal.”