Immortal Kingdoms

"Good afternoon, how can I help you?" Asked a beautiful woman in an office suit.

"I have a scheduled meeting with Madam Evernight, here is my identification card," A man in his twilight years with a few wrinkles on his otherwise handsome face smiled faintly in response to the android secretary. Behind this man who was dressed in high-end formal attire were two men in sets of bodyguard black outfits, their sunglasses masking their identities, at least from the perspective of a normal human eye, not the revolving iris of an Evernight android.

"Wait a moment, let me cross-reference with the database," The android secretary took the identification card and passed through the magnetic field to check for the possibility of forgery before running through the database for today's scheduled meetings. A moment later, she returned the identification card with a brilliant smile.

"I got it. You scheduled a meeting to discuss possible investment avenues from our company into your new virtual reality game, correct? Madam is currently attending a meeting in the conference room, you can wait in the lobby for about ten minutes. I will call for you once it's your turn, Sir Rosmond."

Sir Rosmond nodded his head and turned to bring the two men behind him to an isolated lobby down the hall. Luxurious sofas could be found everywhere, and tables were stacked with treats and desserts, not to mention refreshments. One of the two men in black seemed to rather enjoy the taste of sweets, especially chocolate, so he went ahead to help himself with a few plates before he started eating them silently while waiting.

"Good god, there wasn't a single male android in this entire building, why was that?" The other man in black asked Sir Rosmond. These two were dispatched to infiltrate the underground syndicate organizations, invest in criminal groups, and muddle their way into the light in order to approach people like Sir Rosmond.

Sir Rosmond is the textbook example of a man with a vision and ambition, but lacking the funding for it. It was he who brought up the idea of integrating the upper realms and their ecosystem into a virtual reality game, allowing everyone to have something they could rely on to grasp the world order of those near-perfect immortals.

He was working on this project for a long time now, he even actively helped the envoys to find chosen candidates for the ascension in exchange for superficial knowledge.

Anything would be done for the sake of development.

He was later approached by a group of people claiming to have been chosen in the past and now they made it back to the planet. They even enticed him with loads of information, and the testimony of an envoy.

He could tell that the envoy was the real deal from his outfit and ISC badge, these were impossible to fake. Thus, with great enthusiasm, he accepted their patronage to invest in his company. Today, he no longer needed the investment from the Evernight Group, but it would be very helpful if they could provide him with one of their super-intelligent artificial intelligence systems to operate and oversee the game.

After all, the reputation of the Evernight Group is like the moon on a cloudless night.

Sir Rosmond answered respectfully to the man in black, "Even before the introduction of the androids, Evernight Group didn't accept any male employees. Young master Leonardo was, is, and will always be the only male in the company. Of course, if he was to beget a son, that would also be an exception, stared explicitly by Madam Evernight."

Sir Rosmond smiled bitterly. Ever since that declaration, countless families rained down their marriage proposals to House Evernight, some going as far as to brazenly consent to illicit relationships between their daughters and the young master of the Evernight Group.

The youngest CEO of an international enterprise, how grand was that? Luckily for Leonardo, he was a minor and couldn't engage in intercourse with adults, let alone officially get married, otherwise mature women would have flocked to the headquarters and camped outside for him.

"Sir Rosmond, you can come in!" A pleasant voice echoed through the microphone in the lobby. Following the voice, Sir Rosmond and the two men in black filed into the conference room, one of the men even brought a plate of chocolate bars with him.

…

Cool air diffused through the conference room as Maria sat on her leather chair behind the sandalwood desk. A white laptop was flipped open in front of her, and Nightshade stood calmly behind Maria to her left side, hands clasped behind her back.

Nightshade had been constantly observing the movements of the crippled convicts as long as they dared make any waves in the light. It could be said that irrelevant to her name that could leave a dark impression, Nightshade's beautiful smile and elegant style positioned her as a graceful knight in the light.

The underworld people are inherently cautious and they absolutely have no trust in anything remotely mechanical, electrical, or close to that. They handle their business in black and white on paper, cold weapons, and secret channels bound to various organizations like charities, car washes, malls, fast food restaurants, etc.

If the convicts took root in the underworld, maintaining a close eye on them would be nigh impossible. Thus, after some discussion, Maria and Nightshade decided to take up Sir Rosmond on his invitation to invest one of their artificial intelligence brains into his virtual game project.

If anything, Nightshade would have backdoor access to its database, records, intelligence networks, and everything connected to the game after its launch. The artificial intelligence brain would be no more than a puppet controlled by Nightshade, and by extension, the Evernight Group.

Maria wouldn't usually scheme like this, but those convicts are obviously trying to spike up a competitor for her company by diverting the masses from real life into a virtual world controlled by them. This could be a serious propaganda platform in the near future, and they could attack her company's reputation by then.

As for the convicts, they planned to keep on striking Maria Evernight, stimulating her illness, and then provide her an invitation to the higher realms to cure her heart issues. Once she was in the higher realms, their mission would be a success.

…

Miserable cries of agony pierced the dark clouds as one explosion after another shocked the world. Following a massive shockwave that blasted tens of thousands of soldiers into bits and pieces, a grave crater marred the green plains as the saints of both parties stood in confrontation at the center.

Leonardo spread his followers ingeniously so that when the opposing saints decided to crash their party, the resulting shockwaves would enjoy maximum range and momentum.

At the moment, Pandora also left her stealth combat mode and stood in line, opposing the other six.

The battlefield was eerily silent as hundreds of thousands of unlucky men met their unjust downfall today. The saints glared hatefully at Leonardo who stood there calmly, dense bloodlust swirling around his bloodthirsty halberd that was denser than ever in the aspects of aura.