Seized by the System

“Could it be that you already are a Pond-level fighter?” He was surprised.

William scratched his head and said with a slight embarrassment, “Yes, uncle. About a month ago, after I’d spent a night with seven really lovely ladies, I realized I’ve broken through. Actually, I didn’t want to be too strong, ’cause then I’d be targeted by people with ulterior motives. I hear someone’s been targeting me since last year.”

Hearing that, Robert immediately said, “If that’s the case, you should be even more hardworking in training, join a formal Extraordinaire organization and improve yourself or something. Don’t just waste away your time and youth on frivolous things like pretty ladies, fashion, and jewelry…”

William rolled his eyes and said, “Then what would be the meaning of life? Alright, alright, uncle, I know you never lie to me. Since you said that our country is in grave danger, I just saw the news, the Alliance of Justice and Order was just founded, and their aim is to keep the order of the world.

“Their leader was that Mr. Pharos-guy. I believe in him. I can donate some money to their organization so you could ask them for help and not urge me anymore.”

Hearing that, Robert’s eyes lit up and asked impatiently, “How much can you donate?”

William said helplessly, “I think this was your real intention this trip, isn’t it? Alright, a hundred million dollars. With such a large sum of money, it should be enough for them to help you with what you needed.”

“Not enough. My understanding of that person is much deeper than you know. His appearance fee has gone up to five billion dollars now, and that’s only to rescue a small city. With your business-savvy brain, how much do you think he’ll charge to hire him to save the states?” Robert shook his head.

“Oh my god! Looks like I need to speed up the expansion of my company, this is my combined profit of the last four years!” William said exaggeratedly, but he did not sound like he minded the five billion dollars at all, it was like an amount he could easily earn if he worked a little harder.

“One hundred million should be enough for a preliminary investigation.” Robert did not push further.

He gave the impression of a rough man, but in reality, he was attentive and careful with the way he approached things, or he would not have survived the Power Balance Association with their aggressive approach.

Last year, Feng Gensheng was not the little lamb he was now in the Draconic Penitentiary.

“Haha, that’s great, uncle. Give me a little more time. I’ll be able to accrue the five billion around the end of the year…” William thought it was a little weird. He asked in puzzlement, “My clever uncle, I’m curious, why did you only ask for me for help? If money is the only thing you needed, there are plenty of rich organizations and people in the states, and I’m only an uprising multimillionaire. Please don’t tell me you’re actually trying to hoodwink me.”

Robert stared at his nephew with a curious, yet innocent gaze and shook his head without explaining.

He thought silently, ‘I cannot trust anybody else. You are the real Son of Heaven, the only person in the states who would never work with those corruptible people.

‘Maybe Ren Ruofeng was lying to me, maybe the states was actually safe. Right now, everything looked normal, but I can’t take the risk of him being completely truthful to me.’

At this point, shrieks came from not far away.

The shrieking came from the women. They did not listen to William and return later at night. Instead, they waited, not wanting to be the first to leave.

A quieter, comparatively underdressed tanned woman had had enough of her fellow attendee’s teasing as her eyes turned bright red and sharp claws extended out of all ten of her fingers…

She seemed to have retained her consciousness as she only waved her arms around to intimidate the woman who teased her.

“Augh!”

“Run!”

“Feliz became a claw fiend!”

The ladies all ran their separate ways.

Because of the creative freedom the United States enjoyed, Hollywood had produced plenty of films with disaster, apocalypse, and monsters in them. That was why the girls were able to identify the monster immediately.

In the new era, production houses had taken inspirations from real monsters in order to capture a realistic effect, some even employed real monsters in their productions themselves.

“Bang!”

“Bang!”

Several gunshots fired as William’s personal bodyguards reacted within a snap of a finger.

However, their actions seemed to have extinguished Feliz’s last sense of her rationality. Dodging nimbly, she pounced at the bodyguards who fired.

“Stop it!” With a flash, William disappeared from the deserted woods and appeared in the middle of the party where he blocked in front of his bodyguards.

He had the ability to teleport within a short distance!

“Kill it! Use your most powerful attack!” Robert yelled.

As a mercenary, he would not have hesitated to do it. After all, he had been a sniper who lived through wars!

William, on the other hand, paused for a split second. He already had a soft spot toward women, especially when he noticed it was the gunshots that provoked Feliz to turn into a claw fiend.

The Son of Heaven still had ways to go to be able to catch up to Vigilante A. In this desperate times, he was still debating about the correct moral ethos!

The claw fiend felt the strong threat from William and stopped charging at him and his bodyguard, so it changed direction all of a sudden and dashed toward Robert in the deserted woods.

Its speed was much faster than William the combat newbie’s reaction time!

This time, William did not seem to be able to teleport back immediately, he had even forgotten to attack from behind the beast. He yelled with permeating his voice, “Uncle, run!”

Robert almost spat blood. ‘If you’ve got time to yell, you’ve got time to hit it from its back, then I will be saved!’

He had already retrieved his high-powered pistol and fired two shots on the claw fiend’s path in an attempt to slow it down.

However, the claw fiend evaded them entirely. A hundred-meter distance seemed awfully short at that moment as claws almost struck their target!

“Oh, no, NO!” William yelled, terrified, as he could almost see the sputter of blood on the ground.

Within the next moment, he witnessed as a pillar of white light beamed down from the sky and washed over the claw fiend.

A shriek. A tanned girl was laying on the ground as a wisp of black aura appeared from within her body and dissipated in the air.

‘Was that all?’

Spaced out, he stared, as if he could not wrap his brain around the high-adrenaline sequence he had experienced.

“How was it, William? Will you now want to work harder at cultivation?” Robert walked over, his expression calm as if he had not experienced any life-threatening situation and was only taking a shower. ¹

Hearing that, William’s face recovered as he laughed, “Alright, alright, uncle. You can drop the act now, I know.”

As he said that, he walked toward the tanned lady and propped her up with his arm as he asked, “Feliz, Feliz, wake up. Tell me, when did you meet my uncle? And when did you learn this transformation trick, or did my uncle give you something to take?”

“Oh, my lord. I know you were smart, but I didn’t know my nephew was smart enough to have guessed the truth within minutes…” Robert held his head and approached him before yelling, “You idiot! Will I sacrifice myself just to prove a point like that? If it weren’t for your Mr. Pharos-guy who was still in New Netherlands doing superhero work, I would’ve died!”

William was stunned again. He asked curiously, “All these are real? Oh god, I didn’t know the states was in such peril! Even my highly-selective personal party was infiltrated with monsters?”

“That’s right, that’s exactly the case. It looks peaceful on the surface, but in reality, the undercurrent was strong. SBI, the Special Events Investigation Bureau of America where I work was far inferior to the Truth Department of China. If they didn’t have Vigilante A, they, too, would’ve been desperately grasping at straws without the comfort they currently enjoy. That’s why you have to grow up and earn the power to protect yourself.”

Robert took the chance to instill his own thoughts into the lesson. He intended to have his nephew with limitless potential to become a real Son of Heaven, not waste away his life surrounded by materialism and beauty.

If it had been a more peaceful time, he would not have tried to interfere with his only nephew’s personal choices and freedom. Even if William had wanted to be a playboy his entire life and not procreate, he would not have minded, that was different from a typical Asian family.

However, this was not the time, it was a new era with danger lurking at every turn!

With great power comes great responsibility! His nephew has great power!

Taking it all in, William nodded thoughtfully. “Mm, I see. Looks like I should start considering to emigrate to China. Oh, right, I heard the houses of Qi City had been rising quickly. I should work to buy a few houses over there, best to stay right beside the Eastern Pharos-guy. With him watching over me, I can party with much fewer concerns and incidents like today would never happen again. My expenses for security might even be lessened…”

“Pfft!” Robert almost spat blood. Shaking violently, he pointed at his nephew wordlessly.

“Uncle? Uncle! Are you alright? Could it be that you were actually injured a moment ago?” William supported him and asked caringly.

“Give me that hundred-million-dollar check. I’ll leave, and I don’t want to see you anymore!” Robert pushed him away and placed his hand on his forehead.

“Okay, okay, I will issue a check for you. Remember to run it through my butler in a while, I don’t want the FBI butting into my account.” William produced a checkbook and a fountain pen from his shirt’s pocket and began to write on it.

In a few minutes, Robert took the check and turned to leave.

A few meters later, he looked back and said, “If you want to go to China, be swift. I can feel someone’s been stalking you.”

“Thank you, uncle, I know you were worried about me.” William smiled and said, “I will make the arrangement to fly to China as soon as possible, and will leave the management to my deputy.”

“It’s a shame that you’re so intelligent. You’ve made choices that reflect your intellect, but intellectual people usually could not handle the true responsibility that the era had endowed them with.” Robert said his goodbyes and walked away, not turning back.

William stood there wordlessly as he watched his uncle leave the mansion.

After Robert had left, he pulled out the fountain pen again and signed another check. He hollered to the sky, “Hey, Mr. Pharos-guy, thanks for saving my uncle’s and my life. I have a personal donation of three hundred million here. Please don’t think of it as charity, think of it as my personal contribution to the maintenance of the peace on Earth and my respect toward you…”

He finished his sentence, but there was no response.

He was confused. ‘From the information I’ve read, Vigilante A was really attracted to money, but he would never take it from people who had no reason to give. If I worded it that way, Vigilante A should have come to receive the check.

‘Could it be that he didn’t hear me? That’s impossible.

‘Then it’s faulty information. He’s actually someone who doesn’t ask for any returns.’

William retired to his room with a deep unsettled curiosity. He did not have the heart to look for the ladies, so he left them to be comforted by his butler.

He laid down and drifted off until about 3 o’clock in the morning when a silhouette appeared in front of the floor-to-ceiling window.

William woke up with a start and stood up on his bed. Seeing the handsome shadow, he was not at all scared.

“Where’s the check?” A deep, masculine voice came from the silhouette.

William immediately searched his jacket’s pocket for the check.

“Actually, I’ve saved you once last year as well. Black Cat Tom of the Global Power Balance Association tried to take over your body with a demon, but you didn’t know…”

William did not suspect any foul play at all. He signed another check with an identical amount and passed it over.

He had spent a total of seven hundred million US dollars in one day, but he did not feel hesitant or distressed at all.

“Good, if you want to move next to me, that’s fine by me, but the land does not belong to me, so you have to look for the department that handles it.”

William nodded and immediately saw the silhouette zoomed away on his flying sword.

‘Heh, it’s solved just like that, isn’t it? Any problem money could solve is no problem at all. Forget about me going to the frontline. I’d be more useful earning the military provisions for them anyway.’ With that thought in mind, he drifted off once again into sleep. He knew that the Eastern Pharos would be taking care of him from the skies…

…

In an underground castle in Europe.

“What an idiot! How could there be such an idiot? He completely foiled my plan!” Claude cursed as he watched the video.

“Haha, my dear brother, this William is such an interesting character. Do you want me to go and seduce him?” Claudia stared at the handsome blond man in the video, her gaze hopeful.

“Hmph, just forget about it. Vigilante A is too sharp. Feliz is the sleeper agent we’ve planted in the states a long time ago, but she was found out as soon as she had been activated, you would only add to the death count if you approach him yourself. For shame, that William, he ruined my perfect plan!” Claude continued expressing his frustration.

“Dear brother, your plan was perfect. If his uncle was killed, it would provoke him into awakening his ability, Angel’s Advent, to revive his uncle; even if his uncle didn’t die and was saved by Vigilante A, he would still be stimulated to train himself due to a sense of inferiority, and he might still awaken Angel’s Advent.” Claudia comforted him.

Claude felt slightly better, but he shook his head in disbelief and said, “But I didn’t expect that he wasn’t provoked at all. He doesn’t have any motivation to cultivate, and now he wants to move next to Vigilante A? Are there any Sons of Heaven as brazen and shameless as he is? If his full potential was unleashed, he would definitely be more powerful than Vigilante A! Angels can absorb the Faith of millions upon millions of people. Power like that wouldn’t be any worse than the Path of Heavenly Punishment at all!”

In the eyes of demons like them, power is the root of everything else. Enjoyment of any kind was distributed according to power levels!

“Perhaps he was still too young, he doesn’t understand the preciousness of power. When he discovered his first strand of gray hair, he would start to think about power and immortality.” Claudia guessed.

“Hmph, if he waited till then, Vigilante A would’ve grown to an immeasurable state, and we would’ve been long dead.” Claude had finally given up. “No wonder Black Cat Tom immediately passed us this guy’s information as soon as I asked for it. They probably knew this guy is a piece of mud that doesn’t stick to the wall ² .”

“If that’s the case, my dear brother, we should prepare our last resort,” reminded Claudia.

“Mm, fortunately, we’ve prepared a backup in the Upper Realm. Get ready, we’ll hold the ritual to notify our people in the Upper Realm so they would loosen the restrictions to the Whitestone people, allowing them to descend onto this world. Their lives were not in a good place right now, so I believe they would be overjoyed at the opportunity to explore this new world.” A coldness flashed through Claude’s eyes.