Absolute Depravity: Reincarnated with a lustful System-Chapter 327 – Acceptance Of The End

"Master, it's been six hours…" Placing her hand on Haruki's shoulders, Serena tried to get him away from the graves.

Kneeling in the garden of the Larian castle right underneath the gazebo where Haruki first laid eyes on Asuka, he couldn't get that memory out of his mind. The look of concern on her face, the genuine smile, and the worrisome hug, it felt as though her warmth was still racing along his skin, but alas, having put her in the grave with his own hands, her body no longer possessed that comforting warmth.

"I…I know," pulling himself out of a spell that slowed time for him, Haruki pulled himself up and finally turned to face the others moaning the deaths alongside him.

The first ones he noticed were Riley and Margarette, as they'd been away from him for a while and were holed up in the minotaur dungeon nearby. Apart from them, a massive collection of soldiers and representatives from all monster clans and tribes under Haruki were also present for solidarity. However, even then, Haruki knew it was nothing more than a power struggle against the others for them.

"To think they will die to that stupid curse," her eyes fixed on the graves, Riley anxiously tapped her feet to the sight. "Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!"

Fighting tears from straining over her already tear-marked face, Riley shook her head violently and just buried her face onto Margarette's sides. Brushing her daughter's hair with her hands, Margarette tried to comfort her, all the while she herself felt like throwing up from the jumble of emotions.

"It'll be fine, trust me," said Margarette, reminded of her first encounter with death. "Your father, I grieved for him too, but it'll get easier with time."

Hearing her say those words, a disgruntled frown took over Haruki's face. He didn't wish for himself to be distanced from this pain, he didn't want this flame of somber rage to even be extinguished. For what he wanted was revenge on those who've killed his companions, but to his own misfortune, he'd already killed them once yet it didn't feel like enough.

"Fay…" Glancing over at Fay, Haruki gave out an order. "Prepare as many god-kin vessels as you can with the samples we have left."

A bit surprised by the sudden demand, Fay's expression contorted to that of confusion.

"Right now? But why?" She asked, taking a step closer to him.

"There's still an enemy left that can hurt us, and before long I wouldn't be here with you to keep you all safe," revealing his eventual death because of the poison, Haruki shocked everyone except for Riley who already knew about the situation.

"Wait, master…" While the others were still trying to process what had been said, Riley stepped forward with a suggestion. "We can place your soul in a new vessel, can't we? That should help with getting rid of that poison."

Standing still, just breathing heavy breaths, Haruki forced a gentle smile on his face before replying.

"I've died twice, lived for, I can't remember how long in my first life," glancing across all the faces before him, Haruki continued what he had to say. "The second, I came back with the help of a contract to keep my people from harm, and yet it ended up in chaos…Needless to say, I'm done and perhaps it's time for someone new to take my place in protecting our people."

Shifting his gaze towards Fay, Haruki glanced over her shoulders to look at his daughter. Their eyes met for just a moment, but nobody else but them noticed that brief interaction. Blinking once or twice, Stella's eyes widened as she came to realize what it all meant.

"No!" She exclaimed, not from fear of responsibility, but the very prospect of Haruki's eventual death.

Pushing Fay aside, she lunged onto her adoptive father and hugged him tight enough so he couldn't escape. Breathing heavily with fear, stared at Haruki for a while before banging her head against his chest.

"No! No! You-"

"Benevolent actor…" Lifting Stella's face upwards, Haruki beamed her a smile. "Nothing can lay a finger on you, Stella, and if you're the one leading our people with some guidance of course, then I can move on assured that nothing bad could ever happen to any of them."

As the others too realized what Haruki had planned, they felt themselves shrinking away as if something vital had been stripped away from their souls.

"Now, go and help your mother get those vessels ready, we're gonna need them for a battle to come," Haruki muttered, glancing over at Fay so she could take Stella away from him.

Although the girl tried to stay glued to her father, Haruki managed to send them both off to the lab with a dungeon portal. With that done, he turned to Riley and the rest of the gathered soldiers and representatives to relay something else as well.

"Helga, the queen of Valkyrie, she's coming to end this world…" His announcement left the others astounded and just confused in general. "When I was at the obsidian castle, I saw something, in those prophetic windows of that damned place. A banquet of winged soldiers, a feast, an orgy, all to celebrate annihilation of themselves and the world of Atlas!"

'I hope they buy that lie because I never saw that mural on the windows, this damned skill or ability or whatever, it is…Ouroboros is filling my mind with visions of the end…'

Keeping the part about Ouroboros a secret, Haruki decided to rile them all up for the upcoming battle. Those gathered around him at the moment were either elders or the strongest of their tribes, thus it fell on their shoulders to keep the world intact for the next generations.

"Haruki wait, this is all too much," Margarette butted in, having kept shut for so long, she couldn't help but interject as the confusion in her mind kept building up. "We need some time to clear things in our head, especially after all this!"

Extending her hand towards the graves, Margarette tried to slow down Haruki's racing orders at the moment.

"We have three days at most Margarette, if we slack off even a second, who knows if we'll even have a single soul left to remember those we've buried," Haruki retorted, a deep frown appearing on his forehead.

"Three days?!" Letting it out in a yelp, Riley posed a question. "How will the demi-god soldiers even be ready at that point then?!"

"Time acceleration, the same way Asmodia's skills aged down Klian, we'll age up those vessels with false memories of obedience," Haruki shot back an answer without any delay.

While grieving the deaths of Asuka, Athena, and Alice, Haruki had suspended himself in a much slower flow of time, and thus he has had enough time to not only bleed his heart out but also come up with a plan to deal with the upcoming war of annihilation.

"And what's the plan exactly? Fight a war against an unstoppable army capable of bringing down gods with just their leader alone?!" A bit pissed off about the whole thing so soon after the burial, Margarette was the one to break up pretty quickly despite having the most experience with loss.

"The vessels will need souls to make them work, for the most part, I'll be using souls that I have gathered in the obsidian castle, but for the rest, I bet we'll have plenty of volunteers who'd want a new more capable body," planning to transfer souls of experienced soldiers into the vessels, Haruki was ready to throw an army of veteran gods against the god-killing Valkyries.

"And that's supposed to help us stay safe, it's supposed to protect us?" Margarette complained.

"You gain nothing without loss, and only those who are willing to lose everything will participate. The rest, I'll house them in the otherworld under the watchful gaze of Asmodia's pets," with that explanation from her master, Margarette was still aggrieved but she couldn't retort with anything more. "The war will happen regardless, Margarette. Whether we're ready or not, the Valkyries will try and destroy our world, and our people with it. Even our hard-earned memories will disappear and nobody will remember us anymore."

Biting the insides of her mouth, Margarette gulped her dissent before huffing out a sigh. Letting her shoulders fall, she grabbed Riley by the arm and turned around to prepare for the upcoming war.

"If you're right, then I want Riley to be out of this," she demanded, glancing back at Haruki from the edge of her eyes.

"What? No! I won't just stand back!" Riley complained, not willing to stand back while everyone else threw themselves to their deaths.

"I agree with Margarette, someone needs to protect the kids and I can't hand that responsibility to Fay as she's not really a fighter," Haruki said, nodding at Margarette.

"No fucking way! I'm going decide for myself this time, and standing at the sidesli-" 𝙗𝙚𝙙𝒏𝙤𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝒎

"RILEY!" Margarette screamed, shutting Riley in an instant.

Looking up at her mother's face, Riley knew she wasn't giving her an option this time, and doing as she said was the only thing she could do.

"Fuck me…" She muttered under her breath.

Without another wasted moment, Margarette took Riley to the minotaur dungeon where the rest of the soldiers were supposed to be prepped for the war. In the meantime, Haruki had one last thing to do before joining them in the dungeon. Which was to retrace the steps that had first led him to the land of Laria.

'Perhaps looking at the past may help me exercise restraint before the war.' Bottling up all emotions, Haruki was moments away from a violent outbreak. The deaths of his companions have affected him more than anyone, but knowing that doom was soon to come for the rest, he was keeping it all confined until the time came to let his hatred draw blood and paint the very earth a crimson red.