Ancestral Lineage - Chapter 458

Chapter 458: Lilith Versus Kraken (Throwback…)

Lilith had easily found Kraken during her travel. As for the young sin of Gluttony, she totally ignored the call. It wasn’t as important as the current threat to her empire and her future… Kraken.

She found her sleeping lazily on the surface of Mare Animae, the Sea of Souls in Helheim, as if it were a heated bath made specially for her.

Kraken lay on her back, hands folded behind her head, her tentacles lazily swaying in the ether. Through a peak in the robes she wore, one could see her pink, yet closed, cave.

Her eyes were half-closed, humming a soft tune… like she owned the place.

Lilith’s left eye twitched.

A throne appeared behind her in a swirl of black flame, but she didn’t sit. Her voice floated across the Sea of Souls, dangerously calm.

“You have ten seconds to explain why an intruder is napping on my ocean.”

Kraken’s ear twitched. She didn’t sit up. She didn’t open her eyes. She just sighed.

“Owner? Intruder?” Kraken murmured. “Did you bump your head? This place feels like mine.”

Lilith blinked once. Then twice. A vein popped.

“My patience is not bottomless.”

Kraken finally cracked an eye open and… froze.

Lilith froze, too.

For one heartbeat, the world held its breath.

Because the moment their eyes met, the bond snapped into place.

The soulmate-thread.

The signature.

The unmistakable pull.

Both of them felt it.

Both of them felt it.

And both of them ignored it instantly out of sheer stubbornness.

“Get off my sea,” Lilith demanded.

Kraken stretched her arms with a yawn. “No.”

“Do not test me.”

“Already tested,” Kraken replied, smiling faintly. “You failed.”

Lilith’s hand twitched.Her aura flared.

Kraken stood… or rather rose, tentacles pushing her up elegantly from the soul-water.She cracked her knuckles with enthusiasm.

“Good. I was tired of waiting for a challenge.”

Lilith’s cloak whipped behind her.

“You dare fight the Queen of Helheim in her own domain?”

“Queen? Cute. I’ve killed queens.”

Lilith vanished.

Kraken’s grin widened.

And then the entire sea detonated.

Soul-water burst into spiraling torrents.Waves roared backward.Spectral storms formed instantly under the force of their clash.

Kraken’s tentacles blurred, each one able to crush ships, but Lilith caught them mid-strike with two fingers, twisted, and slammed Kraken into the sea so hard the shockwave rattled the dead.

Kraken burst out laughing.

“Oof. I like you already.”

Lilith did not respond; she simply appeared above Kraken, a palm descending like a verdict, flattening her into the abyss below.

But Kraken refused to stay down.

She surged upward, transforming the sea into a whirlpool as eight titanic tentacles surged from below, each glowing with abyssal runes.

“You’re fun!” she shouted.

“You’re an idiot,” Lilith replied.

Their powers slammed together, fracturing the horizon.

Lilith danced through Kraken’s barrage like a wraith, fingers gliding across Kraken’s cheek, only for Kraken to bite at her hand fiercely.

Lilith’s brows rose.

“That almost hurt.”

“Then I’ll try harder!”

“You won’t succeed.”

Lilith’s patience snapped with the elegance of a guillotine.

She lifted a single hand.

Reality bent.

The Sea of Souls parted like a curtain, obedience incarnate.A pillar of black flame erupted beneath Kraken, swallowing her whole.

When it cleared, Kraken was lying flat on her back again, steam rising from her hair.Bruised.Singing slightly.And yet smiling.

“Ow. Okay. You win.”Kraken raised her hand weakly. “Give me a minute.”

Lilith sighed.

“For someone so strong, you lose embarrassingly fast.”

Kraken shrugged, still sprawled across the glowing sea. “You’re stronger. And annoying. Perfect combination.”

Lilith looked down at her… and the soulmate-thread tugged at her heart again.

Lilith clicked her tongue.

“Stand up.”

Kraken blinked. “No.”

Lilith stared.

Kraken stared back.

“…Fine,” Lilith muttered, rolling her eyes as she tapped her fingers lightly. Kraken drifted upward, suspended by a gentle force.

Their faces were inches apart.

“You are chaotic,” Lilith said.

“You are terrifying,” Kraken countered.

“You’re mine,” Lilith whispered.

Kraken’s grin softened, turning almost shy.

“And you’re mine.”

The Sea of Souls rippled with approval.

The memory ended.

And Lilith looked at Kraken, who was still scowling, still furious, still competitive, but beneath it, still hers.

“You really were impossible from the start,” Lilith murmured.

Kraken crossed her arms, cheeks puffing slightly. “And you loved me anyway.”

“Unfortunately.”

Kraken’s tentacles swayed smugly.

Across the realms, Ethan’s power roared.

Kraken’s eyes softened.

Lilith’s lips curled faintly.

And their shared thought rang silent but undeniable:

We’re coming home to him soon.

…

The mood in the chamber softened after the warmth of the shared embrace, a quiet glow settling over the enormous bed like a veil of safety. Ethan lay at the center, the eleven women he loved folded gently around him, heads resting on his chest, fingers intertwined with his, bodies wrapped around him like constellations finding their rightful place.

It wasn’t lust that filled the room, not the world-shaking kind he had wielded in battles or transformations. It was the quieter intimacy he rarely got to have. The sort where soft laughter is worth more than power, where Clara’s forehead pressed to his shoulder felt like a blessing, where Harley’s tiny smile as she played with his fingers felt like an entire universe sighing in relief.

For a time, the world outside the walls dissolved. They spoke in muted voices, fretting over him, teasing him, telling him how terrifying he’d been in the battle, and Ethan teasing them right back. Pisces curled against his right side, still trembling from the storm she’d unleashed at Leon. Asteria and Vaeloria lay near his head, combing through his hair, smoothing out strands like they were untangling fate itself. Seraphis stretched out like a lazy cat across his legs. Lisa pressed a small kiss to his temple. Carmen rested her cheek on his heart. Elaine made a soft hum whenever Ethan brushed his thumb over the back of her hand. Christel snuggled shamelessly into the crook of his arm.

There was laughter, warmth, murmured affection, the soft kind of closeness that wraps around the ribs and says: stay alive, because this exists.

But then the air changed.

Not cold. Not warm. More like the residual pressure of something immense brushing the fabric of reality, a reminder that what Ethan had done to Leon wasn’t just punishment. It was a metaphysical engraving. A rewriting.

And it was still lingering.

A faint ripple pulsed through the chamber, like a heartbeat belonging to no creature in the room. Ethan exhaled slowly, and the eleven felt it immediately.

Harley lifted her head. “Darling… that’s the same feeling from earlier.”

Clara’s fingers tightened. “The moment you touched Leon. That wasn’t a spell, Ethan. It wasn’t any known magic.”

Ethan didn’t pretend otherwise.

He shifted, gathering them a little closer, his voice low but steady. “It’s the resonance of what I imposed on him. Memory erasure is simple. Guilt retention isn’t. It’s… heavy. It clings. Like ink that keeps trying to rewrite the page.”

Pisces shivered, not in fear, but in grim satisfaction. “Good.”

But Asteria, ever the careful one, glanced toward the ceiling as though expecting the universe to answer her. “Ethan… that power felt beyond Saint level. It wasn’t divine either. It wasn’t Creation, Destruction, or anything we’ve seen. It was something older. Something that judges.”

Vaeloria continued softly, “It felt like… consequence made manifest.”

And just like that, the warmth in the room shifted into something humbler, deeper, because they all realized that in the midst of love and tenderness, Ethan was holding a force that made even ancient powers tremble.

He breathed in, and the ripple responded, as though the punishment itself were tethered to him.

Ethan closed his eyes. “Leon will live. He will forget everything he ever was, everything he ever did, every reason he had to justify his hatred. But the guilt will stay. He will live with it, even if he doesn’t understand why. Every atrocity he committed will hang in his heart like a weight without a name.”

Seraphis rested her chin atop his knee. “A fate worse than death…”

Lisa whispered, “And a mercy compared to what he deserved.”

Then Ethan opened his eyes, and the ripple finally calmed, settling back into silence like a beast returning to slumber.

He looked around at the women who loved him, who had fought alongside him, cried for him, bled for him. “I didn’t want another corpse. I didn’t want another tragedy to add to the world’s pile. I wanted… balance. A punishment that forces him to feel the truth of what he was.”

Pisces squeezed his hand. “You chose the right thing.”

The warmth returned slowly, like a sunrise reclaiming the horizon after a storm.

Harley nestled close again. “Let the world fear you. Let them whisper. But here… you’re ours.”

Clara nuzzled into his chest. “And we’re not letting go.”

And the chamber settled once more, not into passion, not into battle readiness, but into that rare, irreplaceable quiet reserved for those who have survived something impossible together.

A quiet that felt like home.

Have some idea about my story? Comment it and let me know.

Like it ? Add to library！