Harem Stealer: Reborn with the God-Tier Sharing System - Chapter 435

Capítulo 435: Chapter 435: Simple game

Chapter 435 – Simple game

Noah sat there, stupefied. The event happened so fast that his own reaction was lagging behind.

In an instant, he was sitting in front of a woman whom he had no idea about. Yet the more perplexing part about this was the innate feeling Noah had to…

…to what?

Be close to her? Be far away from her? To love her? To hate her? To look at her? To snap his head away?

To kiss her feet and call her mother?

Noah was lost.

What was he supposed to do?

His emotions were jumbling all over him, sporadic and filled with budding madness, making him unable to focus on one certain feeling regarding this woman.

It was like she was a living contradiction, and her simple presence affected Noah far beyond what he could possibly fathom.

Panic kicked in, spreading through his body like pulsing veins of poison. For the first time, Noah felt truly like a child. One unable to do anything but quiver.

The woman saw all of this happening, her smile not wavering for a single instant. In truth, she knew what Noah was feeling better than Noah himself.

How could she not?

To her, Noah was nothing but a child. No. Worse than that.

But intrigued she was, for no one should be able to reach this place in normal situations. She could sense the intervention of those children in his coming.

It didn’t stop at that.

Noah had the scent of the Son of Emptiness coating his very existence. Pitiful he was, to not even notice such a thing.

Yet it would be unjust of her to blame Noah for his ignorance. Noah was nothing in front of the Son of Emptiness. That man always had his own plans when doing something. And it was one none could ever guess.

Even his act of protecting her, which she never asked for, was an act filled with the hissing of snakes.

Added to that, He never came to see her. For the Son of Emptiness knew better than to come close to her.

Still, at that time, as she watched the panicking Noah, his words boomed through her mind,

‘Power begets power, Gaia. Remember that for me, will you?’

The woman, Gaia, bared her teeth in a wide, ferocious grin. For a brief instant, her eyes became demonic — blood dripping, demons crying inside, mating together in profane orgies — then suddenly turned back to normal.

Her grin deepened.

‘Oh, but I know, Son of Emptiness. I know well.’ She added inside her mind, then focused back on Noah.

If power attracted power, then what was your goal for giving such a wretched being overwhelming power?

Was it to make Noah close to her? To attract those beings to him?

Noah was not the only one.

Gaia could sense two others. But the influence of the Son of Emptiness on them was thicker than ever.

Seeing this, she smiled in wonder at Noah’s peculiarity. His own reckless actions and his own mother made sure the Son’s influence on him was far lesser than what it should have been.

‘Smart woman. But expected outcome. A being of Earth? Expected indeed. The same as that man.’

How curious.

“Will you play?” Gaia asked Noah, dragging him back to the current reality.

He looked at the woman. Fear was evident in every fiber of his being, but Noah was Noah.

He certainly couldn’t stomach the very fact of acting meek like a gory lamb waiting to be slaughtered. He was here for power. He was here for his family.

He was here for glory.

And it was not by trembling like a loose skirt under a howling wind that he would achieve his goal.

So Noah closed his trembling eyelids. He took an expansive breath, then held it. He held it until his lungs began to burn his soul body. Yet that pain made him calmer.

Unhurriedly, Noah exhaled, steaming out at the same time all his useless overthinking.

‘Fear is a cloud.’ Noah whispered inside his head, ‘a cloud that would bring nothing but darkness to my mind.’

‘Don’t let it overcome you, Noah. Don’t let it cover you in suffocating thoughts.’

He repeated it to himself again and again.

All this time, Gaia watched with interest in her strange eyes.

Finally, Noah finished, then opened his eyes again.

The shift was obvious. Now, the man felt calmer, his gaze steadier and more measured.

It was still hard to look at Gaia’s eyes, so Noah instead rested his gaze between her dark eyebrows.

Feeling much better, he squinted out a crooked smile, “Did I waste your time?”

“Time holds no meaning for me.” Gaia answered with a smile, “Will you play?” She asked again.

“Do I have a choice?”

“You do.”

“Will me not playing lead to my death?”

“Death is a pleasing thing, little Brandon.” Gaia’s eyes became odd, and Noah shivered in silent horror, “Too pleasing for one who trespassed my domain and refused the rules governing it.”

Noah cracked a wry smile, swallowing back his fears, “What type of game?” He asked.

Gaia’s eyes returned to normal, smiling motherly now.

Noah winced at the wrongness of the sudden shift.

But the woman didn’t care. She took the box atop the table, then slowly opened it.

Inside, there was nothing but endless dark. The box widened steadily, reaching the perfect size for one human hand to fit in.

The atmosphere around suddenly became solemn and heavy. Something began to soak the air around them, tasting like the approach of doom mixed with the unknown.

Noah barely managed to keep his calm, his eyes fixed on the box in front of him. The more he looked, the more he seemed to understand and yet not understand at the same time.

That strange feeling choked his mind like a fish out of water.

“The game is simple.” Gaia whispered, pointing her impossibly long finger, with a black sharp nail, at the strange box.

“We will both drop a piece of our soul and blood inside the box. A seed will be born. The seed will divide into two. Your part and mine.”

Gaia paused, looking at the listening Noah. Her smile deepened.

“The seed itself will whisper a word to us. Our words will be different, and the point is to guess the other’s word with three indices.” She raised a finger like a warning, her expression mischievous. “Of course, you cannot lie, and the indices need to be indicative and coherent. If you guess correctly, the word is claimed and your tree will grow.”

“If by three indices you guess nothing, you keep your own word and your tree grows too. If one tree becomes stronger than the other, it can devour the other and form one unique tree.”

She smiled freely, her eyes disappearing in the process, “Then the winner will be decided.”

“Worry not, my power will mirror yours.”

Noah listened as calmly as possible to the rules. It seemed simple, but he knew it would be nothing of the sort.

Still, no choices remained. So all he could do was close his eyes and play the game.

He exhaled, then slowly nodded, “I understand.”

Next, he stretched his hand, placing it above the box. He was in his soul body, so a part of his soul detached from him and entered the box.

A sharp pain screamed inside him. Noah hardened his eyes.

The woman did the same, placing inside a fragment of her soul that regrew immediately after, with no delay at all.

The two souls mixed together, then the box began to glow with intense, impossible light.

“Ah, I didn’t tell you?” Gaia suddenly said, smiling, “Only one being ever played this game with me. And he lost.”

Noah frowned at the sudden information, finding it quite irrelevant at that instant.

Meanwhile, the box shifted and became a patch of earth with a red color. The red was strange. Like the red of blood, but also of impurities.

Something began to sprout from the red earth. A seed. It was divided in half. One side silver, the other holding all the colors of existence.

Gaia continued, “Will you win?”

“What would happen if I lost?” Noah asked, his eyes still fixed on the seed.

“The same fate as your predecessor.”

“That means?”

“You shall know once you lose.”

The seed was fully formed.

And the first words were whispered.

—End of Chapter 435—