Urban Plundering: I Corrupted The System!-Chapter 361: Final Cycle: Rise of the Eternal Bonds, End Written in Blood and Stars

Tessa couldn't help it—she rolled her eyes the second she caught Maya grinning like she'd just won some damn world war.

Typical.

Leave it to Maya to treat a royal announcement like a flex session.

The first three—Judgment, Fenrir, and the Empress—were always fated to accompany the Prince in every life he lived, every timeline he shattered and rebuilt. It was written into the marrow of the existence itself, beyond the understanding of gods, primordials and death and time.

The Ravencroft family, Maya's family, had known it from the moment she first cried in her cradle. That their daughter—Maya—was destined to born as the reircanation of the Empress of the Prince. It had been an honor so profound even witches, who bowed to no one, had swallowed their pride.

But the other two? Fenrir and Judgment?

Their identities were still a mystery.

The statues stood outside Parker's estate like silent sentinels—the wolf, the angelic being with the scales—but no one knew who among the living carried those souls.

No one yet dared to guess.

Helena, as composed as ever, let her gaze drift toward the Zhangs. A knowing smile pulled at the corners of her lips.

"And finally," Helena said, her voice light but unmistakably firm, "the fourth existence. The Yin Yang Phoenix."

The Zhang family—stoic, disciplined, untouched by the pettiness of the other bloodlines—smiled. It wasn't arrogance. It wasn't even pride. It was duty, carved into flesh and spirit. They had always been honored with the warmest burden of birthing the Yin Yang Phoenix across cycles, their lineage charged with safeguarding humanity in every world the Prince reincarnated into.

It was a role older than kingship itself.

And, of course, leave it to Tessa to cut through the awe with the blunt edge of a question.

"So... wait," Tessa said, frowning slightly as she looked between Helena and the Zhangs. "Are the Origin Families like, popping up in every world too? Like, you're just... already there?"

"..."

The whole hall paused, a little stunned at the casual tone—and even more stunned when Helena actually smiled.

"No," Helena said, with a small shake of her head, as if explaining physics to a golden retriever. "We are carried—or more accurately, transferred—into every world the Prince's supposed to be reincarnated into five hundred years before the Prince's arrival. Silent. Waiting."

She tilted her head slightly, her silver hair catching the light like molten glass. "And this world, this life, is the final one. There will be no more reincarnations after this. This is the last."

A ripple moved through the crowd, a weight falling over the room like a silent, heavy curtain.

The final cycle. The end of it all.

Helena's hand slowly fell back to her side as she returned to her place by the throne, her movements once again serene and deadly in their grace. She said no more for now, but her silence screamed the last part that did not need to be spoken aloud—

Before the weight could grow unbearable, Parker moved.

He lifted his head from the throne where he sat, smooth and slow, and lifted one hand casually, cutting off whatever other lecture Helena might've been cooking up.

"That's enough storytelling," Parker said, his voice easy but carrying an undercurrent of something sharp and amused. He stretched slightly, letting the air shift around him with casual command.

He looked down at the gathering with a half-smirk curling his lips.

"It's time," Parker said, his voice rolling through the throne hall like a loaded promise.

The throne hall's air thickened as the heavy doors creaked wider, spilling a dark mist that slithered across the marble floor like a living thing.

From that mist, they emerged.

Four vampires clad in armor blacker than voidlight, the leather etched with blood-runes that shimmered like dying embers. Straps of enchanted rope hung from their gauntlets, twitching and writhing with spells of bondage too old for modern tongues. They walked forward with terrifying synchronization—like death squads of a forgotten empire—dragging behind them a family bound, shackled not just by rope but by ancient will itself.

Every step they took made the hall feel smaller.

Colder.

Power leaked from them—coiled, suppressed, predatory. Shadows seemed to ripple at their heels, as if reality itself recoiled from touching them directly.

At the front of the hall, Helena stood like a silver blade forged in starfire. No words. No movements. Only presence—calm, untouchable, fatal.

When the vampires reached her, they bowed deeply, the blood-runes on their armor briefly flaring as if acknowledging a superior force before retreating. Helena didn't even blink. She simply shifted her gaze to the five figures bound in front of her—and without a word, without raising a finger—the adults crumpled to their knees like puppets whose strings had been slashed.

All except one.

A girl. No older than twelve.

She stood shaking, tiny fists balled at her sides, her head tilted up in defiance. Magic crackled faintly around her like static—raw, uncontrolled, but burning bright.

The hall's temperature shifted.

As if the universe itself was holding its breath.

High above on the throne platform, Parker smiled.

A slow, lazy thing that somehow felt heavier than gravity.

Recognition danced in his black irises as they pinned one of the armored vampires—the same bastard he'd clashed with over Naomi.

The same one who had dared to touch what was his.

A muscle ticked along Parker's jaw, but his smile didn't waver.

At Naomi's side, Elena tightened her protective hold, while Naomi herself trembled—fighting between fear and the small ember of rage that Parker's mere presence now helped her keep lit.

Parker rose from the throne in one smooth movement, the goblet vanishing from his hand with a ripple of pure will.

No dramatics. No sound.

Just a sudden shift in reality, like gravity choosing a new master.

The hall bowed to him without needing to bend.

His descent from the platform was deliberate, measured—each step pressing down on the hall like invisible iron. The marble didn't crack beneath his boots, but it wanted to. fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm

He didn't look at the vampires.

Didn't spare a glance for the family crushed under Helena's presence.

All his focus—lethal and quiet and infinite—was reserved for the small girl standing alone against a storm she couldn't comprehend.

When he stopped before her, the size difference was absurd—he was a mountain and she was a spark.

Yet she didn't flinch.

Didn't look away.

And then—without warning—Parker bent down.

The air shimmered around him like heat waves bending the fabric of existence.

Nyxlith blood pulsing quietly, terrifyingly.

He smiled.

But not a smile meant to conquer.

Not the sharp curve he wore when crushing enemies.

It was something far more dangerous. Compassionate. Understanding.

The kind of smile that made galaxies kneel without ever knowing why.

Magic coiled lazily around him like a dragon shifting in its sleep, brushing the girl's trembling form—and instead of burning her, it seemed to settle the chaos sparking around her.

In that moment, the small defiant child blinked up at him—and the terror in her eyes melted into something else entirely.

Recognition.