Returner Ch 56 - END (Patreon)

Chapter 56

We were close to being ready for my departure. Gloria had joined me in bed the last several nights, but refused to submit in truth. Though, I think I awakened a new joy for sex in her.

I was initiating the rest of the new Mul Branova ladies as well as handing out potions to help them awaken their bloodlines, and humored them as they reported some rather mundane work.

They were expanding and supporting Gloria with anything that came remotely close to the player world.

“Sir.” Amanda came up to me. “I got a call from the one watching your mother. She said a big man, Level 68, just pushed his way into the building.” She showed me her phone, it was a picture of a man I knew very well.

I nearly tipped my chair over. “When did this happen?”

“Just now. I’ll get the car ready.” She rushed out, and I was right on her heels.

Thorin Aegir. He was a powerful man in my past life. In fact, some credited him for the end to the War for Supremacy. After all, he had charged into the Heros Clan because they had killed his woman, and had torn the head off the patriarch and several of the elders before leaving alive.

After that show with all the pressures on the clan, it had collapsed into a smoldering pile of what it once was. The clan had survived in a much lesser sense and was no longer considered one of the top powers of the world.

Yet Thorin still earned the nickname ‘Clan Killer’. The man was an outcast from the Borrson Clan, he had the bloodline of a Steel Titan along with a powerful coordinated class.

Was he tracking down some lead related to the clan? He had to be in conflict with them at least in minor ways before he had resorted to killing the patriarch.

I threw myself into the car behind Amanda as she took off.

“Should our person on the ground try to intervene?” Amanda asked.

“No. She can’t stop him.” Even if it was years earlier than when he earned the ‘Clan Killer’ title, he was powerful. The Mul Branova ladies wouldn’t hold a candle to him.

“You know him?” Amanda asked.

“He’s strong. Very strong,” I warned her. “Let me go in alone, but keep the car on, I might have to extract my mother.” Could this be part of his problem with the Heros clan?

“Understood.” She peeled out, her foot most assuredly plastered to the floor of the car as she raced through traffic as if everyone else was at a standstill.

This was not good. Thorin was half the reason I wasn’t going to invest too heavily in my own clan. It seemed that they had too many enemies, and strengthening them overmuch might create more ripples than I could account for.

Not to mention, their infighting spilt out to other forces more than once.

Yet here was Thorin ‘Clan Killer’ Aegir. If I wasn’t careful, he was going to kill my mother, which would mean I’d have to kill him.

Thoughts of him being the poisoner or someone sent by the same person flickered through my mind. Too many useless ‘what if’s’ that I couldn’t act on at present.

So when Amanda’s tires screeched to a halt in front of the apartment building, I threw myself out, rushing up the stairs to face the situation head on.

I raced up the steps and broke my mother’s door off its hinges.

She was cornered in the kitchen with Thorin looming over her.

“You touch her and I’ll fucking kill you.” I had a handful of Duggarfin teeth in one hand and a B rank club in the other.

Thorin was no fucking joke. The man, player status aside, was seven-five, and like all the Borrson, was just big in about every aspect. A lot of them were like me in my previous life and continued to grow well past adulthood.

[Thorin Borrson Aegir

Level: 68

Class: Iron Viking SS

Status: Amorous, Confused, Angry

Strength: 1832

Agility: 391

Vitality: 1632

Intelligence: 421

Spirit: 856

Skills:

Bloodline of the Steel Titan SS (Awakened)

Titan Physique S

Steel Physique S

Hard Skin A

Fire Resistance A

Poison Immunity C

Electrical Immunity A

Shadow Immunity F

Frost Immunity D

Viking Frenzy A

Ax Mastery S

Titanic Strength B

…]

It just kept going. The man was strong.

Like nearly all the Borrson Clan, he had a berserker class. Yet he had a paired class and bloodline that would give him an innate advantage in his growth.

Thankfully, he wasn't nearly as strong as the one time I had fought him in my past life; he was as strong as many of the old men in the clans. Though, it was that fight that had evolved my Regeneration the first time.

I would have to play this carefully, but I should be able to escape this with my mother and myself alive thanks to Last Stand.

“And who are you? Some minder from the clan?” Thorin’s voice was a deep resonating bass as he drew an ax from his spatial ring ready to kill us both.

“Stop it, both of you.” My mother’s voice cracked with the force that only a mother or a lover could have.

To my utter astonishment, Thorin put away the ax and scratched the back of his head. “Dear, he came at me.”

“Dear? DEAR?!” I repeated the word. In my whole five hundred years of life, I wasn’t as shocked as I was right now. “Mom, why is he calling you ‘Dear’?!” I demanded answers even as a potential one was squashed down in the back of my head.

No way.

Thorin was… big like me… a berserker like me… Now that I really looked at him, he was a little bigger around than I was in my past life, but the face… there was a passing resemblance.

I pulled out a chair and sat down on it with a thunk as the Duggarfin teeth and the club disappeared into my spatial rings. “Don’t tell me.”

“Bran. Meet your father. Thor, meet Bran, your son,” my mother sighed as if this was basic knowledge.

I realized I had it all wrong when I had first arrived. She certainly didn’t look helpless right now.

“Thor, you aren’t supposed to be here,” she said sternly, glaring at the giant of a man.

“Well… you see…” Thorin stumbled over himself to try and make an excuse.

I sat there dumbfounded as my mother cowed Thorin ‘The mother fucking Clan Killer’ Aegis, the founder of the Aegis Clan, and one of the most feared men on earth for over a hundred years.

Had I gone back in time, or into a parallel universe where things had become opposites?

“You were in the hospital. I saw the payments,” Thorin argued, but even then he sounded weak.

“You said you didn’t track that account,” my mother scolded him yet there wasn’t much heat behind it, like she’d already guessed as much. “Anyway, as you can see, I’m out now and doing fine.”

“If you used that, then you were in trouble,” Thorin huffed.

“You took how long to get here?” My mother pursed her lips in rebuttal.

They were arguing like a married couple. They were a married couple. I had to remind myself.

This whole situation had me reeling. The ramifications!

If he was married to my mother… then… did he attack the Heros Clan because he perceived her death as their fault? Maybe someone inside the clan was responsible for the poisoning.

Either way, if my mother didn’t die, then the final act of the War for Supremacy would never be kicked off, or at least not as it had happened in my past life.

I rubbed my forehead. Shit, this was more than a butterfly flap. I had just made a giant shift in the future. Possibly so much that the value of my ‘future’ knowledge would decrease quite a bit.

“You know how it is, I can’t fly,” Thorin complained.

“Why can’t you fly?” I asked mechanically.

“He weighs like five tons,” my mother said, answering my question. “It’s the titan physique, more than a few of the Borrson’s get it, and it makes them ultra dense both physically and mentally, like the fact that he shouldn’t be here.” She poked the large deadly man in her kitchen.

I knew of the titan physique, but I hadn’t thought about it in term of modern travel.

“Which is why he probably had to take a freight ship here and walk most of it.” My mother was not happy. “We shouldn’t be seen together even if you were outcast from your family. You have a titan bloodline, and they’d kill you and Bran knowing that you passed it to the Heros.”

“I have the Heros Bloodline,” I corrected my mother, glancing at Thorin and realizing that with the strength of his bloodline, I should have had a titan bloodline. Yet my Heros blood had overridden it.

“Same thing.” She waved my comment away.

“You were in the hospital. How could I stay away?” Thorin stomped and shook the apartment. “Those bastards could have easily cured you.”

My mother pat the air to calm him and stop Thorin from collapsing the building on us all. “There was no obligation, and I’m not entering instances to pay them tithe for the express purpose of staying off their radar.”

“Then what is he!?” Thorin waved at me.

“My son, who’s about to go through clan rites and is smarter than you are giving him credit for.” My mother sighed, it seemed that my father was a handful. “Bran, now would be a great time to show off that head of yours.”

“Thorin.” My voice sounded just as exhausted as I felt. “You’re my father.” Yet rather than focus on the present my mind was swimming through my past life relooking at things.

Did he know in my past life? Is that why he didn’t finish me in that fight? I had thought he had taken me for dead before my Regeneration upgraded and I survived just barely.

But if he knew? I was having multiple headaches at once.

“Yes, we’ve established that Bran,” my mother sighed. “Clan Rites, remember.”

“Yeah. We are leaving tomorrow.” I breathed and pulled myself together. Rather than worry about everything, I’d use this opportunity. “I’ll be returning here afterwords with mom. So, if you want to hide out until we are back, I have a fortress being built outside the city.”

Thorin raised an eyebrow. “A fortress? But you are just being initiated?”

He tried to Inspect me, and I pushed it aside. His brow furrowed and he closed the gap between me and him in an instant, hitting me in the gut hard enough to surprise me and shatter my concentration long enough for him to Inspect me without my resisting.

“Ah. You’ve been initiated.” He dropped me.

I puked blood on the floor. “What the fuck.”

A good half of my ribs were cracked, and I think he just popped my spleen. Holy shit, that was a punch. Thankfully, such pain barely phased me, and I could just put on an act, which wasn’t hard with the actual damage done. I was able to weave what they saw, but I showed them enough of the truth.

“Don’t try and hide from me.” He bent down over me. “Oh, Regeneration. That’s a good one. Sadly, I don’t get hurt enough to train it. You should be thanking your old man for helping you.”

“Thank you.” My voice dripped with sarcasm.

My mother had her head tilted as she had managed to Inspect me during that moment too. “We both have health potions. You weren’t in any danger. That class… Vampire?”

“Very low rank for the name. Something’s wrong,” Thorin agreed. “And that spirit, incredible over four thousand. Soul Eating Arts? There are records of those in our clan, but no practices.”

“He’s been hunting demons in the city,” my mother said. “Now we know why. He’s eating them.”

Thorin wrinkled his nose. “Needs to work on his physical stats with that dedication. He might be able to get a physique after he awakens his bloodline. I’ll get someone at the clan to sneak me something appropriate once he’s back and we know what it is.”

“Thank you, Thorin, though his sword skills seem to be coming along.” My mother clicked her tongue. “I bet it’s still that brutish form. You ought to fight with an ax if you want to fight like this idiot.” She hooked a thumb at Thorin.

I peeled myself off the ground, my organs healing and ribs settling back into place. “Well, thank you both for caring.”

“Still, you can’t go to the clan. The Rites require Level 1,” Thorin said.

I glanced at him and smiled, before taking out several vials of blood and sampling them each. My stats exploded as I ingested Simone and Gloria’s bloodline along with the rest of the new Mul Branova girls. “Don’t worry. I just need to hide that I’m already initiated for a little while.”

My class ranked up twice, clearly Simone and Gloria’s blood had a profound effect.

“Tricks are stupid in front of absolute power. You need to grow stronger,” Thorin said, glanced at my mother. “You will be back, or I’ll hunt you down again.”

“We will be back.” My mother put a hand on my shoulder. “Won’t we, Bran?”

“Of course. I promise not to cause too much trouble in the clan.” I smiled, lying through my teeth.

If Thorin wasn’t going to crush the clan, then my plans needed to change and change quickly, because my return had already made greater waves than I imagined. I would just have to become strong enough to weather them head on.

[Name: Bran Heros

Level: 1

Class: Blood Hegemon B

Status: Healthy

Strength: 655

Agility: 381

Vitality: 770

Intelligence: 376

Spirit: 11321

Skills:

Soul Gaze SSS

Soul Resilience S

Blunt Weapon Proficiency C

Endurance B

Throwing Proficiency E

Blood Boil B

Blood Siphon B

Blood Bolt B

Bloodline Collection 86

Regeneration B

Fire Resistance F

Poison Resistance C

Ax Proficiency D

Charge B

Bloodink Quality D

Stealth D

Inscription C

Swim D (Bracer)

Last Stand E

Blood Hex B

Blood Transfusion B

Blood Blade B

Crimson Barrier D

Sword Proficiency A

Worshiped F

Sanguine Locking E]