The fall of the human race

“Waa. Waa.”

A wailing voice made Seth slowly open his eyes. His eyelids felt heavier than ever before. Leora’s loud wails greeted him as soon as he opened his eyes.

Raising his hand slowly, he moved it to pat her ashen hair and said weakly: “I told you not to cry.”

Leora immediately raised her head from his chest, her face completely covered in snot and tears as she said: “Don’t move. I’ll get Caitlin.”

Seth hardened his hold on her head and said: “Don’t. I’ll be fine. Let me rest for a moment.”

He then didn’t wait for her to reply as he closed his eyes again.

‘Tell me the diagnosis…’

<Lust source has sustained heavy damage. Integrity at less than 32%.>

< Host’s soul has suffered losses of over 31% of memories. Partially recovered from the system.>

< Leora’s light source has sustained damage of 49%>

< Leora’s soul lost 1% of her memories. Irrecoverable.>

‘What about my divinity?’

<Sealed and inactive.>

Seth snorted in his head, knowing for sure that his divinity had acted up.

‘This is still acceptable.’

Seth rested in bed for the rest of the day, only waking up at night. Sitting up from the bed, he smiled wryly when he spotted the blood-covered sheets and Leora sleeping with her head on the side of the bed.

Teleporting away so he won’t bother her, he cleaned himself up using his destruction energy and asked: ‘How much data did you manage to get from that shitfest?’

<When I’ve become active, everything was over. The only information available is from the host’s distorted memories.>

‘I doubt my memories were consumed by the lust source, so it must be my divinity. Anyway, even with my memories missing, we have once more confirmed its ability to bridge souls.’

Seth then looked at the sleeping Leora and asked: ‘Are you sure my divinity didn’t get noticed? I don’t want any of those greedy fools to stick their noses in my business.’

<There are no signs of any activity, but with access to the records, it’s impossible to know for sure.>

‘Hm. Prepare a report for Hollie.’

After being done with the report, Seth woke Leora up. She looked confused at first before asking: “How are you?”

Seth nodded and said: “I’m fine. I’m more worried about you. Your light source is damaged, as is your soul.”

“I’ve stopped my energy from leaking any further. What happened? I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my chest and passed out….”

“My lust source seems to have interfered with your soul. Something happened that I can’t remember, but our souls and sources were damaged. I’m sorry. I should have been more careful.”

Leora nodded and said: “It’s alright. I can fix it. I won’t lose but a month or so of progress.”

Seth smiled and rubbed her head before saying: “Take care of yourself and continue cultivating. I might be able to help you with those memories after all. It will just take a bit more time.”

Leora’s eyes turned round, and she asked: “Are you serious?”

“I am. I don’t remember much from when the lust source connected our souls, but I remember my consciousness entering your soul. If I can get better control over that ability, I might be able to help. You just need to hang on.”

Leora nodded, hope rekindled in her eyes, as Seth stood up. “Go and focus on healing your source.”

Leora grabbed his hand, lowering her head to hide her face from Seth’s as she said: “If it helps, you can do it. I can take it.”

“Both our souls are injured right now, not to speak about our sources. It was wrong of me to propose that in the first place. Sex right now will only bring you more pain and no results. Focus on recovering.”

After having said his piece, Seth teleported away from his room, Leaving Leora to rest and arriving at Maya’s since he knew she was busy at the palace.

Laying in her bed, he sighed and muttered: “Two children….”

‘System, I remember something about two children. Do you know what it might be?’

<…>

‘Well, it sucks that I lost the memories of my time in her soul, but I still made progress.’

<It would be best if host fixed the damage to the lust source before continuing with the list.>

‘That’s sensible…’

For the next week, until the Asteria academy’s planned mobilization, Seth was on recovery duty, only having sex with his lovers whenever he would get the opportunity.

With most of them being busy, Aleena and Henrietta were the ones to ‘suffer’ the entire time.

Just as the system had predicted, his lust source barely reacted anymore, even their nightly activities turning quite ordinary and tame.

Once the week ended, Seth and Maya decided to deliver their speech to the academy as King and Queen of Endora.

A large meeting was called in the Academy Arena, with ascended filling up the entire place.

Seth and Maya appeared on a platform in front of everyone, the rest of the teachers sitting silently behind them as they began their speech.

“Here were met again, students of Asteria.”

“When you all joined Asteria, you were nothing more than scared children that knew nothing of the world of the ascended, but under the careful guidance of your teachers here, you all entered this wonderful world as ascended in your own rights.”

“The journey ahead of you is still long. Even we here, standing on this platform, are barely at the beginning, but I trust that each of you will walk this path with your heads raised high.”

“You are no longer the weak children you were when you came, but strong ascended, able to change the world around you with but a wave of your hands, but you must not become complacent. Remember that the world is vast, and there’s always someone stronger than you out there.”

“That’s why you must strive to grow even stronger. I, your king, and the rest of the teachers will continue to help you on your path, but how far you can travel will still depend on each of you individually.”

Seth smiled and allowed the crowd to cheer before Maya started speaking.

“You have all been informed of the mission that awaits you, but there are a few words I feel the need to repeat.”

Maya started telling everyone about the goals of their mission and the changes that would happen at the academy by introducing the points and rewards system.

Seth then started speaking a little about the future he imagined for their kingdom, painting a grand image of power, riches, and prosperity.

For the rest of the ceremony, Seth allowed Hollie and the rest of the teachers to start organizing the groups and distributing the maps to everyone.

At noon of the same day, like a dam that had broken over, wave after wave of ascended could be seen leaving the capital of Endora, expanding in all directions heading to fulfill their missions.

The rest of the citizens also found out about the mission and came out of their homes and shops, waving the departing ascended good luck on their mission.

Seth, together with Maya and Hollie, watched the entire show from high up in the air. Maya hung tightly onto Seth’s arm and said: “Now that the kids have left, the parents can finally have some fun.”

Seth chuckled and ignored the hands moving above his crotch area to turn toward Hollie: “How is the study of soul knowledge going?”

“There’s still a lot to go through… two months? Maybe.”

“That’s fine. My source is almost completely fixed, and I might be able to soon finish gathering all the data. Even if I’m gone by the time you finish it, I’ll still be able to have you deliver your results to me.”

“How?” asked Hollie with a raised eyebrow.

“That’s a secret.” Replied Seth with a smirk, moving his hand around her waist and bringing her closer to him.

Maya, on the other side, pouted and said: “Hey. Can you give your Queen some love as well?”

Seth slapped her ass and moved to kiss her forehead before saying: “Now that you reminded me, I guess it’s time for me to hold the other weddings as well. No point in delaying it anymore.”

“Me and my stupid mouth.” Muttered Maya.

Seth chuckled, and even Hollie smiled softly, much to Maya’s distress.

Annoyed by Seth’s cheekiness, Maya decided to drop a bomb she was preparing on his head.

“I want a child, Seth.”

Seth, and even Hollie, turned towards her with their jaws hanging wide.

“What are you looking at me like that? Hilda has been pestering me with questions of when we’re going to have a baby all the time while you were gone, and now that I thought about it, having a little Seth around doesn’t seem so bad.”

Seth sighed and lowered his head, knowing from Maya’s aura that she was serious about her proposal.

“Maya… We can’t right now.”

“Why not?” asked Maya, raising her eyebrow at his reaction.

“Have you seen any ascended with children?” asked Seth with another sigh.

Maya lowered her head and quickly thought about all the ascended of the academy as she asked: “Don’t tell me….”

On the other side, Hollie sighed and said: “So it’s indeed as I thought….”

Maya’s body shuddered, and she moved away from the two a few steps: “You knew as well… Why? How? Why didn’t you say anything when I promised Hilda I’ll try to convince Seth.”

“Because I was not sure… I noticed this a long time ago, but it was never in my interest to research it since I never planned on having one. The energy inside our bodies will most probably kill the unborn child... Am I right, Seth?”

Seth nodded and moved to hug Maya as he said: “That is indeed what happens. Most ascended don’t really care about children, so none of them have tried it, but 99 out of 100 children would die in their ascended mother’s wombs before they get the chance to be born. The only ones who live are those who share their mother’s affinity, but the stronger the mother is, the less likely it is for a pregnancy to be successful.”

“Why do you think that humans still didn’t go extinct even as ascended dominated the world?”

“The age of the ascended would continue for two thousand years when the age of decay will begin.”

“The constant wars between the ascended of the continent had resulted in a culling of the human population. The wars continued claiming ascended lives, and there were not enough births to replenish the rate of deaths.”

“The population of ascended and humans over the entire continent had reached under less than ten billion until a change finally happened. A strong ascended gathered all the leaders of the entire continent and created a country only for humans where no ascended was allowed entry called Heaven.”

“The country was formed right over the territory of the Kingdom of Sorrow, and all the surrounding kingdoms were responsible for protecting its borders. Humans all over the continent were allowed to freely leave their kingdoms and join Heaven.”

“All the humans found with an affinity will have to join one of the surrounding kingdoms. Many people were against it, but with the possibility of extinction knocking on their doors, they had no choice but to agree.”

“Since there were only humans in Heaven, its technological development spiked, and during the new age of progress, they built the most technologically developed city ever in existence. The surrounding kingdoms also entered a period of peace.”

“That all lasted until human technology brought forth their own undoing… they developed a way to gather eggs from women and sperm from males to make children in a special incubator.”

“This would have allowed ascended to finally procreate again, so the humans did their best to keep the technology a secret. That obviously failed in the end.”

“One of the surrounding kingdoms managed to find out about it and steal the technology. With the ambition to reign over the entire continent, they kept performing different experiments and managed to constantly create new children, all of them with an affinity.”

“While the rest of the continent was enjoying their peace, hundreds of new ascended were being born every day in that kingdom.”

“Needless to say, the number of ascended there eventually surpassed all the other kingdoms combined, and they finally attacked Heaven. The human population or the other kingdoms didn’t expect the attack and were completely wiped out in days.”

After completely wiping Heaven, they retreated back into their territory. The other kingdoms were outraged and declared war upon them, moving their troops to attack, unknowingly falling into a previously prepared trap."

“Needless to say, that kingdom won the war, declared itself the continent’s only empire, and continued to rule for over an entire eon. The remaining human population was scarce, and most surviving ones ended up as slaves for the ascended. Their glory days over…”

Seeing that the two were listening carefully to him, Maya even having tears in her eyes, Seth smiled and said: “Well, that’s old history now. You don’t need to be so sad. I already know how the incubation technology works, so I’ll be able to replicate it in the near future.”

Maya nodded and rubbed her belly, her face still slightly sad as she asked: “But I won’t be able to birth our child myself, will I?”

“I’m sorry, love…” said Seth with a sigh, pulling her tighter in his embrace.

‘I can’t promise you anything yet, but I’ll do anything I can to find a way for you to carry our child….’