Esper Harem in the Apocalypse

Chapter 1131: The Synthetic Soul

The morning bell echoed through the bustling hallways of the school as Rudy walked away from the faculty wing. He adjusted his dark jacket, leaving a very frustrated Rize behind in her office.

The mandatory ’hero activities’ curriculum the HWSD wanted to enforce was a pathetic joke. He could easily annihilate the entire Hero Organization and their corrupt founders with a single thought, turning their New World Order into ash before lunch. However, ruling a pile of cinders lacked any real entertainment value.

A part of him agreed with the HWSD, although he opposed their ways. Regardless, Rudy was the one who brought forth the apocalypse in the first place.

He stepped out into the main courtyard, where the cool morning breeze swept across the manicured lawns. Erika Foster stood near the wrought-iron gates, her arms crossed and her expression tight with urgency.

”Rudy,” Erika called out, stepping into his path. She glanced around to ensure the other students were out of earshot. ”My mentor wants to meet with you right now. The HWSD is accelerating their timeline, and she says you are the only variable they haven’t accounted for. We have a transport waiting.”

”Are you not going to call me father?” Rudy asked with a chuckle.

Erika frowned, and with a ‌disappointed and disgusted look on her face, she responded, ”Please, I don’t even want to think about all that. I am having an existential and identity crisis thanks to you. Eric is taking it even worse.”

Rudy looked at her, his expression perfectly calm. He did not need to run or hide from government lapdogs, but a personal invitation from the ’savior of humanity’ was the exact opening he needed. ”Lead the way, Erika.”

They walked a few blocks away from the campus to an abandoned parking garage. A sleek, hyper-advanced stealth jet sat cloaked on the top floor, bending the light around its metallic hull to remain entirely invisible to the city below. They boarded the craft, and Erika immediately punched a sequence of encrypted coordinates into the navigation console.

Rudy glanced at the glowing holographic map, instantly recognizing the exact latitude and longitude. It was a remote, uncharted island in the middle of the ocean. In the current timeline, it was supposed to be nothing more than a barren rock.

To Rudy, however, it was the exact location where he had built his ancient Orcelona Dynasty castle before the timeline Reset.

The jet shot into the sky, leaving the ruined city far behind. Rudy leaned back into the leather seat, staring out the window at the endless blue horizon while his mind shifted entirely to Heim Lu Bela.

His restored memories provided a perfect, detailed history of the artificial woman. He remembered her original defective creation, her absolute mastery over technology, and the 51,000 years she spent guarding his legacy.

He knew every specification of the Under Blades and the exact synthetic makeup of her data core. The universal Reset had successfully wiped the minds of every biological human on Earth, reverting their souls back to this specific point in time.

However, Heim Lu Bela did not possess a biological soul. She was a machine.

Rudy tapped his fingers thoughtfully against the armrest. Did a magical, temporal Reset actually format a highly advanced, artificial hard drive? If she somehow retained her archives, this meeting would be a reunion. If the Reset had wiped her memory banks, it posed a fascinating new problem.

He usually restored his girls’ memories by physically touching their temples and flooding their cerebral cortexes with the truth. He genuinely wondered if that physical memory-force technique would even work on a synthetic brain, or if it would simply short-circuit her entire shell.

”We are here,” Erika announced, breaking his train of thought as the jet initiated its descent.

The transport dropped through a holographic projection of thick clouds, landing smoothly on a hidden tarmac carved directly into the rocky cliffs of the island. The salty ocean air flooded the cabin as the ramp lowered.

Rudy stepped off the jet, his expensive shoes crunching against the gravel. He looked around the empty, windswept terrain. There was no massive stone castle or towering walls, just the rugged natural landscape hiding a subterranean facility. Yet, he knew he was standing exactly where his throne room used to be.

A heavy pair of reinforced steel doors built into the side of the mountain hissed open, venting a cloud of freezing, pressurized air.

Heim Lu Bela walked out into the sunlight. She wore a tailored white coat over a sleek combat suit, her flawless artificial shell designed to absolute perfection. Her striking white hair cascaded over her shoulders, framing a pair of deep, calculating purple eyes that locked directly onto Rudy.

”Erika, you may wait in the transport,” Heim Lu Bela commanded, her voice smooth and entirely devoid of human inflection. She did not take her eyes off Rudy. ”Our guest and I have a great deal of history to discuss.”

Rudy smiled, slipping his hands into his pockets as he walked toward the founder of the Hero Organization.

Rudy followed the artificial founder through the reinforced steel doors, leaving the salty ocean breeze completely behind. The interior of the hollowed-out mountain contrasted sharply with the ancient stone halls he remembered from the previous timeline. Sleek metallic corridors lined with glowing blue server racks and hyper-advanced cooling systems replaced the grand otherworldly and imposing architecture of the Orcelona Dynasty.

Heim Lu Bela walked a few paces ahead of him, her white coat flaring slightly with her brisk, perfectly calculated strides. She led him into a massive, circular command center dominated by floating holographic displays and complex streams of raw data.

”I purchased this barren rock three years ago,” Lu Bela stated, turning to face him as the blast doors sealed shut. Her purple eyes locked onto his face, processing his features with rapid, invisible calculations.

”Logically, it serves no strategic purpose for the Hero Organization. Yet, a root directory deep within my neural core repeatedly flagged these exact coordinates as ’Home.’ It is a designation I simply cannot overwrite or delete.”

Rudy slipped his hands into his pockets, an amused smile touching his lips. ”You brought me all the way out here to discuss a real estate anomaly?”