My Xianxia Harem Life

Chapter 396: Chapter 396 Fate

Riley smiled to himself and strolled back to his room, stretching lazily as he prepared to get some rest.

The night was still young, and he expected that within an hour at most, his wives would arrive—each of them eager, each of them missing him as much as he missed them.

The moment they came, the quiet room would transform into a paradise filled with soft cries, heated breaths, and the unmistakable melody of pleasure.

The thought alone made his heart thrum with anticipation.

Riley chuckled under his breath, feeling the warmth of excitement course through his veins.

He cherished his wives more now than he ever had; every moment with them was something he treasured, something he looked forward to with hunger and affection.

To pass the time, he picked up a thick book from the shelf and settled comfortably onto the bed.

He flipped through pages at a relaxed pace, losing himself in ancient tales and forgotten battles.

The candlelight flickered softly beside him as the minutes slipped away.

But eventually, a faint unease tugged at him.

He blinked at the window—darker than it should have been. He glanced at the hourglass beside his bed—the sand had already run through once... then twice.

Riley slowly closed the book.

”I’ve been reading for almost two hours already...” he muttered. ”And not a single one of them has come?”

That was strange. His wives were many things—but late was never one of them.

”Hmmm...” Riley mused aloud.

He released his divine sense, letting it wash outward like an invisible wave meant to cover the entire courtyard.

But the moment his sense spread past the walls of his room, it collided with something—hard.

There was a sharp, resonant pain inside his mind, as if he had slammed into a fortress made of pure energy.

His divine sense bounced back instantly.

Instead of alarm, amusement flared in his chest.

Riley threw his head back and laughed loudly, the sound echoing across the room.

”To seal my divine sense... that’s not something just anyone can do.” His eyes gleamed with excitement. ”In fact, there’s only one person I know who could manage a feat like that.”

He stood up slowly, rolling his shoulders, his smile stretching wider—almost predatory.

He didn’t feel threatened. If anything, he felt thrilled.

Riley spread his arms slightly, as though welcoming an old rival—or an old friend.

”Come out,” he called, his voice warm but edged with challenge. ”Took you long enough.”

Three breaths later, the air in front of Riley shimmered—like reality itself was parting—and an old man stepped out from the distortion.

He looked pitiful at first glance.

His robe was nothing more than tattered fabric hanging off a skeletal frame.

His hair was a tangled, matted cloud of gray that had long lost any semblance of neatness.

Dirt clung to him like a second skin, layered so thickly that it was impossible to tell where his flesh ended and the grime began.

And the smell...

It was ancient, rotten, the scent of ages upon ages without so much as a drop of water or the touch of sunlight.

Knowing who this man was, Riley realized with a faint chill that it wasn’t an exaggeration—this being truly might not have bathed in a million years.

Yet none of that mattered once you looked at his eyes.

They were crystal clear—sharper than any blade Riley had forged with his power.

Eyes that had seen epochs rise and fall, civilizations crumble, divine beings die, stars extinguish themselves, and countless years pass in silence.

Wisdom, intelligence, desolation, and a strange, deep sorrow swirled within them.

The old man met Riley’s gaze calmly.

”Why were you looking for me?” he asked, his voice rough but steady, like an old bell that refused to break.

Riley inhaled slowly, then exhaled.

”I don’t know if ’looking for you’ is the right way to put it,” he said.

”Maybe... maybe I just wanted to meet my maker. I’ve only ever read stories about you, about the Great War, about everything that was lost. I have questions—too many—and never once had the opportunity to ask them.”

The old man’s expression didn’t change.

But his aura did.

Without warning, a crushing wave of divine sense surged out of him.

Unlike anything Riley had ever felt, it was impossibly vast—ancient and terrifying.

It didn’t just press on his skin or slip into his thoughts. It invaded everything.

His body.

His soul.

His spiritual sea.

His hidden thoughts.

His buried instincts.

His consciousness from the first breath he ever took to the last possible future he might one day see.

For a single breath, Riley felt completely naked before a being who existed long before the heavens were even formed.

Then it stopped.

The pressure vanished as though it had never been there.

”Oh...” the old man whispered, understanding settling into his tone.

”So this is how you uncovered truths that should have remained buried. You managed to obtain a remnant from my era. A miracle. I thought the Great War wiped them all out.”

His eyes softened—not with kindness, but with recognition.

He now knew that Riley had inherited not just an immortal treasure, but countless notes, memories, and fragments detailing the rise and fall of the ancient world.

Riley remained silent.

The old man remained silent.

Between them stretched a silence older than mountains, heavier than the sky.

Neither spoke, yet the weight of their gazes carried more than a thousand words.

It felt as if the room, the world, and even time itself paused to watch two beings tied by fate but separated by countless eras finally stand face to face.

In the end, it was Riley who broke the suffocating silence.

The stillness between them had grown so heavy it felt almost alive, pressing down on his chest like a mountain.

He didn’t bother with preamble—he cut straight to the heart of what haunted him.

”So,” Riley said softly, ”did we win?”

The old man’s reaction came slowly. His lips curled—not into a smile, but into something far more fragile.

A bitter laugh slipped from him, the sound thin, trembling, ancient. It echoed like a cracked bell in an empty hall.

”Young man...” he murmured, shaking his head. ”You’re asking a question you already know the answer to.”

He lifted his hand, his fingers skeletal and trembling, and gestured vaguely toward the heavens.

”If we had won, then the skies would not be so empty. You would not be the only immortal striding across your realm. There would be tens of thousands... no, hundreds of thousands. Warriors, scholars, emperors, beasts, spirits—an entire generation of beings who once stood proudly at the peak of existence.”

He paused, and the pause stretched long.

The old man’s clear eyes dimmed, clouded with memory and grief.

”As you can see...” he whispered, ”you stand alone.”

The words struck like a sword to the gut—not because they surprised Riley, but because they confirmed the truth he had never wanted to accept.

The old man closed his eyes. His next words were almost too soft to hear.

”All the rest... died.”

Those four words fell like stones into a bottomless abyss.

Riley’s jaw tightened. His fists clenched until his knuckles went white.

He felt rage, pain, defiance—a storm of emotion surging through him.

”So that means they’re still out there,” Riley said, voice rising. ”Still out there attacking our borders. Still pushing. Still killing.”

A fierce fire ignited in his chest.

”Then we should fight! We should strike back! If they come, we meet them head-on!”

The old man let out a long breath—old, weary, resigned.

He looked at Riley the way a father looks at a stubborn child who hasn’t yet tasted the bitterness of reality.

”Ahh... the foolishness of youth,” he murmured.

He turned his gaze toward the distance—not the walls, not the world, but far, far beyond them.

His eyes seemed to pierce into other dimensions, other eras, other dying skies.

”The enemy that besieged us for countless years is not something we can defeat. Not mortals. Not immortals. Not gods.”

His voice lowered, gaining weight with every syllable.

”Even I...” He touched his own chest with a dry, brittle laugh. ”Even I, who now stood at the pinnacle, am powerless.”

Riley frowned. ”Powerless? Against what? What could possibly—”

The old man cut him off.

”The great flood,” he whispered. ”A tidal wave of mindless machines.”

Riley’s heart skipped.

The old man continued, slower, as if each word cost him energy.

”They do not think. They do not tire. They do not negotiate. They do not feel. They only... consume.”

He looked down at his hands—hands that had once commanded armies, crushed stars, rewritten the laws of existence themselves.

”In the beginning, we thought we could resist. We threw our armies at them. Our saints. Our emperors. Our nascent immortals. Even our gods. Realm after realm... civilization after civilization... fell before them.”

He swallowed, the motion pained.

”They do not stop,” he said hollowly. ”They multiply. They adapt. They erase.”

A shiver ran down Riley’s spine.

The old man raised his face again, and for the first time, Riley saw something he never expected from the strongest being in history:

Fear.

”When the machines reached our final sky,” the old man whispered, ”they consumed everything.”

He closed his eyes.

”My comrades. My disciples. My enemies. My world. My era.”

Then he looked at Riley.

”And that is why you stand alone. Riley Rice.”

The words echoed like a final judgment, heavy, inescapable, eternal.