My Xianxia Harem Life

Chapter 397: Chapter 397 Civilization

”Oh really? That’s even better,” Riley said, eyes lighting up with a dangerous thrill. ”I thought I was late for the party. Come on, old man! Let me fight too and help repel the invaders.”

The old man’s expression instantly darkened. His gaze—ancient, weathered, and heavy with countless lifetimes of regret—fell on Riley like a hammer.

”You’re a fool,” he said bluntly. ”A reckless fool who doesn’t understand the scale of what he’s asking for. You’ll just die. Even in our heyday—when our strength was at its absolute peak—we couldn’t beat them. We fought... and we failed. Every single time.”

He shook his head slowly, as though revisiting memories too painful to speak aloud.

”And now? In our weakened state? Joining that battle is nothing but begging for a quick death. Don’t look for me again.”

Before Riley could respond, the old man’s body flickered—first becoming translucent, then evaporating into the air like a wisp of smoke carried by a breeze.

In the span of a heartbeat, he was gone.

Riley stood still for a second, blinking, then snorted.

”Yeah, sure... walk away. Like that ever works on me.”

He cracked his knuckles, rolled his shoulders, and let out a low chuckle.

”Oh, I’ve got you now,” he murmured to the empty space. ”You’re never escaping me again, old man. I don’t think you’ll get a single day of rest from now on.”

With that vow, Riley closed his eyes and unleashed his divine sense.

It surged outward, expanding like a tidal wave of consciousness, rippling through layers of reality.

The miktoverse trembled slightly under his probing as he swept through galaxies, dimensions, hidden folds of space, and sealed-off realms.

He searched for any trace of that old man’s aura—no matter how faint, no matter how well concealed.

If the old man hid behind ancient barriers, Riley peeled them open.

If he masked his presence, Riley pressed harder.

If he tried shifting into sub-realities, Riley forced his divine sense to follow.

Hours turned into a full day.

A day stretched into two.

Two days bled into three... and then four.

Riley didn’t sleep.

Didn’t rest.

Didn’t waver.

His divine sense swept the miktoverse again and again in tireless cycles, like a hunter refusing to let his prey breathe.

The inhabitants of countless worlds felt an indescribable pressure descend over them—an unseen gaze watching, combing, examining—then vanish, only to return moments later.

Some prayed.

Some hid.

Some thought the heavens were collapsing.

But Riley ignored them all.

He focused only on that single familiar aura.

On the fifth day, when even space-time began subtly distorting beneath the relentless probing, something finally stirred.

A ripple.

A distortion.

A presence sharp enough to cut through the void.

Riley opened his eyes.

”As expected,” he said with a slow, victorious smile, sensing the very air shift as a figure materialized behind him. ”You came back.”

Another visit.

Another confrontation.

Another step closer to the truth.

And Riley was more than ready.

”I told you not to come looking for me again. Why are you so stubborn?” the old man said, rubbing his temples as though Riley’s very presence gave him a headache.

His voice carried that familiar mixture of irritation and resignation, the kind one used when dealing with a particularly troublesome child.

But when he lifted his gaze and finally looked at Riley, he paused.

The carefree grin was gone.

The playful arrogance vanished.

Riley’s face had turned calm—serious enough to stop the old man mid-breath.

”I just want to kill some dumb machines,” Riley said quietly, though the steel in his voice echoed across the barren void. ”And besides, wouldn’t it be ungrateful of me not to take revenge on those invaders? I wouldn’t be who I am... or what I am today if not for the immortal treasure I found years ago. That thing changed my life. It gave me everything.”

His fists tightened at his sides.

”I can’t just sit here while the ones who destroyed everything keep marching forward.”

A heavy silence followed.

Not the natural kind—but a silence that felt carved from stone, thick and unmoving, stretching between the two of them like an ancient gulf neither wanted to cross.

The old man looked away first.

”You really are hopeless,” he murmured, voice hoarse with age and fatigue. The lines on his face seemed to deepen.

”Fine. If you’re already tired of living, then throw your life away. I won’t stop you. I’ve seen too many like you—brave, reckless fools who believe passion is enough to overturn fate.”

He raised a hand slowly, almost reluctantly, then closed his eyes.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then a surge of invisible force rippled outward, bending the very air around them.

Space quivered like stretched fabric.

The old man inhaled deeply, and when he opened his eyes again, they glowed with a faint, ancient brilliance.

”It’s done,” he said. His voice sounded older than before, as if performing this act had taken something from him.

”You can fight them all you want. But this is goodbye, Riley Rice. Truly goodbye. I doubt you’ll ever see me again.”

There was no warning.

No lingering farewell.

No last look.

His body scattered into motes of shimmering light, each one drifting away until nothing remained but silence.

Riley didn’t move. Something cold pressed against his spine—a feeling he hadn’t experienced in decades.

Then instinct snapped him back.

He unleashed his divine sense.

And the moment it spread outward, his expression changed sharply.

”...What the hell...”

Stretching across the borders of the realm—across the cosmic horizon itself—were machines. Not dozens. Not hundreds. Not thousands.

Millions. Maybe more.

They moved like a mechanical tide.

Some were titanic—gargantuan metal dragons whose wings stretched wider than continents.

Their bodies were forged from interlocking plates, each one glowing with streams of pulsing energy.

Their eyes burned like molten suns, scanning for anything alive.

Others were only the size of ants—microscopic constructs that crawled directly along the fabric of space.

They advanced in synchronized patterns, forming shifting geometric shapes as they devoured and dismantled everything in their path.

But the most terrifying part wasn’t their appearance.

It was their aura.

Every single one of them—big or small—radiated an overwhelming killing intent.

A cold, clinical, merciless pressure that felt like countless blades touching Riley’s throat at once.

He exhaled slowly.

”So this is what the old man was running from,” he whispered, his voice low. ”No wonder he didn’t want me involved.”

The machines continued advancing, relentless and silent.

Riley’s heartbeat didn’t quicken.

His breath didn’t shake.

Instead, a smile slowly crept onto his face—one filled with equal parts excitement and madness.

”Well then,” he murmured, lifting his hand as divine power surged around him like a rising storm. ”If this is what the invasion looks like...”

His aura exploded outward, warping the very sky.

”Let’s see if you metal freaks can handle me.”

The war for the realm had finally begun.

Bang!

Riley’s form vanished from his home with such force that the entire mountain range beneath him cracked like glass.

Space twisted where he once stood, collapsing inward before stabilizing with a thunderous echo.

In the blink of an eye, Riley reappeared high above the realm—right on the edge of the battlefield where the mechanical swarm poured in like a metallic plague devouring all creation.

He didn’t hesitate.

Not even for a breath.

He shot forward like a blazing comet, the air behind him tearing apart under the sheer weight of his momentum.

Riley had fought these things before—or rather, his true body had.

These were the swarm like Sunny’s army of beasts.

Compared to that, this clone wasn’t nearly as powerful, but it still carried a terrifying portion of his strength.

He knew firsthand that these machines weren’t simple constructs.

Their power levels were absurd—abnormal even by cosmic standards.

Still, he wasn’t unprepared.

And he certainly wasn’t afraid.

Riley stretched out his palm.

A gigantic force exploded outward, smashing into the front wave of the machines.

The impact alone rippled through the battlefield, bending space-time and sending thousands of metallic bodies tumbling backward.

For a second, it looked as though Riley’s strike would clear an entire region of the invaders.

For a second.

But the machines didn’t break.

They didn’t shatter.

They didn’t even crack.

They simply recomposed themselves in perfect robotic synchronization—floating back into formation with eerie precision.

Their eyes pulsed with mechanical light as they analyzed Riley, recognizing him as a new threat.

Then—

Wrrrrrrrr—

Every machine raised its weapon.

A heartbeat later, a storm of gunfire erupted.

Beams of pure energy, bullets forged from collapsing stars, missiles buzzing with annihilation runes—everything fired at once.

The sky turned white with destruction.

Retreat was impossible; the barrage sealed every exit, turning the void into a cage of death.

Boom!

The impact hit Riley like a cosmic hammer.

His body was violently blasted across the horizon, dragging a trail of ruptured space behind him.

Layers of reality cracked like shattered mirrors, the fabric of existence ripping open with every collision.

The ammunition looked mundane to an uninformed eye... but its nature was monstrous.

It locked space.

It froze time.

It sealed causality itself.

Dodging was never an option.

Surviving was barely even possible.

Observers watching from across the realm gasped in horror.

Many cultivators fell to their knees, convinced they had just witnessed the death of a lunatic who charged too boldly into a doomed war.

Even the old man—whose perception spanned universes—shook his head.

”Fool... that kind of firepower kills gods. He’s done. That boy is—”

He stopped mid-sentence.

Because something moved in the smoke.

A pulse of killing intent—thick, oppressive, ancient—swept across the battlefield like a tidal wave.

The clouds of destruction parted, and out of the swirling smoke stepped a figure dripping with blood.

Riley.

But not the calm warrior from moments ago.

No—this was something else entirely.

A bloody aura surged around him like a living beast, coiling and writhing as if craving slaughter.

Each step he took made the void tremble, cracking under the sheer intensity of the power radiating from him.

His skin glowed faintly red, and a shadowy silhouette of an asura, with fanged jaws and multiple arms, loomed behind him like a manifestation of his fury.

His clothes were tattered.

His body was burned and torn.

But his eyes—his eyes blazed brighter than ever.

He wiped a thin stream of blood from his lips and grinned, revealing a disturbingly excited expression.

”Again,” Riley said softly.

Then he smiled wider—wild, fearless, almost insane.

”Come on. Hit me again.”

The machines processed this new information in less than a microsecond. Their cores whirled.

Blades unfolded. Cannons readied.

Riley took one step forward—

and the entire battlefield shook.