Reaper of the Martial World

Book 4: Chapter 32: Give Up

The very next morning, Madeleine’s muffled moans filled the hotel room.

Dyon sat up, wrapping her waist with one arm and playing with her plump breasts with the other as she rode him.

“You guys make too much noise,” Ri groaned, rolling in her sleep.

Madeleine rested her head of Dyon’s shoulders, panting for air as she felt his two strong hands grip her waist tightly, not letting her escape from his plunging rod.

“So deep…” Madeleine shivered, her hips rocking under Dyon’s movement. Her back arched, allowing Dyon a view of two perfect mounds covered in glistening sweat.

Madeleine’s body twitched under the pleasure, collapsing onto the bed. “I tap out.” She gasped.

Dyon grinned, rolling over to spoon Ri. His hands glided along the curves as his cock pressed flush against her soft ass.

Ri giggled, “You beast.”

Slipping one arm under Ri’s side to grab her breast and the other under her thigh to lift her leg, Dyon gently grinded his tip against her slit as he trailed kisses along her neck.

Ri moaned as she felt Dyon’s girth pierce her, rocking back and forth to follow his motion.

“I’m going to take you two to a cool place today.”

“Sh,” Ri reached back, sliding her hand along Dyon’s cheek, “I,” She gasped, “Can’t focus on your words right now.”

Dyon smiled, obliging to Ri’s request and focusing on pleasing his wives well.

**

“Do I look like a chauffeur to you kid? I’m the third most powerful military man in this country! What do I look like driving three kids around?!” Lieutenant General Barbaros feigned anger as he drove a large black vehicle down a spacious road.

Ri and Madeleine giggled.

“Would you like some water Uncle Barbaros?” Ri offered, blinking innocently.

“I can massage your shoulders too Uncle, you must have a very stressful job.” Madeleine chimed in.

Dyon looked back from the front seat with a thumbs up, causing another fit of giggles to fill the car.

Seeing his Uncle blush let Dyon know he had won this round.

“Look at you, manipulating your beautiful wives like this. If I hear you’ve been a bad husband, don’t blame me for spanking you in place of your father.”

Dyon laughed, “I got it Unc. How’s the G man doing?”

Uncle Barbaros rolled his eyes as he turned the SUV’s wheel, “Only you would call the president G man. Plus, you like avoiding other things too much. Wives or not, there’s someone else you should be asking about too.”

Ri and Madeleine nodded. In fact, when they had kicked Dyon out of from bathing with them, they too talked about this.

Ri hadn’t known how serious it was until she spoke to Eli. But, neither had Madeleine until Ri told her. Dyon seemed to have avoided the topic entirely with the both of them, dismissing Clara as a childhood friend. But, he really did see her like that.

“Look at you three. Already colluding behind my back.” Dyon shook his head, looking out of the windows before he noticed something was wrong. “This isn’t the direction to the white house, you know. How long did you think it would take me to notice?”

“It’s a school day. Kids should be in school so I’m taking you to school. Even you can’t just barge into the White House midday like this.”

Dyon turned his gaze turned toward his uncle with a ‘really’ expression plastered on. “Find me a school that can teach me anything new, and I’ll agree.”

“Ugh, so arrogant. I’ll be taking my lovely nieces to see their other uncle. You’ll be doing some talks. Gallagher was supposed to do this talk, but when he heard you were coming he decided to take some time off.”

“Uncle Barabaros, who is Gallagher? Is he the president you were talking about?” Madeleine asked.

“Yes. He’s the President of the United States of America.” Barbaros said proudly.

“Is he powerful?”

“You could say he’s the leader of the free world. Other countries may disagree, but America likely has tge most power. So, as its leader, he’s seen as quite important.”

“Hold on,” Dyon protested, “How did I get stuck with this? I’m supposed to be on vacation too!”

“You’re too young to go on vacation. Go do some work.” Barbaros abruptly stopped the car, clicking the passenger door open for Dyon.

“Wait, but this is.” Dyon looked out to see a large gated University.

“Here’s your ID and the number of the hall you’re supposed to go to. Although I have no doubt everyone knows who you are, it’s best to be safe. OK. Bye!”

Dyon turned a pleading gaze to Ri and Madeleine, but all he found were two bright smiles and a pair of small hands waving him good bye.

Ri and Madeleine then joined hands, fusing their wind will and pushing Dyon out of the car.

“You can go now Uncle!”

Dyon, clearly surprised, stumbled out of the car and could only watch bitterly as the black SUV pulled away.

“I guess I can’t give a talk wearing this…” Dyon sighed, looking down at his sweat pants before looking toward the university.

Even at the entrance, there was a large stream of students.

The front lawn was large and filled with a mix of quietly studying students, socializing students, and even a few athletes playing catch. It gave Dyon a nostalgic feeling. He had forewent the normal education route, but he did still have a few degrees. That said, he always wondered how things would be if he hadn’t had so much on his mind from such a young age. Maybe he’d be playing catch right now too.

Dyon strolled into the gates sighing. He knew very well why they wanted him to come here but he didn’t like it. But, he knew he had to do this eventually. He had just hoped he could have had the social environment of the White House as a helper. But, it’s clear he wouldn’t get his wish now.

“Well, I never got to go to you.” Dyon said quietly, “Maybe it’s time I experience Princeton University, hm?”

“Did you hear Clara?” A girl with short bob cut hair slid into a seat by Clara in the medium sized lecture hall. It only held about 100 students at max capacity, but only truly ever housed 50 at a time. “What am I saying, of course you heard, he’s your father after all.”

“Oh? Is he coming today?” Clara looked out of the window, her grey eyes as cold as usual.

The President doing talks for your university was a big deal. And usually, it was only for the end of year graduation. But, President Gallagher was most known during his tenure as an education reformist. So, he often made monthly appointments with various schools around the country, promoting higher learning, but also, smarter learning. It was because of him that America had begun to rank higher in education in recent years.

“You’re too cold,” The girl pouted. “Look, Jason is looking over here again. What’s not to like!”

Seeing Clara not reacting, she could only give up. Well, that was until she noticed blond hair and blue eyed Jason walking over.

Seeing that, she smoothed her hair but also poked at Clara. But, could only give up seeing that she was still being ignored.

“Clara.” Jason smiled politely, speaking with a clear British accent. “Penelope. It’s nice to see you two looking beautiful, as usual.”

Penelope smiled while Clara looked up, nodding in acknowledgement.

Jason leaned in and whispered, making sure only the three of them heard. “Penelope. I finally got Clara to agree to go on a date with me.”

He looked excited, like a little boy on Christmas morning. It was also clear that he wasn’t here to brag about it, or else he would have spoken out loud for more than them to hear. That made Penelope nod with approval before she registered what had just been said.

“Wait, what?!”

“Sh, sh, sh.” Jason brought his finger to his lips. “I’m only here so that you can make sure she doesn’t back out.”

Penelope looked over at Clara, but all she found was her friend looking out of the window again. It was clear that Jason wasn’t lying.

“That’s so cute.” Penelope giggled. “Okay. Let me know when it’s happening so I can make sure she’s ready. I won’t let her escape!”

Suddenly, the door of the classroom opened, causing everyone to turn their gaze over. They were supposed to have the president as a lecturer today, but they found it odd that they didn’t see any of the usual press and security detail. Not to mention he was late.

But, when they saw a young man walk in wearing a crisp white t shirt and sweat pants rolled to his calves, many were confused. Well, the men were confused. Many of the women were in a daze. They had simply never seen someone so attractive.

Penelope gripped Clara’s forearm, unwilling to take her eyes off of the young man, “You already have Jason, right? You can let me have this one?”

Clara looked up in confusion, but when she saw who it was, she froze.

Jason, who was still facing the two of them, didn’t take too kindly to Clara’s reaction. She had never seen her emotions shift much from their baseline coldness. Even when she accepted his invite this morning, it had been with the faintest of nods. Jason had to strain and even double check before he confirmed that that was her way of saying yes.

“Wait, isn’t that?”

The chatter in the class began to rise as they analyzed who this young man was. The only person who seemed confused was Jason. But, he couldn’t be blamed. After all, he had come here for school and was originally from Europe. He wasn’t as aware of Dyon’s fame as the far West world was.

In addition to this, Dyon’s passing to enter the martial world was a country secret. Something even the American students here didn’t know. After all, the mortal realm wasn’t united. The idea of a citizen of a country becoming a martial expert could drastically tip the balance of power, and as such, results were kept secret.

The only reason Clara knew and understood was not only because she was the president’s daughter. That wasn’t enough to justify her knowing a military grade secret. The reason was because President Gallagher knew his daughter cared for Dyon and didn’t want her to think he just upped and disappeared. So, he broke the rules.

Jason looked around to hear the chatter, but he was confused. He had to admit that this boy was attractive, but this was Princeton. Since when did how you look dictate anything?

Dyon looked around, quickly scanning over the class. But, before he could finish, he noticed Jason making his way over.

“Hi. Sorry, do you need help getting to the right classroom?” Jason asked with a smile. He didn’t make the assumption that Dyon wasn’t meant to be in Princeton. After all, no matter how lost someone was, they would know what this institution was. But, this was a small class of only about 50 and Jason had never seen him before despite it being near the end of a semester. So, he thought he’d help. Especially since Dyon looked a bit young. ‘He’s likely a first year…’

Dyon smiled politely, “No, I think I’m in the right place. This is where G m – I mean President Gallagher’s lecture was meant to take place, right?”

Hearing his accent, Dyon immediately understood why Jason didn’t recognize him.

“That’s right.” Jason nodded, “Are you a new transfer student?”

“Uh, actually, I’m here to replace President Gallagher as today’s lecturer.”

Hearing Dyon’s words, whispers filled the room. Those words confirmed a lot of their thoughts and excitement began to color their faces. Who here didn’t know of Dyon Sacharro? He was practically a legend!

Jason blinked with surprise. Who here wasn’t a genius among geniuses? This was not only Princeton, but this class had some people who stood out even among that crowd. Clara for example was only sixteen, and yet was in multiple masters level classes. Jason was a transfer from Cambridge who was completing a dual diploma. And even Penelope, who acted like a typical teenage girl a large portion of the time, was still a biochem savant. But someone their age was going to lecture them?

“Do you mind if I ask what you will lecture us on?”

Dyon pondered for a bit, “Actually, I hadn’t thought that far. Why don’t you guys decide?”

Jason didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. If he ever got the opportunity to replace the president, how many tireless weeks would he spend preparing? But this guy didn’t even have a lecture idea?

“Ah. First. I should probably introduce myself. I haven’t been in the public eye for a while, but many of you likely know my father, General Sacharro. Obviously, that makes me his son. Dyon Sacharro.”

Jason froze. Whether he knew what Dyon looked like was one thing. But that name… That was a name the entire mortal realm knew.

“Ah, I’m sorry.” Jason scratched the back of his head. He couldn’t believe he had just tried to help such a legend find the right classroom.

“Don’t worry about it.” Dyon smiled. “I appreciate the help.”

Jason awkwardly made his way back to his seat as Dyon turned his back to classroom. He took a look at the podium but shook his head, instead eyeing a foldable white table. With a single leap, Dyon say cross legged on it, looking out into the classroom to find gazes filled with fire.

Clara suddenly raised her hand. Penelope looked over in shock. Clara never did anything like this, there had even been times where movie stars and peak level athletes with hundreds of millions of followers visited the white house and she never batted an eye. Why would she being so active with Dyon?

Seeing the hand, Dyon smiled. But, when he noticed who it was, his lip twitched. ‘I guess I didn’t escape that easily…’

“Clara. How are you?”

Penelope gave her friend another weird look. She knew Dyon personally? Enough for him to remember her name? What was going on? ‘She is the president’s daughter, I guess…’

Clara however, maintained her normal cold gaze. “Since you need a lecture topic, I thought I’d give you one.”

It didn’t escape Dyon that Clara had ignored his question. But, he could only chuckle bitterly at that. “What did you have in mind?”

“A topic in philosophy.” Clara replied quickly, her emotions never wavering. “How do we know when we know something?”

Dyon’s eyes flashed, but he kept his thoughts inside, instead turning his gaze to the rest of the class. “Skepticism. Foundationalism. Infallibilism. Justified True Belief. Internalism. Externalism.

The theory of knowledge has touched everything from the philosophy that accepts we know next to nothing to the philosophy of trusting your senses to present things as they are.

In the end, we ironically know quite little about what it takes to know something. Even the most intuitive philosophies have been falsified. For example, the idea that we have knowledge when something is justified first, then proved true and then finally believed, was widely accepted previously. But, even that has been proved to be on shaky footing.”

Clara raised her hand, waiting for Dyon to nod toward her to speak again. “How has JTB been falsified?”

Dyon smiled. “Say you have two people. Person A and Person B. Both are in line for a promotion to a job. Just before the announcement, Person A takes Person B to lunch where Person B sees that Person A leaves the affair with ten cents left in his pocket. Person B then later find out that he’s lost the promotion race. So, Person B then asserts that the newly promoted official had ten cents in his pocket just after leaving their lunch.

However, what Person B then finds out is that he was wrong. The promotion was, in fact, for him. But, when he looks in his pocket, he realizes that he too has ten cents in his pocket.

Technically he was justified because he saw Person A with ten cents and thought Person A got the promotion. His belief was also true, because even though the promotion wasn’t for Person A, the person who did get it also had ten cents in their pocket.

By this logic. You can see that the JTB was followed perfect, but it’s still not real knowledge. If anything, it was a lucky coincidence.”

The students nodded in acknowledgement. Justified True Belief seemed like a foolproof method. And yet, here was a clear example where it wasn’t the case.

Clara raised her hand again, “Then what about our morals? How do we know they’re right if we can’t even decide on how to tell what is factual and what isn’t?”

“Morals are something that are often dictated by how we’re raised and the society we were brought up in. Everything from our religion to how we consume entertainment is likely decided very early on. It’s only in recent times that morals have begun to be forged by popular opinion and that’s because of the advent of things like social media and technology.”

Clara gave up on raising her hand and simply spoke out directly, “So. If I went to a completely different world, are you saying its likely my morals would be effected by their culture? Or are you saying that what I’m susceptible to accepting was decided from a very early age?”

“Well. The latter is likely on a gradient. If you were engrained with something from youth, it would likely take you a much longer time to change that portion of you. Maybe you have an example? I’m open to a class discussion.”

“Sure.” Clara’s cold eyes flashed. “Let’s talk about polygamy.”

Dyon’s breath got caught in his throat, causing him to cough violently, “Sure,” Dyon coughed again, “What about it?”

“I was just curious. If you were raised in a society where monogamy was the norm and you left to a place where polygamy was accepted, how long would it take you to flip? Two years? One year? Less than that?”

The class began to feel some tension in the air. They didn’t know what was going on or why their normally cold and quiet class beauty was pressing this discussion so hard, but no one could get a word in. Even Dyon was struggling to, let alone Penelope or the rest.

“Extenuating circumstances?” Dyon wasn’t even lecturing anymore. It was almost like he was caught red handed and had to explain himself. The class never thought they’d see this side of their living legend, but here it was in front of them.

“Do tell. I’m also interested in how gender differences might be incorporated here. When it comes to polygamy, how likely is a male to switch his morals versus a female?”

“Uh – “ Dyon cleared his throat.

“Also. When said person goes off to a new world with a completely new set of morals, do they forget about their world? How much of their old selves do they erase? Do they forget their past relationships? Do they forget the ties they used to have? Or did they purge all of that before they left so that they could change their moral code as much as they wanted when they left?”

Clara stood, her cold eyes flashing as she placed her laptop into her bag and walked down the lecture hall steps. “Just thought I’d help with the lecture topic. I’m not feeling well, I hope you’ll excuse me.”

“Ah – “ Dyon’s voice seemed caught in his throat as Clara walked out, leaving the light click of the lecture hall door as the only noise in the space.

Dyon didn’t wait, he leapt from the table and flashed toward the door. Jason had wanted to stop him and go first, but Dyon was too fast. By the time Jason got to the door, he surprisingly found Dyon walking back to him as though nothing had happened.

“Did something happen with Clara?” Jason asked worriedly.

“Nothing much, she just went to the bathroom. Since I can’t go in there, I had no choice but to come back. Lecture?” Dyon asked, pointing toward the room.

Hearing that Clara had gone into the bathroom, Jason knew he could only give up too. So, he hung his head, re-entering the classroom. He didn’t know what was wrong or what had happened between Dyon and Clara, but he was determined to find out.

What Jason didn’t know was that he had spoken to and entered into the class with Dyon’s clone. The real Dyon had long since followed Clara to the girl’s bathroom, making use of his concealment array.

**

Clara walked at a steady pace into the bathroom, quickly finding a stall and sitting on the toilet’s cap. She didn’t really need to use the bathroom, but at least here, only Penelope could bother her. But, after a couple years of friendship, Penelope knew that Clara mostly just needed time alone for now.

Taking a deep breath, Clara pulled out her laptop. It was quite an old model, but she had never changed it. In fact, despite it being so old, almost ten years in fact, it still ran just as fast as modern models despite having not had its hardware upgraded in that time.

She smiled thinking back to how much of a hassle it had been for the white house to deal with.

Whenever a new family moved into the White House, they normally had to have all of their devices dealt with – meaning special protections had to be put in place. But, the laptop, despite its appearance, was so advanced that even the White House technicians had problems with it. They had pleaded for Clara to switch to another model, but she had refused, insisting on keeping it.

“You sill have that old thing?”

Clara jumped. Startled by the clearly masculine voice before she saw Dyon leaning against the stall door in front of her.

“What are you doing here? This is the girl’s bathroom, what if someone sees you?” Clara’s cold eyes flashed.

“You know, there’s something in the martial world called array alchemy that would suit you very much. It allows me to put up barriers that block out vision and hearing.”

“How does it work?” A curious light sparkled in Clara’s usually cold eyes.

“If you can believe it, it uses the soul to power your ability to draw symbols. Each of these symbols shifts the law around the point you draw it on. So, I can distort reality by making it seem like no one is in this stall at all.”

“The soul? It exists?” Clara had seemingly forgotten that she wasn’t on the best of terms with Dyon. Her curiosity was piqued.

“I think the only reason we haven’t found scientific evidence of things like the soul and meridians is because they’ve been locked away from us.”

“Locked away…” Clara

“Here.” Dyon lowered his finger to tap on the edge of the laptop screen and a gold light began to flash.

“No wait!”

Dyon froze, tilting his head in confusion.

“Leave it as is. I don’t want to change it.” Then, in a voice Dyon would have definitely never heard had it not been for his cultivation, she continued. “Newer is not always better…”

“This is my fault.” Dyon said, tapping on the cracked bezels of laptop. He remembered back to the day he had dropped Clara’s laptop, trying to show off. He had wanted to prove that he could create a better laptop than any in current existence, but Clara had wrestled with him until they dropped it.

Clara had cried because that was the last gift her mother had ever given her before she died, so it was suffice to say that Dyon felt horrible.

He insisted on fixing it, but Clara had said then that she didn’t want him to fix the crack. “Only the insides.” She had said.

“It was a long time ago,” Clara whispered, looking down at the dull light of her laptop screen. “Do you think the martial world could do it?…”

“Save your mother, you mean?” Dyon took a deep breath.

“You know why I showed up to that trial, right?” Clara laughed bitterly, “There was such a stigma around going to those trials. People are still saying that only crazy dreamers hope to leave to go to the martial world.”

Dyon silently listened. Clara was right. After hundreds to probably even thousands of years of not a single human being chosen, many had given up on even attending. There were of course still a few hundred who insisted on trying every year, but a few hundred in the population of billions was a drop in the bucket.

So, the year Clara had gone, President Gallagher had taken a huge hit on his presidential campaign. The news outlets berated him for instilling improper values in his daughter and that he somehow made her lose faith in their system, so she wanted to run off to a whole new world.

“In a way, the media was right though.” Clara continued. “This world is sick and I have lost faith in it… Something like cancer took my mother’s life away, and yet we can build buildings that reach kilometers into the sky, and send man to space, and even have little tiny devices that help us talk to people across the world. And yet, what use is any of those things when we can’t even live past 80 years old? What use is those things when even with that short amount of time, your life can be taken away even before then? What use is it all?…”

Clara sighed, “So, I showed up. Hoping against hope that maybe, just maybe, I’d be chosen. Then I could go off to a new world and find a way to bring back cures we just don’t have… I’ve worked so hard… Studied so hard to become a doctor… But what use is any of it when I’m just learning the same things the people who couldn’t save my mother knew?…” Clara’s voice grew more hoarse as she continued, it was clear that her cold demeanor was slowly shattering. She had never said these things aloud… At least not when she was old enough to put real thought into them. When she was young, all she had done was fight and wrestle with Dyon. That was how she vented.

But now? Coldness was her shield.

“You know, I have a meeting with my dad everyday.” Clara looked up at Dyon. “I would call it a father-daughter date, but it really doesn’t feel like a date. And, without fail, it gets cut short everyday… He doesn’t think I know, but I know it’s because he calls for his secretary to come in early.” Clara chuckled bitterly. “I can’t blame him. His daughter is practically a mannequin. Or, at least that’s what I thought until I found out one day that it’s because he can’t fake being healthy for too long.” Clara looked down, gritting her teeth.

“Clara? What do you mean fake being healthy?” Dyon’s brows furrowed, a serious expression flashing.

“My dad has lung cancer. He can’t sit for more than ten minutes without going into a fit of coughs. I wouldn’t have even known had I not forgotten my phone in his office one day… But then I pretended not to know… I pretended not to know Dyon. I wanted to do everything I could to ignore it.” Clara’s shoulders trembled, but her eyes remained cold, her teeth clenching tightly against each other.

“And he won’t go through chemotherapy. I know he won’t. If he does, he wouldn’t be able to finish his term and the country would be in chaos. He’s literally sacrificing himself for this shit world.” Clara looked up, her cold eyes glistening. “So tell me, why shouldn’t I give up on this world and look for a new one?”