Lord of Annihilation

Chapter 14: Actions Result in Consequences.

"Are you okay", Lucius heard a voice ask.

Looking up, Lucius saw a blonde haired, girl with green eyes, covered with glasses looking at him. She had a beautiful looking face and the glasses she wore, further accentuated that fact. She was around 1.7m tall with a fairly large chest. She looked smart, graceful and noble.

Lucius looked at her with a listless expression , he then spoke, "Are you here to rob from me too?"

"Huh? Ah, no, I'm sorry I saw you getting beat up by those guys and came over to help.", she failed to process what he sad at the beginning, but then hurriedly explained.

"So you just watched as they hit me.", Lucius continued.

"I..", the girl was tongue-tied. She did not know how to reply.

What he said was indeed correct. She simply stood in the sidelines and watched as 4 men bullied a fellow student. While she could have stepped in, she stopped when she heard the name, Keith Cline. Knowing that she was in the wrong the girl looked at Lucius with a guilty expression on her face.

Seeing the girl silent, Lucius spoke up,"I understand.". He then did not say anything, but silently struggled to stand up.

"Ah. let me help you.", the girl tried to help him. but Lucius just waved his hand and replied," I'm fine. After all I'm just a commoner."

He then walked away with a dim expression on his face. The girl watched him go and felt a sour feeling in her heart

'Did I do something wrong?', she thought to herself. This was the first time in her life, where she encountered such a situation. Naturally she did not know the right thing to do.

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As Lucius walked, quite far away, he slowly straightened his gait. All the events previously were part of Lucius' plan. He wasn't really injured and was putting up an act.

"Good acting back there, I'd rate it a 8/10. It needed more theatrics to really hit it in the feels.", a certain critique gave her opinion.

"But, aren't you afraid that the Keith guy might mess with the drive. If he renames or changes the author of the project, that naive lass wouldn't come and seek you", she continued.

Hearing her concern, Lucius nonchalantly replied, "Of course I thought to such a scenario. That's why I wrote a small hidden program, this morning that reverts all changes done to the contents of the drive."

"Smart!", the crystal gave a concise reply.

"Now, we just have to wait. I might as well go to the gym now.", Lucius stated as he started moving towards the gym.

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Meanwhile, in one of the more higher-classed residences within the campus, 4 men were standing in front of a young handsome man. This was obviously Keith.

"So, you guys followed him to a secluded area and snatched it from him. During this period no one attacked you?" , Keith asked in a questioning tone.

Facing him, the four men were sweating from head to toe. After getting the drive from Lucius, the four of them quickly made it back to Keith's residence. They expected that the young master would be very happy and maybe even reward them for completing his task so quickly. Yet, once they told what happened, he made them repeat the events again carefully and even cross-checked with each of the other members.

During the entire process, the young master did not even show a hint of a smile. His face actually was getting graver and graver with each passing second.

Currently Keith could not comprehend the flow of events that was taking place. After the declaration from the mysterious stranger, Keith had sent these 4 men to test the waters as well, identify the combat power of the other side. He was fully expecting to lose these 4 men and had them act as canon fodder. Yet, unexpectedly they had not only returned safely, but also succeed in their mission.

'What am I missing here? Was that earlier threat just a joke? Or is there a deeper plot involved.', Keith thought to himself. He then questioned the four of them once again,"Are you sure that you made no contact with anyone on your way here. You should know the consequence of lying to me.", he said in a grim tone.

The four instantly started sweating and replied in a hasty tone, "We wouldn't dare lie to you, Boss. We absolutely never spoke to anyone nor stop in our way here. After getting the drive from that kid, we instantly made our way here."

"Are you sure no-one was present in your surroundings when you attacked Lucius?", Keith questioned once again.

"We are very sure that no other soul was present in the surrounding, during the process. I even stationed one of my members to keep a watchout for potential threats or ambuses. Not even a fly could have escaped our notice.", the leader of the four, replied. He was inwardly cursing in his mind, 'How many times do I have to tell you this.This is the 4th time you are asking the same question.'

"Is that so.", Keith became silent as he pondered.

This silence continued for a few minutes. During the entire time, there was an oppressive feeling in the room. The four men did not dare let out a breath, lest they disturb this terrifying boss of theirs.

After a few minutes, Keith eventually spoke up, "I can't figure out what is wrong in this situation. Hand me the disk for now. I have to verify the contents."

The leader immediately complied, while thinking in his head, 'There is something wrong with what we did?'. He was utterly confused.

Keith received the disk and inserted it into his personal system. The disk took a few minutes to decrypt and then eventually showed it's contents.

'Under a file named 'Mental Fluctuations during Interstellar Travel', is what they said.', Keith searched through the data in the disk and found the file. He then clicked on the file and started reading it's contents.

'This kid really is a genius.' Keith was astonished as he read through the contents of the research. Although he couldn't fully comprehend the contents, he was still amazed by the sheer hypothesis formed by Lucius. He had explored a unknown concept from a completely new point of view and had presented real data in a concise and to-the point manner.

'Shame I can't recruit him now. He would have made a worthy subordinate. Much better than these muscular brutes, with no brain in them. All that's left is to make some changes to the data and present it to Reyna.' Thinking about the girl, Keith's lips curled up.

The reason why, Keith made such plans and had Luther go after Lucius to get this data, had to do with Reyna.

During the last social parties, between the younger generations of the various top families. Keith learned that Reyna, had hit a wall in her latest research. She wanted any material pertaining to the mind under special conditions to possibly have a breakthrough.

Reyna was a young and beautiful woman from a very influential family. Not only was she beautiful, she was also extremely smart and also very kind and gentle. Many young men had taken a fancy to her and Keith was no exception. If he could get in a relationship with Reyna and possibly marry her, His standing in the Cline family would see an overnight rise.

Upon hearing her predicament, Keith wanted to help her but alas wasn't familiar with her research topic. But as they say, when the Heavens close a door, a window appears. He had heard from one of his underlings that the honor kid was researching on a related topic. After investigating a bit, Keith understood that this might help him gain favor from Reyna, if he snatched the project from Lucius' hands and presented it to her. With her unaware of the entire story, she might feel grateful towards Keith and this might possibly spark something.

As for Lucius, nobody cared about a commoner.

After making the required changes, Keith checked the time and noticed it was just past 4 PM. He then immediately made his way towards Reyna's Personal Lab. He couldn't hold his excitement and wanted to gift it to her immediately.

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