MIDNIGHT PRINCE: Empire of Sin

A little while.

After that day... Adam felt like the world was his for him to take.

The next day he met Sae and learned the news about how Steven had now become a couple with someone else. He hooked up with Sae and entered into a steamy relationship with her.

He joined Shuri's firm as an intern with his long-time friend, now colleague, Natasha, and slowly a romance began to grow between them as well.

It was weird how Shuri simply acquiesced to all his other relationships with no problem on her side. Even Sae gave her blessings so he ended up entering a relationship with Natasha as well.

It was all very weird. The maid, Aleksandra was someone he would meet regularly when going with Natasha and having fun with her. But for some reason, he never ended up meeting with her parents. Something he chalked up to his father not being available.

The world continued to go on in this weird way.

His life became more and more wonderful with the passage of time.

Yui came to him with an idol and entertainment agency project and added him as an investor which helped him become a shareholder in the upstart company. It was a small company at first but it ended up becoming one of the biggest companies in America in the next few years.

This was followed by Shuri giving him more and more shares of her own company, which lead to him becoming the principal and highest shareholder of one of the biggest law firms in Los Angeles.

Life was great. More than just great. Everything he did would turn out to be a successful endeavor. He never faced any adversity nor ever lacked anything.

In two years, he went from being a small law student in a relatively middle-class family to being a multi-millionaire. He had so much money and influence that he did not know what to do with it.

In the third year. He finally talked to her again -- Tsubasa Hanekawa. Yui's half-sister and perhaps his first crush when he was back in high school.

In the past, the relationship between them had not ended well for either of them for different small reasons that slowly accumulated until it exploded.

But with his current situation. He feared nothing and asked her out. Her answer was immediate as if she had always waited for him.

In the fourth year, Yui complained about how it was unfair that he simply went to her sister when she had always waited for him. So the two of them also hooked up.

In the fifth year, Shuri gave him one of the greatest news of his life-- she was pregnant with his child. Adam was twenty-six years old when it happened.

Shuri's pregnancy seemed to have started a new wave of propagation as all his other women also became pregnant. They gave birth to healthy children and the family became all the merrier due to the ushering of the children.

In the seventh year, Adam officially married all of them. It was a great sensation as Polygamy wasn't exactly legal in America. But the influence of their family was simply too high for the government to do anything about it.

Natasha, Yui, and Tsubasa's parents were unable to attend for some reason. So Mammoth, Nikola, and Aleksandra took the role of their parents. For Shuri, she had long since divorced her husband, and Cecilia as his sole parent took care of him.

In the eighth year, Cecilia took him to Japan where he met his biological family. He did not remember the meeting he had with his grandfather. He remembered speaking to Cecilia's sister but not much about her personality.

But it was alright. The family accepted him. Overnight he became the young master of one of the â€" if not the â€" highest-ranked families in Japan.

It was an exhilarating sensation.

His success increased. His life became happier. His children grew into beautiful and well-mannered young men and women.

In the twentieth year...

Decades later...

More and more years went by as the world finally and truly changed.

Finally, at the ripe age of 95 years old, more than 70 years since all of this started.

Adam found himself lying down on his bed with all his loved ones surrounding him. His children had married and had children of their own. He loved his grandkids more than anything else.

The world had been at peace all this while with no war nor any major crime and he became one of the richest men in the world. Despite this, his children never fought for his wealth.

One after another, all his wives died naturally out of old age. Seeing them pass on was a sad and heart-wrenching sight. But he knew that they had all lived their fullest and passed on with a smile.

It was indeed a happy life.

It was now his turn to follow them on the way.

Now all he had to do was close his eyes and die with peace in his mind.

The children looked at him. The grandchildren looked at him. The world itself seemed to be looking at him. Waiting for the moment he would breathe his last.

Feeling the anticipation in the air. Adam gave a feeble smile and closed his eyes while raising his arm toward the sky.

Then... He showed a middle finger, seemingly mocking the whole world for its stupidity.

"Fuck you and your shitty dream."

Time seemed to come to a grinding halt as he uttered that line.

The beautiful and compassionate smile of his children vanished and slowly was filled with frowns then anger and malice as they lunged at him, ready to tear him apart.

Adam gave them a complicated look but with a simple wave of his hand... All of them vanished instantly.

A howl of anger came from the void and the details Adam had consciously ignored started to come back to the surface.

The world became blurrier and blurrier until all that was left was a single bed-- the bed he was lying on. Moving up, the trace of time on his body slowly vanished until all that was left was a young man in his twenties wearing a simple tuxedo.

A door appeared out of nowhere and opened... Clearly, it was an invitation for him to enter.

On the other side was what looked like a ballroom. The people dancing had all wonderful smiles on their faces, they were empty smiles without an iota of emotion in them, and in the middle of all this debacle, stood Cecilia, sitting and drinking tea in a lethargic gait.

"Why don't you come closer."

Adam grinned, undeterred as he advanced. Whenever he did so, the ballroom would crack little by little and the people would start to vanish.please visit

Until all that was left was a pure white void with only one table, two chairs, and the one who took the appearance of his mother.

"This is indeed surprising. So you really managed to take partial control of this dream."

"It is my dream after all. Don't you know that people who have lucid dreams can change the dream they're having as they wish?"

'Cecilia' stayed silent as she scrutinized his nonchalant smile, "Since when?"

Adam shrugged, "I would like to say from the start. But it would be a big fat lie so I won't. You really fooled me at first. I mean, an entire world where everything is great. My mom is healthy and I didn't enter the supernatural world. Woah, It was a truly beautiful dream. So yeah, I got ensnared in it before I knew it."

"But..."

"But nothing."

Adam grinned. "You seriously don't think I will tell you how to make better traps in the future, right?"

The way the face of 'Cecilia' contorted for an instant made him laugh with glee.

The truth of the matter was that the being in front of him made one mistake. The reason Adam liked the women in his life was their personalities. In the dream, Natasha and Sae never fought against each other.

Yui and Hanekawa were the perfect sisters. Cecilia did not act like a slob. Shuri did not nag at him when he did stupid things.

It was a beautiful world. A world where everything was perfect.

Too perfect...

That perfection in itself became a major flaw that allowed him to wake up.

Of course, there was another reason. He had already experienced something like this before while opening his Crown Chakra and compared to the life he lived as Buddha, this dream was simply too flimsy to get a hold of his psyche.

"It was gradual but I think I woke up around when I went to Japan."

"Then... Why only break out now?"

"Why indeed."

Why did he stay so long in this world even though he had realized it was just a dream?

Was it because he wanted to bathe in this fake happiness a little more?

It was partially so. This world was showing him his deepest desires becoming true. If he had no longing for such a world, he would not be human.

But... There was another and much more practical reason for this choice.

Adam gave a mysterious smile and tapped the table with his finger.

Ripples started to spread from that single tap as the world started to change and now the two of them found themselves in a basement.

While 'Cecilia' was attached to a cross.

"Firstly, I do not like you using that appearance."

He snapped his finger and the figure changed to a random androgynous person. It was a beautiful person. But Adam simply ignored their appearance and even the shock that was evident in their eyes.

"You...Who are you? How did you obtain complete control over this dream?"

"Who am I?"

Adam grinned. A long hat appeared on his head, a white mask with an ambiguous and widely stretched smile covered his face and a cane appeared in his hand.

"I have a few names now. But thanks to you. I obtained a new one."

Adam gave a theatrical bow as he chuckled beneath the confines of his mask.

[The power of Origin resonates and gives birth to a new Skill]

"You can call me -- The Magician."

〒 Name: The Magician

Description: A skill born from analyzing the Authority of Asmodeus the Prince of Lust.

Effect 1: You obtain control over dreams and illusions.

Remarks: This a potential EX-ranked skill, currently classified as only S rank. Further analysis is recommended. 〒

"The Magician, huh?"

'Cecilia' or rather Asmodeus stayed eerily silent even as more than hundreds of swords impaled him.

He looked deeply at the masked man in front of him and nodded his head.

In all the eons of his existence, it was the first time someone had broken free of the dream he had created.

"I will remember you."

"So will I."

As those words fell, Asmodeus was decapitated.

The dream world broke with that action.