"If you have just under a billion members, why the need to remain in the shadows? Why not surface into the light and take over the world?" Draco asked with confusion.
Carmine stabbed the butt of his cane down into the asphalt with a thin smile. "Oh, how we'd love to. Having to hide from the public eye, especially if you know perfectly well how easy it would be to slaughter the majority of such a weak species, is truly stifling to no end."
The other Supernatural members among them seemed to share this same sentiment, and it showed on their faces. This made Keith pale, as he was just a common human.
He even wondered why they had requested for him to come along. After all, he had no men or a group except what they provided him.
He had tagged along because they told him they were here to suppress Draco and possibly take him out, so he hadn't hesitated. He would do anything to see him killed for what he had done to his family.
However, things were playing out much differently. First, they didn't seem to bear any particular hostility to the fellow, just mostly wariness. Secondly, they were talking about absurd and strange matters pertaining to supernatural stuff that shocked his soul.
Finally, it seemed like they even disdained normal humans. That would explain why competing for number 1 in the city had no meaning to them.
Their mafia groups were like fronts for their organization! The body guards that stood behind their seats seemed unsurprised by this, so they were likely core members privy to the truth!
However, the elites they brought along were just as shocked as he was, not comprehending what was going on at all! They were all high-level fodder that contributed as a part of their organization's front!
They might not understand the implications of all this, but Keith did, which was why he was sweating. Why had he been brought here if they didn't plan on killing Draco straight up?
Why was he being allowed to listen in on this world-shaking knowledge for free despite not being a person of real importance? Keith had been raised by Baron D'our, that wily old fox, so his ability to calculate such things was spot on.
Keith could only come to one conclusion… he would be killed! It was likely that he was brought here as a gift to Draco should Draco be willing to negotiate. They would earn his favor by nipping a possible future headache in the bud early.
If things went bad, they would just crush Draco and plant him in his place, reviving The Cardinals with him as their puppet since he would be eternally grateful to them for carrying out his vengeance!
Either way, he might be sitting at the table with them, but he was a pawn in the grand scheme of things. There was no escape for him.
Keith didn't succ.u.mb to the crushing despair and the fear, but calmed himself down forcefully and remembered his grandfather's teachings.
Baron D'our was a firm believer that the most powerful person in the world wasn't the one with the highest IQ, the highest power or the highest wealth. Instead it was the person who was able to maintain his or her calmness and rationality in the face of a crisis.
As such, he tamped down his fear and began thinking of ways to escape his inevitable fate. Meanwhile, the exposition went on.
"The reason we have held back is due to three other existences in this world that prevent us from running rampant." Carmine Malone revealed with a light twirl of his cane.
"The first are the Superhumans. They are a group of genetically modified humans that have developed almost comic book like abilities thanks to modern science. Obviously, they weren't much of a threat to us initially, but they are becoming a serious threat with all the advances."
"The second is the World Council. This group are nothing like the previous organizations humanity had formed to promote unity, like the recently disbanded UN. They are more practical and will use lethal force when necessary. As you may know, they had seized the codes to many nuclear devices during World War 3's chaos with their own army, and they now stand unmatched in the world."
Carmine laughed dryly here. "Supernatural or Superhuman, a rocket will still blow us to smithereens, putting aside the bone-chilling amount the World Council possess."
Draco nodded knowingly and sighed internally. The Lineages, with all their cool powers, also feared the World Council. Even Draco who was willing to play around and do foolish things dared not cross the World Council.
The only entity in this world that did not fear the World Council were the AI and its creator. They dared to openly flaunt their impenetrability to the World Council, such that it had to resort to using underhanded means to find out what the hell was going on.
"The final group are a mysterious bunch of people who have powers both superhuman and supernatural, yet not at the same time. They have existed long before our organizations came to be, and have been the prime reason why our ancestors refused to act during the period where humanity was weak, before technology."
"They employ a wide variety of powers that are superior to any we've ever seen and they can slaughter us in the hundreds with ease. If it weren't for the fact that they prefer to remain extremely reclusive, this world should be their plaything."
When Carmine Malone mentioned this third-party, the other Supernatural members became solemn. They looked like he had mentioned the greatest power known to man, and that even talking about them was a dangerous affair.
Draco's face became strange when he listened. It couldn't be that… the third power were… the Lineages right? It couldn't be that both Superhuman and Supernatural hid in fear because of the Lineages… right?
"They adopt a clan style, and they are the families that rule this world in the background. Each of them are located in a capital city of a powerful country, and their hands can be felt over all of history's greatest events."
"They are enigmatic and very cold toward outsiders as well as each other. The few times we've interacted with them over the centuries has proven that. As far as we know, they call themselves the Lineages." Carmine Malone finished with a hushed tone.
Holy shit!
Draco was dumbfounded. So it really was the Lineages! These fellows were scared shitless by the goddamn Lineages!
Draco did not know how to feel, and it manifested in a strange expression. How was he supposed to let these fellows know that he was basically one of the three 'Kings' of the current generation's Lineages, with Eva and Local Lord being the other two?
However, Draco suddenly realized something. If these forces existed and had interacted with the Lineages before, why did the Lineages not even know their names or their powers?
Could it be that the Lineages had found a trace of the indigenous beings of Earth? After all, Eva did tell him about that. But if that was the case, the information would be more detailed.
From the way Eva had explained it back then, it sounded like the Lineages had been too lazy to doc.u.ment it… had been too lazy… had been…
Draco slapped his forehead. He understood everything now. It was essentially the case of a world-renown pro footballer meeting a promising young talent from a football academy.
To various other people, the promising young footballer was a future star in the making and someone they could never reach. He was already high up in the clouds.
But to the world-renown footballer, he was just a slightly bigger ant. By the time the meeting was over and the world-renown footballer went home to rest, he would have forgotten this promising lad's name.
He would only remember - at best - his face and that there existed a promising young lad that he had met somewhere. It was the same thing here.
The Lineages couldn't be bothered to doc.u.ment or investigate more into what they had labeled riff-raff, so they just kept their existence in mind and ignored everything else.
Draco understood why the Lineages had sat around foolishly for the World Council to emerge. If they controlled the world strongly enough, such a development should never have occurred.
It was this same arrogance and laziness that led the Lineages to hide quietly in the current day. It seemed to be their fatal flaw and they had paid a price for it.
Thinking this, Draco felt rather relieved. By allowing the normal humans and these factions to develop, they had actually done well. They raised the overall power level of the human race as a whole.
From the way Lucifer and Amaterasu had solemnly warned them about the indigenous beings on earth, it made no sense that with all their power, they hadn't vanquished these threats.
Why leave behind a group that could potentially slaughter all humans as well as their precious failsafe, Lucifer and Amaterasu's reincarnated selves - Draco and Eva - that would come after they left?
Draco could only think up one reason, and it chilled his heart. The only reason was that the 9 High Humans, together or separately, could not defeat the indigenous beings, but could only force them into hiding.
That was truly a worrying thought, because Draco's power was currently nowhere near Lucifer's, much less surpassing it enough for him to vanquish these beings.
And it seemed like neither the Lineages nor this Supernatural faction knew about them. The lack of information on the indigenous beings served to make Draco even warier.
Draco tapped the table lightly. "I graciously thank you for enlightening me on all this, but I doubt you told me this crucial information just for fun."
Julia smiled as she took over. "That is right. We gave you this information partially to educate you on who we are, as well as a sort of token to spark a possibly good relationship."
"Does this relationship exist between me and the eight of you or me and the whole of Supernatural?" Draco asked a very prudent question.
In essence, where they trying to curry favor as a group under Supernatural, or as representatives of the whole of Supernatural?
"The latter. Our faction wishes to recruit you into our ranks. The field of Control is still a new and haphazard study. We only have 30 people who can practice it worldwide." Julia answered with a nod.
'30? I always thought there were 10 before Update 5. Seems like my piss poor starting point in the previous timeline really limited my information gathering.' Draco thought silently.
It was clear that he had only seen the tip of the iceberg, whether it was this life or the previous one. In fact, all reincarnation did was give him heaps of early-stage information as well as skills that would take years to develop.
However, he was grateful for it. He was now encountering things and matters that he would have never been able to even dream of in his past life.
The existence of Superhuman, genetically modified people with 'superpowers' and Supernatural, mutant humans with exotic abilities, would slow down his steady plan to ruin the world.
Then, there were the two mid-bosses, the Pangu Alliance - Lineages aside from Lucifer and Amaterasu - and the World Council - a strong global entity with access to insane firepower - who stood in his way.
He would need to build a strong force to contend against these two, as well as increase his personal strength. If he fought with Local Lord in the real world, he would only have a slight advantage thanks to Control.
Local Lord's ability to regenerate from everything with that Undying King Inheritance was truly irritating. Of course, in Boundless, Draco could beat Local lord while sleepwalking.
However, he had no Divine Class, Divine Eyes and what not in the real world. He had only two things, Control and his bloodline. These two were strong enough to subjugate a city, or even a federal state on his own with relative ease.
But country-wide, continent-wide and world-wide? Impossible.
And then, this left the final boss of earth, the indigenous species. If Draco wanted to rule this planet, he would have to become as strong as Lucifer in the real world and even surpass him, a very tall order.