Chapter 938 The biggest secret
( Max's POV )
Max was embroiled in a terrifying experience as his personal memories became overlapped with the memories of Dracula.
Everything from his childhood and his upbringing with Junfred the primal god of war, to his imprisonment and perpetual boredom, it was all clashing within Max's mind against his own memories of his father and his journey.
At times Max forgot if his father was Mahesh Rajput or if it was Junfred?
At times he forgot if he started off as a human or a bloodthirsty primordial vampire?
He felt this vague compulsion to prove his strength against anyone and everyone as the only times Junfred showed him kindness was when he improved his strength.
Overall, the experience was hell for Max, not because the memories themselves were bad, but because Max's own journey was more or less similar to Dracula's and at moments it was impossible to discern who was who.
Even Max had his struggles controlling his bloodlust, even he had spent years in isolation within the time chamber in perpetual boredom, even he had fought stronger opponents and felt the joy of having their warm blood splash over his skin and hence he felt confused over his real identity.
In a way, it would have been easier for him to fight against Bavuma's memory than it was for him to fight against Dracula's as at least then the ambitions and personality of the two would be different.
Here, Dracula had the same goal as Max which was to become the king of vampires and while he wanted to wipe out the modern vampires, the original thought was the same.
Although Max had not given up hope of resolving this problem, he was also not making much progress regarding the issue either when suddenly he felt a warm energy forcefully entering his brain.
The warm energy effortlessly isolated the memories of Dracula from his own, freeing his mind from the dissociative identity disorder that he was feeling as the overlapping experiences faded.
*GASP*
Waking up with a gasp, Max felt his throat to be extremely dry as if he had not tasted liquid in months as he looked around the room to find a source of quenching his thirst but was surprised to find his brother and family to be in the room instead.
' Big brother?' Max asked surprisingly as he did not expect Rudra to be out of his isolation and in Dombivli.
Quickly activating [ mind reader ], Max became fully alert, however, to his absolute joy there weren't 6 floating text boxes over his brother's head anymore.
' What eh? Reading my mind?' Rudra asked through the text box floating over his head as Max chuckled and gave his brother a hug.
He did not understand what was happening as he had just woken up, but the joy he felt at realising that Rudra was no longer gripped by the seeds was immense and it made him hug his brother without even realising.
" Blood! I need to drink some blood-" Max demanded as immediately Asiva ran to fetch him some fresh blood from the canteen.
There was a lot to talk about, however, Max started with the most important question of how long was he out for? And what all changed in his absence.
Anna gave him all the answers that he needed to know and filled him in on the situation about how the lord's had gathered outside and what sort of political waves his victory had created, before narrating all the way upto how Rudra apologised to Asiva and somehow woke him up from his slumber.
Anna also mentioned how Rudra imprisoned the man who carried Max after he passed out and Max did nod his head over that matter, however, he did not address it first.
To him, the more important question was the fact that as he hugged his brother he could not feel pulse coming from his body as if he was not alive at all as somehow Max felt a pertinent question well up inside him as he looked at Rudra and said " You're ascending soon ... ain't you?"
The question made everyone in the room fall silent, as Rudra nodded his head as Max clutched his palms and felt disappointed.
After absorbing Dracula's soul, he was finally at the pinnacle of tier7 and was ready to ascend to tier8 to finally stand toe to toe with his brother in terms of strength, yet before he could reach the monarch level of strength it seemed like Rudra had reached the celestial realm.
" The faster I chase after you brother… the bigger the gap seems to get" Max said disappointedly as he could not understand how one could go from tier7 to tier9 in under 30 years when they did not even have a cheat like Soul Devour?
If Max went the traditional way and levelled up slowly it would take him anywhere between 300-500 years just to perfect tier7 and countless more to perfect tier8.
With Dracula absorbed and him being promoted to tier8 soon, Max knew that Soul Devour was going to become redundant and from that point forward he needed to level up on his own, yet, he could not help but feel that his talent lacked in comparison to his brother who performed better than him despite all his reincarnation cheats.
Just as Max felt like even as a reincarnator he was nowhere close enough to Rudra, his elder brother leaned into his ear and said a sentence that he had never admitted to anyone before.
Not even Ruby, not even Naomi, not even his own children knew this secret about him, yet today he decided to tell it to the next leader of Rajput Capital as he told Max his biggest and most closely guarded secret.
Leaning in, Rudra whispered....
" Don't be too shocked Maxie, you are only the second reincarnator in the family"
Max's eyes widened in disbelief at what he just heard as he subconsciously jumped over his bed.
He always knew his brother had read his reincarnation journal and knew that he was living his second life, however, he had never expected that his brother was one too!