The plane touched down in Beijing Capital Airport, Shunyi District of China at 8am in the morning. The core members were woken up and disembarked rapidly in the private airspace and were collected by a fleet of black sedan cars.
For most of them, this was their first time coming to China, so they looked around like ignorant tourists as the cars passed through the streets of the well kept capital city. Beijing was breathtaking, and the sheer variety of asian culture on display was amazing to behold.
Despite the terror of the Ao family, among other top clans in the capital, most of the people looked no different from those in New York or any capital city. Busy, distracted and bored basically.
This confused the core members as from the way things had been described, China should be shrouded in fear and worry for the future, on the verge of exploding into rebellion and chaos.
So what was this?
Akainu, in the leading car, was posed this question through the interconnected comms of all the sedan cars. He rubbed his eyebrows and connected all the cars speakers so that the passengers could hear what he was saying and explained.
"Well, what did you expect? At best, there are a few hundreds or up to a thousand pureblooded members of the Ao family. Even if we include peripheral members, it would be a stretch for their number to surpass 10,000."
"We could include other clans and assume they have the same leeway as the Ao family, but that total number would still not be able to surpass 100,000."
"Beijing alone has a population of over 20 million people. This mere 100,000 simply cannot ruin the lives of such a great number of people even if they worked themselves to death, much less the entirety of China with their billion plus people."
"So it's really just like in any country in the world. A select few are oppressed based on circumstances or physical/financial factors while the large majority live their lives oblivious of any interference."
Akainu flicked his finger boredly. "It's just like how most people in the world watch the news and hear of crimes like shooting mass murders, kidnappers and whatnot, but they themselves have never even heard a gunshot, much less suffered a crime."
"For some, their only experience with those things is indirectly, through hearsay, or perhaps someone in their surrounding might be affected. The simple fact is that until it happens to you, you won't care enough about it to do anything about it."
Akainu smirked. "A common example is human trafficking and kidnapping. You may receive amber alerts or see a post on social media from a family member begging you to put in the effort to look for their child or friend who has been missing for a while. At best you would lazily forward it and at worst, you will just scroll by, not your problem after all."
"However, the day your own family member goes missing, it suddenly dawns on you and you find yourself wondering why not enough people are taking this seriously. This hypocritical thought causes you to become silent when it appears, and you realize just how fucked up the world is."
Akainu shrugged, although the others couldn't see him. "It's the same bleak reality everywhere. The Ao family may rape women, but they won't go after average women, only celebrities, stars or powerful women who suit their taste. They won't destroy small businessrs but put pressure on bigger ones or target wealthy and valuable ones."
"Despite popular belief, the average man is not within the eyesight of those at the top. You are their produce, their resources. Who harms their own crops/cattle?"
"Those at the top only target each other, because they see them as equals and competitors. Just as you wouldn't go and have sex with a Neanderthal because you instinctively feel to be a superior form of life, so too do they feel towards them average man."
Akainu stopped there and the cars were deathly silent as the core members digested his words. Many smiled bitterly as they found themselves guilty of such thoughts, but they knew Akainu was not chastising or lecturing them, just pointing out the facts.
Whether they liked it or not, as Tier 3 Control masters at the least and members of Umbra, as well as the Purgatory Group, they were the upper echelons of today's world. If not today, then the day everyone is captured by Boundless, their status would be cemented as Gods among men.
And, like any person in such a situation, they found themselves filled with the requisite pride and arrogance, as well as disdain for others.
Now, the core members here had a choice. They could acknowledge their faults and change for the better, growing into better men and women who would bring humanity to greater heights with their wisdom and benevolence.
Or they could just remain the same and leave the world to figure itself out.
Naturally, after exactly a picosecond of contemplation, they all unanimously decided to accept themselves and maintain their current disposition.
Why should they change? They owned no one anything and they liked how things were now. They also liked how they felt and treated the world.
Obviously, others might not like it, but how was that their problem? If you didn't like it, you were free to muscle up and come and beat them!
Until then, deal with it!
Thinking along these lines, the core members felt refreshed and motivated for what came next. They had overcome a hidden psychological block, and they could even feel that their Control had faintly became stronger, especially their VoP.
A stronger mind was developed through understanding and will more than anything else, and they had accomplished a bit of both just now.
Soon, they came to a busy and packed road in a commercial-like district, and entered the underground parking of a nearby mall. As the cars parked and the core members disembarked, they were met with some Chinese folk being lead over by three beauties.
The older core members eyes lit up when they saw them but the newer ones simply observed them casually.
In the lead was a beautiful and tall woman with the arguably most perfect - and realistically proportioned - body. Her face was mature and well sculpted, her lips were thick and cherry red, her hair was shoulder length and silky.
Her eyes were scarlet in color, glinting with playfulness and allure. Her skin was creamy and unblemished, making her look succulent to the taste.
Her chest was excellent, her waist was narrow and her backside was amazing. Her thighs were thick enough to crush melons and her red and black cheongsam was very tight and split at the sides up to her waist, allowing one to glimpse the curves freely and even see her panties if they had the right angle.
Beside Rina, walking together like a reflection of each other, were two little beauties. They looked to be in their early twenties, with modest chests and twin tails. They had round and cute faces, with big eyes, small noses as well as rosebud lips.
The one on the right had aqua blue hair while the one on the left had fiery red hair. They both had dark black eyes and wore long sun dresses which had colors that matched their hair.
Naturally, they were Rina, Jada and Jade!
Upon seeing them, the old core members rushed up to greet them and catch up while the newer ones introduced themselves and got a handle of them. Misery and AP glanced at Rina, and an evil light flashed in their debaucherous eyes.
However, RamButt soon patted them on the shoulder and shook his head.
"She belongs to Draco."
Hearing this, Misery and AP shared a look before shrugging. They lost interest in Rina immediately, not wanting to compete with Draco on this.
Jada and Jade were happy to see Akainu and Sanji, who rubbed their soft heads with gentleness. Immediately, all three asked about Draco simultaneously, looking like they were dying to get any information about him.
Seeing this, the core members couldn't help but sigh. Just what kind of poison did that Draco fellow feed these beauties for them to still think about him for so long? How often, if ever, had he himself wondered about their wellbeing?
Well, that was the exactly problem as to why they got captured by Draco in the first place, he did think about and care about them. Rina had been his sexual partner ever since he had decided to seek revenge.
You don't fuck someone regularly for 8 goddamn years and claim that you have no feelings for them afterward. This was exactly why Riveting Night heavily disliked Rina, but didn't dare to bully her too much. After all, she was the one who had hurt Draco.
Likewise, Jada and Jade were his best friends in the previous timeline, on par with RamButt. Jada and her antics especially had been part of what had kept his sanity intact during those difficult years, while Jade's calm wisdom and great skill had helped him found Hellscape, so his fondness for the Fire and Ice Twins could be imagined.
Anyway, after catching up, Rina led the core members to a large store within the mall that sold Virtua Helmets. It turns out that this was a local distribution outlet for GloryGore and Purgatory. Draco had once made a third company before the Boundless VS the World case to assist Boundless in this matter.
Thanks to the results of that case, this company had skyrocketed in value and had become a private holding of Purgatory and GloryGore, being used as the sole and exclusive distributor.
This also meant that despite the efforts of the Ao family, Purgatory Group still had a tentative foothold in China. After all, they dared not prevent Boundless from coming to China as it gave an advantage to the people of the world.
But now, even the stupidest dog on the street could tell the benefits of playing Boundless and it was just life extension. A year ago in real time, there had been only about 4 or 5 Control masters, not including Draco and Eva.
Now, there were about 50, most at the False Control level, not including the core members and the Evil Duo. Where the previous had been older generation who had been practicing for years, the newer ones were younger and some even had no martial arts background.
In the previous timeline, by the time 15 in game years had passed, there were about a few hundred thousand Control masters. It was just a natural development to playing Boundless for a long period of time depending on your human bloodline of course, given what we know now.
Upon hearing the feats of Draco and Eva, Rina and the Twins became excited and worried. At Draco's new levels of power, did they even have a spot by his side? Even Rina began to doubt herself.
Yeah she had a killer body and looks that suited Draco's taste, but she wasn't the only one in the world. Even Bella was built to Draco's taste, he just disliked her because of what she had done to Cobra.
However, the reunion was cut short after a while as it was now time to deal with business. Rina laid out the plans to the manor of the Ao family in the center of the conference room and also brought it up on screen.
"The Ao family is largely split between two locations. Their manor for the pureblooded members and the Imperial Garden for most of the peripheral members who occupy governmental positions. Apart from that, there are scattered members here and there across the country and the world."
Misery and AP folded their arms and pondered. "What plan did you formulate locally before out intervention?"
Rina smiled. "Your arrival was always a part of Eva's plan, so we worked around that. We just didn't expect you guys to become so much stronger than we initially planned for."
"Basically, the plan was for us to hit the manor and clear out the truly powerful bloodline holders while the so-called rebels and native insurgents hit the governmental offices and deal with the more 'normal' peripherals members."