Upon returning home, Eros immediately pulled out the potion for advancing to Sequence 6. Looking at the transparent liquid inside the crystal vial, he hesitated for a moment.
Since the Tentacle Brother was gone now, would taking the potion and advancing attract a weird invasion?
Perhaps I should set up a ritual array to prevent weird invasions?
Hmm, better safe than sorry. He had picked up a set of ritual array materials when he went to the Church for supplies last time anyway.
After setting up the ritual array, Eros sat in its center and drank the potion in his hand in a single gulp.
As Eros closed his eyes to feel the surging power within his body, seawater gradually seeped out from every corner of the room.
Before long, the entire room was filled with seawater. Soaked within it, Eros seemed to sense that something was amiss and opened his eyes immediately.
Yet the moment he opened them, the seawater that had flooded the room vanished in the blink of an eye, as if it had never been there at all.
Eros frowned. An illusion?
Suddenly, he felt a gaze looking down at him from above. He raised his head to look.
There on the ceiling of the room, an eye had opened at some unknown moment.
Under Eros's gaze, eyes began appearing one after another. In no time at all, the walls of the entire room were covered with eyes.
The corners of Eros's mouth twitched. He recognized whose eyes these were—mainly because that clear yet distinctly foolish gaze was simply too recognizable.
Eros swore at them: "What are you pulling this creepy crap for? Don't you know how unsettling it looks?"
The very next second, the eyes on the walls vanished instantly.
Only the one that had first appeared on the ceiling remained, its giant eyeball still blinking at Eros.
After watching for a while, a tentacle suddenly extended out from the pupil of this eye, reaching toward Eros's forehead and lightly poking it.
At the same time, the meaning the tentacle wanted to convey surfaced naturally in Eros's mind:
"Let me in to take a look!"
Eros froze for a second, instinctively giving his consent. The instant he agreed, the tentacle before him disappeared.
Seeing the tentacle reappear inside his soul space, an enlightenment suddenly surged in Eros's heart.
That was: he could now independently close or open his soul space.
Once he closed it, not even the Tentacle Brother could enter without his consent.
This was an ability brought to him by that pure white spiritual flame after his advancement to Sequence 6. Perhaps because it was Himself that had burned, this ability was tailored specifically against Him.
Although it only worked against the Tentacle Brother, there was no doubt that the emergence of this ability resolved a major headache for him.
From now on, he could shield the Tentacle Brother's aura simply by closing his soul space. That way, even if he traveled through the Spirit World alongside high-ranking Church members, they wouldn't detect anything unusual about his body.
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The emergence of this ability, coupled with the return of the Tentacle Brother and his successful advancement to Sequence 6—this was truly a triple blessing.
After clearing away the materials on the floor that had exhausted their spirituality, Eros stepped out of his room in a good mood.
Arriving in the living room, he happened to see Undine leaning slantly against the sofa, her calves clad in white stockings raised as she read a magazine.
Eros walked over and reached out both hands to ruffly mess up the hair on top of Undine's head, prompting her to turn her face around and glare at him furiously.
It was only then that Eros noticed Undine was holding a lollipop in her mouth, so he snatched the candy straight out.
Undine said indignantly: "Aren't there more on the table? Why did you have to steal mine?"
Eros popped the candy into his mouth and shot Undine a sideways glance: "I just like taking yours!"
With that, Eros hummed a tune and left the hall. Watching his departing back, Undine muttered softly under her breath:
"Scoundrel, always picking on me!"
Stepping out of the living room into the courtyard, Eros bumped into the butler walking toward him. Upon seeing Eros, the butler immediately reported:
"Your Highness, the first batch of hired maids has arrived. I was just about to inform you."
Arrived already? Eros nodded: "Take me over to have a look!"
Arriving at the front courtyard, the butler pointed at the group of young and attractive maids standing on the open ground ahead:
"Those two manors are expected to require two hundred servants. Today is the first batch, numbering twenty people."
With just a casual glance, Eros spotted Isabella and Angelica standing among the crowd.
It was mainly because their appearances were far too prominent. While the other maids could certainly be considered pretty, they fell far short in comparison to those two.
Thus, Eros selected them without a moment's hesitation. The butler didn't find anything amiss with this choice, and the other maids considered it completely natural, though they couldn't help feeling a bit disappointed.
Noticing the disappointment in the other maids' eyes, Eros smiled at the butler beside him:
"It wasn't easy for these ladies to travel all the way here. Give each of them an additional two-pound compensation on top of their original pay."
The butler nodded in agreement. Seeing everything settled, Eros turned to the stern-looking head maid standing respectfully to the side:
"Ms. Eva, I'll leave the two of them in your hands!"
The head maid named Eva curtsied to Eros and said respectfully:
"Please rest assured, Your Highness. I will certainly make proper arrangements."
Eros nodded, then turned and walked away.
That evening during dinner, Eros casually mentioned while eating his food:
"I hired two personal maids!"
Estelle stopped her fork, shooting Eros a suspicious look. Eros kept his expression unchanged, continuing to eat his meal.
In the end, Estelle merely hummed in response and said nothing further.
Undine, on the other hand, showed a hint of curiosity in her beautiful eyes, though she didn't say anything either.
After dinner, Undine scurried over to Eros's side and said excitedly:
"Take me to see your personal maids!"
Saying this, she pulled Eros by the hand and ran to his bedroom door.
Opening Eros's bedroom door, Undine looked at the two maids standing respectfully inside and blurted out:
"Empress Isabella?!"
Immediately after, she realized that the person before her couldn't possibly be Empress Isabella. How could Empress Isabella come to serve as Eros's maid?
Besides, the hair color wasn't right—and the temperament differed too. Still, this maid looked remarkably like Empress Isabella.
Hearing Undine's exclamation, Eros chuckled and introduced them:
"Evelyn and Tracy!"
These were the working aliases currently used by Isabella and Angelica.
After listening, Undine walked a circle around Isabella, clicking her tongue in wonder:
"Evelyn really looks so much like Empress Isabella."
Eros smiled gently: "I think so too. Alright, now that you've seen them, let's not disturb their work."
Saying this, Eros pushed Undine out of the room.
The simple bed in the corner of the bedroom was only half-made, indicating that they were in the middle of making it before he and Undine came in.
Undine naturally noticed this as well, so she didn't resist Eros pushing her out. However, after stepping outside, she still couldn't help exclaiming:
"They really look so alike!"
Eros curled his lip. Nonsense, they're literally the same person. How could they not look alike?
Late into the night, Isabella glanced at her daughter sitting on the simple bed. Biting her lip, she stepped over to Eros's bed and climbed up.
"Can we turn off the lamp?" Looking down at Eros beneath her, Isabella suppressed her inner embarrassment and whispered.
Eros naturally understood what Isabella meant. Tilting his head to glance at Angelica sitting upright on the simple bed in the corner of the bedroom, a smile played at the corners of his mouth:
"Sure!"
Hearing this answer, Isabella let out a long breath, reaching out to turn off the gas lamp in the room.
Shortly after, rustling sounds echoed in the dark. Eros lay flat on the bed, and before long, his eyes narrowed slightly.