For the moment, he decided to focus on Elementals, and erasing madness.
He gained a lot of madness after devouring Layer 5’s Pillar. It was enough that it made madness from all Zones look like joke.
Unentangling all that Intent would take time.
“I also gained dozens of elements. Hell, I think I have almost all except a few light-type ones?”
Neo frowned.
He had been so absorbed in his fights that he didn’t even take a look at his weaker abilities, which included elements that had yet to reach Expert mastery.
“So, first I’ll focus on creating Concepts for each element while I unravel the madness.”
Given the amount of madness he had before he came to Tartarus, and the madness he gained from devouring the Pillar of Layer 5.
He expected it to take months.
Of course, the reason it would take time was because he was going to create a proper technique instead of just raw-dogging everything.
To explain in simpler terms, 6 x 8.
You could either multiply 6 with 8, or add six into itself eight times to get the answer.
The former was using a technique, and thus easier. The latter was simple, but it was cumbersome for larger tasks.
Weeks passed.
During that time, he gained nine new Concepts, and had completed one-tenth of the Madness Easing Technique he was creating.
Neo opened his eyes and stretched.
He had been bored just sitting like that, and decided to take a breather.
“I’ll meet Nicolas in the meantime.”
The main reason Neo was not focusing on his Cosmos was simple: He couldn’t.
Why?
Because among the several things he needed to do to create the foundation of his Cosmos, creating a cycle of life and death was the most important.
That included laws of punishing evil and rewarding the good.
Of course, if Neo wanted, he could erase the entire system of punishing evil and rewarding good.
That way, if someone died, then it would be ultimate end with nothing beyond.
Neo still couldn’t decide what he should choose.
Since he had decided to not act as a judge, he couldn’t implement a cycle of punishment and reward for the dead.
But it felt wrong to let evil-doers die in peace too.
Someone who manipulated people and harmed them while acting like a good person, and someone who took over burdens for his family so that they could live a good life.
Both people would be treated as the same when they died?
Neo didn’t like that idea.
“My values are all over the place.”
Neo knew living was the process of experiencing new things, which would then change your values and shape you.
But he could only hope he wasn’t so two-sided.
“Haah… from how things are going, I might need to pick up mantle as the judge if I want to create a cycle of reward and punishment.
“But that would mean I have started to judge people, and then I would lose True Darkness.”
Making a choice wasn’t easy.
After a while Neo reached the deck.
Kane was behind the wheels. He had found a pirate hat from somewhere.
Percival was nowhere to be seen. Upon asking Kane, he found out Percival had motion sickness and he had been busy puking out his guts for the last few weeks.
Nicolas sat at the ship’s mast.
He now looked younger, but Neo could see Nicolas did not have too long to live.
“Hey, there.”
“Good morning, Neo Hargraves.”
Neo and Nicolas greeted each other.
They made small talk.
Finally, Neo touched the topic he had been hoping to talk about.
“Why did you sacrifice your lives to help the Grand Expedition? They were imprisoned in Tartarus since they were counted as evil, and I thought you, who were once called the Paragon of Justice, wouldn’t want to help ‘evil’ people.”
Nicolas chuckled when he heard Neo.
He looked at the sky with a longing gaze.
“Everyone deserves a second chance, and those people had been punished for long enough.”
Neo listened to Nicolas carefully.
He was doing this to understand about evil and justice. Wrong and right. Punishment and reward.
It was a necessary step in choosing how he would create the cycle of life and death in his Cosmos.
“To be honest, I’m happy of my choice,” Nicolas said.
“…?”
“In our world–continent, Senators hate the blood of Hades. All because of what The One did. That’s why we had been erasing all children of ‘his’ as soon as they were born, or found.”
“…what did The One do?”
“What did he do?” Nicolas smiled bitterly. “He made the choice everyone was afraid to make.”
Before Neo could question him, Nicolas raised his hand.
“You should ask about those events from the Grim Reapers. All the Senators, including me, are bound by a Vow to never speak about it.”
Neo felt like he could destroy the Vow, despite not knowing what kind of ability it was.
However, he didn’t do that.
He wanted to ask about it from his brother.
‘What the hell did you do to make everyone hate our bloodline so much?’
…
Several Days Later
Two figures suddenly appeared on the island where Tartarus once stood.
One was a lean figure with green metallic skin, and crystal-tear shaped head.
He had a humanoid figure, and his presence was regal.
The most eye-catching thing about him were his eyes. His pupils were the shape of a snake biting its tail.
The snake seemed alive. It continued to eat its tail, but it never ran out of the thing to eat.
The other person was a giant with six arms, and four eyes.
He had a bald head, and the tattoo of a snake eating its tail was etched on both his forearms.
“Is this where the last known location of Julie de Beaufort was traced to?” the lean man questioned.
“Yes,” the six-armed giant replied.
The lean man looked around. The snake eating its tail began to do so faster, which gave the illusion of his pupils being ring-shaped that were spinning at an extremely fast speed.
His pupils glowed golden color.
“I can’t find anything worthwhile in regards to Julie de Beaufort. As expected, she was careful in erasing her tracks.”
He was about to stop reading fate when suddenly he noticed something.
“Hmmm… this is strange,” the lean man said.