Dyon stared at the young man kneeling before him, confusion coloring his features. He had obviously not heard the conversation between Ava and her father, so he had no way of knowing that Arios was presumed to be alive. But, even if he had known, that would do little to reduce his confusion and surprise.
Suddenly, Dyon noticed something and snapped out of it, “get up, I don’t need you all to kneel for me,” he walked forward, immediately and almost forcefully helping Arios up.
After he was satisfied, Dyon’s size finally reduced. Although his muscles ached a bit, he was glad to see that he handled the stress of the technique much better now. He had been holding back from proceeding to the second stage of the technique’s first layer, but it seemed his body might be ready for it now.
Dyon sighed, “I’m sure you can see my confusion… I understand none of what is going on right now…”
Arios looked at Dyon intently, seemingly trying to figure something out.
“We are the demon generals of Demon Sage Sageras,” Arios spoke plainly, as though it should have been obvious.
Dyon raised an eyebrow, “demon generals? What scale of army has so many…”
Arios’ eyes blinked, finally realizing that Dyon really didn’t understand a thing.
“The army of the Demon Sage is vast and wide spread. With how many universes the Demon Sage has bent to his will, it would be odd if he only had a few generals… but even still, we are but a fraction of the original number…”
Dyon’s eyebrows furrowed in deep thought, ‘the Demon Sage controlled multiple universes?… Well, I assume the truth would be that he used to. Not only is he dead, but with all of his generals here, they’re clearly not defending his territory… But there’s too much I don’t understand…’
“If you’re demon generals of such a powerful being, why was I able to beat you all into submission a year ago? And why are you suddenly strong enough to match me after the year of training I’ve undergone?”
Arios’ serious eyes showed a bit of humor, which was getting to Dyon’s pride, “I don’t mean to be rude, successor, but you aren’t my match now. I simply lowered my level to what I thought a successor of the Demon Sage should be at in consideration of your age.
As for why you were able to beat and cleanse us, it was due to a special technique the Demon Sage used. In exchange for our strength, he extended our lives by hundreds to thousands of years. Of course, the other trade offs were the loss of our minds and physical deformity,” a complicated look flashed through Arios’ features.
“the fact you were able to cleanse a technique of the Demon Sage… was already enough for us to acknowledge you,” Arios bowed once again, “I’m sorry for testing you, successor.”
Although Dyon had been a bit annoyed with Arios’ stomping on his pride, a look of interest still colored his features. It was clear that Arios had utmost respect for him, but he was still willing to tease him. This could only mean that the Demon Sage was a leader who allowed such things. Which made Dyon think of a question…
“It’s clear the Demon Sage was a good leader to you all,” Dyon’s words were greeted with glistening eyes and nods of acknowledgement, it was clear they agreed.
“but… if he was such a person, why would he try and forcibly seize my body? Since you all revere him, I won’t lie to you all. It was me who killed the last bits of his soul.”
Arios sighed, “the story behind this is long and complex…”
Dyon listened intently, inwardly relieved that it seemed these demon generals had long since known it was his doing. This meant that his last bit of worry could be cast away… he wouldn’t have to kill them all.
Noticing that Dyon was willing to listen and wasn’t angry, Arios continued, “in the prime of his life, the Demon Sage was a single conquered universe away from a watershed,” seeing Dyon’s confused look, Arios quickly explained, “this watershed is a complex concept that even I don’t fully understand. It would be impossible for me to explain it to you, I hope you can forgive me.”
Dyon nodded. There was no need to understand everything all at once, he was more interested in understanding the sage’s story.
Arios sighed in deep contemplation, “the problem with his rampant success obviously came with his enemies. The sage was young, so young that his power made no sense in proportion to his age. On top of all of this, he was arrogant beyond belief. The combination of jealousy and his attitude made it all too easy for him to make enemies,” Arios looked at Dyon with a knowing look, as though he could already see through him.
Dyon bitterly smiled, “you know well how the martial world works. Whether you’re arrogant or you bow your head, as long as you succeed, you will be hated. So, why bother lowering your head?”
Arios sighed, “it seems like you are very much like the sage… Although I can’t disagree with you, there does come a time where you need to be a lion in sheep’s clothing. You don’t have to bow your head… but you could at least pretend to be weaker than you are…”
A serious look appeared on Dyon’s face. He truly wondered if he should do that… but then he shook his head violently. It just wasn’t in his character.
Arios could only smile bitterly as he watched Dyon’s reaction, “well… I tried,” he chuckled to himself. Although he couldn’t say that he liked Dyon’s and the sage’s attitudes, he couldn’t ignore the fact that without their personalities being as they were, they might not be successful at all.
Dyon worked hard. Lost days of sleep. And constantly pondered over things every minute of everyday. His brain was never off. People may look at his achievements and roll their eyes because he was lucky enough to have an innate aurora, but where were those people when a 5-year-old Dyon’s eyes shone looking at a computer screen filled with code? Where were those people when an 8-year-old Dyon played his piano and plucked his guitar strings until his fingers bled… needing to vent his feelings about his lost mother without bothering his hard-working father? Where were those people when Dyon sat alone at 10 years old… when his parents were gone, and the only thing left was a room filled with inventions and computers?
Dyon’s arrogance wasn’t borne of thin air. It was his hard work. It was his shield. And he wasn’t willing to give it up.
Arios continued, “With the accumulation of his enemies, a plan was hatched to deal with the sage…
Many years ago, the opening of the Timeless Library was becoming more and more of a possibility, with the leading runner being the sage. Because of his vast resources and untold success, there were very few who would be able to rival the sage in this special legacy world opening.”
Dyon listened with interest, “special legacy world?”
“Ai. Legacy worlds come with various rankings of their own. Most of the time, it’s simply by the cultivation of the expert who left it behind… but, the Timeless Library is a special case.
Remember the watershed I spoke of before? The Timeless Library is a legacy suspended in space, where all time it stopped. It is the culmination of all the legacies and knowledge of past experts who surpassed this watershed.”
Dyon’s eyes shone. A culmination of experts who all surpassed the sage? What kind of ridiculous concept was that?
Arios sighed, “the sage was intent of opening this world, not because he wanted to follow and learn from others, but because he felt that something was off with the world. I’m sure by now you at least know about campaigns and the reason they’re fought, right?”
Dyon nodded.
“Well, the sage was intent on finding a solution to this, and he had a feeling that the answer was within the Timeless Library. With him being one of the only few with the qualifications to even enter such a legacy world, many of his enemies inexplicably stopped competing for it.
The sage was intelligent, so he was fully aware that this only happened because they were intent on destroying his hard work in his absence…”
Dyon’s arched an eyebrow, “didn’t you say this world was suspended in time? Wouldn’t it technically be but an instant from when he went in to when he came out?”
Arios shook his head, “suspended in time, yes. But suspended in which time is the key here.”
Dyon’s eyes widened with a sudden realization.
“Because of the legacy world’s abnormality. The sage could reappear in the same instance he entered… or he could be transported millions of years into the past… or, millions of years into the future. It was impossible to tell. The only thing that was certain was that you couldn’t be transported to a time before the first expert who experienced a watershed began the Timeless Library, and that there was an equal chance of being transported to any time other than that.”
“Which means there’s a vastly higher chance of being sent into the future as opposed to the past…”
Arios inwardly praised Dyon’s intelligence. He grasped the crux of the matter almost immediately.
Whereas the moment the Timeless Library was created is finite, the future was obviously infinite. Well… as infinite as heat death would allow. This meant that if those who entered had an equal chance of being transported to any given time according to those rules… there was a vastly higher likelihood of being sent into the future simply because there was more time in the future.
Dyon spoke again, “so the sage risked it anyway because he knew the solution was much more important…”
Arios nodded solemnly, “you know… the Demon Sage didn’t always have such a name… he only insisted on being called as such… even creating that horrible song… because he was laughing at his own uselessness.”
Dyon looked up from his thoughts, suddenly remembering when he asked himself how you could be a demon and a sage at the same time.
“Before he entered the world, he laughed a sad laugh… he knew he was leaving us to what would probably be our deaths… but he had no choice. And we supported him,” Arios’ voice had grown hoarse.
Arios clenched his fists, “but… he tried his best to fight fate.
He poured all of his resources and even created the energy accumulating Blood Sacrifice Technique… all to barricade and constrain the Timeless Library to a finite window. After years of planning and struggle, he finally managed to not only find the entrance, but to also time-lock the special legacy world into a two-thousand-year span. Hoping with everything in him that he would be teleported 1000 years into the past instead of a 1000 years into the future…
But, as fate would have it, he didn’t have his way….” Arios paused, taking a deep breath, “the sage was teleported hundreds of years into the future. His kingdoms were destroyed… his people were enslaved… and the worst part was… he didn’t find the answer he was looking for…”
Dyon’s jaw hardened, ‘what a story…’
“A bet that should have been 50/50 was lost and with it went one of the greatest dynasties ever…
Once the sage came back… he was enraged beyond belief, and the loss of his wives and children sent him into a crazed like state. Demonic will is a double-edged sword… it gives you power beyond almost anything… but should you lose control… the consequences are drastic…
By the time the sage finally gained his sanity, he was a depleted man… he was no longer young… and his enemies had only multiplied.
He began to travel using his inner world as a haven. Fleeting in and out of Gates and in and out of time… soon he realized that he had long since lost his moment to surpass the watershed.”
‘so that’s what it was… that world wasn’t his legacy world… but it was instead his inner world… no wonder there was no time distortion… what does that mean?’ Dyon thought.
“In his last moments, he finally told us remaining generals what happened in the Timeless Library… I still remember his words…
‘what a joke my life has been… my arrogance reached the skies and I disdained everything… and yet, in the end, fate still played with me to death…
You want to know what happened in the Timeless Library? The place I gave up everything for?…’ The sage laughed so hard that tears streamed down his face endlessly, ‘those bastards told me I wasn’t good enough. That I wasn’t fated. And most sadistically of all… that my successor would be the one to end my life. What a joke!’ “
Dyon trembled listening to these words. To lose everything he’s worked so hard for… just to be told he wasn’t good enough…
“So… the sage settled down, waiting for fate to take hold. He had given up on everything.
All he had left was us… although we were just as talented as his more powerful generals, because of our young age and weak cultivations, we survived only because we were ants not worth being stepped on…
Then, one day, the sage’s inner world resonated with his created blood sacrifice technique and awoke him from his slumber. The only thing he told us before he allowed you all in was that he had split his soul to suspend his youngest and last daughter in time along with all of his accumulated knowledge and wealth within the only abandoned universe in existence: ‘Chaos.’
I can’t tell you much about that universe… nor can I tell you where it is or how to get there… but we hope as a fated successor, you’d do our pitiful master this last favor…”
‘no wonder… it makes no sense for such a powerful existence to only have a supreme level treasure… it’s not enough for his level. Not to mention the fact it was definitely too easy to wipe him out… regardless of the fact he was just a remnant soul’
Dyon took a deep breath… when suddenly, he grinned, “the wives of such a powerful man should have been goddesses among women, no? Then wouldn’t his daughter be an incomparable fairy? You don’t need to ask me twice.”
Arios’ eyes widened in shock, before he laughed so hard that his stomach hurt. The thousands of white haired generals cut through the once somber atmosphere with their uproarious laughter. It seemed they had found themselves a good leader.
Dyon smiled, tapping Arios on the shoulder, “There’s still one more thing, Arios…”
Arios wiped the tears from his eyes and looked towards Dyon.
A complicated look appeared on Dyon’s features, “do you remember your origin?”
Arios froze, “my origin?… I come from a low-ranking universe… from a planet called earth.”
Dyon gripped Arios’ shoulder, “your sister misses you,” Dyon’s smile was gentle, but his words filled Arios’ eyes with tears of sadness, longing and joy.
The demon generals, knowing of Arios’ odd back story, smiled knowingly. It seemed like at least one of them would get a happy ending.
Due to Dyon’s prodding, Arios finally told his story.
Many years ago, he had left the Sicarius family to pursue his own path much like his elder brothers. He was a genius, but he was still intrigued by the Focus Academy… mostly due to its teleportation to the Elvin World. However, it wasn’t the world itself, but rather, the reason such a low-ranking school even had such a powerful array.
His curiosity only increased when, at the opening ceremony of his entrance, he noticed the creation array the pillar family kids used. Although he had told his family he was headed to Focus Academy because the Elvin World was beneficial, his true purpose was to investigate these abnormalities.
He kept it a secret for a simple reason: his father. Head Sicarius was a stoic man who wanted his sons to lead their own lives, but that didn’t mean he wanted them to be reckless. Because he was a close confidant of the Royal God Clan, he was well aware of the dangers that were associated with the origin of those arrays. Not meaning that he knew about the blood sacrifice technique, but he was fully aware about the destruction of the sect that left those arrays behind: The Celestial Deer Sect.
Because Head Sicarius knew how dangerous the enemies of the sect were, he didn’t want his son to be involved in any way. But, Arios was stubbornly curious. As a result, he snuck into the center pillar library using his assassin techniques and read about the Celestial Deer Sect and came to the same conclusion Dyon did: the remains were in Focus Lake.
But, unfortunately for Arios, not only were his movements noticed since he didn’t use the same covert methods Dyon did by sneaking in using the ponds, the Celestial Deer Sect didn’t reveal itself to him like it did for Dyon. He could only head back empty handed.
Soon after, the Elvin World Opening was announced, and Arios of course participated. However, while inside, a girl he had gotten close with tried to kill him. Dyon, who was listening, immediately knew that this girl was Tammy.
Because Arios was hiding his true cultivation, Tammy was no match for him. But, he could see that she was deeply troubled and felt she was backed into a corner… although he didn’t know she was doing this because people noticed his sneaking into the central pillar library. As such, Arios never revealed his cultivation level to Tammy, and instead let her ‘kill’ him. Because Arios had mastered the technique to a much higher level than Ava, a technique he called Assassin’s Soul Death, he was able to cut off his soul and reinstate it at will. This was why while Ava’s soul crystal cracked, Arios’ simply dimmed, losing the connection.
Because he was playing dead, the teleportation array obviously didn’t take Arios at the end of the month. The worst part was, all this time, the Storm family thought Arios was sneaking around because he knew something, when really, he was curious about something completely different.
But, Arios decided to make the best of the situation. He stayed in the Elvin Kingdom, tempering himself in the forest. He even joined Florence Academy eventually. But, he wasn’t as lucky as Dyon yet again and was regulated to a foot soldier role for the campaigns. That being said, he didn’t mind too much because he could always go to the main continent to lead his own armies. It was just that he wanted the experience of being a foot soldier so that he could better lead in the future.
However, Arios’ string of bad luck wasn’t yet over. Because of the anomalies of the Gates and their unpredictability, coupled with the stupid decisions of the leading young master at the time, Arios fell into a warp in time.
By all rights, he should have died, but, the Demon Sage saved him, bringing him along his own campaigns. Arios thought it would always be impossible to come back… even the Demon Sage couldn’t control time perfectly, let alone him. But, it seemed like he had finally come back home.
Dyon smiled as Arios wiped the last of his tears, “we’ll go see your family in no less than a year. In fact, if you’d like to go now, I won’t blame you.”
Arios blinked, “how long has it been since I’ve been gone?”
Dyon thought for a bit, “Ava was only 15 when I met her, so she should be 16 at most right now.”
Arios looked like he had just heard the greatest thing in the world, “only 2 years? I’ve only been gone 2 years? HAHAHAHAHA.”
His laughter was light, as though a massive burden had been dropped from his shoulders.
Arios was only 20 right now and he left home at 17. But, despite this, he had no way of knowing what point of earth’s history he had come back to. The fact he had been gone for even less time than he experienced away was only the best of news to him.
Dyon smiled, ‘it seems like that technique the demon sage used stopped their aging completely and stopped them from being aware of how much time had really passed. Arios should have experienced thousands of years in the deformed state, but to him, he only spent 3 years as a demon general. I guess the Demon Sage truly is a kind man…
Since you’ve lived such a pitiful life, I’ll take up the mantle for you. I can’t take you as my master, as I’ve already promised that to someone else, but you’ve earned my respect. Once the time is right, I’ll be the new Demon Sage. I’ll save your daughter. I’ll slaughter your enemies. And I’ll make sure they know the reason why they’re dying. Consider this a thank you for leaving your legacy to me and an apology for being the fated reason you died.’
The demon generals sat down on the ground, happy and content with everything. Although Dyon still had many questions… from their hair to who they were as people and what they’d done in the past, he held it in for now. These people had been through a lot, it was time for them to relax.
Arios looked at Dyon with an interested impression and said something that made Dyon rethink his whole attitude.
“So, successor. When’s our next campaign?”
Dyon looked at Arios for a bit, feeling the blood of the demon generals boiling along with his.
Dyon grinned widely, ‘I guess it’s time to make a splash.’