Lord Shadow

If there is one thing he wanted, ruling the world is not one of it. It is too inconvenient and it did not answer the question he had in his heart and in his mind.

If ruling the world would show him the answer, then he might be interested.

It is the reason why the World Government have relaxed against him and why the Republic try their best not to get into conflict with him.

Because they both know that their interest does not align, so why bother making themselves to be enemy with him.

But both of them are also wrong on their perceived reasons of why Death Monarch did not desire the world.

The World government believes he is just being lazy and found it troublesome to have the grand aspiration that they have, to unite humanity and bring peace to the world.

They believe it to be a grand aspiration. To Azief however that grand aspiration is laughable.

The Republic on the other hand believes that the reason why he does not want to rule the world is simply because he is not interested in it.

They were both wrong. Azief himself never like ruling people and was not adept at it but that does not mean he is a wooden statue.

He used to have this thought of also ruling the world, and he also had interest in it in the beginning. Only after knowing some things and understanding some things, he lost interest.

Pandemonium is one of the three great powers in the world and everyone knows that the Death Monarch rules it.

But is he really the one that rules Pandemonium? He created Pandemonium. That is true.

But did he rule it?

No.

That is the truth. He did not rule it. People forgot that while he sits on the throne and his word is law, he never rules Pandemonium directly.

People forget because all of Pandemonium official establish laws according to what they think Death Monarch likes and dislikes.

They know the Death Monarch hated organized crime so they banned them.

They know that the Death Monarch hated slavery, so any slavers that dare to sail the Pandemonium Sea would be executed.

When all of these laws were enacted and written Azief had never spoken anything about it. But the officials were all proud.

Because to those officials the silence of Death Monarch in those issues means his assent and his approval. If he does not agree he would surely say something

These officials all have seen how the people outside Pandemonium. They all acted like beast and monsters.

Without laws and enforcers to enforce those laws, people commit crime when it suits them, killing and even more horrendous crime was committed, and people suffering are as heavy as the weight of Heavens.

But in Pandemonium it is different. Death Monarch sitting on the high Throne is like the most effective deterrence.

No one wanted to be pulverized into atom particles with one punch of Death Monarch

The people that are in Pandemonium court are all volunteers.

Seeing Pandemonium in peace and a good place to live for civilized person, they all believe that they are doing good in the world

They do good things so they believe themselves to be a good person.

They all think that they have read the Death Monarch mind and serve the court in the best interest of Death Monarch.

If they know Azief could care less about the courts and its officials, how sad would it be for them.

He did not decide policy, did not establish laws, did not care much about taxation and one could even say he does not care who comes and who goes in his court.

Those who rule it is his officials. And who is those officials?

It is the people under his friend employed.

The people that Sina trusted, the people that Wang Jian, Athena, Freya, Somi believes and trusted.

They filled the vacancy in the central governance of Pandemonium.

Probably only Loki understand him and probably only Loki could see that while Death Monarch words is like a decree from the Heavens to the people and the officials of Pandemonium, he never directly rule.

When he was offered the throne, he took it.

Why?

Because not taking it will be inconvenient and taking it will be convenient. It is that simple.

The one that created the government was not him.

He never cares for such thing and he never understands why the people after the Fall wanted to establish governments or create some kind of law or governance.

This is probably the attitude that made Azief the first person that touched the barrier between Sovereign which is as lofty as a true God compared to the other stage of cultivation.

To Sovereign, unless you are at least half Sovereign you are no different than a mere mortal.

Even Half Sovereign, if a Sovereign really wanted to kill them even if a Half Sovereign muster all of their strength, they would surely die without a shadow of a doubt.

Azief thoughts was different than the other people of the world and he did not share their belief and their desire to create the old world.

Because that old world has crumbled and so does its way of life. Azief accepted this easily and embrace it wholeheartedly.

But not all of the people in the world is like him.

To Azief he does not understand why the people of the world could not see that it doesn’t matter what civilization you created, what kind of organization you form or what kind of conglomerations you create, with sufficient power one could turn it to dust in one swish of one hand.

Azief saw it earlier than the other.

Or probably he is the only one that realizes such things and determinedly survives all those tribulation and life and death situation and become who he is now.

To create all of those thing is easy.

With powers and abilities humanity possesses now, to build a building that reached the sky would probably only take a week and to create a large city would probably only take a month.

But as equally easy it is to create such thing; it is as equally easy to destroy it.

When Azief fought Sithulran, how many island was sunk down to the sea bed and how many hidden villages and lives were taken unintentionally by him?

Without power, all of those things that people created is like building a house that is built upon pillars of salt and sand.

With one gust of a wind, it would crumble down.

Which is why he had always find it weird why people like Hirate, Boris and many others instead of seeking for power waste their time busying themselves with scheming and plotting.

This is not the world before the Fall.

You can scheme and plot to take down people stronger than you…this is still true at least to a point.

But only up to a certain point.

However, when someone reaches a certain level, no matter how many schemes you could hatch and how many plots you had hidden; it would be pointless unless you could kill him.

This is why Azief strive for greater power and strength.

Because he knows when he reaches a certain level, no matter how people plotted against him or try to harm the people he loves, if he is strong enough he could reverse Heaven and Earth and render all such petty schemes and plot useless.

Azief right now could arrogantly and confidently say he is not afraid of schemes or plot. It is not because he is confident in seeing through all plots and scheme.

It is because simply that even if it’s the scheme is shown or directed at him; he would just simply break it down.

It is why he did not try to scheme against Loki. It is why he does not scheme against any other people.

Because he doesn’t need to and it is pointless to do so.

If he really wanted to kill, for example, if he wanted to kill Hirate do the people in the world believes that he would care even if Hirate is the President of the World government that he, Death Monarch would not dare kill him.

It is simply because it is inconvenient to kill him and Azief had never and interest in killing him. Killing Hirate would invite chaos.

And chaos would not be beneficial for him to seek the answers to those question he had in his mind.

But the most important thing Azief found the man to be…… interesting. To fail two times against him and yet have that steely determination no matter how many times he fails, to Azief, Hirate was a rare talent.

There is a strength inside him.

But it is also a waste. Azief only know one way to reach the top. Forward. He moves his feet forward and he keep walking.

He rarely looks back. He only looks back if by looking back he could move forward. Other than that, his eyes is forward and his feet keep walking.

He did not waste his time trying to build things or create things. Not because he didn’t want to or couldn’t.

It is simply because he knows he is not yet powerful enough to protect those things he created.

Since that is the case, why bother from the beginning to start such thing and plunge oneself into a world of hurt and pain?

He is strong now. But he knows he is not the strongest. He had climbed all the peaks that this world has to offer

But outside this Heaven, outside these cages many people have put themselves in, Azief knows, there is a Heavens beyond the heavens and there are many more peaks he needs to climb before he is truly on the apex of existence.

People said that the people standing at the top are lonely. They are all powerful old creature unmatched in power and at the same time lonely.

***

Thank you for reading. Hope you enjoy the story. i said it is going to be pretty dry right. Anyway, this chapter explore many things and maybe serve as a look back at what Azief has achieved all these years.