Sovereign of the Karmic System

Daniel ignored the ice cold look of the lupa, and instead tapped his thighs in order to convince the wolf cub to jump onto his lap, but a low grow stopped him before it could take the leap.

As soon as the growl reached the cub’s ears, his long tail stopped wagging around. It then laid down on its belly, with his muzzle placed in between his paws. This behaviour was not out of the fear he felt from his mother, but a habit he and the rest of the litter had picked up from his older siblings.. like the companion of the young demoness, which was lowering his head, and sitting quietly.

Right after the lupa made sure that her cub wasn’t doing anything she didn’t approve of, she turned to look at the demon lord with eyes colder than outer space itself.

The demon lord tried to stop the cubs from jumping all over him, and at the same time, he felt the temperature of the entire area drop of several degrees. In a matter of moments, the area became cold enough to turn his breaths visible.

For a good minute the demon lord tried to ignore his companion, as he had already noticed and recognized Daniel, and did not want to have anything to do with the lupa’s anger.. But he quickly found out that there was no way for him to avoid it. The Lupa was still angered with him for letting her cub wander alone while he slept, causing him to be fed by a stranger, and be fixated with dark essence.

A spiritual wolf of mana would be able to grow by feeding off of all types of essences at first, but since the natural types of mana were too diluted with one another, the younger wolves would never be able to test any pure type of essence. The cub which Daniel had met, on the other hand, had managed to get a taste of perfect dark essence, and that was enough for it to become obsessed with it.

Unfortunately, the essence of darkness was amongst the poorest types of essence present in the universe, and the vast majority of the known dimensions. The only dimension which had plenty of it, was the realm of shadows to which only one of Iewah’s children had access to.

The entirety of the concepts of darkness were so rare to encounter, that to gain a perfect comprehension of dark essence had been deemed impossible, just like the gaining a perfect comprehension of time, and life essence.

"Stop looking at me like that, I told you! I closed my eyes for a minute, and he escaped!" said the demon lord with exasperation, but without daring to look back at the massive snow white wolf. He then turned to look at the commander he had picked to accompany him to the signing of the demonic pact, and asked "Vorah, how did things go here?" The drops of sweat that were running down his back were now freezing due to the low temperature, which he preferred to withstand than to argue with his stubborn and overly protective companion.

"My lord, we were able to minimize the damage to our forces thanks to the help of the oni leader, but there is something wrong with that human over here.." Responded the commander while pointing at Daniel, who was showing a dark essence sphere to the cub in an attempt to convince him to come closer.

The demonic wolf cub, young as he was, didn’t know better than to disobey to his mother. So while taking short peeks at her, and making sure that she was not keeping an eye on him, the cub began to shuffle with his paws, and move closer to Daniel bit by bit.

However, the sneaky actions of the two were interrupted the moment the demon lord approached them. Next to him, was the lupa, who had shrunk to a smaller size to be able to follow her companion in between other people.

"Human, I thought I told you not to go around feeding demonic beasts as you please." Said the demon lord with a serious tone and narrowed eyes.

If not for the remnants of power that were being emanated by the demon’s body, Daniel would have sworn that this demon was not a cultivator. His behaviour was not that of an ancient fighter, and his relationship with the beast that followed him around was akin to that of a brother, and an over the top sister.

While not completely serious before, the moment the demon lord had noticed the similarity to the powers of the woman within the dark cage and one of the cultivators he and the lupa had just finished fighting against, he became extremely serious.

"Really? It sounded more like a mixture of rumbled mumbles and penny-pinching talk to me.." Responded Daniel before finally flinging the dark essence sphere in the direction of the cub, which was now laying on the ground as still as it could.

As soon as the dark essence sphere left Daniel’s hand, it froze in space.. Followed by Daniel’s fingertips, knuckles, and wrist. The lupa hadn’t liked how casually Daniel was talking to her companion, nor that he was trying to meddle with her child, so she used a fraction of her power to teach him a lesson.

This attack left Daniel curious to say the least. Not only had his body reached the temperature of absolute zero in an instant, but his soul had frozen along with it.

While unsure whether his consciousness would also be frozen if he allowed for the ice to advance all the way to his head, he had no intention of testing it. Every particle of his flesh and power had turned into separate crystals of ice, so he quickly turned his other hand into a thin blade, and used it to cut his hand along with a portion of his forearm.. blocking the advancement of the ice completely.

The moment his frozen hand fell on the ground, it shattered into fragments so small, that instead of falling on the ground, merged with the surrounding air, and were blown away by the wind.

It is important to understand that, this type of attack, did not belong to the comprehension of water. A water elemental born from a perfect comprehension of water essence would not be able to freeze the spiritual essence within another person’s body, as the comprehension of which they were made of was based on the physics according to which water would behave in every possible circumstance.

The ice produces by the lupa, on the other hand, was different.. And much closer to a magical origin than not.

Daniel’s regenerative powers kicked in immediately after his hand was cut, forcing a new one to reform in a matter of seconds.

The demon lord knew that his companion had no real intention of killing Daniel, so he observed in silence as she gave this sarcastic human a lesson.. It was only after seeing Daniel’s decisiveness, and obscenely quick regenerative power, that he became curious. "Okay, enough." he said to his companion, which looked at him for a moment, then stopped after noticing that he was not in the mood of arguing.

The demon lord approached Daniel, while emitting a fraction of his power. A power against which Daniel’s survival instincts screamed to run away from, just like when he had felt the true power of the oni leader he had killed.

Naturally, Daniel’s mentality hadn’t evolved along with his regenerative power, so when he felt a power that was miles away from his, his instincts would still tell him to leave as quickly as possible even if that being would not be able to kill him.

Once in front of Daniel, the demon lord looked at the beings that either laid dead on the ground, or were trapped behind dark bars that slowly absorbed the prisoners’ power.

"You have a minute to tell me why I shouldn’t believe that you have something to do with this attack. Fail, and nothing will remain of you to heal." Said the demon lord while emitting enough power to force all of the cultivators in the area into a state of anxiousness.

Daniel, however, was not affected. He smiled casually, and said "It’s a long story. How about five minutes?"

"You better hurry.. You are down to fifty seconds."

"..."

Left with no other choice, Daniel began to explain the story that had lead him to where he was.

-----

The whole story took Daniel more than fifty seconds to recount, but he was able to go through its entirety without being interrupted.

The moment the demon king had understood that Daniel probably had nothing to do with the attack, was when he had recounted his past with the church of damnation. He could remember that the church of damnation had demanded for their faction to help in the search of a human that had intruded into hell around the time when Daniel had claimed to have arrived. It didn’t take long for him to realize that Daniel was, in fact, that human that had sneaked past a member of his faction.

What had left him perplexed, however, was how Daniel could have possibly grown to the power he possessed in less than two years. From what the church of damnation had told him, Daniel was not even close to being at the level of a simple high demon, and now, he sat in front of him.. Surrounded by the bodies of entities at the noble demon level whom he had killed, and two whom he had decided to spare.

After listening to the whole story, the demon lord asked "Do you know who the humans who attacked us are?"

In response to the demon lord’s question, Daniel shrugged his shoulders. He then casually pointed his finger at the noble demon trapped in the cage of darkness, and said "If I were you I would be more interested in the ’why’ they attacked.."

"Speak." Said the demon lord after turning to look at the noble demon.

Before responding, the demon turned to look at Daniel with fear, almost as if waiting for him to allow him to talk.. To which Daniel responded by waving his hand disinterestedly.

The dark barrier disappeared, and the human woman and the armored demon were left on their knees, shaking in fear. The idea of escaping never even made an appearance in their heads.

After taking a deep breath, the armored demon began to explain.

"As the war that took place thousands of years ago reached its final stage, we knew that we had no chance of winning. The powers that preferred to hide here outnumbered us three to one.. In the end we were allowed to leave hell, but our movement were limited by our former enemies.." said the demon with undisclosed anger.

For his side, the war had a much deeper meaning that just a battle to keep a safe haven for their race to live in. They wanted vengeance against the humans that had forced them into hiding..

Unfortunately, through the passage of time, most factions had grown comfortable with what they had. Their hate towards humans gradually disappeared, just like their happiness towards their circumstances grew.

What was worse, was that after being allowed out of hell, these ambitious factions had encountered powers which they could not even imagine. Powers that had reminded them why the demons were in hell, and the humans enjoyed the vastity of the universe.

Weaker than ever, these factions began to wait.

For thousands of years they worked to secure a place for themselves within the universal government, and expanded as far as their position allowed them to. At the same time, they formed relationships with human factions, while recounting the mysticality of the hell they regretted not being able to open for all to enjoy.

However, through the years, the plan of these demonic factions began to change. The universe was much bigger than hell, and if they wanted for the demonkind to thrive in it, they had to climb the hierarchy of this mostly human organization.

".. a demon lord, and a human cultivator of a similar level have been sent against each of the thirteen demon lords who fought to keep hell closed during the war.. I would imagine your lordship is the only one that was able to come out of the fight in such a state.." Said the armored demon after finishing to explain what was going on through hell.

Of all of the demon lords within hell, no one had the safety of hell more to heart than the leader of the Beastmasters. Not only because hell was his home, but because it was home to the beasts whose bounding made his faction so powerful.

Furious, the demon lord looked at the demon, and asked, "Is the signing of the demonic pact cancelled?" to which the demon responded by shaking his head.

After making sure that the signing of the demonic pact would still take place, the demon lord became pensive for a good minute, then turned to look at his granddaughter and commander, "Vorah, Nichsa, go back to Animalicus. Send the order to evacuate the main cities of our territory, and wait for my return. Hell won’t be invaded by anyone as long as I’ll have a say in it." he said before turning in the direction of hell’s core, and preparing to leave.

Daniel, who had remained quiet until now, said "You will never defeat all of them.. Not without me."

"I admit you are strong, human.. But your power only takes you so far." Responded the demon lord in a dismissive tone. For how powerful Daniel appeared, he was far from being at the level of a demon lord.. And the place where the leader of the faction of the beastmasters was going to, could possibly have more than twenty of them.

"Fine, then I’ll die.. What do you care. If I am right, however, you lose the only chance you have." Said Daniel with a casual tone, almost as if uninterested whether he could die or not.

After hearing these words, the demon lord turned to look back at Daniel, and asked with narrowed eyes, "What do you have to gain from this? Why are you meddling in our business?"

"I have friends to save.." said Daniel while finally standing up from the ground, and approaching the wolf cub. He then grabbed the dark sphere from the ground, and put it closer to the cub’s muzzle. "..also, hell is not such a bad place." he then added while looking at the cub chew on the dark sphere with delight, with a smile on his face.

"Are those reasons more valuable than your life?" asked the demon lord with curiosity.

Without turning to look back at him, Daniel muttered in a faint tone "..this battle will cost me a lot more than my life.."