Sovereign of the Karmic System

Chapter 569 - Stranded Into The Unknown

Even though Daniel did not possess the ability to distinguish which power a champion was gifted with, to him, recognizing to which domain these individuals belonged was a simple matter. Dressed in a pearly-white attire with gold embroidery to represent the purity and absoluteness of their domain, and with an air of aloofness which symbolized its arrogance-who else could these men be, if not champions of Fate.

"It took you long enough to come out of your hole." Remarked a man who appeared to be in his late twenties, as he looked at Daniel's back with narrowed emerald eyes. Behind his long white hair, which floated erratically within the shattered space, were several other individuals, all belonging to the same domain, and all as hostile towards Daniel as the former was.

Daniel did not immediately acknowledge these champions of Fate. Instead, he poked the air in front of him with his right index finger, piercing the already unstable space. With a simple downward motion, he ripped the space open, forming a two-foot-long portal to the universe which the cultivators of his universe of origin used to store the content of their spatial items. In it, Daniel recalled, used to live a type of cultivators who delved in the comprehension of spatial essence, which they used to maintain a pocket of stable space where they resided.

Hopeful that his companions had hidden in it, Daniel peered through the small rift he had created, but where once was broken glass-like space, what he saw was space no more. What he saw instead was an absolute void which devoured any form of essence, and in which not even the essence of darkness was allowed to survive.. A truly collapsed universe.

As the portal was opened, the collapsed space immediately began to leak into the shattered universe, alerting the champions of Fate. "What are you doing?!" The man with long white hair inquired, as the already shattered space around the small rift began to break down at a visibly higher rate.

Worried that Daniel was using collapsed space to aid his escape, the champions of Fate backed away, almost forced to once again go back into the portal they had just crossed. Before they could touch its smooth surface, however, with a motion of his hand Daniel closed the rift, and used his essence to stop the spreading of the destructive void.

"What are you doing here?" Daniel asked emotionlessly, as if uninterested about the answer.

The man with long white hair and his companions floated towards Daniel, and while looking at his unbothered expression he said, ".. 'I do not care when, or where, find a way to kill him.' is what my father told me to do the day you have killed my older brother." His tone grew more hostile the longer he talked. "Of course, we didn't expect it would take you two thousand years to visit a place where your lord could not aid you."

Daniel's already unbothered expression became even more dull. For a moment, he had thought that these cultivators had something to do with the destruction of his universe of origin, but that was not the case. What they were here for, was to seek revenge.

Who they wished to take revenge for, Daniel could remember clearly. The champion of Fate whom he had used the then incomplete powers of Karma on, judging him for his past actions, and leading him to his untimely death-The one whose parents ruled the domain of Fate, immensely powerful cultivators who had sworn to get revenge for their late son so many years back.

What was more interesting to Daniel than these men's backstory, however, was learning about which part shattered and collapsed universes played within the multiverse. For him to be caught inside a shattered universe wasn't a problem, as he was the aspect of Karma, and the power of karma existed wherever he was.. but according to this man's words, that was not the case for everyone.

Inhospitable for both living beings and objects, a shattered universe was known to be nothing more than a massive meat grinder in which only intangible things could survive, while the rest was torn and cut apart by the sharp fragments of space. No objects and living beings, however, meant no aspects of existence. No battles to produce the aspect of war, no societies to generate the powers of law, order, and collaboration.. No decisions to be made, so that karma could be created.

Since nothing but common mana was present within a shattered universe, while inside them,? the consciousness of most aspects of existence would not be able to reach their champions.. With an exception made for very few of them, like Fate, as a shattered universe was still fated to collapse.

Without the odd involvement of Karma, these champions believed they would easily be able to kill Daniel without having to worry about this willful lord's punishment.

Their beliefs, unfortunately, were wrong.

"Here I am." Daniel said while finally turning to face his opponents, who were already wielding their weapons, and were now solidifying the surrounding spaces so that it would be possible to fight in it. Their cultivation was immensely higher than Daniel's, with millions of years of practice on their backs which would put his couple of decades of active cultivation to shame.

Now blinded by his desires of revenge, the man with long white hair tightened the hold on the curved dagger he was carrying, and dashed towards Daniel. With unspeakable might he swung the knife downward, threatening to cut Daniel into two with what many would consider a most simple attack.

What this attack was, however, was all but simple. At any point in time, this champion of fate had the ability to seer, to predict the future.. One which he could not change. In his prediction, the man had seen Daniel struggle to avoid his blow, but ultimately being cut down due to the man's superior cultivation. His body torn to shreds, his spirit dissipated, and his mind erased by one powerful and unavoidable blow. To die at the man's hands was part of Daniel's fate, one which could not be changed neither by the white-haired man, nor Daniel himself. That was the power of Fate.

The dagger, almost as if beyond the shattered space, pierced through it as if made of water, then reached towards his opponent with impossible speed. Right as he was about to strike Daniel's body, however, what was in the man's point of view began to change.

No longer in a patch of shattered space, the man found himself on the surface of a vast planet. His companions were now missing, and In Daniel's place, was the first person this man had ever killed.

While crying in desperation this person kneeled, begging for his children to be spared by the white-haired man's wrath, as after his death, both his children and world were to follow. The man with white hair, unbothered by the begging, killed the man with the same blow that caused the latter's world to collapse, killing his family with it.

As he relived this particular moment of his life, the white-haired man looked at his work with pride, as the impression that what he had done was just, was still firmly planted in his head. With pride he recalled his father's praise for a job well done, the respect of his followers, and the company of his wives.. But such a sweet memory did not last.

In a moment, he found himself back at the beginning of his memory. However things were now different, as he was not the executioner anymore, but the one to be executed. With a heavy heart and tears to his face he looked back to his children and friends as they were bound to be killed. When he turned towards the executioner, to continue begging for mercy, he was shocked to discover that the person that was about to kill him was no human, but a pitch black shadow.

On this shadow's figure the white-haired man could feel pride, ruthlessness, hate and disgust.. Feelings that shouldn't belong to a human, but a monster incapable of mercy. Despite knowing that he had no chance of survival, the white-haired man could not stop begging, as the feelings of his victim's hope for his children's survival were as strong as the shadow's desire to kill.

As if drinking from a lake of poison in hope to quench thirst, the man continued his desperate attempts.. But despite how extreme his sincerity in begging for mercy was, succeeding was impossible-As the shadow was no different to him, and of mercy he had had none.

Unbothered by the white-haired man's crying, the executioner struck him ruthlessly, causing a blast of power strong enough to destroy the planet, and kill what he felt was his beloved family. In his mind this torture was repeated uncountable times, each time with an alternative scenario which included a different one of the people he had hurt in his life.

As the white-haired man went through this hell, Daniel stood in front of his motionless physical body, which caged his consciousness and spirit into a never ending torment. Further ahead, the other champions of Fate suffered the same fate, each stuck within their own personal hell, which they had shaped through their actions.

While very similar to the method Daniel had used to kill the first champion of fate he had ever met, the degree of punishment was completely different, as its effect was not only to create an illusion in which the target would feel his victims' emotions before dying at peace, but for it to last for as long as the target had karma to burn.

With indifferent eyes Daniel looked at the sparks of karmic power around the bodies of the cultivators, which, while impossible to notice with the naked eye due to the sheer quantity these people had accumulated, he could still feel burn out as fuel for this endless illusion.

The time all of their karma was consumed, was the time their torment would end, unless another aspect of existence decided to end their suffering through the use of their own power. However, Daniel would not allow that.

Unwilling to leave the people he had judged for others to rescue, Daniel released a vast amount of karmic power, which immediately encompassed the unconscious cultivators. Once fully covered, the bodies of the cultivators became increasingly smaller, until they couldn't be seen any longer. Now smaller than even atoms, their bodies were carried back into Daniel's body, where they would reside until their karmic debt was paid in full.

Alone once again, Daniel went back to considering his options.

With his universe of origin on its way to collapse, and not a life in sight, Daniel had no way to find his friends and family. His only option was to rely on his system.

In just a moment the thought of locating his friends formed in his mind, however, while a window should have appeared, giving him a path to succeed, nothing happened. Surprised by the failure, Daniel tried to reformulate the request, yet the outcome was the same. With each attempt his nerves became thinner and thinner, until finally, he gave up.

Now anxious, Daniel immediately tried to check his group system, his personal information, or even the system's exchange, but no matter how hard he desired for something to happen, the outcome never changed. His system had, de facto, stopped working.

By focusing on his mental fortitude Daniel regained his calm, and tried to recall the last time the karmic system had worked.

While after the exalted assembly Daniel had decided to retire within his newly acquired universe in order to study the nature of the power of karma, at the time, that research was far from being his priority.. Or at least, not at the level of the well being of his companions. It was only after verifying his safety, and the immediate safety of his friends and family, that Daniel had moved to Earth, where he had found no need to use his system's abilities.

What Daniel had believed would only take a few years, however, took almost two millennia, through which Daniel was so entranced in the workings of the power of karma, that he had gradually forgotten about the existence of a system. Even time, for him, was something he had hardly paid attention to.

After thinking through uncountable options for what felt like days, Daniel finally started to consider a possibility.. One which he did not like.

That possibility was that a system, which was gifted by the aspect of Destiny so that a newly born entity could survive until its evolution to adulthood, was not meant for a full aspect of existence to hold, as its power and workings were a gift from Destiny, and did not belong alongside another power of existence.

If Daniel's theory was correct, that meant that, now that he had become the aspect of Karma, he had lost his system forever.