With closed eyes, Daniel focused on the collection of unfulfilled karma. His mind had turned into a whirlpool capable of reaching the furthest reaches of the universe, drawing in every bit of power that, as if answering his call, approached him after uncountable miles of travel.
As Daniel had maintained his focus on this new form of slow cultivation, the lives of others continued, time passed. Minutes turned to hours.. Hours turned into days, then into years until finally, before he could realize it, an entire century had passed.
This time Daniel had spent sitting with his legs crossed, meditating on top of the black castle, unbothered by the events that took place around him. Not a breath was drawn, nor a pause was taken. Had his hair not moved due to the absence of gravity, many would have mistook him for a statue. Immovable and perfect.
His cultivation had, of course, not gone unnoticed. In the span of a hundred years Daniel had perceived the approaching figures of Roley and Der who, with gradually increasing levels of anger, hurry and exasperation, had always failed in their attempts to draw his attention, or wake him up to begin with.
Their failure, however, was not due to the inefficiency of their attempts, but due to Daniel’s own decisions, as he could have stopped his cultivation at any point in time, had he wanted to.
Every time the two approached, Daniel did not feel happiness towards their decision to visit him. Instead, he was reminded of how dependent on him the members of his group had always been. At the thought of this, Daniel felt glad that his mortal past self had not asked the person he was now to look after them, but only to make sure that they were safe.
That was the promise the aspect of Karma had decided to fulfill.. Nothing more.
Der and Roley were now safe. They had a home, a future to build up on, and no threat in sight. Their only concern was the safety of the rest of their friends, and in Daniel’s eyes, that was a problem he would eventually solve for them too. What he was unwilling to do in order to save the remnants of his past self, however, was wasting his current life, which he knew would be at risk if he met the aspect of Sacrifice.
“My obligations towards the two are over. I owe them, or him, nothing more.” He told himself the first time the pair came to visit him, asking him when they would depart towards the main universe of Sacrifice’s domain. Recurring questions that, in the eyes of the two cultivators, seemed to fall on deaf ears.
As time went by, the two grew increasingly frustrated towards Daniel’s indifference, and with time, they stopped visiting, leaving Daniel to cultivate in what he had felt to be a peaceful lonesomeness. But when Daniel opened his eyes, a hundred years after the start of his cultivation, he realized that he was truly alone, with only his black castle in sight.
At some point in the past few years, Der and Roley had grown tired of waiting for Daniel, and had decided to take matters into their own hands, leaving the universe alongside their armies and heading to sacrifice’s domain under the guide of the elemental system.
Unbothered by their departure, Daniel examined his body, which now glowed with the intensity of a thousand suns. A power that, unfortunately, he still believed to not be sufficient.. Hence why he had stopped cultivating.
The power he could gather from this universe had now become faint, and quite stale. And that was due to the thorough extermination of the champions of sacrifice who, ironically, were the main cause of death across the universe, and the main source of karmic power for him.
When comparing the amount of existential power he had accumulated, to the full extent of Chaos’ power, Daniel could easily tell that what he had gathered was far from enough from being safe. He believed, however, that if he were to encounter an aspect like Horror again, even in their own domain, he would be able to fight them off.
Yet, whether that much was enough to defeat Sacrifice, he could not be sure. After all, at any point in time the champions of sacrifice could have killed the trillions of offerings they had gathered, raising the entity’s power in the blink of an eye. Or at least, that was Daniel he would have done, if he were him.
Motivated to find more power, Daniel opened an enormous rift. One large enough not only for him, but for the black castle to pass through as well. On the other side of this rift was an interdimensional portal surrounded by an enormous formation of golden runes. In the slots among lines of runes, however, were no spatial treasures, leaving the formation as a skeleton of what it once was.
There was no need for Daniel to guess what had happened to the formation he had seen the Immortal Armada put in place, for it was quite obvious.
Der and Roley had left the universe alongside their armies, and in doing so, they had taken the spatial treasures with them, leaving the formation in place so that they could reactivate in case they needed a safe place to retreat to.
The runes, luckily, were not physical, so when Daniel passed through them along with his castle, they were left undamaged. Once through, he sat back onto the place he had been sitting on for the past century, and closed his eyes once more. The castle, however, did not remain unreactive. Under Daniel’s control it came to life, and plunged into the uneven surface of the interdimensional portal, disappearing alongside its rider.
—–
Somewhere within the domain of Sacrifice.
*BAM!* The sound of fist slamming against wood resounded across the hall, ringing in the ears of cultivators and elementals alike. “We need to start with those blasted temples, or nothing will change.” Der growled in anger after pinching a red light off of a tridimensional map of the universe they were currently in.. one of tens of millions.
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The generals of the two armies were standing in the hall, maintaining a quiet and respectful attitude. They had seen this exchange repeat itself several times in the past decade, and they now knew how its ending by heart.
As if on cue, Roley placed both hands onto the large table, and said in a whisper, “Maybe if he was here..”
“We don’t need him! He did not care then, he won’t care now..” Der barked out, stopping the young man from finishing his sentence. It was a thought Roley seemed to have become obsessed with, and which Der had grown tired of hearing. “What about your system? Can you try again?” He then asked in an attempt to change topic.
Roley shook his head in disappointment. “That’s not how it works. I told you. There is an existential creature stopping the system’s reach, it has nothing to do with time.”
“Damn it.. Of course there had to be another champion of Destiny. It would have been too simple otherwise.” Der regretted as his body slouched forward.
When Der and Roley had left the universe Daniel was inhabiting, they had a plan. To follow whatever the elemental system would tell them to do, until their friends and family were safe again. What they did not expect, however, was for the system to stop working after leading them to this specific universe.
This universe was not the primary universe of Sacrifice’s domain, but the oldest one. The place where the civilizations that had produced enough sacrificial power for Sacrifice’s consciousness to be born, still inhabited. Home to the upper echelons of the blood sect, as well as the other groups that, just like them, were under the control of the champions of Sacrifice.
Unable to locate the position of their long lost group, Roley had tackled the problem from a different perspective. Instead of asking for a specific location, he asked his system for a way to learn of their location. A request which, to his surprise, the system had finally responded to by creating a path that led them to the archives of Sacrifice’s domain.
A structure where the operations of the domain were carefully recorded, and stored.
After entering the universe, however, this mission had suddenly disappeared.. Erased from existence by a power of similar magnitude and nature.
Without specific directions, Der and Roley found themselves stuck into an unknown universe, with only a vague description to go by. Yet, against the suggestions of their most trusted men, they chose not to give up, choosing to look for the archives regardless of danger.
Their hopes, however, were eradicated by their few initial encounters.
One by one, the two armies stormed the planets inhabited by the champions of Sacrifice, hoping to get some information from them, but every time, the conflict would end the same way. Once loss was assured, the champions of sacrifice would retire to the inner core of their planet, where strange temples awaited for them to commit mass suicide.
Men, women, elderly and children all happily gave up their lives. Even those that lacked the gift of Sacrifice, were eager to join in in the event, leaving behind nothing more than a few useless documents for Der and Roley to search through.
Most of the information the two had been able to gather from the planets they had invaded, had come from the temples where the mass suicide took place, for in the temples themselves, as well as the victims’ own devoted, almost religious behavior, they saw the workings of powers that went beyond the nature of fate.
While this mass suicide was in line with the nature of Sacrifice, they thought, something was not right with how these people behaved. After all, they had encountered and fought many of Sacrifice’s champions, and none of them possessed that degree of devotion.
This had led them to believe that this power did not belong to Sacrifice, as he did not reside in this universe.. But to a different existential creature which, somehow, he had compelled to work for him. A creature that could affect the minds of others, fight off the omniscience of the elemental system, and that would be willing to serve another more powerful entity.. Only one such entity existed, they soon found out.
A champion of destiny.
