Reaper of the Martial World

Book 4: Chapter 47: Traitor

“Destroying his legacy?…” Dyon frowned. The demon sage had already been through so much in his life, and the fact of the matter was that he was selfless in spite of his arrogance.

Unlike other experts who tried their luck with the Timeless Library, the demon sage was almost guaranteed to transcend without it. Which means he had no need to risk losing his kingdom and everything he built. He had done so purely for the greater good.

When you think about exactly what the Timeless Library meant, it was quite analogous with faith seeds.

Faith seeds represented the path of another’s cultivation. Yes, it made the initial stages much easier, but, it came at a cost.

A person with a faith seed could tap into the experience and talent of another past expert to speed up their cultivation to unprecedented levels. But, in order to cultivate, you had to come to an understanding of your own path of cultivation, thus creating your own faith seed.

If until that faithful moment, you spent much of your life relying on the talent of another to advance, one can imagine how difficult it would be to break away from that path and forge your own.

At the same time, having the path laid out for you made it easier, but it also didn’t mean it was a foregone conclusion that you would become a great expert. Take the first-in-line genius that replaced the Demon Sage as an example. He barely cultivated to a high celestial stage, something that was pitifully weak in the grand scheme of things, despite having a faith seed at his disposal.

In the same vein, the legacies of the Timeless Library worked much in the same way. They would serve as a temporary boost in power, yes. But, it would only hinder your transcendence by clouding your own path with the paths of others.

This wasn’t to say that faith seeded martial artists couldn’t transcend, because they could. It was all about making use of your faith seed intelligently. This was because while faith seeds provided you a path of cultivation, it also provided a boost in talent and a library of possible techniques, akin to what a beast species would have access to.

So, if one focused their use of their faith seed in those latter options, as opposed to allowing it to guide your thinking and influence your path, you might even end up with a higher chance that a normal martial artist at transcending. The problem was that this was easier said than done… How many could resist the temptation of quick and immediate results? The answer was too few.

Patriarch Pakal seemed to be trying to gather himself. Caedlum and his elder brother could only sit there, astonished for what was the second time that day. They truly had never seen their father act in this way.

What they didn’t know was that Patriarch Pakal’s whirlwind of emotions wasn’t just due to his reverence of the Demon Sage… It was also a reflection of the pain and frustration the now Pakal Emperor God Clan had put his branch family through under the guise of their ignorance.

“Do you know the complete story of the Time Library, Dyon?” Patriarch Pakal started, after calming himself.

Dyon nodded. The fact was he likely knew more about the real secret behind the Time Library than most anyone in this plane of existence considering the talks he had with his grand teacher.

“Then you know that the demon sage completely lost his mind after those events… And rightfully so.

Much of the specifics have been lost, but from what I understood during my studies all those years ago, is that despite the demon sage being the most powerful expert within this quadrant, he couldn’t very well battle armies of trillions on his own.

Knowing this, his enemies completely decimated his empire in the hundreds of years he spent absent… But did you ever think about how ridiculous that was?”

Dyon pondered. It did in fact make little sense… If the demon sage had built his kingdom well, his absence shouldn’t have been enough for it to crumble. After all, he controlled 50% of the quadrant at one time. With his faith haven’t spread so far, those loyal to him were numerous. On top of that, a few hundred years, which was what his absence amounted to, was a mere blink of an eye for experts at the highest level… and there was no doubt to be had that the demon sage at one point had myriads of celestial and dao formation level experts under him. Dyon wouldn’t have even found it surprising if there had been a handful of half-step transcendent either.

Yes, the demon sage was the strongest existence in the quadrant. But, his empire should have reflected his strength. So, how did it crumble so quickly?

Suddenly, a thought flashed through Dyon’s mind, ‘That has to be it…’

However, to his surprise, Patriarch Pakal responded with, “The truth is, I don’t know. The records aren’t clear on this at all. There’s definitely something important that’s been lost to us in the stream of time. All I do know is that some way… Some how… tens of experts on the level of the demon sage descended into our quadrant, and laid waste to everything he had built in a matter of decades… His empire never stood a chance.”

A cold light flashed in Dyon’s eyes. How could he have not already figured out what was going on?

Tens of experts on the level of the demon sage? Them choosing to act only when they knew he would be gone? Or maybe, they even coordinated with those of the Chaos path that lay the trap that was the Timeless Library…

Where would you find those experts? Where else but within their opposed quadrants!

Dyon’s grand teacher had already told Dyon about the competition between Epistemic Towers. Every quadrant of a hundred universes shared a single Epistemic Tower. But, there were ten thousand universes left after the collapse of the other quadrants…

What did that mean? It meant that there were 99 other Epistemic Towers that had been grooming their very own Demon Sages…

What would you do if you became aware that your competitor was but a hair’s breath away from transcending?

 It was no secret that the demon sage was the best of the best. He was only a single conquered universe away from breaching the final level of his Epistemic Tower and completing the final trial to achieve transcendence.

The demon sage had known his enemies were watching. But, he wanted to do something for humanity before he transcended above it all… and his enemies had crushed everything he cared about in response.

Dyon’s blood rolled, agitating and boiling in his anger.

A man tried to do something for the greater good of everyone, and he was rewarded by being stabbed in the back by pathetic cultivators who couldn’t hope to beat him on their own. Were these the type of people who transcended? Were these people really worthy of opening a path of cultivation of their own? Was the universe really so unfair?

Dyon made a silent vow to himself. ‘If I ever meet those who did this to you… I’ll kill them in your stead!’

That said, it made sense that Patriarch Pakal didn’t know where such powerful experts had come from. This quadrant had completely forgotten about their Epistemic Tower. Dyon had little doubt that the other quadrants were laughing away while watching the self-destruct.

Dyon couldn’t help but remember the motto of Focus Academy… ‘Everything by absolute sympathy or absolute strength.’

There was no sympathy here. Dyon needed strength.

“The rest of the story is as you know it,” The Patriarch continued, “The demon sage lost himself in endless savagery, letting his demonic will completely taint him.

He was angry and resentful of everything, and he wanted to destroy everything in his path… But as you know, that was impossible.

His empire was gone and he was in the state of mind to rebuild it. He kept trying to lay waste to kingdoms under his own strength, but was forced to flee again and again.

Maybe if he specialized in another form of cultivation, it would have been possible. But, as you know, we Pakals specialize in body cultivation. I dare say that we’re unmatched, at least in this quadrant… And much of that has to do with the legacies the demon sage left behind.

Unfortunately, while this made the demon sage nearly unbeatable in one on one battles and small scale group battles, when it came to attacking hundreds of thousands, to millions, then billions to even trillions, he lacked the versatility to do so…

If he was allowed to just stroll into a kingdom and begin brawling, and his opponents were forced to face him with nothing but their own strength, he may very well have won… But, his enemies weren’t so noble.

They used killing arrays and formations, they combined their cultivations in fostering powerful attacks, and even teamed up with neighboring armies to thwart the demon sage at every turn…

With each passing day, it was becoming more and more clear to the demon sage that this was impossible. In fact, this went on for decades. He would fight without rest for months to even years at a time. He knew nothing or rest or reprieve…”

“What changed?” Dyon asked. He was fully away that the demon sage eventually pulled out of his severe path deviation. But, Arios had never told him the specifics of how.

“Well, if the records are to mean anything, it likely has to do with his daughter. I’m not sure what happened to her, and as his successor, you may have a better guess than I do, but from my conjectures, it’s him finding his daughter frozen in time that snapped him out of it.

A man who thought he had lost everything finally found something to cling to in his moments of desperation… Because of that, he was able to pull himself up and repair his heart.”

Although Dyon hadn’t heard the story behind Patia-Neva’s actions, he already knew the importance of cultivating the heart. Well, it was more accurate to say that he had a superficial understanding of it while not truly understanding what it meant…

Dyon couldn’t be blamed for this. After all, he had spent less than three years in the martial world. How could he be expected to understand such a complex concept already?

That said, Dyon’s soul talent was so overwhelming, that even with such a shallow understanding of what it meant to cultivate the heart, he was able to make use of it to improve his wills already.

For example, when Dyon sunk into his feelings of anger and savagery in his battle with Femi, that was him using a crude form of cultivating the heart to gain a deeper understanding of a will he wanted to break through in.

Patia-Neva, however, had taken this to an all new level. He had been willing to spend centuries tempering his heart to gain the results he wanted. Although this backfired on him in the end, it couldn’t be said that his path was wrong… It was only that he himself never truly believed in the path, which was what led to his cultivation deviating.

The truth was that there were some in history who used Patia-Neva’s exact methods to reach even to levels of transcendence. The problem was the Patia-Neva had never truly cast away all of his feelings… Which meant that the path of cultivation he took, was never suited to him in the first place.

That said, the point was that the heart and how well you cultivated it were very important to your progression in cultivation… It dictated your will power, as well as your own personal path to transcending. If you let it run wild like the demon sage had, or to a lesser extent, Patia-Neva, the consequences were clear.

Patriarch Pakal nodded to himself as he watched Dyon seemingly begin to comprehend something, ‘This child is truly intelligent…’

Shaking his head, he continued, “Due to his experience, the demon sage grasped just how important cultivating his heart was. He opened himself up to a completely new path of cultivation, focusing solely on his will power and temperament.

Because his cultivation had plummeted due to his drastic change in heart, the demon sage didn’t dare to awaken his daughter. It wasn’t that he didn’t have the power to as any saint could do so, it was that he didn’t want her growing up in an era where his enemies would still be able to attach her name to his.

The demon sage had essentially chosen to erase large portions of his cultivation in order cultivate along the right path…

Ironically, he had lived up to his name. Half his life he spent as a true demon, lording over everyone. And in the second half of his life, he became the embodiment of wisdom and patience. He even began to take in many ostracized children with high levels of talent to groom for the future,” Patriarch Pakal turned a subtle glance toward Arios. He didn’t really understand how a demon general could be here so long after the demon sage’s death… But, there were many oddities of the cultivation world. So, he didn’t ask.

“In the end, the ultimate test for him was putting aside his arrogance and forgiving the clan that had tossed him away all the centuries ago… Thus, the demon sage began to raise up the Pakal Clan…”

Dyon couldn’t help but bitterly laugh. So the demon sage got burned again for trying to do what was right?

“Maybe the worst part was that the demon sage had hoped that if he helped the Pakal Clan enough, then he’d eventually be able to bring back his daughter and die in peace, knowing that she would now be a part of a clan that could protect her… But as you can probably tell, things didn’t end up working out this way…” Patriarch Pakal once again began having issues controlling his temper. But, he slowly reined it in.

“The demon sage began to impart his old clan much of his knowledge. He spent much of the last of his days transcribing legacy techniques and traveling across the quadrant to gather the necessary resources that he had hidden before he entered the Timeless Library.

With his help, successive generations of Pakals became stronger and stronger, passing on better and better bloodlines as their parents continuously reached greater heights in their cultivation.

However, despite the change in the demon sage, there was a deep seeded discontent. The Pakals seemed to think that this was what was owed to them… The Demon Sage was a part of their lineage, so of course he should be helping them, they thought.

What didn’t make the situation any better was that the demon sage was in fact holding out on the Pakals. He would only slowly increase the quality of techniques and daos he imparted as the clan became stronger, not divulging everything at once.

To them, this was because the demon sage needed their protection. If he gave everything at once, then they’d have no need for him. So, by their logic, he only released some of the things he had so they’d always have reason to ask for more.”

Dyon sneered. What kind of ridiculous logic was that? Even in his weakened state, the demon sage was capable of facing up again peak dao formation experts. He was a person who had access to countless methods, and clearly endless wealth considering what he had given the Pakals. Why would he need the protection of a clan so weak he had to raise them up in such a way? It was clear that they were all blinded by greed.

If the demon sage wanted to hide away where no one could find him, he could easily do it.

Patriarch Pakal sighed, “The demon sage was intelligent though… He saw the changing of the tides and thus changed his tactics as well. He opened up a Pakal sect to act as a branch clan wherein they’d educate the youths with his resources. However, the caveat was that they now had to pass tests of the heart to share among his spoils…

Unfortunately, instead of this method leading to a change in attitude for many, it only fractured our family.

Members of the Pakal sect very quickly became more powerful than the rest and took over the most important positions in their main branch.

The Pakal clan was thriving even more than before… But, jealousy is the harbinger of destruction…

While our Pakal clan was rising, there was another clan that was rising as well under the leadership of a man who called himself Oden Ragnor. However, it was becoming very clear to him that he couldn’t match the speed of the rise of our Pakal Clan… so, he took advantage of the discord that had already been festering.”

Dyon’s eyes flashed with a sudden realization, ‘So this is how the animosity between the Pakal and Ragnor started?…’

Patriarch Pakal laughed bitterly, “The Ragnor offered to help the lagging branch of the Pakal deal with the demon sage’s faction if they gave away some of the benefits the gained from the demon sage and those ungrateful bastards actually accepted!

The demon sage was too weak to help us. He had stripped down all of the daos and intents he had built to cultivate along a new path despite knowing he didn’t have the time left in his life to do so properly… He had simply done so to ease his soul… To assure himself that he had at least done something right in his life, even if he couldn’t see it through to the end…

After the first war ended, the traitors won. But, Oden was much too intelligent to allow the Pakal an equal chance at rivaling them in the future. So, he backstabbed those traitors and took away a vast majority of the body cultivation notes and legacies the demon sage had accumulated… Eventually using it to create the Ragnor Clans famous Lightning Deity Body Technique… A peak divine technique that has helped them lord over our quadrant only to be matched by us Pakal.”

Dyon frowned, “If he backstabbed the traitors, then why can you still rival them?”

Patriarch Pakal sighed, “That is of course because this Oden could never have outsmarted the Demon Sage. How long had Sargeras campaigned for? How many schemes had he seen? He could see through the Ragnor clan from a mile away. On top of that, he had still yet to give us Pakal the best of his resources and legacies.

However, at this point, the demon sage was truly at the end of his life… He could no longer afford to wait generations to release better techniques slowly. But, at the same time, he knew that because the opposed branch had stolen much of the resources and techniques, even when the Ragnor’s scheme were taken into account, his Pakal Sect was still at a disadvantage… But, if he left things as is, it was only a matter of time before the Ragnor came back to destroy us.

So, the demon sage took a gamble. He handed his favored branch the rest of his techniques, knowing fully well we would likely have them taken by the opposing branch. He then took away all of the talented orphans he had been grooming over the years and opened up his own legacy world, leaving us with a final strand of hope.

He told us very clearly what would likely happen, and that we should be prepared for the inevitable. But, he also said that after he had chosen a successor, he would lead his army of demon generals to take back the Pakal Clan for his Pakal Sect.”

Patriarch Pakal’s hopeful gaze bore into Dyon. He, a celestial level expert, was putting the final strands of his hope in a boy with cultivation that hadn’t even stepped into the essence gathering level yet. If his ancestors knew, they’d probably roll in their graves.

Dyon sighed.

In the end, the demon sage had truly changed. His old self would have just let the Pakal clan die out. After betraying him, not once, but twice, and even knowing they would do so a third time, he still left them his legacies. And in response, they had likely erased his memory from history completely…

And then, those same people had the audacity to turn around and breed hate with the Ragnor clan as though they Ragnor hadn’t only committed the same atrocities they had.

It was suffice to say that Dyon was pissed. He had to conquer at least half of this quadrant to reach the top floor of the Epistemic Tower anyway… And taking the territories of the Pakal and Ragnor Clans would do just fine.