Chapter 1126 The Being

After a few steps through the dark pathway, Arthur found a stairway that seemed to stretch for eternity. The steps didn"t appear to end as Arthur climbed them, feeling the stairs twisting almost constantly. At one point, he had to use his hand to support himself because the stairs were now so tilted that gravity pulled him to the side.

"Levitation," muttered Arthur, activating the rune with his golden mana, supporting his body to hover as he desired. From that point on, he flew through the stairs and watched them spin several times around themselves over and over.

It was unknown how many steps he had climbed or flown over, but Arthur reached a wooden door before he could realize it. The door was tattered and shabby, far from the impressive sight this tower had from the outside. Firelight shone from between the door"s wooden tiles as he pushed it open.

"As always, you are so disrespectful," said a voice from within the room, accompanied by scribbling sounds. Arthur watched the door swing, revealing a mud room with nothing but a desk with a figure sitting at it. Their back was turned toward Arthur. "Good to see you back, my king."

"I am not your king," said Arthur as he stepped into the room, greeted by a stench of rotting corpses. As he began to feel sick to his stomach, the figure stopped scribbling. "Are you the Immortal Sage?"

"Indeed, I am," said the old voice as the figure stared ahead and leaned back in his chair. "You took a long time to return, my king."

"I am not your king."

"You will always be," said the Immortal Sage as he turned around. Arthur frowned as he saw a husk of a man, with worms eating through his skin. His flesh had rotted, and his eyes had turned white. "Even in life and death, you will be my king."

"Who are you?"

"You have met me once before, dear creator," said the man as he rose from his chair, frail and weak. Arthur was still confused as the man turned and sat on the ground and snapped his fingers. "Do you remember the first time we met?"

The mud room scattered to dust as the walls crumbled. An endless desert of black sand appeared beneath their feet. A moon hung in the sky of this realm, once again confusing Arthur. As he turned toward the Immortal Sage, he found him young again. Furthermore, his face was familiar.

"You are… the Scholar Guardian," muttered Arthur with shock as he watched the same man with his thin mustache and golden eyes stare at him with a smile. Even his position was the same as the one Arthur once found. "What are you doing here?"

"Who else could it be, if not me?" asked the guardian with amus.e.m.e.nt as he gestured for Arthur to sit before him. "Let us have another conversation, like the one we had before, but with no secrets hidden anymore."

"You helped my father," said Arthur as he raised his head, looking with disdain at the demiG.o.d. "How can I trust you after plotting against me?"

"If you were to ask, I plotted for your sake, not against you," said the Scholar Guardian with the same smile as he lowered his hand. "Standing there and hating me can be easy. Keeping an open mind against hatred is the real difficult challenge."

Arthur stared at him for a few seconds and looked around the black desert. It was the same as that cursed day when he awakened after falling through the spatial rift inside Avarice Dungeon.

"Everything began here," muttered Arthur as he scanned the place before he reached the man responsible. "Everything began because you gave me this power."

"How could I give a power greater than the one I have?" asked the Scholar Guardian with a shake of his head. "If I had this power, wouldn"t it be easier to achieve my desires with my own two hands?"

"I know that the legacy was just a regulator for the strength, but you created that same legacy and helped my father in his schemes," said Arthur with furrowed brows before he walked forward and sat in front of the guardian. "Are you about to change how I feel toward what you have done?"

"And do I care enough to do that?" asked the guardian with a raised brow as he raised his palm toward the sand, creating a table. "I am more inclined to answer your questions."

"Then, let me ask the first," said Arthur after a moment of pause as he stared at the black table. "What decided that I was the one?"

"Nothing did. You have always been the one," replied the guardian with a smile as he tapped the table"s surface, causing a ripple. A small golden dot appeared and it caused a ripple across the smooth surface. "Ever since you have reincarnated to be Arthur Netherborne, you have been the one."

"My story started long before that happened, right?" asked Arthur with a frown. "To be more specific, three thousand years ago, when the battle of G.o.ds ended and the world split into two."

"You have always been the creator, and will always be the breaker," said the guardian with a smile. "How about I start from the beginning, when nothing was something, and everything was nothing?"

***

In the beginning, there was a single being, with nothing else. Before time could even exist, that being decided to create the wheel of creation. In that wheel, he wrote down how creation will start and how it would end, before reaching the same step, and repeating itself.

The wheel contained the runes of creation, capable of birthing everything out of nothing. After his masterpiece, the being reigned supreme as it watched creation with intrigue. From water came life, and from life came souls. At that point, the being was more than happy to create souls from itself and breathe life into bodies.

As the wheel spun, it began changing. The reason for that change was the souls themselves, as they stemmed from something outside the wheel. Creatures with sentience rose from simple lifeforms and began harnessing the universe as their own.

As the being watched these creatures with fascination, it realized a single truth. These creatures had something that he did not have: emotions. These emotions were beautiful in a way that made the being wonder why it lacked them.

After more careful inspection of its creation, the being realized that emotions did not come alone. They were one side of a coin, and the other side contained sins.

Time did not exist for the being, as it existed in every timeline possible everywhere. However, the wheel defined what would happen next, so he watched as it spun without rest, reaching the next step.

Then, the wheel cracked.

Creatures within the universe harnessed creation and reached for the stars, claiming runes as their own. As they possessed a whiff of the being"s presence, they managed to resonate with creation and claim it as theirs.

The being could not feel emotions like hatred, anger, or disappointment. It knew not to ask questions, because everything was in the palm of its hand. However, not everything, as it lacked a certain quality: emotions.

A desire was born, the desire to live. However, the being knew that the moment it attempts such a thing, it would lose control of the wheel. It would spin on its own, with nothing to shoot down the greedy souls seeking control of creation.

The being watched the creatures fight among themselves for power, something it had no shortage of. However, it wanted something else, something it did not have.

The being wanted to feel.

As the master of the universe with creation in the palm of its hand, the being could insert itself into the wheel of creation. It could greet life with open arms and run through open fields. It could feel happiness and sadness, love and heartbreak, and affection and hatred.

The being decided to enter the world, but it could not leave the cracking wheel as it is. The creatures within the wheel would break it, destroying the greatest masterpiece. From this possibility, another thing was born.

These creatures ran amok in the world, not caring about the souls weaker than them. The injustice led to a dark and boiling emotion, that would dye the wheel of creation black in certain areas. Before it entered the world, the being chose that emotion as the regulator against the creatures within the wheel, who wanted to harness the universe.

That emotion was wrath.

As long as wrath appeared in the wheel of creation, it would acc.u.mulate until a certain point, where the wheel would break if creation continued as it did. Thus, the being gave half of its powers to that emotion. To be specific, it gave it the power to negate the runes of creation.

After that, there was nothing more holding him back from fulfilling the strongest desire in the universe:

The desire to live.