Chapter 1323  Survivability of Worlds

Arthur stood in the epicenter of the darkness, his hands tucked into his pockets as his coat fluttered in the cold weather. His eyes, still marked by their scars, stared at the walls that protected the Netherborne Clan, now weakened by his own outburst of wrath. "Come forth, gate of wrath," muttered Arthur as he raised his hand, summoning a giant gate behind him. Nyx stared at the gate with fear; she had only heard about this ability of his, never seeing it in action. Countless wrathful souls emerged from the gate, entering the wall and fortifying it. Nyx watched as her parents" failed attempt to recreate the wall was torn down and reconstructed using the souls. As the souls merged with the wall, Arthur muttered something. "Protect this place." The souls wailed, not with wrath, but with joy as they received his command. Nyx stood rooted as the gate disappeared, letting Arthur become a little bit human again. He turned toward Nyx with a smile, seeing her gaping expression, which made the woman a little embarra.s.sed. "You fixed the walls?" "Just hired a few guards," replied Arthur with a smile. "I still have a meeting to attend to outside these walls. Would you like to join me?" "A meeting with who?" "A capable man," said Arthur with a shrug. "It has nothing to do with you, but I guessed you might want to leave this place a little. Have you ever left?" "Not really, no," said Nyx as she stared at the walls. "My parents forbid us from leaving this place, lest we are found by Devaheim because of our powers. They say that the minions of the G.o.ds are numerous in the outside world." "You have seen my wrath, and I have been traveling around the world. I challenged Devaheim directly, but here I am, still in one piece," said Arthur with a smile. "Come on." Nyx hesitated before reluctantly agreeing, following after Arthur. Their destination turned out to be the closest sh.o.r.e to the uncharted lands, where they found people setting up camp. Once they spotted them, the soldiers rose to welcome them. Nyx felt out of place. These men wore strange attire that she usually saw visitors wear, but she was the odd one out for wearing black robes. However, no one seemed to stare too much at her, as if fearing the man next to her. "Guildmaster Arthur," called a man with flames for hair. "Thank you for meeting me on such short notice. Please come inside, and let us discuss this further," said the man, and Arthur nodded with a smile before walking inside. The tent was s.p.a.cious and contained a lot of equipment, but no luxurious furniture. Nyx sat down with the two men, although she had nothing to do with the meeting. Before the discussion began, the man glanced at her, then at Arthur, hoping he would introduce them. "She is a friend of mine. Don"t mind her presence; she is trustworthy." "I understand that, but what I am about to discuss can change the world," said the man as he leaned back in his chair. "Whatever we discuss here cannot be known by anyone else in the world." "I can take my leave," said Nyx, feeling uncomfortable. However, Arthur raised his hand and shook his head. Rhys sighed, and Nyx sat back down. The discussion then began. "As you know, I run the Nightroad Company. We mainly manufacture military equipment, including weapons capable of destroying the entire world. Of course, we ensure that our research remains secure, with no one having access to the data other than me." "Let"s get straight to the point, Mr. Nightroad," said Arthur as he leaned back in his chair. "If you just want to introduce your company, then I believe this to be a complete waste of time. Your company has already proven itself in many fields." "One of those fields is one we"ve avoided talking about," Rhys laughed. "I traveled the world while I was young, looking for every magical phenomenon. I came across a fissure that not only distorted s.p.a.ce but time as well." "Temporal fissures," said Arthur, raising his brows. "What about them?" "As expected, you know about them," answered Rhys with a smile as he took out a small file and presented it to Arthur. "We have been researching them for countless years. We"ve noticed a certain pattern." Arthur took the file and opened it. The t.i.tle of the file was Project Mirai. After skimming through the large set of data in just a few seconds, Arthur was alarmed as his eyes widened. He turned to Rhys with confusion. "You have managed to create temporal fissures?" "Not giant ones that would create dungeons, but just enough for us to peek at other timelines. This has been achieved not through the usage of mana, but through technology." "…How is that possible?" "A long process and research. We call it Quantum Entanglement Distortion, but you don"t need to get into the details," answered Rhys as he flipped the pages for Arthur to read the results. "This is what we uncovered through our research." "…Survivability in different timelines?" muttered Arthur as he looked at the charts. Plotted on the charts were over a thousand timelines. They were divided into several categories with their charts indicating which of these humans could inhabit. The evidence was clear. "Mana-rich worlds have a survivability of almost… zero?" muttered Arthur again, and even Nyx peeked at the papers. Although she could not understand the implications, she knew that this matter was grave. "How did you measure this?" "We have recorded countless timelines for extensive periods. Furthermore, we used our technology to distort the fissure into showing us the future of those timelines. Every mana-rich world we encountered has been destroyed." "How would you even pinpoint these worlds? Time is one thing, but what about s.p.a.ce? What if the fissure shows you nothing but empty s.p.a.ce?" "We encountered that problem early on. But we managed to measure the mana inside these timelines in order to find these worlds. In any case, what we uncovered was the same. These worlds, which are at the same level as ours, met their doom." "How? How could mana, an energy that is neither good nor harmful, eradicate worlds?" "Mana is evolution, and unbalanced evolution destroys life," explained Rhys with a grave look as he opened his watch, projecting a hologram in front of them. "You used this same method to defeat Amelio back in Kera, remember?" The hologram showed what happened to Amelio after Arthur strengthened him beyond what this world allowed. It was the point where his body failed to accommodate the influx of energy and broke down, turning him into a dysfunctional creature. Arthur understood the principle, but still found it hard to accept. Mana first appeared three hundred years ago, changing the world beyond recognition. Kingdoms fell and rose because of the power it gave to humans, but it also helped them against monsters. "And what about worlds without mana?" "We chanced upon a few through sheer coincidence," said Rhys as he pointed at the graph. "As you can see, many of them were no longer inhabitable due to natural disasters or man-made wars. But in the end, the percentage was not zero. Some worlds still thrive. In the end, this is the conclusion of our research." Rhys flipped to the last page, where a long summary was written. Arthur read the lines printed in red ink. His eyes hovered over the lines, unable to believe them. "In conclusion, the existence of mana in the environment reduces its stability and survivability by at least seventy percent. Humans, in particular, have always been found to be incompatible with the existence of mana because of the conflict it creates and its effect on genes." Arthur read the paragraph more than once, hoping to find some sort of flaw in their argument. However, the entire research was nothing but a collection of data. And furthermore, Rhys had unknowingly proved Ragnar to be right. The world does not need abilities or mana. The notion was hard to accept, because mana, runes, and wrath were the sole reasons that Arthur was still alive. To rid the world of them, he would need to become helpless again, lost in a sea of cruel people and their greed. "What do I… do with this?" asked Arthur as he closed the file. "You said that no one in the world knows about this, so why are you showing it to me?" "For two main reasons," said Rhys with a somber expression. "The first is the very nature of your powers. Your wrath can disable runes and the gathering of mana, as the world has just witnessed. If there is anyone who could save our world, then it has to be you." "And the other reason?" asked Arthur with a frown. "Because of the things we have uncovered across multiple timelines once we matched them with our own. Since timelines are infinite, we tried to study those that survived and those that did not. In every timeline that failed to survive… Arthur Netherborne did not exist."