Chapter 562 Understanding
Ten years later.
"How"s the situation looking?" Dao Shen asked Meng Hao.
The two of them were at the forefront of an army that seemed to blot out the sun as they were descending upon the Fire Lord"s final bastion, the last planet where his remnants were still holed up in.
"Not too bad, the Main Planet of the Fire Domain is currently without allies, all the cultivators that supported the Fire Lord immediately turned their back on his remnants once he died," Meng Hao said.
"There should still be a couple of Spears Left," said Dao Shen.
"They shouldn"t be a problem for us, Do you wish to take the lead for the charge?" asked Dao Shen.
"Sure, I"d be honored," Meng Hao replied and stood at the forefront of the army of cultivators.
"FOLLOW ME TO RID OUR WORLD OF THE FIRE LORD"S FILTH!"
The army shouted in unison as they trusted Meng Hao with their hearts in souls. After all, it has been two years, and this army of cultivators is now forged in blood and battle, they got to know Meng Hao and his ability, although not even at the Emperor Stage.
Although he was close to the hero of the last war, Shen Bao, he didn"t take the t.i.tle arrogantly, no, Meng Hao decided to start from the bottom as he joined the army. He started out as a soldier and managed to get achievements and slaughter and liberate many planets that were under the rule of the Fire Lord, ranking up from a soldier to a captain, and soon a leader of a division to a general, all in the short time of ten years.
Meng Hao"s ability and sacrifice as him leading every charge fighting against cultivators who were higher than him in terms of cultivation, and never ever backed down, earned him the respect of the army he is now leading.
The bulk of the army was mainly composed of people who belonged to the Wind Realm. The rest are students and scholars of the Heavenly Academy who were responsible for destroying or creating formations and restrictions.
As for the people from the Earth Realm, not many decided to join, after the fall of the Earth Realm in the last battle and the disappearance of Old Beast, the Earth Realm decided to close up on itself in order to heal from the wounds.
As for the Water Domain, anyone who had been serving the Fire Lord had been captured, interrogated then enslaved. The result ended in entire dynasties being compelled to serve.
It was ironic since these dynasties had also enslaved many innocent a man, Master Rain decided for the Water Realm, since it was his home, that those who were once slaves shall be today"s masters, and reverted the order, giving families that had no hope for a future kingdoms and riches, and families that served by iron and fire, nothing but endless misery and servitude.
The King of the Water Realm was found dead after the disappearance of the Fire Lord. And so retaking the control of the Water Realm wasn"t that difficult. Many had pushed for Master Rain to rule, but a man of his nature despises the scheming nature of political influencers and those who also wish to have a bit of power form the seat of a Lord of a Realm, thus Master Rain decided to change the ruling system of the Water Realm to be that of an elected ruler that has to be changed every hundred years. The next ruler must not be remotely close either in family tie or acquaintance, this should give the people something to look forward whenever a new king comes to rule the water realm.
The system was something that he himself didn"t devise, but he heard Shen Bao speak of it once, an election system that should stop corruption and self service, where the people have the right to abdicate a king whenever they want or feel them undeserving. The people would always have power, and the King is a servant instead of a ruler of the people.
It was something that no one would think of, as who would think of giving up a seat of power to someone else. But at the same time, many would vie for that seat, because even limited power, is still power. And in those hundred years they can manage to obtain influence and power beyond what many could ever hope to achieve during their lifetime.
The army was a.s.serting dominance over the vast expanse, making sure that another Fire King wasn"t going to appear again. And once the whole of the vast expanse is purged, the army is to be disbanded and all its members returned to their homes, none to have this power to cause anymore incidents.
A peaceful era was bound to wash over the vast expanse where many would live in a world that knows not the pains of war.
And it was all thanks to a man that didn"t even stay to receive his well-earned recognition and welcome among the heroes who fought the Fire Lord to his final breath.
But that man didn"t even stay or wait. He just left, nowhere to be found but for the very close few who knew of him.
An unsung hero he was called. But many knew of his achievements. As he was the only one among the group of Emperor who actually put up a fight against the Fire Lord and lived to tell the tale. He was younger than all of them and far weaker in terms of cultivation, yet he still managed to subdue and disable the Fire Lord"s puppets and most of his abilities, he then proceeded to battle the Fire Lord head on, and then managed to devise a plan that disabled the Fire Lord"s ability and made him self implode leaving nothing but ash behind.
But then, he just disappeared. It"s been ten years, and no sight of him, glimpse or even rumor of him appearing anywhere circled, it was as if he had turned to a ghost.
***
"FINALLY! G.o.d d.a.m.n! That took a long while!" I cursed, ecstatic and happy with all the knowledge I"ve earned from this advent.
Who would have thought that law can work like this, it"s in the realms of making something from nothing, although that"s not possible but it is as close as it can get.
I looked around me, the ma.s.sive shattered key was no more, instead it was pieces of crystal that were linked with small lines of law.
The first key, was the metal key, it was gray in color along with all of its parts, and from within each part, which compared to me looked like small hills. But now, these hills weren"t floating aimlessly.
They were attached with a line of my own knowledge, yes, my own understanding of Elemental Law.
I managed to understand a lot from these Keys. Many thought of them as mysterious keys that were just "there" and created the world. For me, someone who seeks to understand the very basic of everything couldn"t just stop at that. I had to understand how the creator of these keys made them.
At first I went about it the wrong way, thinking that to understand the law of metal, one should have knowledge of every metal to exist in the universe, and that in itself is absurd.
The number of metal elements is infinite, and if one wants to learn all about them, it would take an eternity and that in itself is impossible, yet, how did the key come to exist?
The keys were the source of all creation of the Vast Expanse. So how come they were made, they had the metal law in them right?
So, I continued searching, line per line, to understand the source and how the key came to be, and after a couple years of scrutiny and constant search I finally found it.
The law of metal isn"t what makes metal, it is but a galvanizer.
It just struck me one day, as the vast expanse was empty, it had nothing but the five keys, so how come "things" came out of "nothing".
Granted, there was elemental law in the keys, but the law alone is not enough to create matter.
Then I realized it must have been affected by something to create matter.
So what is that something when in the void there is nothing.
I kept racking my head for years trying to figure it out, perhaps I was wrong I thought and kept looking through the endless streams of line of law. Until I figured it out.
Who said s.p.a.ce had nothing, s.p.a.ce had something, though invisible intangible it had it. It was non-matter, it exists all around us, fractured and dismantled to incredible degrees, but it exists there.
And the genius of these keys was actually in its ability to reshape this "non-matter" to be elements.
The metal key shapes it into all forms of metals thanks to the laws in the key. And so does the fire key, no wonder the Fire Lord was making stone, metal and fire out of nowhere. It was because the keys were affected by this nonmatter. And so after studying a bit, I was able to understand more about law, and recreated the destroyed parts of the keys, I only needed to supplement the missing laws with my own understanding of law from basically learning from the shattered parts of the key itself.
And that was the easiest part, it only was tedious and took time.
"NOW MERGE!" I called
And immediately the small lines that were attached to every bit, piece and part of the keys began tugging at each end of the ma.s.sive crystals, slowly but surely aligning the jagged and fractured parts of the key and dragging them together, pulling them until they were fully attached. And thus, one of the destroyed keys was whole once again!