Chapter 1959 - 1959. Potential

"It's easy to defend an unfair system from your position," The old cultivator complained. "How can you justify the countless experts treated as mere cannon fodder by beings stronger than them? How can you ask them to accept such unfairness when the world builds thrones for you?"

Divine Demon took sips from his seemingly bottomless cup. His smile never left his face as strands of blood-red energy flowed toward his mind and awarded him knowledge over topics that suited his argument.

"Heaven and Earth put Noah Balvan into an environment meant to suppress him," Divine Demon stated. "Look at him now. Isn't he one of the flaws in the system that your fairness was trying to ignore?"

"You don't know what you are talking about," The old cultivator snorted.

"Xavier Elbas was nothing more than a curious cultivator in a world full of monsters," Divine Demon continued. "Look at him now. Isn't he standing with us as one of the new potential threats for your system?"

"Everything has flaws," The old cultivator justified. "Perfection can't exist in this world."

"Sword Saint has chased after an impossible goal for millennia," Divine Demon didn't stop. "His determination has allowed him to ignore the flaws in his path until the peak of the eighth rank, and his devotion has inflicted a deep wound in existences that he can't even touch."

The old cultivator remained silent at that point. He couldn't argue against that. Even Heaven and Earth couldn't predict that the sword path would pick Sword Saint as one of its avatars.

"You talk about flaws in an almost perfect system, but I see countless errors kept together by an array of punishments," Divine Demon explained while pointing at his opponent. "Weren't you like them too before giving your existence away? You might have had rightful ideas even before joining the rulers, but your power proves how you have also accepted selfishness at some point."

"I knew nothing about the world back then!" The old cultivator remarked.

"I'm telling you that you knew everything already," Divine Demon laughed. "Selfishness is natural and necessary in the cultivation journey. Do you want to become a saint? Get more power than the others and change the system. Don't use your ideas to justify your weakness otherwise."

"Heaven and Eart-," The cultivator tried to speak, but the blood-red snakes tightened their grip on his head again and silenced him.

"Heaven and Earth are like me, Noah, Xavier, and all the other existences who have approached the divine ranks," Divine Demon snorted while turning to tap on the throne. "They merely are ahead of us for now."

The throne and the many towers shattered into a rain of blood-red shards that flew inside Divine Demon's figure. The nature of his world was simple but profound. The "Breath" had appointed him as the heir of its power. He was the crown prince of a plane that still had a king.

The old cultivator never understood that part and the blood-red snakes around him prevented him from witnessing that scene. The sight of the throne entering Divine Demon's figure might have revealed something, but he lost that chance.

"What are you going to do now?" The old cultivator asked. "Heaven and Earth will hunt you down. They won't give up on your power."

"How is that different from before?" Divine Demon laughed before snapping his fingers.

The blood-red snakes stabbed their fangs on the cultivator and released their venomous power inside his world. Everything shattered in a matter of seconds, and the expert soon transformed into dust that dispersed among the whiteness.

Divine Demon didn't turn to watch the scene. He didn't even feel worried about a potential resurrection. He glanced at the sky to show a challenging smirk, and the intensity of his blood-red light inevitably intensified as he thought about the incoming battles. He had almost forgotten how fun the cultivation journey was.

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King Elbas followed the young-looking woman among the storms. He wasn't like his companions. He had already activated sensors meant to inspect his opponent, but his inscribed items appeared unable to learn anything about her.

That result didn't surprise King Elbas, especially since he had asked for an opponent who wasn't a mere brute. He needed more than simple exchanges of abilities to perfect his path, and only a fellow expert could provide that.

The two flew across the gales of chaotic laws for a while, but the woman eventually stopped. King Elbas imitated her while taking out countless quasi-rank 9 weapons that had a few proper rank 9 inscribed items among them, but his opponent didn't react to that show of power. She didn't even expand her consciousness to inspect the golden array of tools that had appeared around him.

King Elbas didn't attack, but the situation became awkward as minutes passed. The woman didn't even turn to look at him. She remained among the storms as her long golden hair fluttered in the wind.

"I'd rather have an actual fight," King Elbas announced. "Killing you like this won't bring any benefit to my existence."

Pure arrogance flowed out of King Elbas' figure and seeped inside the words that spread in the area. He was treating that liquid stage expert as a mere stepping stone meant to elevate his existence, and his opponent only needed to hear his announcement to understand that.

"Heaven and Earth used to hold you in high regard," The woman whispered without turning, and her voice pierced the storms to reach King Elbas' unfolded consciousness. "It's a pity that you had to band together with such brainless idiots."

"Your false flattery won't work with me," King Elbas explained while cutting away the mental waves that had touched her voice. "Did you think that you could hide the properties of her voice from me?"

"Please," The woman giggled while turning to look at her opponent. "You wouldn't even be able to arouse Heaven and Earth's interest if you couldn't discover something so obvious."

The cultivator's laugh created soundwaves that tried to affect King Elbas' consciousness. Their invisible influence transformed those mental waves and forced the expert to cut them away, but a golden orb eventually appeared in his palm and dispersed among those thoughts.

King Elbas' consciousness gained golden shades that radiated a unique aura. Nothing seemed to have changed in its structure, but the woman's eyes widened when she sensed its new properties.

"Try to speak," King Elbas ordered while taking more orbs almost identical to the first. "I'm sure I need to change the composition of the shield a bit."

The woman smiled at that scene, but a helpless sigh eventually left her mouth. The golden light that filled King Elbas' consciousness flashed when that sound reached it, and some mental waves soon started to transform.

"I knew it!" King Elbas announced while cutting away those mental waves and picking one of the orbs around him. "Stay still for an instant. This one should be perfect."

The woman shook her head when she saw King Elbas using the other item to create a new shield around his consciousness. She could immediately see how the new protection was as perfect as the cultivator said. He had successfully managed to counter her passive influence after listening to her for less than a minute.

"You really had the potential to overcome Divine Architect's peak," The woman sighed again, and King Elbas' expression grew cold as soon as he heard those words.