Divine Path System

"...It'll be done in a month."

Varian stood in the space, just a few dozen miles away from the two suns that have now begun to merge back.

The Heaven's Will--the little wings--flapped in front of him like an excited little bird and described the progress.

"I was just saying it casually, you know?" Varian was still feeling shocked.

Yesterday, he said in passing that it's a pity the Sun was split into two. The next day, the wings said the suns would fuse back together!

And it's happening! Right in front of his very eyes!

"In fact, there are a lot of arrays on Sun for its maintenance. I'm just using those arrays." The wings answered, a little proud yet very cute.

"...Master, don't trust this guy. It's not very cute. Not compared to Boo." A hologram of Boo appeared beside Varian and glared at the little wings.

"Yes, please don't trust me. I was about to reveal the materials needed to rebuild you~" The little wings snuggled on Varian's shoulders.

"W-Wait! Boo admits you're trustworthy! You are the best...just a little lower than Boo!"

"..." Varian felt ashamed at his ghost lacking the slightest of shame.

Leaving the two to bicker, he roamed in space for fun.

"Logos, why are you so silent these days?" He asked, drawing glowing masses of black and white from his palms.

There was no response.

Varian raised a brow and coalesced the powers into black and white spheres. He then grabbed a handful of flames from the sun and split them into two parts.

The white power in his hand touched the flames and the chaotic, uneven flames changed. Instead of random and zig-zag shapes, they took on evenly shapes like circles, squares, and rectangles.

"Uh..."

Varian raised a brow and threw the black sphere to a solid asteroid nearby. It instantly crumbled into gravel and stone before breaking down into powder.

"So fucking cool and...tiring." It took a toll on him but it seemed very powerful. He wasn't sure how powerful since he had no celestial ranker to try it on.

"I should go check it in the ruins tomorrow." He muttered and the space shifted.

The next moment, he appeared on the huge balcony of his palace and sat on the branch of a tree growing from the palace walls. "Logos? System? I have questions."

There was still no response. Clicking his tongue in frustration, Varian decided to kill time and recalled if any work was depending.

"That letter..."

When he killed Haedon, a letter fell from his corpse. It was weird in the first place and so Varian didn't open it immediately.

"But now I can try, I think?" Varian spread a bit of black light from his thumb onto the envelope and the envelope wriggled.

As suspected, the envelope contained something sinister. The brown-colored enveloped began to dissolve and revealed a thirsty and gloomy black strand of energy--the death strand. This one was much stronger than the one he had to deal with.

The moment the chaos light reached it, the death strand flared up and tried to destroy it. But unfortunately for it, facing it was the strand of chaos. The dead strand collapsed into nothingness, unable to put up any fight.

"Fuck." Varian gulped as his back went cold with sweat. "That would've been...very dangerous."

Then, he pushed a clump of order power through the letter and confirmed that it was safe.

Then with a mix of curiosity and resentment, he opened the letter. It was handwritten in a language that seemed similar to Abysse but a bit different.

"Logos?"

The system hadn't been responding since a while. But Varian needed it now.

He had a bad feeling about this. Because the letter...was written with abyssal blood.

"Logos! You don't have to respond just translate this."

Varian's vision blanked out for a moment and a blue screen appeared over the letter in human lingua franca.

It read--

[So you have survived the death strand. How unfortunate, killer of mine.

As the Fairies pushed deeper and deeper into my land, my opinion changed regarding the outcome of this war.

I thought we could force them to retreat. Then, I thought we could stall them. In the end, I realized we are going to lose.

That made me write this letter. It'll only appear if I die and since it did, then it means the abyssals have met their end.]

Varian was bewildered at the tone of this letter. Was this how the Emperor of Abyssals normally talked?

He felt a tinge of regret for everything that Haedon, despite all his knowledge, didn't try to initiate peace with humans first. The supremacy of abyssals led to their own doom. But more than regret, he felt thankful that he killed off Haedon. Such a man was too dangerous to be spared.

Shaking his head, he continued the letter.

[Fairies cannot kill me. Even though that bastard has been fed like a swine by Zions, he cannot do it. So, I must've been killed by someone from a race I never considered our equal.

Humanity. You are a human, right?

Even though Julius will be the first human to reach the Celestial rank, he has the lowest chance of killing me. You are not Julius.

Even though Enigma is powerful and is growing fast, she cannot hope to reach my level of power anytime soon.

You are either Varian or someone from the...Devas.

I suspect it's the latter. Because even though I'm not the strongest leader among the Provinces, I'm still a Rank 2. Even if Varian reached the Celestial Rank and I highly doubt he would, it's impossible he could kill me.

So, the mysterious human related to devas, greetings from the emperor of a dead race.]

Varian narrowed his eyes and clenched the letter a bit tighter. 'He is wrong and right. I am Varian and I am the human most related to devas. But why is he even bothering to talk about all this?'

[I have a piece of good news and bad news for you.]

Varian's eyebrows jumped.

[First, the bad news.

I leaked your information and coordinates with irrefutable proof to Zions.

Oh, you may not know much about them. Zions, well, those bastards also like to call themselves Angels, but whatever. They are a Duchy and not a weak one.

Zion Emperor is at least a Rank 5 Celestial. It's hard to explain the scale of power at that rank, but let's just say he can destroy a dozen star systems like yours, and when I say that, I mean the entire star system--Your host star, all your planets, asteroids, and everything.

Unlike my race, he has a lot of Celestials. Perhaps a hundred? Perhaps a thousand? Maybe more. I don't know. But know this, they're unimaginably powerful.

Forget the big hitters of Zions, just their army has people who are far stronger than me. If I join their army, I would only be in the middle of the hierarchy.

And I am an anomaly of my race, the sole celestial of the entire abyssals.

Now, my dear killer, do you understand what I have done by revealing your information to Zions? Can you comprehend the disaster that's about to befall you?]

"Son of a bitch! You crazy motherfucker! Crazy dog!" Varian gritted his teeth and cursed all the profanities on the tip of his tongue.

But his shaking body, clenched fists, and heavy breathing revealed his true state.

"Fuck! Fucking hell!" Varian teleported into outer space and glanced at the two suns, the nine planets, and the many space cities.

"I should do something before they come! Yes, Hortus!" He closed his eyes and spread his arms.

The world of Hortus responded to his call and informed him that he could now assimilate things.

...But only a single planet.

"What the?!"

Apparently, it's directly linked to his strength. As a Rank 1 Celestial, the most he could put in was a planet. But since his strength was much higher compared to any other Rank 1, he could also put in a Star.

"Shit. In the end, it's utterly useless. Stupid power. Stupid experiment." Cursing out of frustration, Varian returned to the palace.

But in a few minutes, he cooled down.

Now, the situation was that Zions would learn their secret and come to attack. Zions were too strong for him to even think about winning.

And unless he reached some Rank 3 or Rank 4, he wouldn't be able to put the solar system in.

"In the worst case, I'll put in the biggest planet and evacuate all people and take away all precious resources." Varian decided.

There'd still be a lot of resources he couldn't take. But he'd take away the most precious.

"That means Zions will chase me, but that's fine. I can run to the ends of the galaxy." Varian relaxed.

Or at least he told himself that.

His measure wasn't very good after all.

There's a limit to how many people he could put in Hortus. Out of the 50 Billion humans, at best he could pick 30 Billion. The remaining 20 Billion would die. No, they wouldn't die. He'd be forced to abandon them to die.

20 Billion!

Even the abyssals hadn't killed so many.

Varian rubbed his forehead and decided to finish the letter before thinking any further.

[How are you feeling? Is the frustration real? Do you feel that despair in the depths of your heart? You could save a few. But how many of your race will you abandon to die?]

"You died an easy death, Haedon. A very, very lenient death." Varian growled.

[Yes, that feeling, that rage, and despair are exactly what I felt. And that's what you'll feel when the Zions come for you and come they will.

But there's a piece of good news too.

Since I lost this great game of civilizations and my race gets wiped out, I should at least get the most revenge, shouldn't I?

But think about it. The Zions will just come and squash your race to death. They'll gain a Duchy level or perhaps even a Kingdom-level inheritance. They'll only benefit. That's completely against my desire for revenge.

I don't want Zions to win either. Both of you should die.

So, prepare yourself. It'll be a few years before the letter reaches them. But I'm not telling you the time. What fun is there if I do?

I place all my hopes on you people. Once you unlock that legacy and grow, you could perhaps be strong enough to fight the Zions.

I don't expect you to destroy them. That's impossible. But I expect to damage them beyond repair and push them into a terminal decline.

So, please grow stronger for my sake, okay?

...Or your entire race will go extinct soon.

One last thing, they're coming for you...sooner than you think.]

Varian burned the letter and stared at the sky for a long, long time. A line from his own speech came to mind.

'Peace is just the preparation gap between two wars.'

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End Of Volume: End Of Abyss Saga