Lord Shadow

Chapter 1164: The price of power (1)

At that time, he appears to be so invincible that nothing appears to be able to defeat him. 

But, that person, the person he saw in his vision of the future, had such cold eyes. Indifferent to everything around him. 

There is nothing. And it is nothing like him. He did not feel disgusted seeing his future self. He just feels……nothing.

And that is the terrifying part of it all. When he saw himself in the future, he felt like he was seeing someone else entirely.

There was no humanity in him, in that eyes. It is the same eyes that he has right now, yet seeing it, he felt like there is a void in there

And when he saw there is no humanity in his own eyes, it is not like he is a beast or a devil…. just simply the feeling of looking at an abyss that have no end, that is eternal, endless, with no beginning and no end, yet at the same time, there is this contradiction of feelings when he saw his own eyes.

There is that feeling of eternality, of endlessness, yet at the same time he felt like that same abyss that gives him that feeling of eternality also gives him the feeling of end, of a true end…whatever that means

Feelings is the hardest things to describe and to make sense of. He doubts that Will who was with him at that time felt the same feeling he felt.

And even though that feeling remains in his heart even until now, he still could not make sense of it.

Emotions, feelings, these intangible things have no power…at least not something that is visible. In the world before the Fall, the effects of feelings and emotion rarely affected the world.

But Azief knows that in magical worlds, sometime great emotions could trigger great magic. 

Oaths, promises, all of these things are sacred for there are Great Wills that is all over the stream of existence.

No magic, no effect. But a world touched by magical and mystical power, never underestimate the power of emotion to affect reality

Azief had feared that he is slowly getting crazy. He felt burdened. Not by responsivity but by information that threatened to fills his mind in random moments.

And it is getting worse. 

If not for the fact that he had time to stop and rest a bit in the Seresian world, if he is at Pandemonium considering that Pandemonium always had threat in the dark trying to undermine its authority, Azief is quite sure he would be thinking for the whole day

Once he started thinking, his thinking branches to another problem, to another topic, and as it branches it gives birth to other possibility.

While this is good in the beginning as it made Azief think the bigger picture and enables him to see through the plots and schemes of people who try to bring him down as he grows more powerful he began to sense that something is wrong.

When he is in his thinking mode, he is very rational. 

Scarily rational. 

Sometime, in his thinking, sentimentality, emotion, rights or wrong were all thrown to the side and only rational thoughts remains.

Sometime however, his thought would think about his relationship and emotions overwhelms him that it almost paralyzed him. 

Anything brought to the extreme is bad. 

Too much sugar is bad for you. Too much salt is also bad for you. There must be balance. And Azief is realizing that the balance that is present in his heart and his mind in the past is slowly becoming unbalanced 

And that is a terrible thing especially considering how powerful he is. 

And as he felt unbalanced, he thought of himself in that future he saw and he could not help but feel scared.

Yes, he feels scarfed. 

There are not many things in this world that Death Monarch is afraid of. 

But he feels scared, knowing that the possibility of him being that “thing” he saw in the future.

Just thinking about it gives him the shivers. 

He did not want to be that thing. 

And while most of the time, he had a good track record of hiding that part of the memory from himself the moment he felt like he is going crazy, the thought that “this is it. This is how it begins” fills his mind and that is not a good thought to have

Sometimes, it is that vision of the future that kept him at night

And each time he thought of that vision of the future, his mind would inadvertently go to Sofia.

He decided that Sofia is a person he could trust. In the end, Sofia would point that arrow to him. But he refuses to believe that is the future that they have.

He wanted to break that future. So, he proposes. He just didn’t expect that the timing wasn’t right

He understands Sofia rejection. But understanding it doesn’t make it less painful. He sighed inwardly and forgot about all of these things as he takes a sip of the yogurt.

‘Today, I would finally see the lab’ he mutters but Katarina heard it.

‘It has been a long time coming. I just didn’t expect it would take this long’ he added. Katarina still looking at her plate simply said

‘Forcing her would only enact certain protocol that you and I would both not like. And there is reasonable excuse to why she didn’t let you enter the lab before’

‘You seem to be defending her, Kat’ Katarina sighed

‘She is not that bad. She is just following orders. I don’t want you to be hostile to her. Being hostile to her would mean being hostile to the Orvanians. You already don’t have many allies. There is no need to add more enemies’

Azief sighed

‘I never wanted to make anyone my enemies. It is just that people don’t know how to sit still and keep aiming at taking my head, poking me. If you don’t provoke me, why would I have so much time to find trouble with them’

Katarina look up and look at Azief. Azief also looks at her. She only shakes her head and sighed

‘You are too headstrong’

‘Look who’s talking’

Katarina only smiles at this banter. 

At least it dispelled a bit that awkward feeling between them both. 

Azief also smiles and then takes another bite of the food on the table. 

Azief had been wanting to see the lab since he knows of its existence. 

They have been talking about this last night. Katarina said that she had a talk with that girl and that girl will give her an update in the morning. 

Azief is glad he finally has been given permission to go. Of course, he could always just forcefully go there.

Even though that lab is shielded with all kinds of concealing devices, Azief is quite sure if he could mobilize all the laws in this world, he would at least get a clue.

But Azief also knows not to underestimate the Orvanian. 

This is an ancient race, a primordial race created just after Time was birthed into the Laws of the Universe.

Azief also knows that the Orvanian had a powerful device that not only it could kill an Essence Creation level but also capture them. 

Killing is always easier than capturing. 

There are many considerations that needs to be taken when capturing. Not so many consideration is needed for killing

With such powerful technology, Azief knows that if he had tried to forcefully enter the lab, he might trigger some weapons that even he could not withstand.

And it would also sow enmity between him and the Orvanians. That is not something he wanted. 

Azief wanted to learn from them and not make him their enemies so he has been waiting for the past couple of months.

The lab that they are talking about is the lab where the Orvanians store many of the technologies that Katarina had use to change this world. 

Azief desire to see the technology is not simply to admire it but also to learn from it and see whether these technologies could be brought to Earth Prime. 

There are many problems on Earth right now. One of them is the geography problem

Azief original plan was to merge all the continent in the world into one, creating a titanic Pangea. That is his original plan that he wanted to execute 

After merging the continent using the power of the Heavenly Will and the Laws that he had, he would then split it into seven.

He got the idea from the Fake World. In the past Europe and Asia is still connected and sometimes they affected each other.

The influence of the Republic and the World Government is breathing down on the Lotus Order. 

Azief also knows that those two world power sometime is the hand in the dark inciting conflict in the Asian continent.

Lotus Order itself is not innocent in this as they also incited conflict of rebellion among the kingdom under the Word Government control and lobbying some Senators in the Senate of the Republic to help Lotus Order gain advanced technology.