Lord Shadow

Azief had his own fortuitous encounter and each time his Heart become stronger and since he walk the path of Perfection, he never find any difficulty in breaking though. 

Only recently that he have reached the problem of breaking through. 

And that is also because he was too rushed at the time. 

Even before he tries breaking through, at that moment, he knew he would fail. He knows he was lucky most of the time and he thought he would be lucky once more.

Of course, that failure also shows him something else. 

That Gate. And the rings. 

There is many things that he have that requires a second look. 

He had a plan for all of this. 

But before that, he needs to solve the matters of the world so that he would not be bothered during his research. 

Hikigaya not knowing anything had changed about him then look back at Azief 

“I’m just…worried that if you are not there, the world will be unbalanced” 

Azief chuckles. The chuckles are because he was quite amused that Hikigaya did not notice at all that the space and time around him was distorted. 

Of course, the moment that aura melded with Hikigaya. All the illusory images dissipated and the space and time around him become normal.

Like it was all…like it was all an illusion. 

The other reason he chuckles is because Hikigaya worries. Then he answer

“I thought the world always fear me. And you are also one of the people that probably agreed with Hirate and the Quorum members actions of trying to suppress me” 

He then added

“I am surprised that you have such worries. I thought you of all people would be very happy”

Hikigaya nodded. 

He never intended to hide it and everyone knows that Hirate had proposed many restraining efforts to Death Monarch, and that in all of those efforts, Hikigaya is the one man that will always be supporting it. 

He is even more enthusiastic than Raymond in the effort of restraining Death Monarch influence. 

But after all, they are not kids. Azief does not hate him because of this and Hikigaya himself even though he supported many actions against Death Monarch, he himself had never hated the man. 

He even admired him. But that is that. This is this. 

Hikigaya simply said

“Different position makes me have to take a stance” Azief raise his eyebrows and ask

“And now?”

“Now my position is my position. Not the position of the World Government”

Azief close his eyes and release his breath for a moment. And just like before, another silence descend into the room. 

Hikigaya is also thinking of something. But with Azief not saying anything else, Hikigaya knows that Azief had made up his mind. 

“Can’t you reconsider?”

Azief opens his eyes, look at Hikigaya and laugh

“The world will keep spinning. And when there is a threat that try to stop that, maybe, I would come out again”

Hikigaya hearing this could only sigh

“Jean is also like you. Like there is a detachment between him and the world” Hikigaya said. Azief smiles bitterly and then said

“You will also be like this someday” he look at Hikigaya again, his eyes seems to see through him and he added “It would be sooner than later”

Right now, these two people no longer talked about the matter of the world. Instead, they talk about the Way of the Path. 

Sometimes, the things about yourself has to be pointed by others. Because it is very hard to truly be objective about yourself and about your own heart. 

Whether what people said is right or wrong, both answers have use as it serves a point of reference. 

So, Hikigaya ask back

‘Why? Why will I be like that?” Hikigaya is not angry. He just wanted to know why is Azief so sure. 

Azief did not answer immediately but after a few second, he then said

“You know, I used to jog around my village. In one of my jogging roads, I noticed an anthill. I probably have jogged past that anthill dozens of times. But I never noticed it before. So, I come close to it and when I did I saw hundreds of thousands of ants. Some are carrying leaves. Some are carrying sands. Some are fighting. I look at it and I feel curious. One of them tries to bite me so I stomped it. And then I go back on my jog.”

Hikigaya feel perplexed that Azief suddenly start telling some story. 

“What are you trying to say?”

Azief sighed

𝔬𝒱𝗅xt.𝓒𝒐𝓂

“the people of the world is like those ants. And you are like the jogger. Before I became a Divine Comprehension leveler, I use to wonder why those godlike beings does not meddle that much in their people mortal affair”

Azief wonder this a lot especially after seeing Olympus subordinate planets and the Three Thousand worlds. 

“Some of course, is limited by the power of the Will of Heaven. But even so, to meddle is something very easy. And sometimes they do. But most of the time, they would do nothing.”

Hikigaya still did not understand and Azief continue

“Let me ask you a  question, Hikigaya. When you were conquering Japan, have you ever stopped your march to see an anthill and ponder what that ant might be doing? Do you worry yourself that the anthill would be destroyed by rain or did you become curious what would happen between two ants who is fighting?”

Hikigaya heard this and he began understanding

“You don’t. I doubt you even know there is an anthill even if you stepped on it”

“When you reached this level, it is like you are a different being. When you stepped into the sky, and goes beyond it and see Earth, a planet so small compared to the Universe, you began to think everything is small and all this trifling fighting to be so meaningless. The Earth had expanded but in the scale of the Universe….” Azief chuckles a bit and then said

“It is just a slightly bigger rock hurtling through the canvass of the Universe”

“And so, you become tired” Hikigaya concluded.

Azief smiles and chuckles bitterly

‘And so, I become tired”

For a moment there is silence again. Azief close his eyes, emptying his mind but Hikigaya had a lot to think about. 

“Will I become like that too?” Hikigaya ask a sudden question.

Azief look at Hikigaya and he chuckles. 

Hikigaya was in high school when the Fall happens. Of course, now that a decade passed, he could not really be called a high school student anymore. 

But he is younger than Azief. Of course, if one look at the maturity of Hikigaya, one would feel hard to feel that this is still a young man. 

And in the world after the Fall, just because you look young doesn’t mean you are really young. Take for example Azief himself. 

His experience involved him in the laws of reincarnation and rebirth. He experienced six lives in the Azul sabre. 

He also travels through time and space and time dilation is very common. It felt like he is now enlightening a junior. 

Azief then answer

“Is it so bad to be like that?”

“It seems to me like you become heartless”

“Is that what you think?”

“Is it not?”

Azief did not answer. 

the way of cause and effect, that is his way of cause and effect. 

Just like his rule of Time is different from Jean Laws of Time, who knows what Hikigaya would find when he did walk the path?

They might be running toward the same destination. But some people would walk through shortcut.

Some run forward. Some stumble. And some lost their way. The road is sometimes crooked. Sometimes it have bends and curves 

And some have a straight line reaching toward the end.

Azief then spoke

“When a human shed a tear, how will it look like to the ants below it? Does he think that the humans bring down a water punishment for them? Or does they accept it as the natural law. Could they even perceive human whose entire existence is so higher and bigger than them?”

“When one of them walk onto a human foot, does it think that the human feet is like hill? When they climb up a human body, does it think that it is climbing a mountain? I did not put humanity as ants. I’m just telling you that is the difference between a person who is still below Disk Formation compared to the people whose realm have reached Divine Comprehension”

“If the Disk Formation is the watershed moment to become godlike, then being an Divine Comprehension being…..one has reached infinitely close to God” 

He sighed and then continued speaking

“In any other low-level worlds, a Divine Comprehension leveler could already be considered a God. We could move mountain as easy as waving our hands. We could teleport wherever we wanted. We could stop time and change destiny and fate as we wished”

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