Sovereign of the Karmic System

"What are you doing?" Asked Daniel to the emperor, who was ready to strike the blond young man dead, along with the rest of his family. His appearance had been too sudden and odd, and had caused the guards that were carefully guarding the door to flinch, and turn to look at him with hostility.

"Brother Dan! This person wants to kill me! Please call the protector!" Said the blond young man before making use of the moment of shock created by Daniel, to slip away from the small space between the table, and the wall.

"Who are you? How did you get in here!?" Asked one of the guards with hostility.

Daniel’s appearance was enough of a deterrent for the emperor to stop his actions. After all, he did not know what kind of backing he possessed, contrary to the blond young man, whose family he had known for thousands of years.

After ignoring the shocked people present in the ballroom, Daniel turned to look back at the young man. He then delved into his thoughts, seeing what he wished to do to the young woman that sat next to him with a worried expression, or what he had promised them in exchange for it.

"I will give you one chance. One chance to apologize, and you will live." Said Daniel with a tone that sounded more like a threat than a statement.

At this point the emperor had already come to his senses, and realized what he had almost done. Something that many faction leaders would avoid doing. Give one of Iewah’s chosen ones, a reason to destroy his entire planet.

Sitting next to him were the members of his family and loyal subjects, whom he could see show worried, and tense expressions. Some of them were thinking clearly, wondering how long it would take for them to kill both the young blond man and Daniel, and escape the planet before either the protector or the Outcast came, while some others were hoping that the arrival of what looked like another one of Hiel academy’s senior students, would put an end to the unreasonable behaviour of the blond young man.

Nevertheless, all of them were thinking about the survival of the imperial family, and the emperor was aware of it. "Father.. Don’t. I will.." Said the princess with her broken voice. Her eyes were welling up, showing that the decision she had made, was a difficult one.

As the blond young man looked at the emperor with a wicked and satisfied smile, the emperor swallowed all the pride he had accumulated in the tens of thousands of years he had spent as the head of Viveki’s empire, then turned to look at the blond young man, and said, "I.. I apol-"

"I wasn’t talking to you." Said Daniel, interrupting this extremely humiliating moment. He then turned to look at the blond young man, and added, "Go on. I am waiting."

It took the last few words which Daniel spoke, to take the blond young man out of his smug state. He then turned to look back at him, whom he knew as, according to what Nilo and the others said, the oldest and most powerful student of Hiel academy, with confusion. "Senior brother.. What do you mean? What are you talking about?" Asked the blond young man in response.

Inside the young man’s mind, Daniel could see the unwillingness to apologize. He could also see that instead of acknowledging his mistakes, the young man was thinking of ways to contact his group’s protector, as well as ways to complain about Daniel’s actions once they would be back.

Unfortunately, he would never have a chance to, as before the young man could waste any more of his time, Daniel forcefully teleported him in front of him, and after grabbing his neck, he broke it without thinking twice about it.

The reason why Daniel had been merciless, was because he had yet to find a peaceful way to resolve this kind of problem. Just like Sewah’s devoted followers, Daniel was unable to kick anyone out of the group. But while Sewah’s position had allowed him to gain a total control of these people, and ’dictate’ that they had to be good, these students were different.

The significant increase in cultivation speed granted by Daniel’s group was not permanent. However, the results were. If any of them decided to leave his group to conduct a life dictated by egotistical motives, he would be responsible for helping numerous evil-minded people, raise their level of cultivation.

Unfortunately, this was not the first time this had happened. He had tried to correct the minds of these corrupted students by having Aeron erase parts of their thoughts, or even talk to them personally.. But he was not satisfied by the results of this approach. By forcing one to be good, the purpose of goodness was lost. One had to understand, want, and choose to be good. Anything other than that, would be akin to making human puppets.

As of now, the only option he had was to give them an ultimatum to reconsider their negative actions. He would then consider whether the individual was only momentarily blinded by pride and greed, or if they were already rotten to the core.

From what he had seen, this blond young man’s mentality was far too gone astray to be corrected, and even if Daniel revealed himself to be the person whom he had decided to follow, instead of changing his mind, to the young man, he would have likely become a source of disappointment, causing him to lose faith in him.

What Daniel had done was cause of great shock to everyone present.

The emperor prepared himself to welcome an eventual protector, whom he was informed would appear whenever something would happen to any of the students of Hiel academy.

Just as he had expected, in a matter of seconds, something broke through the ancient planetary formation that encircled Viveki and was supposed to be able to defend against the power of cultivators at the hundredth phase of high immortality, and immediately after, opened a hole on the castle’s roof, and crashed on the floor while in the shape of a bolt of lightning.

When the flash disappeared, only a young man who stood in the middle of a burnt crater was left. This young man, was Sewah.

More than once had Sewah been forced to fight off the attackers of many of Hiel academy’s students in the past three years, and soon enough, it had become a sort of habit.

"Who did this?" He asked after noticing the corpse of the blond young man.

However, while he was expecting this large group of cultivators to attack him on sight, they instead remained quiet, and looked at Daniel with confused expressions.

Similarly confused, Sewah to turn around, and quickly noticed the presence of Daniel, who was standing right behind him, along with Wolfie, and the demonic wolf cub. Both of whom were able to become as large as castles, but preferred to remain in this small size for practical reasons.

"Oh." Said Sewah before turning around completely. He then asked, ignoring the presence of the imperial family and its guests, "Another one?"

"Yeah."

"Want me to take him away?"

"No. His relatives are here. Let them have him." Said Daniel while slowly controlling the space around the young man’s corpse, in order to force it to straighten, and for his arms to unite above his chest.

This scene was extremely confusing for the spectators. Daniel had allowed for only enough power to make him look like a peak immortal, to be emanated. Yet, from the way the protector behaved, it seemed that he was in charge, and that this was not the first time this had happened.

As Sewah appeared to be ready to leave from the way he came, the emperor was shaken awake, and said, "Excuse me! Protector.. May I have a word with you?"

This request did not appear to stop Sewah’s intention of leaving, but before he could, Daniel said, "Hey.. If you want to leave, refuse. Otherwise, listen to what he has to say. Be polite."

"Fine.." Responded Sewah with annoyance, before turning to look at the emperor, and asking, "What is it?"

Taken aback, the emperor pointed at his daughter, and said, "P-Protector. This is my daughter. She is extremely talented, and wishes to enter Hiel academy. Would it be possible for you to put in a good word for her acceptance?"

This simple request had taken a large amount of courage from the emperor, as he could feel, deep down, that Sewah was not an individual he would be able to exchange blows with. However, since he was a firm believer that fortune smiled on the brave, he decided to test his luck.

"There are no limitations to talent, age, or background. Just get the Outcast’s permission, and if he allows her to, she will be accepted." Responded Sewah before suddenly turning away, and grabbing his head in pain. This pain only lasted a few seconds before disappearing, only to leave behind a shocked expression on Sewah’s face.

"W-Where can we meet the Outcast?" Asked the emperor, distracting Sewah from the thoughts that had left him aghast.

After shaking his head in an attempt to recover his mental state, Sewah randomly pointed at Daniel, and said, "He is the Outcast." he then turned into a ball of lightning, and shot out of the ceiling wall.

Even before Sewah could leave, the revelation was enough to freeze the blood contained within the spectator’s bodies, who suddenly jumped to their feet.

Daniel’s attention, on the other hand, had been attracted by Sewah’s action. For a moment, he had felt a small amount of information enter into Sewah’s mind. Information which he could not access, despite his higher level of cultivation, and stronger mind power.

Unsure about what to say, Daniel opened a portal that led to the pocket dimension, and said, "Have her go through the acceptance tests. If she doesn’t pass, ask anyone to send you back here." He then disappeared from where he was standing, leaving no trace behind.

-----

A few minutes later, on the peak of one of Viveki’s mountains, Daniel reappeared right next to Sewah, who was currently walking back and forth over a small platform he had created by cutting off the rocky peak of the mountain.

"What is it?" Asked Daniel with curiosity.

"I.. I don’t know. I just saw an image from the eyes of one of my brothers." Responded Sewah while nervously biting his nails.

"What kind of image?"

"His death."

"One less we have to look out for." Responded Daniel before turning away, and preparing himself to go back to the rest of the students.

Before he could leave, however, Sewah added, "It wasn’t. It wasn’t.. His consciousness was erased, and another took its place."

"Another host survived being devoured by one of your siblings?" Asked Daniel with renewed interest.

"NO! NO NO NO NO! It feels so wrong.. SO WRONG. It’s not the host, it’s not one of my siblings either.. It feels so damn wrong." Responded Sewah, seemingly about to go crazy.

"What?.."

-----

Planet Tomb

Once a planet bustling with life due to it being the home of one of Iewah’s children, the name Tomb, right now, reflected the state of its inhabitants better than it did in the past thousands of years.

Each city of the planet was now covered by a layer of blood, yet, not one body was left behind. Instead, they had been taken away, and amassed on an enormous pile on which, right at the top, was a bloody throne.

Sitting on this throne, was the lone figure of the planet’s owner. A child of Iewah known as the Brutal.. owner of the violent system. He was currently looking through the odd sight of his system, which forced one window after the other to appear within his confused, yet entertained mind.

"Now this is interesting.. This dimension is so entertaining." He said as his lips curved into a smile which uncovered his bloody teeth.