The war had not ended, only paused. Neither side had expected the dramatic events of the final clash. The confirmation of a higher major realm was shocking to many, yet the near end of all life had been made very real for the survivors.
They had joined because the Fiends revealed their power and Lind Frey had proven able to stand up to them. He could supply them weapons, artifacts, and all manner of ways to finally drive the Fiends to extinction.
The chance at power and resources that ca after the war were on their minds, but they first had to survive. So, they united and fought. So were naked in their desires for afterwards and punished for it, but all had such thoughts in the back of their minds.
Things seed to be a struggle at first but Lind Frey proved twice more that he could undo the threat the Great One and his Fiends were to them all. He repaired the loss of life in the Void Ocean and destroyed the dark bridge coming to end them.
Even with the clear need of his artifacts in his ships, Lind seed on the brink of leading them to victory. It all ca crashing down with the revelation that there was a higher realm version of the Great One.
Their lives were a repeat of failed tilines. It all ca out in the worst way and seed to hamr ho the truth.
They could not escape or avoid accepting it. They were not reborn but entirely remade lives. So version of them had already been consud and they briefly felt them. The wails of tornt without end. The reality of no light, no relief, nor hope in the dantian of the Great One.
Only 1 being had been standing between them and that fate. Lind Frey.
He was not strong enough. None of them were. They had died an uncountable number of tis. The Fiends now had those lifetis fused into them and empowering them.
So the army was now broken in spirit while the Fiends were preparing to co for them in force. The current Great One was also missing. They knew he still existed.
He had been felt after the retreat. It was brief but his vile aura was the sa as they all rembered. It was not the horrifying feeling from before.
Lind sat in his cabin covered in sweat and weak. The Fiend Seal had worked but the price was heavy. He would take months to recover and even then, a few years to reach his peak again.
He had never planned to reveal the truth to everyone so brutally. They had to know, to understand the current war was but one step to the final war, yet he knew few would truly believe it.
Many had, with Karu's help, been brought up to speed but maybe only the Divine Lords truly understood. The trials they faced to ascend to their title let them see the Divine Lands in a different way than others.
They knew there was more to the world and more to existence than many could accept easily. Proof was not always enough, only experience truly ripped away the veneer of denial.
That experience had now shredded the confidence of every cultivator, even those that had fully believed when Lind explained earlier about the true threat to them all.
It was a hard thing to ntally grasp sothing then to have it ramd down your throat. Everyone knew they were going to die. It was a fact none could escape, not even Divine Realm cultivators.
Yet, until that actual mont was upon them, the concept of a final end never truly takes shape. A person will just go on as they always have in their mind with that final darkness always being far away.
It never truly occurs it could happen from one breath to the next. Then violence breaks out, illness cos, or just pure accidents and it is all over. The life that seed to extend for untold thousands of years ends with the snap of a finger.
Now, he felt such a feeling all over again. How many tis? How many tis had he walked the knife edge between life and death? He had known death could co but he had never truly grasped the horror of what awaited him in the final battlefield.
He could not do a thing. He was stuck like a bug pierced by a needle. No chance to resist or avoid it. The Bastard, the original one, could kill them at any ti.
Whatever held him back was enough to protect them until that mont. The weakening of the Divine Lands must have presented an opportunity.
His current version was still there and endless patience with nothing to do but think about how to escape.
Now, he was free. Wherever the next major realm lived, the Bastard was currently embroiled in a war. A war Lind had fought and died in many tis.
The reason he imprisoned the Bastard likely had to do with similar conditions as the Divine Lands. Fiend Qi and abilities violated and consud all life. Before the rise of 6 elentals, sheer numbers were sacrificed to keep the Fiends at bay.
The wars were more of a feeding frenzy for them until he arrived. It was only after that that more traditional warfare resud. The Fiends could be stopped without killing thousands to do it!
If the Eternal Realm cultivators suffered at the Bastard's hands, only Lind, and he alone, had been able to stop the Bastard.
How long had the Bastard been imprisoned? How much had been sacrificed to save their lives to buy him ti to once again regain that power? Lind felt it weighing on his shoulders.
The true grasp of the doom over them and that he had to face it. He had been naive. He had believed the Master Tier would just be about completing his journey to ascend and face the original Bastard.
He would have died. He needed power, a lot of power. He could not just insert what felt right but what he needed.
His mind was lost in the well of considerations when a figure appeared in his room. He looked up to see Sun, of all people, simply standing there.
He was not smiling. He looked ancient and the aura on him had changed.
Lind understood at that mont.
"Ah, your other selves trapped in there reached out?" Sun nodded before sitting down.
"I will not talk about their fate. We both know the horror of that place. What I ca to tell you is that you have to–" Lind held up his hand.
"I have to get stronger, a lot stronger. Right?" Sun looked at him and a tiny smile cracked his face before he shook his head. Lind frowned. What?
"You have tried power. You had power. Power enough to erase him, yet, it failed. Power always failed. Has power been the only thod you used to reach here?" Lind was about to say yes when he froze.
It was true he was strong. If there was any ranking that tried to make lists of powerful cultivators, he would be in the upper half with ease, possibly the upper quarter.
Yet, he was now considered the strongest anti-Fiend being in existence. He had to retreat because he was only 1 man. For all his strength, his own power was not enough.
What let him beco the leader of the army was his knowledge and his study of his own cultivation. He had unlocked the potential of his harmony and acquired the 2 other elental systems into his Origin seeds.
The Bastard had used power to break the rules. He had relied on it and still did. He also understood power. He understood its threat better than most. He likely planned all manner of ways to overco soone more powerful than himself.
The very maudlin thoughts previously haunted the Bastard. His fear of death drove him to break the world to save it. Lind was making the sa mistake. He likely had made the sa mistake.
He looked at Sun in a new light. A being that also was powerful but it was not strength that made him so. A simple wish to fight again and live frivolously had been made possible by reincarnation.
So would claim he had overpowered death but Lind understood the monkey king had simply grasped a fundantal aspect of existence. Life was to be lived gloriously until the final mont.
Leave no regrets, or as few as you can, before that final rest cos. Lind was not like that but he was seeking his own path.
He chose to defy the fate of 6 elentals. He chose to defy his end when far more powerful beings wanted to kill him. He chose to defy the sacrifice of his friends to save him. Over and over, he defied the world and what it wanted to fall into.
It was not comfortable or easy. It was not sothing he had intended, but he had been guided in part to find it. Anything different was the goal of his other selves. Yet, he had defied even that ambition.
It was likely his other selves had been trapped by the desire for more power as well. Maybe the shadow of that obsession had tried to grasp him as well and he broke it.
Sun smiled as he saw the wheels turning in Lind's eyes. The monkey quietly left him to it. He did not have answers really, yet he had the first hint of his path forward. He already had the Mystery of Defiance.
It was woven into everything he was. Now, he had to add to it. He had to step forward and not grasp power but follow his path! He had to follow it to the end and hope it would give him the one thing that had eluded him for so long
Hope.
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