Sovereign of the Karmic System

"I will enjoy this.." Said the Viewfinder as a new arrow appeared in between her fingers. The other children of Iewah made similar preparations, and said their own version of what an incoherent rambling about the enjoyment of constant confrontation was.

Relatively younger in age, and the only ones willing to bother with doing favors for the universal government, these particular children of Iewah did not know that each system belonged to a certain level, and that not all of them were fit to compete with the others.

"Stop talking then, let’s get this over with. I will show you the difference between our powers." Said Daniel as a single sword made of solidified lightning appeared in his hand, and a layer of pure destruction covered the other.

Even if truthful, Daniel’s words did nothing to deter the fight that would ensue, and instead, prompted the least patient of Sewah’s siblings to attack him with their peculiar, and unique abilities.

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For the next two hours, the space where once floated a moon-sized wormhole, had become a circus. Between people who sent seemingly pointless attacks in the empty space, only to find their target afterwards, to tricks that in the eyes of those who could not comprehend them, would appear like magic.

Most of these attacks came in Daniel’s direction, and after so much time, many had managed to reach him, wounding him in ways that would have easily killed any other immortal cultivator in the Universal Government. However, he could always manage to get back up.

The only reason why he could do that, was because of two of his abilities. The first one was Mental fortitude, which protected his mind power and consciousness long enough for his spirit and body to reform and heal, whenever they would be destroyed. The second ability, was the Karmic Syestem’s active effect, ’Time is Precious’, thanks to which, he was able to speed his recovery and restoration of power at an incredible level, at the cost of his remaining karmic points.

Those two abilities alone were the reason why Daniel could compete against so many children of Iewah, but unfortunately, the more he fought, the more he realized that his system’s abilities were not as unique as its nature.

Of those whom he fought, the Hereditary Prince was always able to mimic the easiest types of abilities used by Daniel, like the control over certain concepts of mana. If not for the complexity of a few of them, it wouldn’t have taken much for him to understand Daniel’s concepts of the slow rewinding of time, or how to produce collapsed space. If that wasn’t enough, Daniel could never manage to inflict a lethal attack to him, and not because he would miss him, but because whenever he would strike a deadly blow, he would stop his actions for fear of actually killing his enemy, just like an instructor would do at the end of an intense training session with his pupil, right before things could get too dangerous.

Unique as the Hereditary Prince was, he was not the only example of oddness. In his own way, the Unmovable appeared to be able to continue fighting for as long as he wanted, and whenever Daniel would feel his power diminish, and he would make an attempt at injuring him, he would regain as much power as that used in the attack.

The same was true for the Viewfinder, which Daniel had yet to wound since her abilities included not only a spot-on precision that allowed her to find the pathway to her target, but the pathway to avoid damage as well by making accurate decisions when dodging, or using her surroundings to protect herself.

The only reassuring thought in Daniel’s mind, was the fact that such skills could not possibly be of a passive nature, and that whatever currency their systems was taking away from them, they were bound to run out sooner or later.

This expected and welcomed circumstance started to present itself sooner rather than later, as in the next few minutes, Daniel was finally able to go on the offensive, and do some Damage. Starting with the momentary death of the Unmovable, whose consciousness he could not absorb through his unbreakable skin, but that he was able to dismantle thanks to a type of mental magnet he had created for that purpose, and continuing with the death of the Hereditary Prince who, after the destruction of his body, turned into a wisp of unique power, and inserted itself into the body of one of the surrounding cultivators, of which he took the place of soon after.

The loss of their failsafe ability was a great change for the pace of this battle, as with only one life left to lose, even Iewah’s chosen ones started to become careful. That, was when Daniel started to get the upper hand.

"Come on, don’t chicken out now. I’ve died thirty times and I am not complaining!" Said Daniel as about half of his body, covered in sizzling foam, struggled to regenerate against the corrosive power of a sort of acid thrown onto him by the Rotten, owner of the decaying system whose concept, not unlike Tirah’s system, was a subclass of the one possessed by the Deathbringer.

Despite Daniel’s sorry state, he was at an advantage. He was somehow managing to cause more damage than it was inflicted upon him, which greatly worked to boost his morale. But just as his state of mind started to become more relaxed, he felt a sharp pain come from the middle of his chest.

He looked down with confusion, and quickly an arm as black as space itself pierce his body from the back, all the way through. It didn’t take long for Daniel to realize to whom this arm belonged, after all, he had met this particular chosen of Iewah before. The only one who could catch him by surprise, by using the shadows produced by his clothes’ folds to appear directly behind him, the Shadow. Daniel spat a few droplets of dark red blood, and with a force that only someone with punctured lungs could manage, he coughed with pain.

"Kill him!" Shouted the old general with urgency, worried that Daniel could somehow escape death one more time.

Seeing how the Shadow had managed to catch Daniel by surprise, the other children of Iewah swallowed their fear and prepared to finish him, but something stopped them. After a few coughs, Daniel turned his head around, and from the corner of his eye, he saw the silhouette of the Shadow. On his face, was a smile.

"Youh h-hhave pick-ugh.. wroonghh.. shaahdo.." He muttered through his grin, as from in between his thin black hair, a dark mist emerged.

The Shadow barely had the time to look up before his black silhouette was grabbed by another dark entity, which after turning into the shape of a demonic wolf’s head, bit onto his body. The two silhouettes merged together, but contrary to the rest of the spectators who could not see anything of what was happening, Daniel could feel the demonic wolf rip the Shadow’s body out of where he was hiding.

About ten seconds after, the Shadow emerged from a patch of shade produced by one of the soldiers, over the body of another. His appearance was now much more physical than before, and he appeared as what one would imagine an assassin to look like, covered in black bandages from head to toe.

Similarly, the demonic wolf cub separated itself from Daniel’s body, and went back not only to his physical appearance, but to his original size, which was that of a wolf fifty meters long from nose to tail. He then quietly observed the sorry figure of the shadow, while letting his tongue brush his nose every in excitement.

"What the hell is that?!" Asked the Shadow, whom not many had heard talk in the past. His voice betrayed the fright that being stuck in a shadow with a demon of pure darkness had instilled in him.

"Him? he is the Lord of Hell, and he seems to like you." Said Daniel while showing a faint smile, after finally being able to restore his lungs. "How about keeping him company?" He then added while gently stroking the demonic wolf’s patch of fur in between his eyes.

The Shadow did not speak any further. He had met numerous dark elementals in his thousands of years of life, and yet, he had never seen a being with so much control over dark essence. For the first time since taking control over the dark system, he felt that darkness was not safe anymore.

However, he did not surrender. He quickly turned back into his shadow form, and once again disappeared into the black spot from which he had emerged from, to use his personal dimension to teleport from one entrance to another. In his mind, was the conviction that while perfectly in control over darkness, the odd beast in front of him could not teleport like he did, so as long as he focused on hitting and running, he would be safe.

This assumption would be extremely accurate on a planet’s surface, where the bright light of a star would separate shadows cleanly, but they were in space. They were floating, fighting, and living in darkness, and that darkness, was the demonic wolf’s domain.

For the following minute the Shadow used his dimension to teleport from one entrance to the other, only to find the demonic wolf wait for him on the other side. One injury after another started to pile us, and soon enough, his first life was ceded.

With the Shadow busy, Daniel was able to put some pressure on the other children of Iewah who, left with no other choice, had resorted to using their ultimate skills. Between artifacts and odd looking abilities, Daniel observed as Sewah’s brothers prepared to put their lives on the line in an all out confrontation, but just as their charge separated them from the rest of the group, the space started to vibrate.

The children of Iewah ignored this and continued with their charge, but Daniel was perfectly aware of what was happening. He could feel trillions of kilometers of space being folded, but instead of feeling the ripping of space of a normal portal, Daniel felt an ominous energy drill a new wormhole. In the distance, he could see a few dimensional destroyers approach the site with curiosity.

The power of this energy was like nothing Daniel had ever felt before, and the moment it reached the patch of space he was floating in, it caused it to curve just like the top of a mountain, curved by the vapors which waited for nothing but to pierce through.. And that, is what was happening.

The curved space popped like an inflated balloon, and from the other side came a ray of energy that went through the battleground, and stopped only after reaching the black hole that the aliens had used to cover the wormhole. Its power big enough to completely vaporize the big ball of darkness that had spun in the same place for billions of years.

In the battleground where Daniel had faced Sewah’s siblings up until now, were the wounded bodies of the Unmovable, whose body was still in one piece, but presented severe burns from top to bottom, the Viewfinder, whose body lacked both legs, which she had lost at the last moment when avoiding the energy ray, and the bodies of the others, who presented wounds of similar degrees.

That was the effect of Karmic Retribution, which had taken effect against Daniel’s opponents only now, after hours of fighting. Unfortunately, while easy to finish, Daniel was in no condition to fight either.

The use of karmic redemption on each of his opponents had left him with close to no karmic points, and the constant use of Time is Precious has taken the rest and more, to a point where, without noticing, he had started to spend points he didn’t have, entering the realm of negative karma.

His karma’s equivalent of bad luck was the disintegration of his right arm.

The way this event worked in his favor, however, was due to what happened next.

Clearly enraged by Daniel’s actions when in their territory, the alien civilization gave up caution, barging through the newly opened wormhole in large numbers and along with many of their spaceships, initiating their invasion sooner than programmed.

Daniel did not bother to try and retrieve the artifacts of his now disabled opponents, as his bad luck would definitely not allow a good outcome, and instead, used the confusion to recall the demonic wolf back, and escape.

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