Chapter 487: Great Sin

A whole day passed until Dasha Pang’s Qi simmered.

Following an advancement in Cultivation, it was necessary to meditate to stabilize and help the body adjust. Combat was one kind of meditation, as long as it was not life-risking. This was another. A calm, cool day of controlling the flow of Qi in his meridians. Feeling and testing the new quality and quantity.

He opened his eyes. His sixth sense reached out. He did not feel the goddess of judgement.

The power of divinity was truly great. Far too great for Dasha Pang to currently handle. Perhaps he had been a bit arrogant in attempting to come here so soon. His left eye twitched. The whole day, he had been running Internal Healing and Tu Na Breathing to purify the poisonous Qi in the atmosphere.

’Correction to previous theory: an ordinary fighter would die after two days, not three.’

Through Tu Na Breathing, Dasha theoretically should have only inhaled the pure Qi. However, if ordinary places had a 70-30 ratio of pure to impure Natural Qi, then the Slums had a ratio of 99-1. Dasha had no choice but chew up and break down the poison in his system. The Natural Qi here was too dense and messed up, mixed with hundreds of thousands different types of entities and species and thick to the point that it could be physically interacted with.

Dasha snapped a fist forward. What pushed against him was not just the air but the toxic Natural Qi. He was slower here.

’This is good. This is the best method of gaining strength. Tu Na Breathing is excellent in any other condition, but this way, I will learn to deal with any location with thick amounts of Impure Natural Qi.’

“Unequip.”

His black gauntlets disappeared. All that remained were his fists and Sigurd’s cloak. He flung his fists forward and this time, the difference could be apparent even to a child. Dasha was slower. Much slower. Good. These would be his shackles; weights to train his muscles.

The door creaked open. In came Xavier.

“You.”

The spy in the brim hat called him out with unknown emotion. Was it spite? Hate? Indifference?

“You intend to fight.”

“I do,” Dasha replied calmly.”

“You do realize you are in a Soul Pact. You cannot rip away from this challenge.”

“I know.”

Xavier stared him down, eyes hidden.

“Here.”

He tossed a pill. Dasha caught it without blinking.

“This is a base,” Xavier said. “An unstable toxin that is said to be apart of an SS-rank cultivation pill. Daughter ordered me to find it for you.”

Dasha had never heard of this. “Fascinating,” he said. “Thank you, Xavier.”

“…” Xavier had his hands in his pocket. He was yet to make a judgement. “What are you exactly? With Jack, I can understand his strength. You…suddenly, none of it makes sense. How did you annihilate the Monster Hunters? How did you learn to progress in alchemy so fast? Why does your understanding of the world come so naturally if you have never been here? Your very existence makes no sense.”

“Do you wish to know the truth? The honest truth?”

“…yes.”

“Every creature born is limited by their blood and what little mutations occur from their birth. Some might call them mistakes, modifications, variations. Whatever you call them, they exist in every individual born in history, regardless of species. And so, every single thing, alive or dead, holds value, whether it is you or me. Value is distributed equally, however. It is impossible to ignore that there are those who possess greater value—who were born with a greater mutation. Those with talents. Those with genius. A genius can see that which ordinary people cannot.” Dasha pointed at Xavier. “You are a genius, Xavier. I doubt you recognize this or claim it but it is true.”

I am different. I have always been different. I am not this so-called Great Sin because you people understand me; it is because of what you do not understand. A genius is a rare entity that works within the system. A peerless genius is able to see the world itself. That is how I know all that I know, I simply see it all. You think me an anomaly, I am not. Do not disrespect those that came before us; who set this world brick by brick, moment by moment. Do not forget what they have achieved for us to do what we do now. The sacrifice. The misunderstandings. Allow me to set a scene. Sir Isaac Newton is born in 1643. At the age of twenty-three, he understood gravity. In two years following, he invented a new system of calculus, invented the first reflecting telescope, and published the notion of gravity as a universal force. Ah, and what else? He invented an updated theory of colour and he used a prism to prove that white light splits into the entire visible spectrum. That discovery led to his book Opticks. More than just light, he came up with prisms as beam expanders—ideas that would later help develop tunable lasers. Can you imagine? The man was thinking centuries ahead. Sir Isaac Newton, like me and few others, was a peerless genius. Everybody around him knew it too. The whole reason he published his book was because other eminent men pressured him into doing so, because they understood that he had worked out things that they had not.

Years passed. Upon the discovery of Uranus by William Herschel, the best minds of the era discovered that its orbit seemingly went against Newton’s Law. And yet, instead of declaring his laws wrong, they were convinced the opposite. Sir Isaac Newton could not be wrong. They theorized that perhaps there was something beyond their scopes changing the planet’s orbit. And their assumption…was correct. Another planet was waiting behind Uranus: Neptune. Put simply, they ended up calculating the existence of a whole new planet rather than admit Sir Isaac Newton was wrong.”

“You claim to be like him?” Xavier asked quietly. “You claim to be seeing a view greater than every other man. Is that it?”

“It is the truth. Daughter has recognized, why else would she ally herself with me? Do you take her for a fool? No, certainly not, she knows far more than you, Xavier.”

“….”

“Within the history of martial arts, only one man could be regarded as a peerless genius. The Original Cultivator. I am not the Original Cultivator. I view cultivating and this world much differently—and that difference scares you people. That is all. I am to rise above the conventions of this world and you deny it as did the few in Sir Isaac’s time. Tell me, what are the Heavenly Games? Is it not the pursuit of power? To seize your dreams no matter the cost. Ambition and cruelty is born everyday. I am not. Xavier, you are at a crossroad. Either follow me and Daughter and witness greatness—or tell yourself that disobedience will relieve you of your sins.”

Xavier was once a soldier of the Second Heavenly War. Nearly every war veteran, regardless of place, always had that same expression.

They believed their sins to be the greatest. They believed the battlefield to be hell itself.

’They only believe as such because they are too weak to bear their own actions.’

“What is your goal?”

“I know what you want,” Dasha said. “You want to go to heaven, don’t you? You want to escape from this hell and go to the one real heaven. No lies. No gods. Just you.”

“…”

“Standing above the realm of the Administrator, I came to an understanding.” Dasha took off his white opera mask to show his face. The scars and the darkness that had seeped in. “I was born to warp the concepts upon which we stand. I was born to tear the earth apart. Once I am done, there will be no gods and there will be no lies. Your long-awaited heaven will be given to everyone, not only you.”

Dasha’s eyes. His eyes were almost black, a hypnotic shade that lured in the helpless. Deep inside every human was a light that wished to burn the world to cinders. No matter how good, no matter how well they hid it, it existed.

Xavier was no expedition and for the briefest of moments, he was almost sucked into it.

“You…are a terrifying creature, Great Sin.”

Xavier took a step back, then another. He walked until he disappeared into the shadows. Dasha could not locate him even if he tried. Not that it mattered. Once a man’s heart was punctured by the Great Sin, it did not leave.

***

“Paradise, Paradise, Paradise,

O how we long for it,

O how we long for it.

Hero, hero, hero,

O how we long for it,

O how we long for it.

Slay the hydra,

Slay the beast.

Slay the ones that keep us afeet,

Slay our desires and our peace,

Return to us the child of wonder.

The child that exists inside us each.

The hero must exist

For if not, then our lives did not live

The demon, the devil, the heavenly ones,

All of them lie in wait,

All of them wait for the angels

For the paradise that shall never come

For the paradise that shall exist

Someday, someday,

But not today.”

– Poems of Time: The Paradise of the Tower

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