Lord Shadow

Chapter 1948: A Move Forward

”There is a lot has changed about me. And the truth of the world and the system have long been known by me” he thought to himself.

Truth is, since he reached Essence Creation, the EXP is not so obvious to him now.

After all, he deviated greatly from the development path that the system gave them.

Azief knows if he cut off his Perfection Path and then return back to the oath of the system, his system status would be restored. But Azief had long decided to break the system

The system is a shackle to people like him.

”And these animals are not wreaking havoc. This place is also not populated by any settlements of humans”

Azief did not have any reason to provoke any of these beasts and monsters that made their life in the subterranean region.

Azief movement is getting faster and in just a matter of seconds, he breaks the speed of sound and before he knows it, he arrives at a place

And Azief is smiling.

Because in front of him right now, there is a mountain.

A mountain of energy stone. Hidden inside a cave, inside a sprawling tunnel network, crawling with all kinds of beast and monsters

Azief looked at it and could not help but sigh. Azief knows that the world has been using energy stone as the currency of the world.

”It is not exaggerated to say this is a mountain” he mutters to himself. This energy stone would have fetched trillions of currency money.

Different places call it different names. Some called it Aether money. Some call it Mana Coins. And some called it Vitalium.

It has a base value.

It holds magical energy.

It can be directly absorbed, could be used in magical machines and magical devices and is almost a necessity to create a formation for those low-level formation master

This makes them both a currency and a fuel source.

It is a store of value and medium of exchange in this new world and it powers technology and personal strength

As for its denominations, it depends on the world power decision on how to value it.

But mostly small shard is like coins. Standard stones are like bills and refined condensed energy stones is like major wealth, the same way one would treat gold bars and reserves.

Some make it simple.

Shard is equal to one unit, stone equals to either fifty shards or one hundred shards. Crystal is equal to one thousand shard or more.

Though the Order of Thinker is thinking of classifying it by the energy it contains. Different world powers have different ways of classifying its denominations and value.

Azief, however, never cared much about it. Because money, in this new world, for him is worthless to him.... personally.

If he wanted money, he is quite sure anyone in Pandemonium would give it to him. Though Azief is not here to think to convert this to money

”This would be enough” Azief thought to himself

And then Azief crouched down and put his hand on the ground. He could feel the energy that is in this place. Thrumming, like a pulse, like a heartbeat.

Azief smiled and nodded

”This is good” he thought to himself

”Absorb!” he thought to himself and the energy rushes in towards him.

Outside of the cave, the absorption was so strong that it created a momentary lapse of death of all those that partaken in the energy from this energy mine

The grass and plants wilted, trees suddenly lost their colors, the ground turned hard and cracked and everything in the radius of ten kilometers from the cave all lost its energy all of a sudden

From the ground to the sky, it is all affected. The space around the cave seems to distort, swirling, spiraling, breaking into segmented pieces of space, before swirling, distorting and spiraling again

The rate of absorption of energy and the wanton absorbance of any kind of energy created these weird scenes of space breaking and healing.

And Azief feels the energy comes back returning to it.

But all of this energy, this energy that could power cities for years, that could make someone who is in the Disk Formation realm to create another disk...all of this energy has been absorbed fully by Azief in a mere second.

Outside, the grass and plants absorb back the energy from the heaven and earth and revive, the ground returns back to its original condition and everything as it was before. But the energy mines that supply most of the energy around here and make this part of the forest excessively fertile is now gone

There is something missing.

Azief could sense this. But as there is something missing, there would be something else that would fill it. Sometimes, destruction is a way for something new to be born

Only when one reaches the height that Azief has reached, one is qualified to say this and understand this.

When you are below, destruction is a tragedy.

When you sit in his position, you could see that certain destruction is a path for something new

Excessive luck is as bad as excessive misfortune. When one went to the extreme, the backlash would be even higher. It might seem like Azief had stolen the fortune of this place.

But Azief action had suppress the calamity that would befall this place.

Azief did not claim himself to be an oracle.

However, some of his abilities do allow him to see a bit of the future.

A hint, a glimpse to a window of time based on deduction and circumstances

from the moment he arrives in this cave, from the moment he sets his eyes on the mine of that energy stones, he could feel a premonition that this place would be a place of strife, of death and despair.

Azief could guess that one day, if this place is found, it would attract so many people coveting this place and killing and destruction would rage on this uninhabited land.

And a battle would be fought, blood would be shed, lives would be lost, a tragedy because of a blessed land.

Azief action suppress the luck of this place.

Still a blessed land, but not as blessed, not as lucky. Just enough to not get caught in a calamity of life and death

Azief opened his eyes and sighed

”Around the beginner realm of Essence Creation” Azief thought to himself.

And he smiles.

This is enough for him to contend. His reputation is there, and his position is there

”I never thought the position and title that I disdained do have some function to help me”

in the past, even though Azief is the ruler of Pandemonium and even though his status is high, Azief look down on such position.

After all, he had seen a wider world and as long as he has his strength, these titles are useless.

Even if he is not the ruler of Pandemonium, does the world dare disobey?

The foundation of Pandemonium power has always been him. He alone represented Pandemonium. It is the same reason why there is chaos in pandemonium. Because without him there, chaos is bound to erupt.

Because when he is not there, is Pandemonium is still Pandemonium?

But now he found out that these positions and titles he looks down upon does have some use. Even if he met an enemy on Earth, even if he met the opportunistic Hirate, or the aloof Hikigaya, or any of the rulers of the Seven Great Powers, even if they found out that he is not in his prime, they would not dare to attack him

Because attacking him would have huge repercussions all over the world.

If he is alone, without any organization behind him, without any support, then fighting him is just a fight between two warriors.

But he is backed by the power of Pandemonium, and such an act is like attacking the head of a state

You attack someone, at most you would get in jail. You attack a head of state, and the world would reel in shock, and the repercussions would be grave.

That is why even though Azief did not yet reach full power he already feels a little bit confident.

The injuries he sustained in that tunnel are still there.

But for now, he has enough confidence to look around.

He walks outside of the cave, looks at the sky and takes a deep breath. Then his body slowly floated upwards and then raising his hand up, he flew to the sky and reached the clouds in just a matter of moments

The energy of the world around him swirls, and the pressure from heaven and earth envelops him, creating resistance to his body that he easily ignores

Even though he is not in his perfect form, even in his current form, he could intimidate all heroes, and he would not mind even if the Heavenly Will spotted him right now

This is not the time for him to remain timid.

Not everything is perfect, and he could not always hide.

The faster he could return home, the faster he could put everything to rest.

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