Sovereign of the Karmic System

"That was a nice trick. You are quite the kid." Said Sewah while looking at a terrified Virgil. As a cultivator himself, Sewah was largely surprised by the effect of one of those bombs. While the power was too lacking to injure him, the amount of immortal essence which he had felt from it, was above and beyond the power that a little kid like Virgil was supposed to have.

If someone with the power that he possessed was to imitate the same effect, but on a larger scale, he would be able to create an explosion of immortal essence of such a magnitude, that it would be comparable to the combined attack of thousands of cultivators at the same time.

The more Sewah thought about it, the bigger his opinion of Virgil grew. To think that such a game changing invention had been created by a kid slightly older than ten years of age.. was beyond shocking.. And certainly nowhere less impressive than the creation of a poison immunity pill.

From out of he blue, the power emanated by Sewah's body grew to an uncomfortable degree, forcing the entire group to fall on their knees, and be unable to breathe or move. His demonic power slowly creeped out of his skin, and lingered above the surface like an undying flame. The only one that was still standing up, and appeared to be unaffected by the pressure, was Virgil.

While still only ten years old, Virgil's intelligence was above that of anybody else. There was absolutely no doubt that he had already thought of what someone like Sewah could do with his invention, and if he allowed him to obtain that weapon, he would likely become an unstoppable being. So, instead of throwing the bomb that he was holding in his hand, he used his fingertip to trigger the defusing mechanism he had installed in it.

This action caused for the stored essence to wash out completely, and disperse in the surrounding area.

After noticing that the kid in front of him did not appear to be willing to cooperate, Sewah let go of the oddly self-imposed restriction that he had felt keeping his power in check. Once done, the horns of his head grew of twenty times the previous size, and his muscles bulged to twice their original muscle mass. At the same time, a slit in between two of his abdominal muscles opened, showing a second mouth covered in thick, yellow teeth.

"Are you sure you don't want to reconsider?" Asked Sewah with a callous tone amplified by his larger lungs, and vocal cords. After the transformation, he sounded exactly like a monster from hell.

Every bit of fighting spirit was eradicated from the minds of every single one of the group members, including Virgil, who couldn't help but fall on his knees due to sheer terror, despite the lack of pressure placed on his body.

In the minds of Hannah and he rest of her group a sense of despair and helplessness was born. Attacks which carried the maximum power they possessed had bounced back right after touching the demon's impenetrable skin, and if that was not enough, his real power and horrifying true form were even more terrifying.

The only one who was able to resist these feelings of helplessness and despair, ironically, was Virgil. The reason for that was that he was the only one of this group who had gone through something similar in the past.

The memories of when he and his brother had been forced to escape after finding the dead bodies of their parents.. Of when, forced to look for allies, they had been trapped into a dark corner, and he was forced to be beaten half to death while all he could do, was to watch as the life left the body of his younger brother.. all resurfaced at the same time.. And with these memories, the faces of the people who had killed his brother, and of the man who was supposed to protect them in case anything happened to his parents.

A sense of unwillingness began to grow in Virgil's mind, to a point where it overshadowed his fear. He couldn't die here. He had to survive.. He had to take revenge. He had to rip the throats of everyone who had spoken badly of the names of his parents, and cut the arms and legs of the people who had kill his brother.

These thought were quickly turning into blind rage, clouding his judgement and reasoning.. But before anything could go wrong, Virgil felt a calming pressure on both of his shoulders.

His rageful eyes quickly relaxed, and as soon as he regained his wits, a calm and familiar voiced reached his ears. "You will never avenge your family if you die. Your survival comes above everything else.. Even your inventions."

After achieving a calmer state of mind, Virgil turn around, and saw the figure of Daniel, which was standing calmly, and looked at him with a gentle smile.

The rest of the group was still unable to handle the mental pressure, and were risking to go insane. As a cultivator of the mind, as well as the body and spirit, Daniel was able to feel that. So, before anything permanent happened to them, Daniel said "It's enough, Sewah."

However, Sewah refused to listen.

The power that was coursing through his body was beyond anything he had ever felt before, and at the moment, he truly felt invincible.

"Daniel.. I was thinking.. Will your trick work if I am unconscious?" He Sewah right before the last vestige of sanity left his mind, and his body started to grow even larger than before. The flame-like demonic power that his body emanated became as intense as a star's heath, and threatened to vaporize Hannah and her group.

Before anything bad happened to these terrified and helpless young people, Daniel covered their bodies with his own immortal cultivation, and said "Now you know why cultivators keep pushing … There is always a stronger opponent. This is the endless path of cultivation." He then turned the immortal essence into spatial essence, and teleported them to the edges of the pocket dimension, where they would be safe.

Once alone with a crazed Sewah, Daniel tightened his control over the formation that contained Sewah's consciousness.. But he soon found out the demonic power that Sewah was emanating, was working as a shield that separated the formation from his control.

Sewah's theory had been proven correct. He had assumed that a power big enough would be able to form a division between Daniel and the formation, so he summoned all of the power of which the oni demon was capable of. Unfortunately, in order to do that, he was required to enter the berserker state.

Unfortunately for Sewah, he had never been able to witness the battle between Daniel and the oni leader, and therefore, he was not aware of the method that Daniel had used to defeat him. Instead, he had presumed that Daniel had used the help of his karmic system. He was also sure of the fact that Daniel wouldn't kill him, as before entering into cultivation right after the departure towards Hell's core, he had told him that he would need his help once out of the pocket dimension.

If there was something that Sewah knew, was that Daniel wouldn't risk losing a powerful ally that could help him save his friends.. Reason why he had felt so inclined on disobeying his orders, or outright challenge him so often.

However, this time he had made a mistake.

"Oh Sewah.. You never learn." Said Daniel before closing his hands into two tight fists, and taking a battle stance. He wanted to fight Sewah's body with his own physical power.

Sewah's crazed body slowly approached Daniel, and once he found himself right in front of him.. After giving him a hateful look, he lifted his right hand, and sent a punch powerful enough to split the clouds in the sky, and to make the pocket dimension shake violently.

*BOOM*

The sound of the punch was not followed of crashed ground, or falling rocks. But by a simple and faint snapping noise that came from in front of his massive fist. Once he moved his fist back, he saw Daniel stand in the place he was standing before, with his right arm bent in an odd angle.

Daniel had taken the blow head on, and while his arm had been broken, he had managed to not budge. "Come on! ASSHOLE!" he shouted as his arm began to heal by itself.

The crazed Sewah did not need to be asked twice, so he used the motion of his retreating arm to rotate his upper body, and throw another immensely powerful punch with his left hand.

*BOOM*

Once again Daniel did not budge, and managed to maintain his standing by only breaking a few bones.

Sewah's berserker state was expecting for Daniel to resist that blow, and instead of stopping, he used the bouncing of his fist to send another punch in Daniel's direction.

Daniel's arm was barely able to fully heal, before..

*BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM*

Each punch arrived with a broken bone, followed by another, and another, and another. 'Time is Precious' wa activated, and constantly helping Daniel with the production of true immortal essence, allowing his mind to keep a clear mind, and to quickly get used to the pain that came along with a broken bone.

*BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM*

*BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM*

*BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM*

The exchange of blows did not seem to have an end, until finally, after more than twenty minutes, the massive demonic body began to lose a portion of power for each punch he threw in Daniel's direction.

Twenty additional minutes later, Daniel's arms stopped breaking at every impact, and would only slightly damage instead. Enough for his automatic healing abilities to heal him in mere instants..

*BOOM* … *BOOM* … *BOOM* … *BOOM*

Two hours after the beginning of the exchange, Sewah's eyes went back into a cleaner state. His breathing was back to normal, and he had regained his consciousness.

A feeling of weakness was spreading through his entire body.. He could feel that he had been drained of his demonic power, and that he had regained his senses not because he had killed Daniel, but because he was too weak to go on.. He could not even maintain the oni's true form, and had gone back to looking like a simple demon with small horns.

In front of him, stood Daniel.

His arms draped down the sides of his body, completely undamaged. Something that couldn't be said of his shirt and coat, which had been turned into shreds by the two hours worth of supersonic impacts. The ground underneath his feet had been turned into a massive crater, and there was absolutely no trace of the small village that Virgil, Hannah, and her group had created. His expression was serious, and yet an immense sense of satisfaction could be noticed in his eyes.

Sewah was now at Daniel's mercy. He could feel his power being slowly resupplied to his body, but the speed of this process was so slow, that he didn't believe it would end before at least an hour.

"Daniel.. You know me. I need to have a little spar every now and then.. Hehe." He said while showing an awkward expression. He had yet to stop being disappointed of his failure in killing Daniel, and yet, that didn't stop him in his attempt to avoid the consequence of his actions.

However, the excruciating pain that felt like maggots eating his brain, never came.

What came instead, were a few words, and an expression that forced him to take a step back in worry.

"You are right. I should have entertained you a lot sooner.." said Daniel with a feigned repentance. He then stepped towards Sewah, and added "But it isn't too late now."

Sewah smiled grimly at Daniel's words, and while keeping on stepping back, he said "Sure.. let me recover for a bit fir-GAH" before he could finish speaking, an immensely powerful punch hit him in the throat, shattering his windpipe.

Sewah immediately protected his neck with one of his large hands, while raising the other in surrender, but before he could notice, Daniel's punch approached his body once again, and hit him straight on the privates.. Sending waves and waves of pain so powerful, that he could feel his heartbeat through his throbbing crotch.

*THUMPF* Was the sound that Sewah's body made when falling on the ground.. However, this nightmare was not over. He immediately felt two feet press on his chest with as much pressure as Daniel's weight would carry, and by opening his eyes, he was only able to see the punch that was about to hit his face.

*BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM*