Sovereign of the Karmic System



Since the last time Daniel had seen his two old friends, his appearance had changed drastically. His rough beard had been cut clean, and his hair, once long and wild, had been cut shorter, and styled in a crew cut that fit his facial features and youthful appearance.

The simple looking, yet finely weaved gray t-shirt and worn black pants he had worn, had now been replaced by a gray loosely-fitting linen shirt tucked into a pair of brown leather pants, which met a pair of spotlessly clean black boots halfway down his calves. By his waist was a long and loose leather sash, wrapped twice over. Once to keep his pants up, and once to provide support to the sword that hung next to his thigh.

A simple clean-up, purely aesthetic and ultimately inconsequential. That was Daniel had thought of it, and nothing more. And yet, that was not the case for his two companions, who had suddenly felt nostalgic. Those colors, that specific hairstyle, and those particular items of clothing. They were all burned in their minds as part of Daniel's persona just as much as his facial features were. The go-to attire and haircut they could expect him to sport most days of the week.

That is the young man I know. They both thought.

But, alas, those feelings were short-lived. To crash them, just before they could lead the two to develop was could only be considered futile hope, were Daniel's cold and distant eyes. Eyes that had lacked the anger, worry, curiosity, and youthful spark the young man they knew possessed. A reminder that he was still the aspect of existence they were getting to know, and not the bright cultivator they once knew.

Daniel ignored this brief ripple of emotions, and instead, stood quietly. His upper body bent slightly forward, with one hand resting heavily onto the handle of the sword, pressing it to a horizontal position, while the other lingered in front of him expectantly. "Are you going to hand that over or not?" He repeated once again as his gaze shifted between Roley's eyes, and the notebook he was holding.

"Yes." Roley answered instinctively before slapping the notebook onto Daniel's palm. "Can you unlock it?" He then asked, unaware of the hair-thin string of golden power that, upon contact with the notebook, had darted out of the latter's skin, diving straight into the slightly wider river of blood. 

The golden power was like poison to it. It spread into its watery body with no effort, aided by the very flow that forced the river in its infinite cycle, claiming more of it every moment. It swallowed and consumed, until finally, the golden hue had replaced the water's blood-red color completely.

The entire process had only taken only a few seconds. A process that, all things considered, shocked Daniel's two companions.

Roley's curious vein formed dozens of questions into his mind, but only one found its way to his tongue. "Is the existential power of karma that much stronger than that of sacrifice?" He asked, impressed by how quickly Daniel had managed to remove a seal that, in his single attempt to remove, had felt akin to trying to drain an ocean one handful of water at a time.

A feat that had only taken the aspect of Karma seconds.

Usually Daniel would ignore such questions, and yet, since ascending to the realm of the aspects of existence, he had begun to feel a sort of pride towards his power. He had to defend it, and give it credit when necessary, and avenge it when its might would be insulted. That was why, when Roley showed genuine interest in it, he could not help but feel magnanimous, and grace him with an answer.

"In the pantheon's classification scale, my power should be above that of Sacrifice." He answered honestly. "But that is not an enormous feat. The power of sacrifice is a high low-tier power of existence, as its influence is bound to the occasional decisions of mortals. It is a power that exists in some places, is rooted in the traditions of some civilizations, and is produced by a very few number of actions. There is no totality in any of its many facets."

"And what about Karma?" Roley answered. "In what way are they different?" 

Daniel once again let out a distracted smile. His golden eyes still focused on the small notebook, while his thoughts tried to formulate the most comprehensive and honest answer possible. "The power of karma possesses a form of totality. It is still tied to living creatures, but its presence is much more abundant than the nature of sacrifice. All acts of sacrifice, may them be selfish or selfless, can produce karma. Yet, not all actions of karma can produce the existential power of sacrifice."

"Sounds like a very fine distinction." Roley muttered to himself.

"Only because you don't understand it yet. How can words help you understand what the difference between a portion of a body of water, and the ocean in its entirety  is. Water is water, after all."

"Mhm." Roley hummed pensively before a switch flipped in his mind. "What about the champion we've just killed. Is the small influence of the power of devotion the reason why she couldn't ascend?"

Daniel's head shook. "No, that is not the reason." He said as his eyes gently moved from the small notebook to Roley's figure. "An existential power of devotion would fall under the same category of that of Sacrifice. If she had managed to ascend, her nature would be in no way less important than that of Sacrifice himself. Her inferiority was caused by her failure to comprehend the true extent of devotion."

"Her rotten personality prevented her from learning all other kinds of concepts but religious zeal. Devotion to one's true love, parents and children, to one's possessions, country and occupation. She knows nothing of them. As long as she fails to recognize and fix these shortcomings, she will never ascend."

Roley nodded in understanding. "Is that it, then? Is reaching a deep comprehension of one's existential power the path to ascension?" He then asked. 

"To an extent." Daniel answered, now fully invested in the conversation. "A deep comprehension of the power of karma was definitely a factor in my ascension, but I wouldn't say it was the most important part of it. In reality, it is not much different than studying the essences of nature. You can explore the concepts, learn them by heart and use them to your advantage. You can even reach a perfect understanding of them, like many have across the multiverse, but your comprehension will never touch the primal nature of the elements. No, you have to pay to cross that line."

"A line? What do you mean? And pay what?"  Roley asked, more confused than ever.

His questions, however, were met with sealed lips. "That is nothing you have to worry about, for now." Daniel calmly answered as his hands grasped at the leathery string that kept the notebook closed. Then, with a jerk of his fingers, he undid the knot, freeing the small booklet from its restraint.

Unsatisfied by the lack of a conclusion, Roley opened his mouth, ready to insist, but he was soon stopped by the cold metallic hand that suddenly landed on top of his shoulder. "Priorities." Der said, stopping him from further delaying them from finding news about their friends and family.

Roley heaved heavily, then let out a deep sigh. He had underestimated how much Der had wanted to find his daughter. A feat that he had probably never abandoned in the last two thousand years, but that without the help of a system, had been fruitless. Now that they were that close, he could not even imagine the degree of restlessness his old friend must have been repressing.

This single thought made him feel ashamed. Was his curiosity more important than their goal? He was always convinced that it wasn't, until now.

Daniel ignored the interaction between the two, and instead focused on the contents of the booklet. What he saw were lines upon lines of finely written words with ink of blood on top of yellow paper. Locations, names, dates and coordinates orderly recorded into two neat lists, one ranking the universes that belonged to Sacrifice's domain in order of influence, the other containing details and thoughts about any new potential universe that would soon open to the battle for influence.

Each list contained a minimum of a thousand entries, and together, they filled four fifths of the entire booklet, leaving behind only a few dozen pages free for whichever type of information Sacrifices would care to keep in written form.

Seeing that this information was of little importance to him, Daniel flipped the pages in a haste, until finally, he came upon the beginning of several long paragraphs. Written above them, in thick and particularly elegant calligraphy, was the word "Horror."

"What is this?" Daniel muttered to himself with curiosity.

-----

-Year 5031 

Five thousand years have passed since my birth, and not a moment I have spent not feeling powerful and infinite, glorious and indomitable. Yet, I am also a servant. I look at those above me with envy, and fear. Their power scares me, and I know, deep down, that I will never be able to bask upon the heights they live in, no matter how many years will pass.

The aspect of Horror inhabits my nightmares more than any other member of the pantheon. I feel in his power a familiarity that fills me with disgust. I am a child in front of him, struggling to crawl over his fatherly existence with slippery fingers and an infant's strength. I will never succeed. Thousands of years have proven just that. I will never leave his disgusting shadow.

But not all hope is lost.

His hatred towards the aspect of Destiny puts the latter's rivalry with Fate to shame. The two were born together, I heard, but Destiny had taken the spotlight away from him, creating a one sided hatred that, perhaps, I could use. Would some encouragement convince Horror to challenge the aspect of Destiny? Fate would never allow a disruption to the bet he has with his brother. He would strike Horror down, freeing me from his shadow. I will investigate more about it.

-----

-Year 5609

Horror will never risk challenging Fate. My search for Horror's vulnerability still bears no result.-

-----

Daniel's eyes opened wide with surprise. His fingers kept scrolling through the pages, uncovering more and more entries gathered into little groups under single emboldened words. The names of many aspects of existence who, at some point in the last tens of millions of years, had become the target of Sacrifice's attention. Of them he had recorded weaknesses, hostilities and past major events.

Records keeping was a practice Daniel had not expected an aspect of existence to pursue, and yet, on second thought, he understood it. Their kind was, in a way, more human than cultivators. Their lives were infinite, and powers unlimited, but their minds were that of sentient creatures whose memories got lost under the tremendously long river of time.

That most of them would have kept a thorough record of the most important events that regarded them, was not an odd assumption. Written memories of the slights they meant to avenge, of the favors they owed, of the ideas that at one point in time had felt like the most important developments in their lives, but that hundreds of thousands of years later they had all but forgotten.

As the pages kept turning, Daniel saw several familiar names, yet little information of use. Very few entries possessed useful weaknesses, and most of them regarded benevolent aspects of existence that would never cross him to begin with, so he did not linger too long on them.

His fingers kept flipping one page after another, until finally, he came upon a word too familiar to ignore. "Karma."