Sovereign of the Karmic System-Chapter 679: Ian

He was quite young, maybe in his mid teens, athletic built, and just an inch shy of six feet. He wore dark brown leather pants and a white shirt. His skin was quite pale, glistening with a layer of sweat that covered his forehead, neck, and drenched a good portion of his shirt.

The dim lighting made it difficult for a mortal to pinpoint what the youth’s exact hair color was, especially since they were so dark, but that was not the case for Daniel. His eyes could see each detail as if placed under interrogation lights. The youth had dark brown hair, as dark as brown got without being black, and his eyes were almost as dark.

The boy’s features were distorted, weighed by stress and fatigue as he slashed vertically with what looked like an ebony arming sword. With each strike he attempted to nick a vital point of his inanimate sparring partner, often missing the target by an inch or two.

"Shouldn’t you be celebrating with the others?" Daniel asked, causing the already nervous youth to spring up like a cat facing a cucumber. "Didn’t you hear? The war is over."

The kid turned to his left, dark shoulder-length hair covering his facial features, and he noticed Daniel, standing roughly twenty feet from him. He grunted, then adjusted his stance. Despite the embarrassing reaction to Daniel’s appearance, no sign of embarrassment could be seen in the youth’s demeanor. He had gotten scared for a moment, and that was it.

"War never ends here." The kid said with the voice of a boy that had left puberty not too long ago. "That’s just how it is."

"This time it is." Daniel responded. His words seemed to have no effect on the boy, who resumed his fighting stance and prepared to continue his training. A behavior that did not appear to bother Daniel, as he chose to continue to observe the boy’s training session.

That went on for roughly two minutes, after which the kid dropped the sword and turned to once again face Daniel in exasperation. "Do you need help or something?"

Daniel smiled. Few mortals throughout the multiverse had the right to speak that way to even the lowest level of cultivator, let alone an aspect of existence. But he allowed it. That was the society he had created. A society where cultivation was little more than a career path, and everyone was equal in its right to belong. Now that what his previous self had set to achieve had been fulfilled, there was little he could be angry about.

Not that he would bother anyway. He was young for a deity. As a matter of fact, he was young for a cultivator too. He lacked the ego of the other aspects of existence. Plus, he didn’t mind this kid’s tone. "Funny that you mention that. That is precisely what I thought you needed when I saw you." Daniel said with a matter-of-fact tone.

"Something?" the kid mocked.

"Help."

The youth scoffed. He turned to look back at the training dummy and picked up his sword. He had a mind to simply ignore this stranger and continue with his training, but before he could, the sword came to life. It rose several inches above ground, and took off in Daniel’s direction.

Daniel grabbed the sword easily, measuring its length with his eyes and its weight with his palm, then threw it back to the kid. As he did, he said, "You should,’t train to get rid of a bad mood. It may leave you, but it tends to stick to your training, and that is how you pick up bad habits."

The boy grabbed the sword off the air, then spent a few seconds examining it. "Are you a master swordsman?" His tone as mocking as ever, but slightly less arrogant.

"If I was, you would be smart to take the advice." Daniel responded. Only now he had been able to notice the boy’s facial features. Rough and sharp, with eyes that had seen struggle and

death more often than a boy his age should have. Anger and worry had left constant marks on his expression. "Why are you training anyway? As a mortal, you wouldn’t be expected to fight."

For a moment the kid’s arrogant spirit seemed to abandon him. "War is all I know. It took my parents, my grandparents, their parents and grandparents. I was meant to start cultivating in a year, and fight in the war like my family had for generations, but now they say it’s all over." As he finished speaking, a surge of anger reignited in the youth’s spirit, and he once again struck at the dummy. There was no technique, no subtlety or skill in the strike, just blind badgering.

As the boy vented his frustration, something cracked in Daniel’s mind. It grew in the pit of his stomach and made its way through his throat, forcing him to look up and open his mouth to unleash a genuine laugh of amusement.

The laugh alone was powerful enough to disturb the surrounding space, making the spheres of essence which maintained the elements within the pocket dimension to flicker, causing a slight tremor in the ground, a dimming of lights, and thinning of oxygen in the air. "That is what you are angry about? You think you missed your chance to fight?" Daniel muttered in between giggles.

His laugh had sent a shiver down the youth’s back, causing him to reconsider the man who was standing in front of him. Only now had he realized that he had never seen the man before, despite him living his entire life in this camp. The clothes he wore were clean and neat, unlike those of the people who had had to either scavenge from enemy camps or maintain their original clothes like relics.

Daniel ignored the changes in the youth’s behavior, and began to pace. "Conflict, war and conquest are so widespread in the multiverse that their very nature birthed consciousnesses. If this war ending is the reason for your state of mind, then close your eyes, pick a direction and start walking. Time a day and you’ll find another."

"Why are you telling me this? Who are you?" The boy asked. His body now stood straight behind his sword, whose tip he had planted onto the ground. His hands resting gently against the sword’s pommel.

Daniel stopped pacing. His eyes were closed, but his senses stretched beyond their reach. His nose twitched slightly as a scent that surrounded the boy was singled out from body odor, mud, humidity and the smells one would expect at a party. "When I came here, I set off to find my family."

The youth shrugged, annoyed by the prospect of having to listen to a long story. "Did you find it?" He asked with a roll of his eyes. But when his eyes went back in place, scouring the spot where Daniel had been standing until a moment ago, the man was nowhere to be found. Gone in silence, and without disturbing the wind, the ground, or the mood of the party.

"Maybe."

"There you are. Where were you?" Der asked as Daniel stepped back into the tent, which had now been cleaned of dirty plates and mugs. Cups of steaming tea lined the edge of the table with the same frequency of occupied chairs. Only Daniel’s seat remained empty, and the others had clearly waited for it to be filled before continuing with their conversation.

Daniel materialized into his seat, then cusped the teacup with both hands. "I missed the bulk of it, but I found a straggler." He said as the tea within the cup began to steam.

Der’s brows rose with surprise as he turned to Ligart just in time to see him sigh, and slouch onto his chair. Ligart noticed the warrior’s gaze, and lifted his hand in a calming gesture, asking for a chance to explain. "Alright." The scarred man said. "Not all your descendants disappeared that night."

"Why didn’t you tell me about him before?" Daniel asked in between sips of tea.

Ligart sucked his teeth, letting out a tch sound. "Frankly, I don’t like the way you have been acting since you have arrived. You wiped out an entire army, no questions asked, your reaction to reuniting with your oldest and dearest friends was comparable to that of finding an old sock you had forgotten you had lost, and the news that your family was gone hardly startled you."

Daniel nodded. "Fair enough. So, who is the boy?"

After a second heavy sigh, Ligart explained, "According to what his mother told us when your family went missing, one of your male descendants left her with child. They weren’t married, or together in the traditional sense, hence why she was left behind. She didn’t live close enough to be swept up in whatever caused their disappearance. He is the only descendant, or blood relative you have left alive within this pocket dimension. His father died two years ago in the last conflict."

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"Mhh." Daniel moaned as a mouthful of near-boiling hot tea went down his throat. "Is that why you haven’t allowed him to cultivate? You didn’t want him to die at war?"

Ligart and the others remained quiet. To answer this question was Mea, who said, "We were never successful in mastering the art of preventing a member of your family from taking part in the war. After several generations, the best we came up with was to make sure they procreated before allowing them to throw themselves into the fire."

"I appreciate the sentiment." Daniel said as he placed the now empty teacup onto the table. Then added, "Unnecessary as it might be. There are more sensitive matters at hand than a mortal child with a thousandth of my blood flowing in his veins."

Before Daniel could change topic, however, a voice that had yet to be heard during their reunion finally spoke. It was deep and ethereal, as if it came not from a man’s voice box, but from the other stretch of a long corridor, bouncing off walls of metal and creating a reverb that numbed the ears. "His name is Ian, and now that you are here, you should take care of his education and training." Aeron said. "You are his ancestor, and only kin he has left."

Daniel’s eyes narrowed for a moment as they met with two jade colored crystals. In them he could feel a power beyond his comprehension, one he could explain little more than he could explain Der’s evolution, or elements that turned the essences within Roley’s body from perfection to primordial in nature. All he could tell was that Aeron was seeing something in him that went beyond the scope of his comprehension.

"I am afraid my attention is required on.. higher issues." Daniel spoke with aloofness. Something he had gotten quite good at without even trying. "I know who has my family." The last sentence succeeded in changing the topic, as well as in catching the attention of Ligart and the others, who turned towards him in surprise.

"Who? What do you mean who? Are you saying someone took them?" Xargy asked.

Daniel nodded. "I only realized it after you mentioned their disappearance. When we were looking for you, we found out that you were all shielded by a power of existence. That was why we needed to find the archives of Sacrifice’s domain to find you. But according to you, my family has been gone for over a century. So why were they shielded? The records had my family still trapped here, so neither Sacrifice nor his domain noticed their disappearance."

Der started to connect the dots. "Are you saying.."

"I am saying that." Daniel confirmed before Der could even finish. "I can think of only one entity powerful and devious enough to do it. Both friend and foe.."

"Who the hell are you two talking about?" Ligart asked in annoyance.

Der straightened his back, then turned to look at Daniel, who shrugged his shoulders and nodded with indifference. Having been given consensus, Der said, "The aspect of Conflict."