Sovereign of the Karmic System-Chapter 685: Difficult Choices

"There is something I need to ask you." Roley said, stopping the mental cultivator from departing.

Aeron stopped, then turned to once again face the young scholar. "Speak, but make it fast, if you don’t mind." His disembodied, emotionless voice said.

"How likely is it that you can help Daniel recover completely?" Roley asked.

"As I have said, provided that I have enough power, it should not be a problem." Aeron said as his mental power encompassed the scholar. He could see a mind plagued by uncertainty and worry. "You can be at ease, this isn’t completely uncharted territory for someone of my background." He then added, hoping that such reassurance could ease the other’s mind.

Unfortunately, Aeron’s attempt seemed to only partially succeed. "It’s just that.. you haven’t seen it. You don’t understand yet the magnitude of the threat we are facing, and-" Roley said before being interrupted.

"You are worried that if I were to restore Dan’s mind he might come back, but he might also lose his powers?" Aeron asked.

Roley nodded, slightly surprised by Aeron’s perspicacity. "Between me, Daniel and Der, there are a mortal capable of controlling his own power of existence, a cultivator who has broken through the barriers that for eons have kept the aspects above mortals, and someone who, apparently, has the potential of turning into a creature of true omnipotence." He explained. "We are Fate’s target no matter how strong we become, or how much of our power we give up on."

"Just ask your question, Roley." Aeron said as his emerald eyes noticed a thread of weak mental power twist and turn in the scholar’s mind, hidden by a cloud of ’beating around the bush.’

Roley took a deep breath, then lowered his eyes in worry. "Do you think that, if I were to complete my ascension, you would be able to restore my mind as well?"

"You want to go through with it?!" Aeron asked right away.

Roley’s gaze moved back on the mental cultivator, just in time to notice the sudden appearance of thin lips between a pair of deep dimples, and the emergence of a nose with no nostrils. Aeron’s mannequin-like body was taking a more detailed shape, though his eyes, narrowed and attentive, had never changed.

"We don’t have much of a choice. The last time we fought them they outnumbered us three to one, and we barely won thanks to the element of surprise and Daniel’s ability to store power into his body, instead of relying on the power present in his surroundings. But they won’t make the same mistake. They will send more, stronger aspects to deal with us, and we can’t rely on Daniel for protection if he loses his powers."

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Aeron remained silent. He understood Roley’s reasoning, and he agreed with them to some extent, but there was something that worried him.

While such reasoning could have fooled someone the rest of their friends, Aeron was, essentially, a different kind of entity. He spoke in thoughts, saw and heard in memories, and possessed senses that weren’t so much made to perceive the world around him, as they were used to perceive the world within people’s minds. So when Roley spoke of his willingness to accept the curse that was plaguing their old friend, Aeron saw the intentions behind this decision.

To him, each one was like a different colored pain on a canvas, and all together, they formed a picture of Roley’s heart.

In this picture Aeron saw the desire to fulfill his promise to turn the multiverse into a place where the elementals could live as equals, rather than as objects to be used, as well as his fear to lose what made him the person that he was, were he to become an aspect of existence, and even the worry he felt towards his missing friends.

Yet, one color dominated the canvas. His desire for power. A sentiment once born out of desperation, but that with time, as fewer and fewer dared to oppose his primordial powers, began to grow and thrive through greed.

"I am not sure that I would be able to." Aeron said. "If your explanation of the powers of a primordial aspect of existence is accurate, then your ascension could turn you into a being beyond our wildest imagination. I can’t even imagine what kind of price such power would demand."

Aeron’s words struck precisely where he wanted. Fuel for Roley’s worries, so that they could smoke out his greed. Deep inside, he felt grateful that he could do this without having to lie. "Look," He added. "You still have options. You can stop here, and do the best you can with the power you have now. Or you can give it up, and resume cultivating the spiritual path. With time, you might be able to ascend the same way Der has.. but becoming one of those beings-"

"I know that you can see that I want that I want it, Aeron. The power." Roley said, feeling Aeron’s inquisitive eyes scour his mind, fishing through his thoughts like a master fisherman sitting by the edge of a koi pond. "But that doesn’t mean that it can’t be the right choice for us. All I want to know is whether I can count on you to get me back once our goals have been achieved."

Aeron’s emerald eyes disappeared, hidden behind formless eyelids and away from Roley’s gaze. "Your doubts are unwarranted." His disembodied voice said, resounding across space like a distant echo. "If you manage to ascend, I will have to." He then added before dissipating into thin air, leaving the young scholar alone.

Roley inhaled sharply, somewhat reassured. A step forward was all it took for a human-shaped portal to open in front of him, embracing his form perfectly, and closing the moment his body crossed through just as if he was walking through an invisible mirror.

Black castle’s training grounds, two hours later.

"Ahh!" *CRACK* "DAMN IT!" Ian barked out in sheer rage as what he knew must have been the thirtieth sword he had picked up that day broke, shattered under the pressure of a failed attack. He was now laying on the sand, trembling arms and dusty palms used to keep his upper body from touching the ground. He was exhausted enough to know that if he were to fall completely, he wouldn’t be able to get up anymore.

The training grounds of Daniel’s residence had turned into a graveyard of wooden swords. Splinters and wet stains strewn all about, along with the occasional mark of blood the boy had left behind after a particularly rough exchange. Just like the last one, where the broken part of his sword had flung back, striking him squarely on the face and causing a nosebleed.

A few feet from him was the towering figure of the female paladin. She was observing him quietly, with her spear resting gently against the ground, unbothered by the breeze that seeped into her oversized white shirt, blowing the fabric off her skin. Her new boots were now covered in sand, but aside from the single stain of blood that soaked the left cuff of her shirt, on her body there was no trace of sweat or tiredness.

She had been tasked with sparring with this boy with no instructions other than the details of the task given by her new lord to the boy-So for the last two hours she had behaved like a trainer. A role she had often taken while training aspiring paladins back in her home planet, and that she fit thanks to her naturally cold personality.

Yet, the sight of the boy’s injury had, at some point, softened her demeanor. Or at least, that would have explained her tendency to inject her immortal essence into Ian whenever he would receive an injury-Always self inflicted.

And so she did now.

Her power seeped into Ian’s body, then turned into healing essence. The damage was fixed so quickly that the latter hadn’t had the chance to realize what had happened. Or perhaps he had felt it, but had attributed it to the gift he had been granted by his mysterious benefactor.

Regardless, once healed, Ian sprung back on his feet, grabbed a new wooden sword, and prepared to resume the fight.

Before he could, however, the woman broke the silence she had maintained since the moment she had been summoned, and said. "Your will is commendable, but your tactic is flawed."

"I don’t need your opinion, I just need to hit you." Ian retorted while wrapping both hands around the training sword. ’I just need to hit her weapon once, then hit again before she can bring her back in front of her to block.’ He thought while taking small steps forward.

The female paladin shook her head in disappointment. "Do you know why Lord Karma has chosen me as your sparring partner?"

"Because you are his servant." Ian responded matter-of-factly, continuing his advance.

"Because I wield a spear." The paladin scoffed before lifting her weapon an inch off the ground. Then, with a graceful motion, returned the weapon to its horizontal position, lowering her shoulders, bending her knees and allowing for her feet to slide over the sand, parting her legs. "To compensate for the difference in range between a longsword and a spear, you need to use your head. Yet you only see the potential damage in front of you. You will never succeed."

Ian’s lips twitched in irritation. His pace picked up speed and soon he found himself rushing forward, sword held tightly over his shoulder and behind his back, ready for a diagonal swing. His spirit bubbled with anger as he prepared to unleash all the power his mortal body could muster, unaware of a small, almost imperceptible movement of the paladin’s wrist.

The woman’s wrist rotated slightly as the spear was brought in between her elbow and the side of her sternum, then she twirled in place. *SPAH* The flat of the spear’s tip struck the boy’s cheek in a moment, and with enough force to snap his head to the side.

A searing pain instantly spread through Ian’s face, lips burning from the heat of pumping blood as his ears rang. His mind was fuzzy, as most of his attention was focused on experiencing a dozen different new kinds of pain. Too much so to notice as a second twirl of his sparring partner which sent the spear’s staff swiping against the back of his legs.

Ian fell, landing heavily on the ground.

Disappointed, the woman put the spear away. She looked down at the suffering young man and said, "Perhaps I have been wrong so far." A hint of sadness in her tone. "Hopefully, you will listen to the pain you are feeling better than my own words." Once finished, she turned around and left, leaving the teenager on the ground, hurt and alone.

Clouded by the pain, time seemed to slow in Ian’s mind. He felt like he had spent the last hour laying on the ground, but in truth, barely two minutes had gone by before the pain subsided. Five minutes in total were all the time it took for the pain to disappear completely, and for Ian to regain his composure.

He panted from the ground, bitterly tasting the blood in his mouth, when suddenly, "You are progressing." Said the voice of a man directly into the young man’s mind.

"Am I? It feels like I am dying." Ian said before turning his head to the side. Just enough to spit the mouth of blood and saliva he had been savoring.

"You should not have stopped. What if you get hit? Get hit enough times and their weapon breaks.. Then watch them talk about weapon range." The voice snickered.

Ian’s breathing slowed down. He snapped his jaw in an attempt to get rid of the ringing in his ear, but after a few failed attempts he stopped. "Do I really have a family out there? A real one?" He asked with longing after a long minute of silence.

"You do. A nice one at that." The voice responded. "And once our little agreement is concluded, we will find them together. That I promise."