The Monarch-Chapter 503: Orn

Kayden felt the soul contract binding directly to his soul like a sword; at the slightest sign of disagreement with its terms… he would die, his soul torn apart. Fortunately, it was just a soul contract and not an oath sworn by the gods. Likely, it was because swearing by the gods was far superior to this; moreover, only deities could enact such contracts. Practically no mortal in the universe was capable of manipulating souls, an ability reserved mostly for the gods. The ability to manipulate souls was rarer than the ability to manipulate time. Now, with the gods departing, most organizations would avoid making oaths to the heavens to avoid bad luck.

"Perfect," Ryan said. Athena, who had been masked this whole time, lowered her hood. The other man did as well, while his wife was someone Kayden had expected to see. He did not expect to see Han again in this life. Another person Kayden noticed in the crowd was Atlas, but he did not remove his garment and simply remained in the top ten with no expression. The technique Kayden used to kill his opponent was very simple, at least simple for someone who could observe souls.

The person there was very old, and his soul was practically destroyed from his prolonged life. Kayden guessed he was the same age as Yan but in a much lower realm; this was a mystery he would never uncover and didn’t care to pursue. He only needed to give a few subtle signals to let his soul enter directly into the river of reincarnation while still alive. Kayden couldn’t do this with just anyone; the conditions had to align perfectly, and it was likely that Athena had arranged all of this to help him enter with a better reputation. What only Athena knew was that this old man was, in truth, a genuine parasite, a mortal capable of crossing entire eras without any improvement in strength or decent confrontations. He simply lived on, one of the extremely rare cases where someone was born with a completely abnormal luck strong enough to alter a few lines of destiny.

Time continued passing, and the signs of the gods’ existence faded slowly. Many generations arose without even knowing about the gods’ existence. In some smaller worlds, the ninth realm was considered the absolute peak a mage could reach. The organizations kept fragmenting; few could maintain a size close to their glory days, with most experiencing at least a 50% reduction in size. Yet slowly, power stabilized, with the Honor ruling in near absoluteness; barely one million people even knew of their existence, an absurdly low number given the size of the universe.

Kayden’s world took full advantage of the benefits brought by the Honor, from small actions like receiving resources from unknown sources to offers to work with large organizations. Athena had already arranged with Kayden to make his world one that only supplied high-quality technologies. They weren’t raw material suppliers; his planet was responsible for producing highly refined spaceships and treasures, their main contribution to the universe.

Kayden did Atlas a favor by removing the soul contract after just exchanging a few words with him. Athena could do this on her own, and his intervention wasn’t needed, but with his disciple, it was better to act than to see him held hostage by the Honor in the not-so-distant future. Atlas was a mage who could kill everyone in this universe at that moment. If no god intervened, he could simply eliminate all life in this universe after a few million years of traveling and launching attacks. The Honor couldn’t restrain him, not even enough to place him only in the tenth position; this was all his choice.

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At the moment, Kayden was traveling with Athena to one of the most coveted planets by all organizations in the universe, the planet of Condor, one of the places with the highest amount of high-level resources in the entire universe. The planet was practically a treasure floating in space, with tens of billions of spaceships around it, all just waiting for the right moment. Inside this planet was a single mage holding together all the guilds of secondary professions, known as alchemists and blacksmiths. There were also rune writers and dozens of other variations. Unfortunately, they were all lambs awaiting slaughter.

This mage was known as Orn, a divine-level blacksmith but of mortal grade, currently one of the strongest mages in the entire universe. He was at the absolute peak of the nine realms and nine rays and supported by divine-level weapons, the only known mortal capable of wielding such a weapon. The issue was that his life was coming to an end. He was burning his life force to wield divine-level items, which had finally cost him his last breaths. None of the major organizations were there to seize the planet; they had all come for the brilliant minds, the geniuses who could turn small organizations into medium-sized ones.

Kayden had scheduled a meeting and visit to this planet thousands of years ago, and only now did his turn come. Fortunately, he wasn’t in a hurry and had waited patiently. He knew he would be the one to recruit the greatest number of brilliant minds; manipulating souls had its advantages, and persuasion was one of them.

At that moment, not a single organization in this world changed its base; while their mortal god lived, none of them would dare offend him in front of his eyes. It was a minimal respect everyone owed their master. Furthermore, the god was preventing these organizations from being forced to unite through contracts or threats, making sure everything flowed correctly as he departed from this universe.

As soon as Kayden and Athena passed a certain point, they were directly transported to the largest city in the world. Either of them could have resisted, as it was merely a standard automatic portal, but it would make their journey here much easier.