Divine Path System
chapter-1668

The 7th Prince couldn't believe what he heard. Was he really treated as a mouse?

He? Samael Astreas?

"I guess you learn something new every once in a while." With a gentle shake of his head, the prince swiped his arm at the void in front.

Space splintered and the shards of space gathered into a storm. It's as if glass was shattered and fragments of glass formed a tornado.

Except a space tornado formed in void was much more fatal. And in doing so, the 7th Prince broke the existing space in the region, rendering teleportation nearly impossible.

Varian did expect a lot.

It's like they gathered in a large room to fight. He anticipated destruction of pillars, antiques, vases and flowers. But this guy…

He rolled up the floor and used it as a weapon!

When the 7th Prince was about to drown Varian in the space storm, the formation activated without any prior signs.

"Huh?"

Even though the 7th Prince was a formidable being at the peak of rank 1, the formation provided by Equilius, a mid rank 2 powerhouse, was something that even he couldn't brush off.

Perhaps he really wanted Varian to die. So, the formation was particularly good. "What the hell is hap—kuh!"

The 7th Prince momentarily lost control over the space storm he masterfully created. Using that opportunity, Varian snatched away the ownership of the storm and hit him with the very space tornado.

Samael recovered and forcibly pulled out space fragments to create a sub-space to shield himself in.

Even though the formation kept suppressing his powers, the 7th Prince was confident he could crush Varian.

Varian had the same idea. But instead of being stronger, he vowed to become stronger through the fight. 'Once I reach your range, it's your end.'

While the two men clashed, Eshala was having a terrific battle against Victor. Unlike Varian, she had no chance of winning. But trusting his plan, she decided to go all out from the start and exert as much power as possible to keep the scale balanced for as long as he could.

Moreover, the location was against Victor. The blackholes created were severely affected by the flood of aura coming from the inner space, rendering them too costly to maintain. As a result, while their battle was more terrific, it was more or less balanced. The other battle, while lower in intensity, was severely unbalanced.

"Kugh!" Translucent space rose up and twisted into a needle. There were millions upon millions of such translucent needles, each holding tremendous aura within.

They crossed the void in a blink, as if they were teleporting and reached Varian. "Halt!" The rules of Order and Chaos inbuilt in the surroundings affected the space needles for a brief moment, bringing them to stop.

[Order law: Non-mass entities are hindered from free moment

Chaos law: Space's distortion is increased, preventing stability of any maintained form.]

The needles, each of which were supposed to be a lethal bomb, struggled under the order-chaos domain.

Moreover, a very accurate space-time shower began to rain down on the needles.

Even though this shower of space-time curvature fragments was significantly weaker than the needles, they managed to influence the constrained superior attack.

The 7th Prince poured more divine aura into them and pushed them to overcome the resistance. But while that happene—

"Huh?"

It wasn't working. Not just that, Varian's power was soaring. From a normal peak rank 1 to the strongest and then to rank 2?

Samael didn't understand what's going on. "I hid my strength." Varian said with a smile and raised his arm. A palm covering the entire sky fell and all of Samael's aura was stripped away in front of that overwhelming power.

His divinity fell, reverting him to a a frail mortal. "Noo!"

When the palm squeezed him to death, Samael opened his eyes and saw the needles quickly disintegrating. 'Illusion! I fell into an illusion!'

It's a bit too late to realize as almost half of his attack was neutralized. But Samael wasn't going to let Varian have it his way. With a snort, the prince brought out a disc. The space of the region grew incredibly solid, nullifying the effect of the chaos law.

Then, a few grains of special sand was thrown from his fingertips. All of a sudden, the space grew heavy and Varian began to pant under the tremendous weight.

Just standing in this space burdened him a lot and his back felt like it could break any moment.

Samael used his extreme proficiency of space to keep himself from feeling any burden and raised his arm once again. Hundreds of space mirrors formed around Varian. If he fell into even one of them, he'd be trapped in an unending loop of spaces where each door would lead to harsher and harsher chaotic spaces.

'Fuck!'

Varian's physical power, powered by both Dragon and Titan, exploded. The power of life and death, brought under a perfect harmony by the soul, boosted him to do something the 7th Prince never expected. Varian moved even when the space-time curvature was burdened by the mythical star sand. The myths state that a handful of sand made a small region of space as heavy as a galaxy.

It's exaggerated, but unless a space awakener was very proficient, he wouldn't be able to avoid the fate of being crushed under that weight.

Samael thought it's a perfect trap for Varian who's significantly worse than him in space power.

Unfortunately, he didn't account for the other powers of his enemy.

"Arghhh!"

Like a beast breaking its shackles, Varian broke through the tremendous weight. His muscles bulged and his eyes turned bloodshot. The powerful vitality in his body, synced with the horrifying death energy soared into the sky, creating a Samsaric lotus of life and death.

The lotus grew restless under the opposing energies. Despite not being targetted, Samael's body turned chaotic at the reactions.

At that moment, a phoenix cry sounded from Varian and the silhouette of the divine creature rested in the middle of the lotus.

Varian looked into the 7th Prince's eyes and a light flashed.

"Stop!"

Samael hurriedly waved his hand, creating hundreds upon hundreds of sub-spaces to defend himself. The lotus didn't try to break space by itself. It simply pulled the prince's life energy and spirit out.

It partially succeeded and would've drained him dry if the prince didn't throw the mirror spaces onto it.

The lotus resisted fiercely and the mirror spaces had to struggle to capture the violent entity.

Even with every mirror working together, they could barely hold it together.

Using this opportunity, Varian jumped at the 7th Prince, intending to initiate a close combat. Having tasted defeat in two confrontations, Samael teleported away, denying Varian what he wanted.

Unfortunately for him, Varian also took into account his retreat. "I'm actually here."

Varian's clone appeared right next to Samael. Without hesitation, the 7th Prince blew up the space.

Boom!

Varian's clone exploded violently but another clone barged at the prince in the flash of light.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The 7th Prince went literally bombastic, exploding everything in sight. Even though this was a much more consuming method, he declined to give Varian any more time. Varian was too much of an unstable factor to be left alive even for a few more seconds. And truthfully, fighting against someone who had seven paths was extremely dangerous, even for him.

Varian blocked out as many attacks as he could but as the 7th Prince raised the scale and began exploding the whole of space, he began to suffer.

The injuries inflicted by the unstable space were bad enough. But some of the space area corrupted by Samael's power began to influence Varian, trying to split his existence into multiple independent spaces. And this wasn't an attempt to split him physically. No. His existence faced the threat of the split.

To put it another way, he'd forced to simultaneously exist in multiple places. A mortal or even celestial wouldn't be able to do it due to their weak constitution. For a divine ranker, it's possible.

But existing in multiple independent spaces would weaken the existence in each space, leaving them as an easy target to slaughter.

Varian wasn't as proficient as the 7th prince to throw back that move. But he had enough space proficiency to understand the mechanism and use his other powers to cheat.

"Split!"

The 7th Prince's forehead had a thin red line and blood spilled out of his mouth. This move was taking a toll on him. But he didn't care. To finish off Varian once and for all!

The existing space of the region trembled before it split into six identical layers, each distantly connected with others and mostly independent.

Like a shadow that's projected onto six adjacent surfaces, Varian's existence suffered in each surface. "It's over, Varian." Samael blocked three space layers while attacking the other three. As expected, the three 'lesser' Varian couldn't resist and were swept away by his attack. With equal ease, he attacked the other three. And two were easily destroyed. The third, however, remained safe.

"Huh?"

Samael blinked in confusion, checking the dissipating aura of the five dead Varian in the spaces.

He wasn't so sure but he felt something was off. Varian didn't give him a chance to question. A powerful spiritual attack Varian set up during this independent space period struck the 7th Prince.

Even though he had treasures against spiritual attacks, they weren't able to completely block it out. The prince was out of his senses for a brief, brief moment. His instincts took over, ready to attack and defend if the enemy came closer.

Varian killed his presence and used the power of time instead of space. Then, he activated one of the seed of life he spread all over the place, specifically, the seed that's the closest to the 7th prince. In a blink, the seed and his self swapped positions. When the 7th Prince came to his senses, Varian's fist reached his face. A dozen sub-spaces instantly popped up, turning the inch long distance between them into something akin to a light year. But Varian came prepared.

"Arghh!" The sub-spaces were struck by the power of slivers and got slightly destablized. It wasn't because they were stronger but simply because they were higher form of power.

Whatever the reason might be, Varian got the slight instability he wanted. The power of Order and Chaos, particularly Chaos, acted and amplified that instability. Wrinnng!

The sub-spaces had a small crack for a moment and disappeared almost instantly. But Varian, who was under the blessing of his own time flow, felt that instant to be a significantly long period of time. Compressing his existence into nearly a single spatial dot using the power of life, death and soul, Varian shot in. The 7th Prince's instincts screamed like never before and he wanted to hurry away. As he was teleporting away, Varian's finger brushed past his cheek. Through the point of contact, a sea of spiritual power directly flooded his body. The 7th Prince appeared in the far distance after teleportation but his eyes were blank. The soul awakeners had to send their spiritual power across large spaces to attack others. And spiritual power tends to decay over both a large period and long distance. For those reasons, a direct contact attack by a spiritual awakener was the deadliest.

Samael was thrown into an illusion because of Varian's powers.

An illusion that he lived for. It was a planet in a distant era. A world for the upper-middle class. There was nothing luxurious here. And there's nothing lacking either.

A beauty who looked like a woman next door greeted him with open arms. "Lia…" Samael's cold eyes turned wet and he hugged her with a melting smile on his face. "Did I…did I really do it?" He choked under his breath as he immersed himself in the reality he did not dare to believe.

For some reason, the memories of how he got here were blurred. He could only remember that he was doing something important and then, his family returned!

"Big Bro! I'm hungry, hungry, hungry!"

A cute young girl with pigtails jumped in between them, pouting at Samael. The 7th prince could destroy entire kingdoms if he was offended, but against the little girl, he only gave a helpless smile. "Why do you eat so much for your size?" "Ahhh?" The little girl opened her mouth wide and then pounced on him, biting his arm. Samael raised his arm with a chuckle, lifting her up. With the other hand, he hugged his wife gently. "Samael, she's still young. Don't bully her." A middle-aged woman in homely clothes stepped into the garden, admonishing him. "B-But." The cold blooded 7th Prince stuttered, pointing to the little girl who kept biting him like a dog. "She is the one biting!" "It's the same." His mother crossed her arms. Samael sighed as if it couldn't be helped. They always spoiled her. Even when his mother got bed ridden with a dangerous disease, she wouldn't stop asking him to take care of his little sister. "Hehehe, I am the best. Of course, as my brother, you are the second best." The little girl jumped onto his shoulder and said with an arrogant smirk.

Even though she spoke like that, Skyla got into a fight in the academy because someone insulted him.

It eventually led to her death. "Then what about me?" His wife asked with a pitiful face. "Am I the third best?"

"Hmmm," Skyla thought with a solemn expression, as if she was deciding the fate of a kingdom. Then, she smiled brightly. "You are as best as me."

"How does that even work?" Lia chuckled. And Lia was called to the frontlines where she died when he immersed himself in a very long mission. All of that didn't matter. Now, they're all together. And they'll be together, forever. "Haaaa!" The world around him dissolved and Samael came to his senses. A searing pain assaulted him in the abdomen, heart and head. Varian stood in front of him, his weapons deep into the prince's body.

"You…" The 7th Prince groaned in pain. "I wasn't expecting this much, but you stayed in there a bit longer." Varian twisted the spear, draining Samael with the power of death. The tremendous power in the prince's body began to vanish and a sense of weakness he didn't feel for millions of years filled his being. Samael realized he's dying. And there's nothing he could do to stop it.

In that brieft moment, the life he led flashed in his eyes. "C-Could you…" His divine aura dissipated and his body began to dissolve. Putting out all his strength, he spoke instead of trying to attack. "L-let me dream…one last time?"

The last words of the arrogant 7th prince were a request. Varian looked at him in surprise and then he nodded. "A thousand years. Do what you will."

"Haa~ I owe you." A weak smile formed on the prince's face and his consciousness reached for a secret storage space deep within. Samael didn't keep any treasures with him except for a few artifacts that were bound to his soul. But one thing he did keep and the thing he guessed Varian needed.

"Shards!" The glowing light of the strands fell on Varian's face.

[Shards: 7500]

The world turned dark and the 7th Prince came to his senses.

"Brother, the train will leave soon! Let's go!" His sister pulled his arm.

"Alright." A relaxed smile apeared on the prince's face. Turning to his lovely wife who walked alongside him, he said. "Lia, let's have a child." "Whaat?! Woah!" He gripped the hand of the woman he loved and grinned at his dumbfounded mother. "W-What about your missions, Sam?" She asked in a trembling voice.

"I'll resign." Samael shrugged, looking up at the sky with a grateful smile. "A thousand years with love is better than a million with hate."