Chapter 687: Karma
"Doesn’t matter," Kayden said harshly, with a clear snobbish look — a flawless act. He even released faint traces of aura from his body, perfectly simulating the presence of a mage capable of reaching the first divine level."Do you know who you’re talking to?" the mortal raised an eyebrow, uttering a line so typical that Kayden had heard it thousands of times throughout his mortal life. It seemed to be the kind of phrase every second-rate villain would eventually say.
Kayden didn’t wait and gave not the slightest chance for retaliation. He launched a powerful strike directly at the mage. It was far too strong for the man to survive, yet slow enough for the god to react. His lightning tore through space at terrifying speed, shredding everything in its path.
Reality shattered into countless shards of glass under the green-sparking bolt. The speed of the attack was far beyond what this mage could defend against. He could only react with his facial expressions — nothing else moved fast enough to shield him from Kayden.
This forced the god to act with equal swiftness. Kayden’s attack was intentional — a complete trap. The speed wasn’t too fast, the strength wasn’t too overwhelming. Every detail was meticulously calculated; otherwise, he might have killed the god outright.
Kayden’s ploy...
BOOOOOOOOM!
Reality was torn apart by a karmic bolt from the heavens. The force of this lightning wasn’t as immense as the one that had placed Jarvis inside Kayden’s mind, simply because this space was arranged by the celestials. They didn’t want to annihilate everything here and ruin the future divine kings.
Even so, the lightning was devastating. It obliterated a massive area around the impact site, sinking the ground by hundreds of millions of kilometers. This world seemed incredibly vast beneath its surface — Kayden made a quick mental note to investigate further when he had the time.
The impact released waves of energy that rippled across space, distorting the world’s layers and fracturing the fabric of reality on multiple levels. Fragments of earth and atmosphere floated as though bound to the sheer force of the bolt. Its effect was felt across the entire world.
A god turning his power against a mortal was exceedingly rare — almost unheard of — for it was a breach of the agreement allowing these gods to remain here. Immediately, crowds rushed toward Kayden’s location, eager to witness and learn as much as they could.
The god was slain before he could react. Not a single fragment of him remained; he was utterly destroyed by the green celestial lightning. Kayden turned his gaze upon the mortal and ended his life with a swift movement — no mercy shown.
His instincts screamed at him: a great number of mages were approaching. This would completely disrupt his learning. The boy burrowed kilometers deep into the earth and began studying the lightning.
His presence vanished entirely. Kayden was a master of disguise. He remained utterly motionless; his aura erased, his breathing nonexistent, his blood circulation halted. Even the beating of his heart ceased. On an even deeper level... his brain impulses were cut off completely.
He existed only as a soul. His body, his shell, was unnecessary for survival. He left it entirely dead. Any mage searching the area would only find what seemed like a buried corpse — or perhaps mistake it for a stone due to its small size.
When the karmic law first descended into this world, it was whole. But within seconds, it shattered into thousands upon thousands of fragments. Kayden began analyzing them one by one. Each fragment held something unique, each representing a distinct branch of knowledge. But...
It was too much. Even with the overwhelming influx of information, it was beyond immense. He received at least hundreds of thousands of fragments of karmic law. And yet... this was not even equivalent to a single grain of sand in a desert.
Kayden stood before one of the most colossal laws he had ever witnessed. In truth, it was the greatest he had ever seen. In that moment, it became clear to him: this was the absolute peak of a law. What he was studying was likely on the level of a fourth or fifth-tier law — perhaps even higher.
He didn’t know the exact degree of power a celestial wielded, but this law was surely within that domain. Once again, Kayden felt like a frog trapped at the bottom of a vast well.
Still, he pressed on with tremendous speed. He hadn’t had such direct contact with karmic law in a long time. Throughout his stay in this world, he had only worked with fragments he managed to scavenge. But now... he possessed thousands of them — hundreds of thousands, in fact.
His progress in a few minutes exceeded what he had achieved in centuries. Unfortunately, his learning was hampered by the great influx of mages. It was no small number. Thousands of mages at god-level strength were arriving. Some were equivalent to peak first-level gods, others matched second-level peak gods, and some...
Kayden saw mortals who could easily reach the third divine level or beyond. Among them was one mage in particular who far surpassed his expectations for this world. He was a monarch as well — his aura made that unmistakably clear. There was no doubt this was the mage destined to become a divine king, as Achilles had foretold.
All these gods began to study the events. None of them managed to glean anything from the fragmented laws. They didn’t even know where to begin. To most of them, each fragment seemed like an independent law. Only a tiny minority could identify that these were mere pieces of a greater whole. But which law exactly? No one knew. Not even this future divine king could make the connection.
Most understood that all of this had been triggered by a karmic reaction — but their knowledge ended there.
Author’s note: I feel like the quality of the Chapters is dropping, I’ll try to come back with some better ones