1547 No Grudge, No Revenge

Kong raised a brow in surprise but didn't panic. Interlocking his fingers, he glanced at the dukes with a confident gaze, both assuring and mocking the two.

'See how I deal with him.'

Implying such words, the Martial Saint clicked his tongue.

The entrance of Heaven opened up and a silhouttee glowing in white appeared in the garden without any delay.

Kong's eyes narrowed at the speed Varian showed but he still remained composed.

Varian was fast but not ridiculously fast. And this was his world. In the worst case, he'd use it to trouble the strange enemy.

"Tea party? I like tea parties!" Varian materialized a chair out of thin air and sat with them.

Without showing any embarassment, he poured a cup of tea for himself and sipped it.

"Slurrrp~"

For a moment, Kriad and Corinthian forgot all the danger and glared at him for his obscene violation of etiqquite. As nobles through and through, they couldn't stand this vuglarity.

"Slurpp~ Slur~ Slurrr~"

Varian didn't seem to care as he thorougly enjoyed the tea.

Kong sat across him and crossed his arms while Kriad and Corinthian stood on either side, eyes angry but body tense.

Eventually, the tea ran out and Varian put the tea cup down.

Sniffing the sweet and intoxicating fragrance of lavenders, he turned to the Martial Saint. "Any last wishes?"

"I—" Kong opened his mouth with an angry expression.

"No, not like I'll fulfill it or anything. I'll have to ruin it if I can." Varian intercepted and grined. "For example, your dream of fixing the Fortune Anvil. I 'ruined' it."

Kacha!

Kong gripped the table hard and it cracked into pieces before collapsing down to the grass.

Even as dust rose between the two, their gazes remained locked onto each other.

"No one will be able to save your life today." Kong stood up and cracked his neck.

"Yeah, sure." Varian raised his fist.

A brilliant yellow light flashed throughout the world before the shockwaves from an explosion swept the place.

A golden line of letters appeared behind Kong and various weapons began to fall from the sky, targetting Varian.

These weapons held different powers. Some contained the brilliance of light, others maintained the murkiness of darkness. A few drained life. A few others sealed it.

But none of these weapons were as strong as Kong's direct powers.

Boom!

The absolute power of a Paragon Body that reached the very peak of rank 9 was a bit unimaginable. It seemed to be the epitome of perfection, the greatest a physical body could ever be.

All injuries were healed, all fatigue was recharged and all negative conditions were allievated. It all barely took a blink.

Varian's condition, on the other hand, was ambigious.

He looked more beat up than Kong but was healing almost quickly. The gap between them had been shrinking from the start, as if by some miraculous means, their rank gap had been vanishing.

Kong remained confident for the first few minutes of the battle despite being baffled by Varian's inexplicable strength.

But that began to change as the tactics changed.

"Order. Death. Space."

When he uttered those three words, three flames of aura lit up behind him.

'Heaven' shook and then the flowers on the world were pulled into the sky abruptly by the force of 'Order' which imposed a tyrannical rule that all flowers must stand at an appropriate height above earth.

Then, the power of death acted on these flowers, draining the vitalities of these high-quality flowers, some of which Martial Saint Kong collected with much difficulty.

A red sickle was formed from the extracted vitality of these flowers. Just the mere presence of the sickle caused space to distort and crumble.

Kong's instincts screamed as he spotted the sickle and raised a spear to knock it down.

The space around the sickle twisted and devoured it the moment he launched the spear.

"No!"

Kong swirled in the air, trying to dodge the sickle that broke out of the space crack which appeared behind him.

He almost did it.

Almost.

Shaaa!

The sickle cut through his chest and upon contact, the glowing red weapon melted the power of death into him, flooding his body with the one power that's the most damaging to Paragon Body.

"Arghhh!"

Kong screamed as cracks spread on his skin all over, like he was a dropped poreclain vase. Those cracks turned blue as blood almost spilled out before it was suppressed down by his power.

The Martial Saint did something he didn't until then. He used his powers to create a smoke screen and distanced himself from Varian.

Panting heavily like a dog that had just run with a bag on its back, he touched his chest.

The injury still hadn't healed. Even though he suppressed the power of death…it hurt. It fucking hurt! Like it wasn't another person's aura but boiling water that's moving inside his chest.

The pain would've collapsed newbies but the veteran remained steady. While maintaining his vigilant gaze on Varian, he called out. "What are you two doing?

Come here and suppress this vile beast!"

"Ah, yes!"

"Indeed!"

Kriad and Corinthian, who were quietly slipping away, almost jumped on the spot.

They looked at each other for a moment and sighed with a resigned expression.

They didn't want to fight Varian after watching his strength, which had definitely grown since the last time.

But if they don't kill him now, chances were, they wouldn't be able to even resist when he comes for them. And he'd definitely come.

"Go! Go! Go!"

"You won't escape today!"

The addition of two high rank 9 Dukes added no pressure on Varian. He didn't even spare them a glance.

All he did in response to their roars was to unleash a different combination of powers.

"Time. Chaos. Soul."

The aura inside them shook violently, almost going out of control like an untamed beast.

With great effort, the dukes brought it under control but by the time they did, they didn't notice that they were swept inside a time dilation ring, which significantly slowed down their reaction speed.

As a result, even though they sensed the incoming attack of glowing white beam, they weren't able to dodge or defend.

The power of chaos wrecking chaos in their body stopped for a brieft moment and acted in a different action, creating an opening for the soul attack to enter the physical body and reach the soul.

"N-No! No!"

Most soul attacks would get diluted due to the physical body obstructing them from directly reaching the soul. But here, most of the attack managed to reach the soul of the dukes.

As a result—

"Arghh!"

"Krghhhh!"

The two spasmed in the air and crashed to the ground, bleeding from eyes, ears, nose and mouth.

Without any mercy, more batches of soul attacks fell on them, shattering their souls and turning them into vegetables.

While this happened, Varian's fight with Kong had reached its climax.

Kong gathered the power of Heaven into a golden sword and slashed down. Under the heavenly might, the world itself was split into two and everything was cut including time and space.

To counter the Martial Saint's strongest move, Varian used all seven paths.

Requiem, now primarily charged with the power of death and soul shot forward at an incredible pace thrown by the strength of Paragon Body.

The space and time over the sword twisted, allowing it to navigate the split world.

When the sword finally reached the target, the power of Order and Chaos came into play.

The position of the sword, which Kong was able to predict and prepared to dodge, changed abrutply against all calculations and pierced him right through the chest.

The powers stored in the sword erupted, engulfing the Martial Saint.

When the split space-time recovered, a kneeling man bathed in a weak golden light came into view.

Varian took a step forward and reached him with the twisting of space.

"Martial Saint, no, Kong."

"Grahhhhhh!"

As he raised his head with a beastly howl, the fully bloodied face of a defeated man came into view.

"You have to pay for your actions."

Varian's sword fell and Kong's eyes showed fear for the first time. "N-Noo!"

What was cut wasn't his head, it was his limbs. One by one, all four of them were cleanly severed.

Then, the sword dug into his heart before slicing three openings in his neck.

Kong didn't understand what was going on. He felt like an animal being butchered.

However, every touch of the sword burned his soul and created so much pain that he would've rather died and ended everything.

Varian grabbed the half-insane Kong and the fully insane dukes and threw them into Hortus.

With a snap of his finger, their ranks were drained and they turned into 'normal' people, even wrose than the Spiritless they despised.

Sonya, covered in dried blood from head to toe, stepped out of her palace and dragged the three bodies in.

The screams from the palace were said to continue for two full weeks.

"I'm done with the baggage." Varian dusted his hands and stretched his arms in a he lay down on a lush green mountain, watching the sunset. "No grudges to fulfill, no revenge to take. This is the perfect state to do a great thing now."

Miss Calamity appeared beside him at some point and said.

"There used to be a lot more satellite galaxies. But the God Emperor mixed some, broke some. We have only a total of thirty significant ones now.

The easiest target, relatively speaking is Sagittarius, close to Alliance's territory.

But if you want the hardest, it's…Lionar, the satellite galaxy where the 7th Prince's forces are camped."

Varian blocked the sunlight with his hand. But the sunlight seeped through the gap between his fingers.

With a chuckle, he said. "No mater how much you stop, some things are destined to happen."