1643 Boohoo
"Master, you have no tact. If it was Boo, Boo would've tried to show off its charm and cheer up the depressed sister-in-law. Boohohoo! A woman in need is a woman indeed."
A cute ghost with a palm-sized body stuck out its chest and patted itself on the shoulder for the excellent advice it gave out for free.
Varian flicked it away from palm. Boo rolled in the air, somersaulting wildly in its spirit form before hitting the wall of the spaceship and bounced back into his palm with amazing elasticity.
The light of glowing aura shone through the window onto the little ghost, highlighting its cute facial features.
"A woman in need is a woman indeed?"
The scenary outside continued to flash by as the ghostship moved in the inner space at speed beyond imagination, racing to the boundary of the alliance.
"Where did you learn these pick up lines?"
Chaotic space storms and unstable space cracks would've torn the ghostship even in its current upgraded version but a divine power protected the vehicle and allowed it to expercience the wonders of divine travel.
"Wohoo!" Boo placed his hands on his hips and laughed a victorious laughter. "The lines came on their own! The thousand year seclusion was not in vain!"
Varian shook his head. Boo assisted Oob during the thousand year stealth and worked continuously for keeping Hortus safe.
All that workload first kicked it into a deep sleep. It took time to get back to a normal life. But it seemed that it wasn't totally normal.
[Or the ghost got affected by you?]
Varian asked the system to shut up politely and turned to Boo. "Do you want a spirit friend to have a trip in the alliance? Nexus should be safest for you."
With an extremely smug smile, the ghost smirked. "Trip? Boo and Trip don't go together. Call Boo if there is a cosmic adventure. It's all or nothing."
"Maybe you should sleep more." Varian rubbed its head which the ghost seemed to enjoy as it closed its eyes with a merry smile. "Once I get into the boundary, return safely. I left enough divine power for emergencies. Take care."
"Are you sure you don't want to take Boo?" Boo broke away from his hands and looked up at him, blinking its big watery eyes.
"No." Varian shot it down mercilessly.
"Not even a moment of hesitation!" Boo protested with an aggrieved face. "Is your heart so occupied by lust that you don't have any left for companionship?"
Varian raised a brow. The ghost was getting more and more audacious in its slander. But of course, no matter how hard one tries, they can't throw mud at the sky—it falls back on them.
"Hesitation with a ghost or company of a beautiful woman?" Varian rolled his eyes with a look of contempt as if even comparing the two was stupid.
"Boohoo! Master, you've changed! You changed!" Boo cried out.
"Got more handsome. I can't help it." Varian shook his head with a tired expression, as if he even he didn't desire his current situation.
Boo looked at him as with a scorching gaze, well as scorching gaze that a cute little ghost could mutter and asked. "So you're going to Jai to pick up girls with that handsome face?"
"I'm going to grab sliver shards."
"Sh-Shards?"
Varian nodded.
[Dragon: 40/100 (+25)
Titan: 40/100 (+25)
Phoenix: 40/100 (+25)
Order: 40/100 (+25)
Chaos: 40/100 (+25)
Space: 20/100 (+5)
Time: 20/100 (+5)]
The progress of space-time was roughly 5 times slower than the rest. Objectively, these paths were already terribly fast compared to any genius in any point of time in history.
The problem was with the other paths. They grew even faster.
Order and Chaos benefitted from the slivers which boosted his progress. The same held true for the Sage avenue paths which were pushed by the mini-slivers.
But there's no such boost for space-time, forcing Varian to rely on his own talent for progression, which he did and casually became the fastest progressor in divine ranks.
Even though it's not a problem right now, Varian was thinking for the future. He didn't want to stall his breakthrough to rank 2 because of these two paths.
Moreover, if rank 1 of these paths was already lagging behind so much, then rank 2 would be even slower.
So, for this rank and the next, he must find a way to speed up his progress.
"Boo doesn't know what your plan is but are you sure you want to enter the lion's den?"
"No choice." Varian shrugged.
God Emperor seemed to have set up a detection mechanism against the entry of any rank 2 into the empire.
No one in the alliance dared to cross the redline.
It wasn't always like this.
In days when Genesis was the strongest, it had three mid rank 2s. The three of them, nicknamed the <Living Terror> were unmatched throughout their battles.
Conceived between two special races, the three of them were in fact one individual soul split into three.
<Living Terror> was supposed to be the successor to the throne, not Keman Aurik who was a low rank 2 at that time.
Having lived their entire life as the supreme genius, <Living Terror> decided enough was enough.
Intending to end the problem of a hostile empire once and for all, <Living Terror> attacked the Jai Empire with the intention to slaughter all rank 2s as well as the important rank 1s.
Even if Jai Empire returned, he wouldn't be able to do much or so was the thought.
Unfortunately, <Living Terror> never returned. There was no blast, no sos, not even a ripple.
No one knew what happened.
But what everyone did know was that a few minutes after he left for the empire, a space rift opened up in the two parent races of the powerhouse, killing all major powerhouses.
While they should've been able to escape, every single member of the races were dead.
Even those who were far away and working in remote lands all died suddenly in a bizzare way.
Some were murdered, some were poisoned, some went crazy and some were accidentally killed.
But not a single member of the two races survived.
A powerful mid rank 2 disappeared, just like that. And with him were two strong races.
From that day, the alliance powerhouses discarded the plans of sneaking in and causing damage.
The deterrent was so effective that even Keman and Yami didn't dare to enter. Nor did Nexus, who were even more cautious.
Heck, they didn't dare to send their phantoms as they had no idea how such an action would be judged.
"There is no one who can disguise themselves perfectly, use space-time paths to hide the fact they're from the alliance or leave when they want. I'm the only one." Varian explained why he had to resort to such risk.
"What about the G-God Emperor?" Boo found it difficult to utter the title of that being and when it did, its body was shivering.
Varian's expression soured. "He might know. If he's interested enough to intervene in my life from the start, I don't think he's not keeping an eye on me."
"Whaaaat?! And you're still going?" Boo wanted to split open Varian's head to see if there's something wrong with him.
"Nothing will happen to me." Varian insisted, his eyes flashing with vengeance. "Surpassing expectations is my thing. He wants me to be a chess piece. That's the one mistake that'll bring him down."
