CHAPTER 97: | THE FIRST OF THE FIVE ZEN OF THE DISTORTED EMPEROR

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  Inside the imperial palace, within the emperor's sacritice where she conducted her experiments in silence, flashes of radiance lashed out.

  Ten swords forged from radiance wreaked havoc throughout the chamber, all to catch a single opponent.

  I couldn't help but smile at the scene, for it was intimately familiar.

  It mirrored spectacles I had witnessed in past cycles, long lost to time.

  The scene before me was a cinematic symphony from a world without mana, where only those with a certain artifact could view such things freely on a screen.

  It was amazing that a world devoid of mana could produce such technology with nothing but calculations made by their primitive minds.

  We're not here to talk about the intricacies of their civilization, however, but about how familiar this cinematic scene before me was.

  In that world, a play of this magnitude, performed by humans, was quite rare.

  Instead, they’d created something else, a digital concoction born from their calculations, like the story of Cinderfella, which had a rather interesting twist.

  The twist was that the prince, after lifting Cinderfella’s foot and slowly putting the heel on, unexpectedly licked her foot.

  It was quite a gross act that traumatized some, but I couldn't help but laugh.

  'Quite a quirky show, right? A prince with a foot fetish licking his destined woman’s feet to see if she was the one?'

  'But oh well, that story ended in a wholesome... umm... a wholesome ending indeed... how should I describe it? It was... quite diabolical, I guess? Since it ended with Cinderfella's feet being cut off and her living happily ever after with the prince... hahaha... quite the wholesome story... right?!'

  'Well, forget about that dreadful ending. Even I was disgusted by it. Why would you cut off the feet of the love of your life?'

  Right, right, let's forget about that and get straight to the point.

  The name of such a play is Danime, where it tells the story of a fictional character and their journey.

  But right now, I should focus on dodging Lumicor’s blades.

  These Starborn swords, or maybe greatswords, are quite sharp, a single slash would sever me in half.

  Lumicor, still in his emo phase, flicked his finger.

  Thousands of radiant moths flickered into existence, his halo spitting them out into the world.

  In the next instant, the moths of flame stilled for a moment, their radiance casting an eerie glow across the entire room.

  Flick!

  With another flick from Lumicor, the entire room, surrounded by fireflies of light, shone brightly.

  The embers of those flames flared into a blinding radiance, slowly and collectively gathering behind Lumicor like a constellation hanging above the night sky.

  The scenery before me was mystical, almost a dream.

  Flames rose from the ground, shed their old skin, and shone with radiance before joining together into a vortex that was slowly forming into a constellation behind him.

  Lumicor's appearance was now ethereal.

  It was as if a god had descended in the flesh to grace us mortals with salvation.

  It was mystifying and beautiful, almost like fiction.

  "Human... let me show you what true enlightenment is."

  Lumicor's voice echoed coldly, his face holding a smile so mesmerizing it would make the faint of heart swoon.

  As he pointed his index finger at me, the gesture holding a chilling grace.

  Then the world turned to pure radiance. Moths of flames, by the hundreds of thousands, began to rise from the ground before shining brightly like divine light.

  Tellus, who had watched all of this with me from the beginning, couldn't help but be amused by this extreme level of flashiness, a spectacle even he couldn't recreate if he trained for thousands of years.

  "How intriguing... to think that a display of grandeur on this scale wasn't impossible to create without wasting a dime of your mana."

  His voice was filled with reverence for a talent so monstrous that it could create a display of such scale.

  "It seems that his transformation wasn't just some grand display that made him handsome, like me, Tellus. It also allowed him to possess more authority in controlling his respective affinity."

  He was impressed by Lumicor's sudden surge of control.

  Tellus, who wasn't the brightest, had finally concluded that Lumicor’s transformation had greatly boosted his affinity for light.

  I nodded at Tellus's words, as I'd already known how dangerous it was to let Lumicor transform into this form from the beginning.

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  Nevertheless, I'd let him do so, since im pretty much, confident in my ability to defeat him.

  Lumicor stared at me in disbelief that his spell hadn't even fazed his opponent in the slightest.

  He flicked his finger, and the moths of radiance across the room shifted into swords.

  He then muttered coldly.

  "Starlight Attainment: Volume One: Celestial Cry."

  In the next moment, the swords that blanketed the entire room in radiance moved in sync.

  They vanished, then reappeared a meter away from me in the next second.

  I exhaled, then muttered coldly.

  "The First Zen of Distortion: Iriece Style: Ripple of the Night Sky."

  The world stopped completely.

  All of my senses were heightened to their very limits, it felt as if the entire world had completely halted.

  This technique was inspired by 'Demonic Zen,' which destroyed the mana pathways of the thunder dragon, and was derived from 'The Heavenly Claw of the Mad Demon.'

  I used my attainment in the 'world of intent' to improvise those techniques into a new one, a self-created technique that would help me in this moment.

  It wasn't like 'Demonic Zen,' with its destructive nature, nor was it like 'The Heavenly Claw of the Mad Demon,' which focused on demonic force to absolutely crush an opponent.

  Instead, it was a technique that would intercept all of these projectiles in front of me with a single thrust of my index finger.

  Taking a stance, I calmed my already composed self, then concentrated all of the strength in my body into my index finger.

  I smiled as I poured three hundred units of mana into it, coating it as I saw seven rings surrounding it.

  I smirked, then clenched my teeth as I thrusted it in one single motion.

  This technique was the culmination of my experience, a technique I considered so perfect that it paled all of the techniques I'd created from the start of this life until now.

  Lumicor’s pupils narrowed in shock as he saw his opponent, that very human, phase out of reality, then reappear as if nothing had happened.

  Then he saw him take a step forward, then thrust his index finger into the currents.

  Silence followed throughout the room.

  All of their activities ceased, with Lumicor closing his eyes, sighting the scene before him.

  "How shocking..."

  His eyes were serene, yet his breathing was hurried from the excitement that his skill wasn't as perfect as he’d deemed it.

  In that instant, Lumicor saw it, a small ripple, like what a small stone could produce when dropped in a pond.

  But as it spread across the currents, it became a roaring tsunami, destroying everything in its path.

  In that moment, he was a child once more, witnessing the fundamental intent that shaped the world.

  The waves that shattered his projectiles were a spectacle of such sublime beauty that they stole his breath, leaving him in a trance.

  "..."

  He stood in silence, a single truth dawning on him, something he hadn't experienced since birth.

  He understood a fundamental lesson, to grow into something far better than he had ever envisioned, he had to accept that there was someone else who was better than him in a certain field.

  ?With his brilliant mind, he had believed he could master everything, but he saw now that he could not defeat a master who had dedicated a million lifetimes to a single technique, while he had only scattered his efforts across a million.

  Now he knew his true lack wasn't a limited mind or a lack of defeat.

  It was because he had been too fixated on learning every single thing when he should have focused on a single craft.

  He felt a sting of disappointment in his own negligence, in the sheer narrowness of his mind.

  He had foolishly believed that the breadth of his spellcraft would make him the ultimate authority.

  He lowered his gaze to the human who had delivered this humbling lesson to him, as a wave of pity washed over him.

  ?The human's intent, he saw, had branched out like a tree.

  Every single fiber of its existence was a testament to a level of mastery so absolute, that even he had believed it to be impossible.

  "A pity, truly."

  Lumicor mused, a solemn note in his voice.

  "That you, who have opened my eyes to the world beyond my own narrow mind, must now fall in this very place. For this invaluable lesson, tell me your name before I am forced to nip your existence from the weave of reality."

  ?A profound silence descended upon the room after Lumicor's statement.

  The thousands of starlight swords, now reduced to flickering moths of radiance, glowed softly like dying stars.

  ?Watching the cinematic spectacle before him, Lumicor smiled faintly, his eyes half-closed before he shut them completely.

  ?In the next moment, his halo of radiance shone brightly, blanketing the entire imperial palace.

  The flickering moths of radiance hovering in the air quivered subtly, then moved uniformly, drawn towards a vortex on his back to form yet another constellation.

  "Hmm?"

  'I knew what he was thinking. I was already aware of the immense danger my existence alone posed to the world. Did Lumicor care? He did. He knew the intent behind my every move, and his displeasure was palpable, but I didn't care. I would do as I pleased.'

  ?"Pointless. Yet as my future Pillar, I will grant you the right to know it. You may call me the Distorted Emperor, or by my name, Alister Von Fai. But in the end, your struggles will prove insignificant against my will."

  Step... step... step!

  Lumicor gave a slow nod to my words. His steps, though deliberate, sent a shudder across the floor.

  As he closed the distance between us, the very currents seemed to thicken under the weight of his presence, stealing the breath of everyone watching in silence.

  ?He stopped, the sound of his voice cutting through the stillness like a blade.

  "Alister... a name that suits you indeed. Nevertheless, today is the end of your story."

  ?From the ground, moths of embers rose, each sparking into a small, nascent flame.

  In a shimmering moment, they shed their husks and became a blinding radiance.

  This radiance then took the form of an ornate sword, solidifying in his grip before he pointed it at me in a gesture of challenge.

  "Hmm? A sword. What an unexpected choice, Lumicor."

  ?In response, I snapped my finger.

  The imperial palace, under my command since the very beginning of the imperial banquet, rumbled.

  Amara was the first to notice, her eyes, a culmination of hundreds of mutations, picking up the subtle shifting of the walls as she froze, utterly overwhelmed.

  The palace, a complex formation in itself, was converting into an even more intricate structure.

  It was as if a child were listening to the architect of the Tower of Babel explain its construction.

  ?For those with lower aptitude, the sight was an incomprehensible spectacle.

  Yet for minds as great as Lumicor’s, his understanding of the weaving of intents grew sharper with every passing second.

  The palace, now a simple slab spanning three thousand meters, rumbled again.

  From the ground, seven intricately structured pillars rose like works of art, followed by walls that took the shape of a coliseum, though with far greater detail.

  In the next second, golems, controlled by Tellus, rose from the ground.

  They bowed to the onlookers, then with the utmost grace, reached for their hands and lifted them into their seats.

  Satisfied, I watched as an ornate sword, a perfect replica of the blade of the fallen god, appeared from the earth before me.

  Lumicor, noticing the sudden shift in atmosphere, gave a subtle wince.

  He peered through the ornate earthen sword and was stunned by what he saw, a vast and intricate network of mana circuits woven throughout its core.

  He was both astonished and expectant, recognizing the monstrous form the blade would take once mana was added.

  He felt a deep sense of awe, but nonetheless, he remained calm and composed.

  "Torrent of Extinction."

  ?I muttered the words coldly.

  As an ember of Abyssal flame flickered into my palm, before it instantly transformed into a miniature sun that radiated pure dread.

  Then I extended my hand, reaching for the sword hilt.

  As my fingers closed around the hilt, the miniature sun in my palm dispersed.

  Its rampant energy siphoned into the blade, causing it to glow with an intense, dreadful light.

  ?"The Second Zen of Distortion: Fallen Authority: Sword of the Fallen."

  Maybe give it a try? ??