"Do you really want to do so?" The gruff manly voice echoed in the void. "There has to another way."
"We don't have any other way. Even before the Crown Prince rebelled, they were ahead of us in all aspects." Replied a smooth temperate voice.
"But why this? Why do you have to die...what if something goes wrong? What about us? What about me?!?" Questioned a weeping voice. Despite the interspread sobs, the voice was extremely melodious and beautiful. The voice seemed to caress your very heart. Weak will people would probably find themselves charmed by just the voice.
"Aphrodite...I am doing all this for you! For our future..." He replied in haste. But he got no answer.
"She has already left. Veresrys..you can still back out. This...no one has ever tried this before. You may find yourself in eternal sleep!" Advised the gruff voice.
"Ares...I know what I am doing. And I will succeed!" Verserys spoke with unshaking determination.
"Fine. I won't stop you. But you have to come back...for her." Ares aside with a sigh.
"Take care of her. " Requested Verserys. His voice filled with tender affection, but also sorrow.
"I will." Replied Ares.
"And...don't tell it to others."
"You...fine. So now where?"
"From where my journey began. It's time to complete the circle."
------------------------------
Few minutes later a small tear appeared over the Starlight Planet. Starlight planet was once just a small low level planet. With the highest person being just an Immortal. It wasn't until Verserys that the planet went through Nirvana. With the help of several thousand demon corpses, where even the lowest was an Immortal King and the highest a True God, he irrigated the planet. Using their flesh he increased the planet's size, their blood became ichor to the planet. Their cores and meridians were transformed into Spirit Veins. Their bones into rare minerals. A hundred year later, the planet itself ascended to the rank of low level Divine Planets.
But that was just a start. Few thousand years later he further refined it with few Godking Corpses and other rare treasures to bring it up to the rank of high level Divine Planet.
With Verserys's increasing reputation and enhancement of planet, the planet soon became the Capital Of Starlight Star Field. Merchants, Cultivators, Technocists, Aliens etc., soon started coming in massive amounts.
A million years later, the planet became one of the five supreme planets. It's ruling sect, The Starlight Sect gradually emerged as the strongest among the five superpowers, with three Venerables and several Godkings. More than nine Divine Empires paid homage to the sect, along with several thousand Immortal and Mortal Empires. Even more sects became branches or subsidiary Sects of Starlight Sect.
The planet itself had transformed into a trading hub and was said to never sleep. Millions of ships arrived and left daily. All sorts of rare and exotic materials were traded on it's street. Infact it soon gained a reputation, that you could buy anything here with the proper price. Rumours even suggested that even Starfields had been sold here.
Millions of cultivators of all race and species from all corner of the Universe lived here. Because of all this, the planet soon gained the moniker of Pearl of the Universe : The brightest planet.
But today it was wrong. The bright Pearl was black. It's ever twinkling lights were extinguished. Space Ports extending several hundred kilometers from surface were broken and destroyed. Their wreckage along with hundreds of destroyed Starships was aimlessly floating around. Among them were corpses of humans, aliens and demons.
Seeing this Verserys's face paled. He hurried back to surface ignoring everything. Entering the atmosphere he only saw destruction.
Mountains were crushed, seas boiled to nothing, land was broken apart, forests burned to cinders. It's tall beautiful cities once famed for it's architecture and technology were now rubblse. Rivers of blood flowed around everywhere, slithering between the dead corpses.
As far as he could sense, it was the same : Bodies of planet's inhabitants lying in grotesque poses. Their face covered in horror.
Even the bright blue sky was now bleeding red. The sun hidden among the red clouds. Darkness and death was all that was left.
Verserys felled to his knees. Tears dripped from his eyes. Sorrow and anguish clenched his heart. The planet was his home. It was here that he learnt how to walk. It was here he started cultivating. It was here he became the Invincible Godking. And it was here he was going to become an Unfettered. But all was turned to dust.
Suddenly he felt a person arrive besides him. He didn't look up. He knew who was it. It was not a person, but an incarantion. Incarnation of the Universe itself.
"I am sorry for your loss." The person spoke. The voice was a women's voice. But it was grand and all encompassing. It was ancient yet youthful.
"Why didn't you save them ?" He asked with a bone chilling tone, ignoring the question. His voice was covered in anger.
Usually the Universe would never reply. But she knew that without an answer the deal between them would never realise.
"I couldn't. The Crown Prince has already started to refine my source, and I can't go against his will. Six more Universe have joined the attack. I am barely able to resist, how do you expect me to save them? "
Verserys said nothing. He already knew the answer but he couldn't keep quiet. He needed someone to vent on.
"I tried contacting you. But you had already left this Universe. "
Verserys still kneeling simply gazed at the horizon. For today's task he had been preparing for millions of years. Going through ancient ruins, meeting with Ancient Beings and the Old Ones, finding hidden clues in the famous Libraries of Atlantis, Alexandra, Coeus or the ever growing Databases of Silutians and Erudians. Last time he was back was almost a thousand years ago.
For Godkings, thousand years are just a blink. But it seems a blink was enough to destroy everything a person loved.
Verserys slowly got up. He was angry. He was distraught. He was lost. But he had things to do, and revenge to take.
He was a Godking and had seen numerous slaughters, entire civilizations getting deciminated. But he never felt anything. Today when it happened to him, he learnt what his enemies learnt. And he promised to pay them back a thousand more times.
"Who all participated?"
"Demons, Hellions, Zarchans, and your Crown Prince's personal army. "
Verserys noted that she didn't specify the participants of first three. But he didn't care, for they all would suffer.
Universe looked at his pale face. But she said nothing. She didn't know how to console, so she could only look at him. But maybe it was good in some ways. She always felt that the planet and it's people were a drag on him. Maybe this will force him to grow faster.
Veresrys turned to face her. In front if him stood a beautiful women. If Aphrodite was beauty incarnate, Universe was on a level above her. Her hairs looked like strands of starlight, her eyes like blackhole. Her skin was dark like universe, with various swirling galaxies, twinkling stars and quasars, pulsars among others glowing on it. She was wearing nothing but she wasn't exactly naked. But to Verserys she might as well be wearing a rag. He simply focused on the task.
They were supposed to meet here, to cut all Karma. After which he would finally become am Unfettered.
As a person grows, he ties up Karma with many things. Family, Friends, Society, and at the end The Universe. Karma to the Universe for giving them resources to grow. But the only way to cut karma with the Universe was to give something equal or more in exchange for your life, resources and energy. But it all came to The Universe, whether it would allow it to be cut or not, as what could be more important than life.
"Let's proceed..." He said. His face was now emotionless, as if all that earlier was false.
"Are you okay? We can do this later..." She asked. It wasn't concern for him but concern for the result. If he failed her largest bet for victory would be destroyed.
Verserys looked at her with his cold red eyes. He still kept silence, but his gaze said everything.
She nodded in defeat.
" Have you cut all your timelines?" She asked. Another important step was to cut all your bodies in all other timelines and realities as to break the shackles of time. Furthermore you had to cut your past, present and future. So that in all eternity there could only be one Verseys left alive.
He nodded. It had taken him a long while to find out all realities and timelines and even more to cut them. In all sense, he was basically murdering himself. With each death he would gain their power and feel the time's grip on him loosen. Solely because of this he had strength far exceeding even the strongest Venerable despite being just a Godking.
"Good." She extended her hand towards him. Her index finger finally touched his glabella. Her body had no temperature. It felt like touching 'nothing.'
"The Karma between us is paid. Henceforth neither you owe me nor I owe you. "
Immediatly he fell the heaviest strand of Karma breaking away from him. A sense of lightness and freedom encompassed him. It was like nothing he had ever felt.
"It's done." She said with a tired face. Cutting karma was supposedly simple. But here she was cutting karma from a Godking. The sole weight of that Karma was enough to tire her. Above all, the resources he had taken from her and not paid yet, had damaged her source.
"Now, it's all up to you." She continued.
The karma between them was cut on the basis of a transaction. She would free him, but he would be responsible for helping her destroy the enemies and also clean all the rebels and spies inside her.
He nodded with gratitude. He knew that he hadn't paid his dues and this would badly damage her source. At other times this would mean nothing. With passing time, it would soon recover. But now the Universe was embroiled in a war, from both within and outside. Every the smallest of wounds would decrease the chance of winning.
He took out a ring and threw it towards her. "That's for today. I always pay my dues. Gratitude with gratitude and enmiity with enmity"
She looked inside and smiled. Inside were three Venerables level corpses. This would be enough for her injuries to restore, but also have some source energy left.
"Well, all the best. Very soon we would be family." She joked and turned around to leave.
"How long can you last?" He stopped her and inquired.
"If no other Universe join, I will be able to last for two or three million
or so years."
He nodded in acceptance and turned around vanishing in the chaotic space, taking along with him the destroyed planet and all it's bodies.
Left behind was only a sentence, " Take care of her."
----------------------
Surrounding all Universes was the Chaotic Space. A empty void filled with nothing but wild turbulent raw energies. Within this bred and grew all the Universes.
These wild energies would corrode and eat anyone below a Venerable unless they are equipped with special treasures. Even Venerable powerhouses would find it impossible to stay here for more than few days. The only alternative were the Universe Ships. A marvel of technology and Immortal spells, these ships were the only way to transerve this treacherous space and travel to other Universes. But similarly the costs were astronomically high. Even many Golding powerhouses couldn't afford these ships.
But despite this Verserys directly tore up the universe space and entered the Chaotic Space. Immediately these sharp energy streams started corroding his body. He knew that even erecting a shield would be worthless, for no one under Venerable could stand here.
Ignoring the biting pain he concentrated on his bottleneck. He had already suppressed his anger and immediate thirst of vengeance, for he knew that only an Universe could defeat an Universe.
The meta-physical paper thin barrier was the only thing stopping him from transcending. Cutting each of his time line bodies and all the karmic ties he had managed to whet it down to such thinness. But this thinness could as well be an impossible to cross gulf. But today, after cutting the ties with his Universe, he could feel that the barrier was now just waiting for a nudge.
A tiny nudge and he would achieve the impossible. Mustering all his available Divine Energy he shot it at the barrier. The barrier gave up against the force of the energy storm. With a loud crack it shattered. Immediately, he felt freedom. The invisible shackles present on his body vanished. These shackles were time, destiny, and fate.
He had transcended them.
He was now truly eternal. His soul and his body were now truly immortal. They would exist beyond the death of his Universe. They would exist as long as this chaos was present.
Furthermore he was now in true control of his fate and destiny. No one could manipulate it. He was, what he wanted to be. Today, Tomorrow and Forever.
With all this came an intimate sense of belonging with the Chaos. Where as earlier they wanted to eat him, now the chaos wanted to protect him. He could feel no ill will towards him. The continuous sense of danger which always accompanied a journey in this space, was also gone.
With a smile, he let the Chaos work. Huge amount of chaos energy started revolving around him. The revolving whirlpool of energy kept on increasing. A kilometer, a hundred kilometer, thousand kilometer, a hundred thousand, a million, a billion, it simply kept on increasing.
Fortunately for his transcendence he had chosen a specially desolate area. There were no Universe for several million parsecs. Furthermore the area was specially famous for it's extremely turbulent chaos energies, so no trade routes passed by. Therefore no one noticed that wheel of destiny had shifted, and a new era was going to start.
Very soon, his body was completely surrounded by these energies. The chaos energy slowly condensed forming a cocoon around him. The size of cocoon kept on increasing as more and more energy entered and condensed. After a long while a pulsing cocoon floated in the space. Thin thread like stream of energy constantly entered the cocoon, bringing pure energy in.
Inside the cocoon, his body was being destroyed. Skin, muscles, veins, meridians, bones and marrows, all were being destroyed. In their place, new tissues were forming and getting destroyed. The process was happening repeatedly. Meanwhile the pure streams of tame Chaotic energy were nourishing his soul. Like his body the soul was being tempered. All residual traces of karma, fate, destiny and time were being eroded. As for Verserys, he was in deep comfortable sleep. To him, it was nothing less than a rest in mother's womb.
This went for a long time. Time Rules didn't exist in Chaos. It could be just a single day in here but a whole era in your own Universe. Or maybe just a second had passed in a Universe for a thousand years in here. So he might be inside for just an hour or maybe for aeons, it was difficult to say.
The ckcoon would slowly shake in regular intervals. It was like something was trying to break out. Slowly as time passed the shakes got so frequent, that they would occur every other second. Time passed by, the shakes simply got stronger. But the cocoon showed no signs of breaking.
Finally one day the cocoon exploded. Huge gush of pure chaos energy escaped, but as if being stopped by something, they gathered towards the eggs center.
Slowly a form emerged. It was Verserys. He looked the same as earlier, but only he knew the enormous amount of power contained in those muscles. He felt strong. Very strong. Maybe strong enough to shred a Universe not protected by Rules.
Above all he felt a sense of free flowing. His body was not fixed. He could change into anything and take any shape. He was now even physically unfettered. In excitement he tried changing his form.
First he turned into a little Loli, immediately into an enormous Dragon, followed by Giants, insects, stone, river, sun... It didn't t matter. The only thing needed was knowledge. But after all that he once again turned back into a human. His soul felt far more comfortable in a human form rather that a beast or alien creature.
He grinned. Unfettered was just like he expected. It was truly 'unfettered'.
Now was time for revenge.