"Damn it! He has already destroyed so many forces!"
"Many? What do you mean 'Many', half the entire Continent is gone!"
"Atreus we will never let you go! Only with your death we will be able to reconcile!"
"He is gravely injured quickly bring out all your hidden cards before it's too late!"
Heroes of Justice, Demonic Entities, Hidden Dragons and Crouching Tigers. This was a unprecedent gathering as Armies gathered to take on a single man- or rather as they called him the "Overlord".
But as if oblivious to the danger that he was in Atreus calmly stood between time and space, watching all sorts of beings surrounding him.
He stood quite tall adorning a flowing white-gold robe, he had an above average but imposing face, flowing silver hair with bright red eyes that seemed to reflect the Sun, the Stars and the Moon themselves.
He gave a smile as death stared at him in the face because truthfully speaking he was really proud of himself, from a powerless child he had grown to a revered personality that could destroy Countries, move Mountains, Split the Ocean and hold the Sky itself.
"But this is a wrong way of thinking- to believe that the power to destroy makes you strong…. People should try to create something…. now that takes patience." Atreus thought to himself.
Just like the patience it had taken him to complete this piece of art. He turned around to look at the poetry he had woven;
A Large Mountain sized being floated behind him, it had 5 Heads, myriad of phantom hands and legs, it looked like a wooden humanoid wrapped in bandages, with each of its head being faceless, adorned with crooked vines and a bright fluid like Red Gem on Top. Its entire body constantly dripping in jade green runes that kept on dissolving in to the air.
The Shaper of the Wild! His penultimate creation!
Atreus stood proud as he glanced at his creation, this was the very peak of Spirit Synthesis, unfortunately he couldn't activate its full power, he had already been damaged severely in trying to create this Spirit. Moreover, the constant fighting had injured him- his white robe was torn in multiple places and golden blood dripped constantly from them-
Bang!
The Space around suddenly shook him as his enemies breached his defenses!
"Die you evil bastard!!"
"Everyone let's keep our calm! We will talk about what to do with the spirit later!"
Atreus didn't even react as he treated the foes like thin air. Since his death was certain why bother with what these people had to say anyway?
He turned around as he watched the spirit completely gain a form…
"If you were to die this very moment, would you have any regrets?
I often used to ask this question to myself a lot of times, well I guess today is a good day to answer it!"
He reached out to the Shaper of the Wild, as his hand touched its surface.
"Honestly, Life has always been like a dream sometimes ugly, sometimes beautiful and so enchantingly chaotic…."
Incredible red energy hit his enemies forcing them to stop for a while.
"What is he doing?"
"Don't be sacred! He is just bluffing he can't use that Spirit since he doesn't have enough mana!"
Atreus finally found his answer "For the longest time my sole obsession had been to travel to the peak and create you. Now that you are finally here..."
He looked back- seeing various kinds off attacks coming at him-
"I won't have any regrets... well except that it is indeed a pity that you will be destroyed soon after you were created…."
Boom! Screech!
Soon his body was torn apart by the attacks that landed on him….
But just as his consciousness was fading, he willed it….
His Spirit moved, and it self-destructed!
Everything went blank.
"Wha- What just happened...!"
"That incorrigible bastard destroyed IT!"
"Ho-How could he bear to even do it…...!"
In Another Realm
A youth suddenly woke up from stupor…
"This headache, ugh what the hell happened?"
Atreus was quite dazed as slowly he recovered from his stupor.
He held his head with one hand and tried to regain his bearings and soon enough he burst out in laughter.
"Tch! What did those idiots think, I would die or something? Do they even know what an Ultima Rank Spirit means-?"
Spirit Masters, that was the System of Power that the people of this World wielded. They spent countless resources to create and Synthesize powerful Spirits to gain their powers and increase their own Mana to utilize them. The Cultivation World ranked Spirits from Rank 1 to 9, different places often used different terms but essentially there were 9 realms, the Shaper of the Wild was Rank 8 Ultima Ranked Spirit!
But since Atreus was only Rank 7, he could only force out its power once by forcing it to self-destruct, it could only happen because he had overflowed it with mana during its Synthesis.
"But once was enough I managed to come to another Realm...!"
Atreus was incomparably excited he had gone through all that to be reincarnated to another Realm!
Why?
Because the path to reach Rank 9 and above was completely cut off in his Old Realm! Even reaching Rank 8 was impossible without slaving away your life for some Ancient Sect. Well, he wasn't sure why the path was cut off but he did have some hypothesis-
Break!
Atreus was broken out of his stupor as his door was suddenly opened.
A large man with bronze skin and big beard came inside, he had a pot belly and strong arms. He said with a kind expression-
"Ha! Ha! You brat you are in luck today, it seems a Spirit Summoner just came in Town to look for talents, it will be your sole opportunity to get out of this trash place, an orphan like you should cherish this opportunity!"
He threw a shining new black robe at Atreus and went away. Slowly his memories started to kick in, it seemed that this body belonged to an Orphan who lived in the small Town of Fashmir, and that man seemed to be the caretaker of this Orphanage, he treated all the children in the Orphanage extremely kindly and kept them well fed.
Atreus groaned "Well I guess somethings never change." He was quite clear that the reason behind this "Good Treatment" was mainly due to the sole fact that all the Kids who had yet to reach 15 all had potential to awaken a Mana Space and become Spirit Masters!
"Though it seems that this place calls them Spirit Summoners…"
But regardless Atreus knew that his current body had reached 15 Years of Age, so he slowly tried to reach out and feel for his Mana Space.
"The ability of The Shaper of the Wild was to be able to manipulate the Power of Chaos to Alter Reality, so before travelling to another Realm, I assured that I would end up in a safe place with a decent talent."
Closing his eyes, he slowly checked his Mana Space. Based on the Space the Talent was graded- first were Mortal Ranked Spaces, they were more or less considered trash, without any assistance they would only be able to reach Rank 1 or 2 if really lucky, then there were Earth Ranked Spaces, they normally went up to only Rank 3 but with hard work and luck Rank 4 was possible, then were Heaven Ranked Spaces they could go up to Rank 5. Finally, were Special Physiques that occurred once in several millennia. Of course, Atreus knew that no matter what Talent one had if they didn't have perseverance they would die before even touching Rank 6.
"Great! It seems that I barely have a Heaven Ranked Space."
Atreus was happy. This was the perfect situation if he had an Earth Ranked Space it would be quite hard to Synthesise the Spirits the way he wanted to and if he had a higher talent than this or forbid if he had a Physique, not only would it be inviting a disaster to himself but it would also restrict the way he wanted to move himself in this Realm.
Throwing his thoughts to the back of his mind he stood up and wore the black robe as he went to the common bathroom, to wash and look at himself.
He had eerie black eyes, pale skin, flowing black hair and a quite handsome face. He was tall and had a lean built.
"Well, I must say these aesthetics suit me."
"Oh! Rein there you are! Did you hear about the news!"
A girl barged inside she was wearing a long Blue Dress; she was his past self's friend at the orphanage, of similar age to him she was quite beautiful with pink hair and bright blue eyes. Her name was Aurora.
From his memories she seemed to be really naïve, dominating and quite-
"Hey! Pay attention to me you dunce!" – annoying.
Atreus calmly ignored the fly and walked right past her to go outside, he wasn't in this new realm to play being a kid again and currently building any connections with these insects wouldn't serve him well.
Aurora was quite shocked at this behaviour because Rein usually stuttered when talking to her, he was quite shy and she even suspected him to have a crush at her.
His cold aura seemed to have shaken her a little bit. But she seemed to ignore it and quickly ran up behind him to catch up "How dare-"
"All of you brats quickly come HERE!"
A loud roar came as the Orphanage owner Roy called us over.
Realizing what was happening both of them stopped their talk and went to the front of the Main Building. Roy was standing besides a Violet Haired Man, wearing a red suit.
"Lord Kasper, Thank You for coming here!"
Roy introduced the Spirit Summoner to the kids gathered here, Atreus recognized a few of them, but knowing that the journey of most of them would end here, he simply didn't bother to even look at anyone.
The Spirit summoner on the other hand didn't even glance at Roy "Let's be quick I don't have all day to waste."
Soon all the Children lined up as the Kasper checked their Mana Pulse, it was a rudimentary check to see if they had mana or not. The talent check would happen later.
"Fail!" "Useless!" "Trash!"
Kasper quickly threw away a lot of Children to the side. Roy started to have a darker face by the second.
Soon it was Aurora's turn, "Eh! Not bad you can stand at the side."
Roy's face brightened as Aurora jubilantly stood to the Spirit Summoners side, she glanced at Atreus with proud eyes as if saying I am so much better than you.
"Childish naivety!" Atreus thought to himself.
Soon he also went up, he was the last one.
"Uh! Didn't think I would find another one. It's your lucky day-old man." Kasper threw a pouch at Roy, who quickly started to take out and count the gold coins inside.
Roy exclaimed "Ha! Ha! Well, it wasn't a waste investing all that money in these brats!"
The rest of them seemed to be disheartened, even Aurora seemed shocked at Roy's behaviour. But Kasper didn't bother he motioned at Atreus and Aurora to follow him.
They walked for a long time going through the entire town. Many people saw them, realizing Roy's identity they sighed in envy as young girls looked on with red faces at Atreus and boys looked at Aurora with star struck eyes.
Atreus was cold to all this attention; he had seen far too much to be bothered by all this. Not that he didn't like to be praised or to be admired, but it felt cheap coming from these mortals, only Spirit Synthesis and recognition for it brought him happiness.
He had specialized in only that aspect in his past life and thus lacked behind in battle strength. But now he planned to fix that in this Realm- Secondly, he was also very curious, since he had zero information on where he was or what the geography of this place looked like.
Kasper soon led them near a lake outside the Town he hadn't talked to them all the way, ignoring both of them he waved his hand as a complex white formation flashed and a very big beast appeared about 5 Meters in length it looked like a mix between a bear and a wolf, it was Black in Color with Purple stripes- called the Poison Sting Beast, Atreus recognized this was peak rank 1 Spirit it specialized in brute strength and slow poisoning its foes.
"Peak Rank huh." Spirit Masters usually were divided into sub realms, from low to high and the stage before advancing to the next was called the Peak Stage. Atreus was a little intrigued because usually Peak rank 1 were only used as serfs in a little more affluent Areas but this place seemed to be backwater and undeveloped.
"Climb on both of you we will reach at the Assembly of Summoners in an hour, I will tell you some information on the way."
Atreus quickly hopped onto the beast surprising Kasper with his 'courage'. Kasper also hopped on, they waited for Aurora but she seemed didn't jump on for some reason.
Soon both of them turned to look at her-
She was on her knees with tears in her eyes; she had been scared by the Spirit…
Kasper looked at her with a questioning face??
Atreus shook his head as if he had expected such a reaction.
"Well looks like new life won't be so boring after all!" He looked forward to his journey in this World.