Divine Path System

On the purple horizon shimmered a wave of red and silver.

The army of Neveah marched forward, kicking up clouds of dust. The sandstorm would've blinded a normal army, not the runic 'sensors' hovering in the sky.

As a result, Aion and Varian were able to watch the tribe's entrance on the hologrophic screen in the lab without any issues.

The sensors, equipped with spatial and spiritual runes, didn't fall into the perception of the intruders. And they didn't deliberately probe any individual, so they remained hidden even as the enemy passed their location.

This allowed them to show the details of the army at a close up.

It was an unexpected image that elicited a frown of disappointment and a sigh of relief at once.

Most of the Neveah tribesmen wore animal skins over their loins, chains of bones around their necks and marks made of special animal blood on their faces.

They looked as…savage as they come.

If someone told Varian that these were the uncivilized group found at the edge of civilization, he wouldn't have doubted it for a second.

Unfortunately, they were the 'Neveah Tribe'—the tribe that slaughtered the Heaven tribe to extinction in a single battle and established the strongest empire to ever exist.

"I…" Varian opened his mouth, words failing to leave his throat. A mix of emotions burst in his chest and he realized why Heaven tribe were so arrogant.

The difference between the two tribes cannot be described as great. It's straight up ridiculous.

Which idiot historian compared the two tribes? What's there to compare?

A super-advanced tribe whose strength alone could crush all the modern civilizations put together?

And a…who?

"Rghh! Rghhh! Raaaa!"

A roar came from the screen and Varian instinctively turned his focus.

The sensors finished the first step of mapping the enemy's forces. They moved onto the second step—figuring out the enemy's powerhouses.

Signals were issued from the headquarters in the city to the wild beasts that were nearby.

In a flash, red dots appeared in the sky. A hundred repitles with thin wings spanning hundreds of miles flashed forward.

The weakest beast was a rank 9 celestial while the strongest was a peak rank 1.

Even though the creatures didn't even reach the tribe yet, their power did.

Earth shook without warning and a breaking noise echoed. Fine cracks as thin as hair started to spread in all directions.

A few figures stepped out of the army, well-woven clothes around their waists and chest. Exquisite necklaces and rings polished from beast bones adorned their wild bodies. Unlike the rest, they didn't have any dried blood marks on their faces.

If they appeared seperately in modern era, they would've been treated as province nobles obsessed with ancient clothes and nothing more.

Here, they looked like royalties lost among a group of savages. Among this group, a middle-aged man with relatively more luxurious clothes walked out, the bone staff in his hand slammed the ground thrice.

"Rghh! Raaa!" The voice screeched from the screen before it turned into the language the tribe of Heaven spoke.

"Food has come! The sacrifice has come! This is indeed the promised paradise! Glory to Father!" Clapping his hands, the aura of a rank 2 divine leaking from him.

""Glory! Blood! Paradise!""

The crowd of tribe soldiers cheered, their chants sending tremors through the crowd.

The man turned around in a swift motion

With a motion of his arm, the man pointed his hand at the sky—pointing at the diving reptiles—and clenched.

The largest beast heading the group couldn't even scream before it exploded in a mix of flesh and bones.

The royalty group behind the leader also raised their arms and in a matter of seconds, the fleet of winged reptiles were eliminated without a hiccup.

Bathed in the blood and flesh of the beasts, the Neveah tribe roared with excitement. They looked around, intense desire burning in their eyes.

Without resting another moment, they marched forward. Somehow, the leading man seemed to know where the city was.

The thirty-odd royals followed him and behind them was the sea of army.

"Not even fifty divine. Tch." Aion's click of tongue brought Varian's mind back to the lab. Turning around, the old man opened some lab reports to study. "You can watch more if you want. I have things to do."

Through the power of soul, Varian vaguely sensed that the emotions spread in the city.

Surprise, disappointment, pride and then boredom.

Everyone who was watching the 'show' displayed reactions similar to Aion. The arrogant old man had a few bones of humility due to his career as a researcher.

But the average Heaven tribesman didn't even posess an inch of modesty. With extreme pride in their tribe, they saw themselves as special.

If Neveah posed a significant threat, they would've atleast cared enough to be bothered. But the lineup of a mere thirty divine rankers was so weak that the audience simply lost interest.

The leader was just a low rank 2. There might be two or three more rank 2s in the tribe, all low rank 2s. The rest were rank 1s.

This tribe…really had no chance of fighting its chosen foe. The invasion was already over before it began.

Varian would've reacted like the rest if only he didn't know the 'history'. He knew more than enough to make him nervous.

The screen showed the tribesmen making their way through the wilderness, straight to the city.

Perhaps the higher ups of the city wanted to kill them in front of the city gates.

Maybe it's to show off their superiority first. Or maybe they wanted to let the citizens join in the victory.

For whatever reason, the beasts stopped attacking the tribe and let them go. Even the strange forest that should've obstructed let them go.

In a matter of minutes, they would be knocking at the city gates. And they would be crushed by the defensive formations, as they should.

Rationally, that's the outcome.

'What if fate plays its hand?'

There were too many absurd things happening to not consider the irrational outcome.

'I should be prepared.'

Eying Aion who delved into the lab findings, Varian turned to his left and focused on the forest not far from the city.

When he toured the woods with Aion to check the defense measures, he asked Samsara to leave some 'seeds' for backup.

As long as the backup was safe and within a reasonable distance, even if he 'died', he could resurrect in that place.

But of course, there were exceptions to this rule.

If the attacking force was far greater than what he could bear, the resurrection would directly fail.

'Just in case.'

Varian kept an eye on Aion and held his breath.

His calm soul fluctuated and a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead. Then, something seemed to be torn and Varian's face turned deathly pale.

Samsara acted on time, soothing his injured soul.

(You could've just torn a small wisp!)

She chided but quickly wrapped the soul fragment in her powers and handed it over to Logos.

On the other hand, Logos' voice was disturbed.

[…I am not feeling anything is going to be wrong. But that feeling is why I feel terrified. It feels as if I am not allowed to 'feel' wrong.]

Varian froze at those words, before he shook his head with a casual expression. 'Don't worry too much. History might've just played out differently. I am only being cautious because of my great…luck.'

[You're right.]

Varian didn't show it on the surface but the lingering thoughts at the back of his mind grew even darker.

The realization of what might be happening didn't bring him any joy.

The strange behavior of the slivers, the pair of his eyes imprinted in his soul, the visitor of the old god, the unreasonable extinction of Heaven tribe ad now Logos' eerie words.

He wished these were disconnected events each with their own explanations. But to his frustration, there seemed to a single thread running through them all.

Well, all of them except for the extinction of Heaven's tribe.

The owner of these eyes.

'If even the slivers can't sense him…'

Varian's jaw tightened and he tore a larger piece of his soul. Blood spilled out of his eyes, nose and mouth before they quickly vanished as if they never appeared.

(Are you crazy? What are you doing?! Aion almost notice!)

Samsara was panicked. Of course, she would be.

He wasn't just splitting a tiny part of his soul. He had torn it open. If he wasn't a divine rank awakener of soul rank, he would've died already.

[What are you doing?]

Varian didn't offer a word of explanation to the pair of slivers and quietly stepped into another room in the guise of relaxing.

Aion waved him away without much thought. The old man didn't believe in Varian's integrity. He believed in the Golden City's security measures.

There's no way an outsider could escape. And even if he could, would he dare with Neveah tribe about to be buried in minutes?

That's…exactly what Varian did.

Wrapping the soul with the power of Order and Chaos, he hid it from the perception of all awakeners in the city.

Unless the City Lord inspected it himself, the large soul fragment wouldn't be detected by anyone here—not unless they personally bump into it.

Then, he used the power of Life and Death to plant life imprint the life source of a popular 'bird' Hyas—a pink winged near-translucent dove-like creature—into it.

Even if it went unnoticed by the practitioners, the soul fragment's biggest challenge was remaining hidden from the numerous formations.

Aion showed him only a couple but even they were something Varian couldn't take lightly.

For this operation, not only did he create the perfect 'bird' life imprint he could, he also used the rune knowledge he learned to inscribe a few formations to keep it hidden.

"Oh? They are at the gate!" Aion's surprised voice rang from the next room.

Varian rubbed his hand and a shot of space-time silently carried away the soul fragment. Only then did he realize that it took him several minutes to inscribe the runes.

It'd take atleast a few seconds for the fragment to leave the gate, possibly much longer.

Praying for his crappy luck to be not so crappy, Varian hurried out of the room.

Leaning back against the sleek white wall, Aion looked at the floating screen with pride and amusement.

It showed the 'savages' arriving in front of the city gate and stop in bewilderment.

They looked at each other for several minutes, as if wondering if it's really possible for such a magnificient construction to be built by people.

"This is the gift of Father! His promise!" The leading man's words calmed them down and the tribesmen raised their bone weapons. "Slay the blasphemers! Bathe in his blessings!"

""Slay the blasphemers!""

The war cries of the tribe were heard across the city.

Aion's face which didn't change since the start shook slightly. He crossed his arms and gritted his teeth.

A thousand thoughts seemed to run in his head before he threw back his head and laughed.

As he did, complex geometrical lines lit up outside the city, just right under the tribesmen.

"You divine dogs! If your corpses still remain, we'll keep them for research. Like we kept your god's! "

Varian's eyes widened as he realized what was powering the city's complex formations.

It was the corpse of the Primordial God!

The formations outside the city lit up.

'Primordial God's death…'

"No, sto—"

The formations under the city suddenly lit up without warning and except for the powerful rank 2s, no one even registered it.

Then, the grand silver city, home to Heaven tribe exploded.

Varian's body and soul were torn apart under the chaos.

History arrived.