The hunt ended, the night receded, and a new day graced the world as the sun rose over the horizon.

In a memorial park that was being built and engraved with the names of all the people who died during the war against Wratharis, Sol was sitting with his true body and throwing seeds for the doves and pigeons to feast on.

The events of the prior night hardly disturbed any citizens, only a few were even aware of the happenings. Thus Sol watched as the people of Lustburg continued their regular lives. Some families came to the monument with flowers and broke down in tears. Some people came with bitterness and resentment in their hearts. A few widows came holding their children or with their growing bellies, filled with a new life.

It was a bitter reminder, a sight that no amount of statistics could perfectly convey— the depth of emotions.

War was sad. War tore families apart. Forever separating them. The only profit it brought was to the ruler class of a country, but not regularly. Meanwhile, the commoners were left with facing the harsh consequences and subsequent pain and suffering that was left in a war’s wake.

I am sorry.

Sol apologized inwardly. His eyes left the wailing people and focused on the eager pigeons, they seemed to have gotten a bit too fat for their own good. This was the first true war that Lustburg went in after eighteen years. Unfortunately, it would not be the last.

Sol needed to conquer the world and even the entire universe to accomplish his selfish ambitions. For these ambitions, for his selfishness, many people would have to die. Even more innocents would have to suffer.

All he could do, to alleviate their suffering by even a minuscule margin, was become stronger so fast that very few people would even dare to face him and question him. That way, fewer people would have to suffer a sorry fate.

“Sol…” Lilith muttered.

The pigeons ignored the intruder, all too content in gorging themselves on the delicious food the stranger had brought for them.

Sol, meanwhile, smiled at the purple-haired woman. Lilith was as beautiful as always.

“Take a seat and feed them with me. I’ve found this to be exceptionally calming.” Lilith eyed the small bag of seeds. She could feel Sol's energy in them and wondered why he was wasting his power feeding pigeons.

However, she did not refuse the seat offered to her, sitting right next to her nephew on the bench. The pigeons promptly ignored Sol and flocked toward her as she started spreading the heavenly food.

“Traitors.” Sol chuckled, finding the way they immediately ditched him to be amusing.

The two stayed silent, not speaking for some time. Sol gazed at the sky, lost in thought, while Lilith fed the pigeons. Sol was right, it was indeed calming.

“What is happening?” She asked, confused.

“I infused this whole place with my power. In a way, you could say that this is a small holy ground.” Sol answered nonchalantly. He had been conducting many experiments to obtain better control of his power. [The World] had proven itself to be extremely valuable and the more his mastery increased, the more control he had over his dimension. Another thing worthy of note was that the goddesses were literally unable to detect his divinity.

Clearly, the Concept of Balance was at a higher level than ones related to emotions, such as the Seven Sins and Virtues. As long as he didn’t do things too overtly, he had nothing to fear.

“Well, I suppose you didn’t come here to chat about my new toys. Any questions?” Sol was in a very good mood.

“About yesterday. What happened?” She asked him.

“Everything got handled quite fast. Milia’s new division was very effective and with Isis as a backup, those guys had no way of escaping even in death.” He laughed. Isis was very handy to have around for these situations.

Sol could have inverted their emotions, but he was not certain how that would work on them. If they did not hate him in the first place, they wouldn’t start loving him now, would they?

“At the end of the day, the majority we caught were nothing but small shrimps. Sacrificial pawns that were sent to die in exchange for any information they could glean about us. This time though, we got a relatively bigger catch. Dwarves from Greed Dike.”

“Oh? What do you plan to do?” Lilith asked, but Sol shrugged, “Initially I hoped those guys would have some information about smiting or something that could help Theresa. Theresa is limited by her ability to multitask. No matter how fast her mind moves, she only has one body after all.”

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“No luck?”

“No luck indeed. Isis did find a few interesting thoughts in the depths of their minds but nothing particularly useful for us.” Learning that the Prince of Greed Dike wanted to kill Theresa was one thing, but it was not very useful, nor would it negatively affect anything for them.

“I could use it as leverage. Affect Greed Dike even if only slightly, but that would ultimately be a waste of time. I am not inclined to play more games with them at the moment.” He snorted dismissively.

Lilith was pretty sure that only Sol could look down so thoroughly on an entire Kingdom. However, she had to admit that he had the capital to do so.

“Still, I know you. You are not the kind of man to take these things lying down.” Lilith grinned and Sol returned it with a toothy grin of his own.

He certainly was not going to let this slide. Selfish and vindictive were prominent among his middle names.

“I debated holding on. But if we hold on too much, people will start thinking we are an easy target. Furthermore, it will appear suspicious no matter how one would look at it. So, I asked Theresa if there was anyone she wanted dead, and she gave me a list.”

A list appeared in his hand, naming more than dozens of nobles and businessmen that Theresa wanted to be silenced. Many of them were part of Greed Dike’s councils and some of them were people who tried to steal from Theresa or have her eliminated, while a few others were linked to the Wings of Freedom and funded some of their activity.

Lilith was definitely intrigued by the list, remembering that Theresa was also quite the vindictive woman in her own right.

“So now what? Are you going to send the Crown’s Shadow? It would take a few days for them to kill everyone off.” She was curious about his next actions.

“No need to. I can simply kill them from here.” His voice was calm even though the words he conveyed could chill one to their very core.

“... What?” Lilith took a second to properly register what he had just said.

“Karma is a funny thing, you see. It links us all. Some way or another. Some links are very fragile, while others are pretty sturdy. Well, at the end of the day, it matters not. In the Mortal Realm. All those below the Demigod realm are ants compared to me.”

His eyes changed. For a brief instant, the sky blue color was replaced by a rainbow hue.

｢Divine Weapon -:- Eye of Akasha｣

If Isis or Camelia were present, they would have witnessed the slumbering giant that was Sol’s soul opening all its eyes simultaneously.

The world that Sol viewed with his eyes now was on a higher plane of existence. One where time and space were completely meaningless.

Below him was the river of time rushing without a stop, nourishing the colossal tree of endless possibilities. Meanwhile, the threads of Karma surrounded him from all sides, golden lines linking him to all individuals in the world.

The amount of information rushing at his mind at the moment was mind-blowing, and if he had tried this before becoming a King, he would have only lasted a few seconds before his mind was fried like a chicken. But now, all this amounted to was only a slight headache.

In this dimension, there was no Sol. Only a giant covered in a thousand eyes with a crown on its head.

The eyes moved, observing and ignoring the threads he had no care for. Simply holding one of those threads would give him all the information about a mortal. From the moment of their birth until the present moment and even the different futures and possibilities that their life would venture towards.

This was for all intent and purposes a power that entered the Divine Territory.

The giant was not worried. Slowly, but surely, he found all the threads he was searching for. The links were flimsy, but it was more than enough for him.

Gathering all those threads in one hand, a scissor appearing in another, the giant muttered.

Be proud. You are the first victims of this power.

｢Boundaries of Life and Death -:- Karma Severing]

One snip was all it took for dozens of people to die thousands of kilometers away from Sol.

***

Back in the real world, Lilith shivered, her eyes overcome with terror. As a near demigod with a concept related to Severing herself, she was more sensitive to powers affecting Karma.

Yet, her mind was unable to completely grasp exactly what Sol did. It simply; refused to.

“What just happened?” She asked with some difficulty.

Sol, appearing a little more tired, sighed to himself, “Nothing but a paltry trick. This was a power I used against Nihil during the Astral War. At the moment, I can only kill those in the Duke realm and can severely affect all King realms in the Mortal Realm. It’s harder to affect Divine Beasts regardless of their realm or those individuals related to gods like the Blessed.”

Sol waved his hand nonchalantly and stood up. He did not find such a feat to be particularly incredible. Powerful Kings could still partially resist his power, and there was nothing impressive about Killing Dukes anymore.

“Remember. In the future, our enemies will be demigods and even gods. You need to change your perspective.”

He laughed and took Lilith by the hand, prompting her to follow him in his stride.

“Enough about such trifling matters. Now, it’s time for us to go on a date and for you to honor your promise.”

Having fun with Lilith was far more important than a bunch of dwarves. As for that prince, he would make sure to kill him later.

A smiling Sol and a bewildered Lilith thus started a new day together, hand in hand.