"Iblis!" swore Helial. “Do you want me to change my mind?! Do you want me to tell you that seeing one of them die would split my heart in two?! My Soul has already reached the state of the Emperor and this does not mean that I no longer have a heart or feelings, but that my decisions can follow my true will, you know that better than I do! This is my true will now. What should I do, give up power and live in a wooden hut, afraid of what could happen?"
As hard as he thought, Helial didn't want to change his mind. He was perfectly aware that achieving absolute power would not save him from pain.
“I know I will have to give up something, but it doesn't matter! Power will always be a foothold for me: it will make me rejoice or cry until the end of my tears, but it will never leave me alone. I got tired of the shitty life I was living before! Now that I have experienced what it means to be stronger, I want to continue on this path. If you had been powerful enough to turn the tide of war on your own, to make Amaterasu helpless while exterminating her family without ending up in this fucking form, what would you have done?! "
Iblis finally lost his mind. Around him, the world suddenly began to lose colour. Every tile in the room began to turn gray.
Bucephalus's spirit, which permeated the room, became impatient. The horse was now in another dimension, together with his master, but he still perceived everything that happened in the Octagonal Room.
The King of Kings looked at the horse sternly.
The horse responded to Alexander's gaze with his red, round, restless eyes. "I only do it because I don't want to have problems."
He hit the ground with a hoof and a shield, intangible and invisible to anyone, covered the planet they were on. In this way, Iblis' Aura was concealed by any prying Divine Sense.
“Filthy bastard, of course I would have! I would have taken that idiot, tied her on a fucking ship mast and, after exterminating all the other people of this universe, I would have sailed and sailed, enjoying her hatred!"
Outside the Royal Palace, the sky clouded over and all Orma began to tremble.
"There are things for which no price is too high!"
"Well! Very well!" the Devil roared, "I want to hear you say these exact words in a few years, in front of your sister's corpse!"
Iblis continued to mutter, annoyed to the most remote point of his soul. Then he raised his voice and spoke again, clearly angry: “Yes, I would certainly have had an absolute victory against Amaterasu and the forces of Life, if I had walked the path of the Perfect Foundations. But do you know what would have happened?"
The silence was so short that Helial was unable to answer.
“How many people who believed in me would have had to die to satisfy my blood thirst? Various races are already dead and extinct because of me. I have so much blood on my hands that not even a millennium of universal wars affect me. But, in this sea of blood, the few people who supported me even when I made the wrong choices are worth far more than my absolute control."
“If you, Shithead, were to choose today the path of the Perfect Foundations, the whole universe will be against you. Its price is an unprecedented karmic debt. You will have to bear on your shoulders the weight of all the misfortunes that will be thrown towards you. From great powers comes a great sea of shit to swallow."
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"Oh, the greatest Devil in history is afraid that I may suffer too much, as if it were not already my doom! So let's give up then, just as you did."
Iblis was silent for a few seconds, trying to calm down.
"If you decide not to follow the Perfect Foundation, you won't be as weak as you think."
"The only thing I want is strength, power, and the feeling of freedom that I felt when I fought against Pseudonym!" Helial's eyebrows were contracted in an angry expression, but his eyes sparkled with enthusiasm at the memory of that clash. “I want to go higher than everyone else, even more than you, master. Why do I have to be a useless spectator in my life, instead of the protagonist?! I want glory, I want power, I want to see the world from its top.
When you talk to me, you only believe that the only part of my being who wants power is the one who wants to protect Lumia. Don't get me wrong, I would lay down my life for my sister. But I'm not ready to sacrifice my whole existence for her. I live here and now to become a warrior, to be the strongest and find something that makes me able to feel alive and capable of anything."
"You could overcome Pseudonym even without the Perfect Foundations."
Iblis was seriously beginning to regret the moment he mentioned that Skill to Helial. The Devil would never have thought that Helial was willing to do so, putting his own life at stake and, if he survived, also that of all those who were close to him and supported him.
Helial shook his head helplessly. A skewed smile crossed his face. “I'm not interested in just overcoming Pseudonym. I want to know what it's like to overcome impossible challenges, to always have untrodden roads under your feet. I want to live, Iblis, like I never did."
Iblis did not reply immediately. He remained silent for a while as he contracted his Aura, which had covered the entire city and nearly destroyed it.
If Bucephalus had not protected Iblis' Aura from prying eyes, in a few minutes that planet would have become a battleground between the forces of Life and Destruction.
The boy, now resigned, sighed and spoke slowly: “Ten years without Curse of the Demon, Body of the Qilin and the Meridians, which will return to normal, almost those of a cripple, as you remember. In the short term, after the treatment you will undergo, you might become stronger than before. But, over the years, you will always lag behind. You will reach 720 Points in each Stat. This will give you foundation more stable than anyone else. You will also save Statistical Points earned from levelling up; this will allow you to make the carp-jump through the dragon gate."
"The thing about not spending Stat Points is still not clear to me," said Helial, gaining some control. Finally Iblis had decided to help him.
“Well, if you want to be crazy, let's do things right. Upon reaching the Tenth Phase, you will use the Statistical Points to create a perfect body and go against karma itself. Destiny will face you in every way, you will be hated by luck because of your disobeying the laws of nature. The Perfect Foundations fall within the spectrum of what is possible by the laws of the universe, in a certain way. What I am proposing to you goes against nature. We aim to break the limits set by the universe itself. Once done, your Immortality will be ... no, it's too early to talk about this. We will solve all the problems related to the few Statistical Points consumed through my treatment, don't worry."
Unfortunately, Helial had already used some Statistical Points. But, according to Iblis, there was a way to recover them.
The black needles surrounding Iblis disappeared in a split second and Helial's eyes widened in amazement.
"Aren't we going to start now?"
The Devil clenched his fists. “I don't want to expose myself to unnecessary risks. Think calmly and in three days come back here with your answer. I will be here waiting for you. On the other hand, I have already seen hell and I am ready to go even lower into the abyss before I die."
Helial nodded and left the Octagonal Room without saying a word. The echo of his footsteps was heard along the corridor of the dungeons.
After a few seconds, Iblis crossed his arms over his chest and turned his head slightly to the left. "Are you thinking of hiding much longer?"
Crystalline laughter filled the room. Immediately, the handsome figure of a blond knight materialized in the room. Together with him was his black horse.
Time stopped.
The sound of Helial's footsteps stopped. He too got stuck in Alexander's time trap.