Rough Proof of Concept - Part 1

(This chapter utilizes, at times, a memoir-like format. It's something I would draw on only for the first initial, backstory-establishing chapters and seems like a good fit, but let me know your thoughts!)

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Aaron Exandier Drake sat atop a mountain and waited to die.

“So this is how things end.” Aaron murmured to himself, his pitch black hair drifting as the air around him trembled. His harsh, cold eyes stood like blocks of brilliant blue ice, even in the face of ultimate doom. Everything about his visage, from his strong jawline to his pale lips, from the scars that traced across his forehead to the still bleeding gash on his right cheek, displayed not even the slightest hint of emotion.

Aaron welcomed his impending death with the same attitude one might have when putting on a shoe.

Expectant… Prepared…

And ready to get on with it.

“The 6 Kingdoms, the Illustrious Empire, and the Grand Alliance of Murim… even humanity’s ruins aren’t to be spared, huh?”

The world was dying…

And it was dying because he failed.

When the Demon Gates first opened 43 years ago, Aaron had been delighted.

As the eldest son of the mighty Archduke Drake of the Illustrious Empire, Aaron had always believed that he was destined for greatness.

From the moment of his birth, he had everything in life. He was a genius among geniuses, gifted with a talent for conquering anything he set his mind to, possessing unlimited resources with access to nearly everything.

Through the authority and wealth of his father, Aaron obtained and memorized thousands of Martial Arts, relying on his unparalleled talent to create stronger techniques of his own. He spent his youth steadily prepared himself for his glorious future.

By the time he turned 16, Aaron had obtained strength far beyond his age. It was then that he decided to leave his father’s Dukedom and set about adventuring through Murim, the untamed land of Martial Artists and violence, to temper himself.

He challenged Martial Master after Martial Master and, time and time again, he was victorious. Nothing and no one seemed capable of stopping him. He was an undefeated monster that continued to grow and improve himself, never slacking in his training.

19 years after he was born, Aaron Exandier Drake was recognized as the 7th Sovereign, earning the title ‘Lightsworn Sovereign.’

‘That’s only natural.’ He had believed, then. He had a grand destiny, only the strongest warriors across the lands, the Sovereigns, could be his rivals.

And, one year later, when the Demon Gates began to appear just after his 20th birthday, Aaron felt deep joy.

The mission he had been preparing his whole life for had appeared.

“I was a fool.” Aaron grumbled as, in his final moments, his memories overtook him.

Just like how he challenged the Masters of Murim, Aaron threw himself at the multitudes of Demons within the Demon Gates, conquering Gate after Gate. Once again, he overcame every foe that came at him and went on a rampage.

Aaron was freakishly strong, and only grew stronger as he faced adversity.

2 years after the Demon Gates appeared, Aaron was universally recognized as the Strongest Under the Heavens, the most powerful warrior throughout all of history.

Deathly Dragons, Demonic Lords, Giant Hydras, he battled monsters of every kind.

And he always won.

Always.

And so, in the midst of his epic journey, while he was challenging the strongest Gates he could find…

In his arrogance, Aaron made two minor mistakes.

Aaron Exandier Drake was the Strongest Under the Heavens, but he wasn't infallible.

For every Gate Aaron closed, many more more would open.

Aaron accepted every challenge that came his way…

And that was exactly what the Ashen Godking planned.

The appearance of the Demon Gates were not a natural occurrence. It was a targeted invasion by the ruler of the Demonic Plane, a Demonic being known only as the Ashen Godking.

Aaron was a genius among geniuses, but so too was the Ashen Godking.

The Ruler of Demonkind had risen from the stature of a lowly Demonic Soldier that had nothing to the mighty Ashen Godking that had everything…

And he did that over the span of only 7 years.

Through guile and masterful manipulation, he united the warring Tribes of Demonkind and gave them a common goal:

Conquest.

Through a Demonic Ritual, he caused the Demonic Plane to fracture and begin to fuse with the Plane that housed Aaron’s world, appearing in the form of Demon Gates.

The demons invaded, humanity resisted, and the Ashen Godking patiently began to observe.

When the leader of Demonkind first discovered Aaron, he tried all manners of plots to kill him.

All of those plots failed miserably. Aaron was not a foe that could be dealt with using normal logic.

After he realized that, the Godking made a bold decision.

Instead of revealing his final trump cards to kill Aaron, he decided to sacrifice 20% of his army simply to keep Aaron occupied.

It was a decision that any other commander almost certainly would’ve failed to make. When facing a fierce enemy, any other ruler would’ve done their utmost to overwhelm the target. Giving up a fifth of a massive army just to distract a single enemy was an unreasonable decision.

But the Godking judged it to be viable. Wise, even.

And, it worked.

Over the course of 5 years, Aaron singlehandedly managed to wipe out 10% of the Ashen Godking’s army.

Aaron was arrogant, but he was also cognizant of his arrogance. He was supremely confident in himself, but he was not a fool. He was a genius in everything he studied, including planning and strategy.

He realized early on that he was being targeted by a massive amount of demons. He noticed the Godking’s manipulation and he welcomed it.

To him, it was proof that his fated destiny recognized him.

It had even occurred to him that the massive armies targeting him were merely there to distract him. However, instead of thinking it was absurd, Aaron felt that it made sense.

And it was here that Aaron made the first of the two mistakes that cost him everything.

‘If I can slaughter the demons so easily, the other Sovereigns can do the same.’

Aaron was proclaimed a Sovereign at the age of 19 and earned the title of Supreme just 3 years later, an unbelievable feat for one so young. Unlike Aaron, the other Sovereigns were wizened Grandmasters that had trained for decades and decades. The youngest Sovereign, the Thunder Sovereign Mul-tok Lang, was 79 years old, while the oldest, the Ironfist Sovereign Ronel Forbound, was 119.

Aaron was young. As amazingly gifted as he was, for all the skills and abilities he possessed, there was one thing he lacked:

Experience.

Aaron began his journey through Murim at the young age of 16. The Demon Gates appeared right after he turned 20.

In that short 4 year period, he never faced off against any of the Sovereigns.

Aaron had constantly travelled and challenged every Master he found. If he had chanced across one of the Sovereigns, he would have immediately demanded a duel.

However… the land of Murim was enormous. Crossing it would take a full year for a dedicated man riding a fast horse, and even longer if you included the overlapping lands of the 6 Kingdoms and the Empire.

Aaron’s 4 year journey was a meandering one with no set path…

And, as fate had it, he simply never crossed paths with the other Sovereigns. When the Demon Gates opened, he turned his full attention towards the Demons.

He never fought the other Sovereigns, and because of that, he made his first mistake.

He failed to accurately estimate their strength.

Aaron grew up hearing legends about the rulers of Murim, the 7 Sovereigns, the 24 Martial Kings, and the 77 Sect Leaders. He glorified these experts in his mind and practically worshiped them as a youth.

During his journey, he dueled 9 members of the 24 Kings and challenged 21 of the 77 Sect Leaders.

He won each time, with enough overwhelming might to become a Sovereign.

‘That’s only natural.’ Was his takeaway from those battles.

There was an insurmountable gap between the Sovereigns and the Kings, and doubly so for the Sect Leaders.

That was an ironclad truth that he learned as a youth.

After facing the Masters he challenged, he concluded that it wasn’t that the 24 Kings were weak or that the Sect Leaders were pathetically weak…

It was that he was extremely strong. He was a Sovereign, after all.

Only the 7 Sovereigns were on par with him. Everyone else being weak made perfect sense.

He never doubted this fact.

The Sovereigns were, in truth, extremely strong. They weren’t known as the rulers of Murim for no reason.

Aaron believed that, at worst, they were only a little weaker than himself.

After the Demon Gates started spawning, the Sovereigns were given the title Great Protectors and gathered large armies of warriors to their sides. They were heroes, legends that were protecting humanity. They united forces with the experts of the 77 Sects and the soldiers of the 6 Kingdoms and Empire.

Aaron never needed anybody to help him overcome his enemies.

So why would they, the heroes that he considered his rivals, need his help?

‘I can leave it to them.’

That was what he thought.

And that was his second mistake.

These mistakes led Aaron to decide to keep to himself when he began his crusade against the Demonic forces. He was ostensibly part of the Grand Alliance, but operated on his own. He utilized the intel gathered by the Grand Alliance to target the strongest Demon Gates as they were found, earning the esteemed title of Supreme Sovereign along the way, but he always fought alone.

“I was damned stupid back then.” Aaron interrupted his trip down memory lane as he gazed down from his perch atop the peak of a mountain, his eyes focusing on an enormous, ruined castle nearby. What was left of that castle was currently being devoured by black tears that were ripping through the fabric of space as the world ended, but it was still recognizable in his eyes.

The famous Citadel of Hope, where the Headquarters of the Grand Alliance once stood.

The memories rose once more.

The Ashen Godking dragged his invasion out in a meticulously planned manner. He followed the exact same methodology that saw him conquer all of Demonkind:

He was, before all else, extremely careful.

He hid his true strength while carefully gathering intel on humanity, operating neither too quickly nor too slow, disguising his actions. His style of tactics resulted in massive casualties among the 8 Demon Armies, but that was something he was willing to accept. He cared nothing for the sacrifices of his troops; the only thing he focused on was the final victory.

Due to that, for the first 5 years of battle, humanity seemed to hold the upper hand. Many human lives were lost, but the Demons were gradually being beaten back. The 5th, 6th, and 7th Demon Armies were completely destroyed. The number of new Demon Gates began to slow. Victory seemed to be all but assured. The Demons had failed to kill even one of humanity’s true strongest elites.

All of that changed in the blink of an eye.

On one seemingly normal day, Aaron was informed of a massive new Demon Gate by the Intelligence Department of the Grand Alliance. Like he had many times before, he quickly found and entered said Gate, discovering, to his delight, an army so massive it was equal in number to the grand total of every Demon he had killed in the past 5 years.

It was an army that represented 10% of the Ashen Godking’s original forces.

‘It’s definitely a trap.’ That was the first thing he realized.

The Demon Armies weren’t infinite, after all. The Grand Alliance had gathered a rough image of the size of their foes. An army of this size was a significant portion of the Demon’s strength and was trapped inside a Gate that had only one exit.

‘But so what?’ He was the Strongest Under the Heavens, the Supreme Sovereign.

Trap or not, he was confident he would win. He had techniques that could regenerate his injuries, Martial Arts that allowed him to absorb energy from the air itself, and power that nothing could stand against.

He might be arrogant… but that didn’t mean he was wrong.

He’d faced tens of thousands of Demonic Warriors, Generals, Lords, and all manners of Demonic Beasts in Gates before this. He had even fought and killed 2 of the 9 Demon Rulers that served just below the Ashen Godking.

Even with all of that, the longest it took for him to conquer a Gate was 11 hours, and that time was for his very first Gate. All subsequent Gates he conquered took, at most, 7 hours, regardless of what he found inside. He had become an expert at wide-scale destruction, developing targeted Martial Arts that had stood unchallenged to this very day.

No matter what happened, he could handle it.

Aaron confidently charged into battle without a second thought…

And he won.

He completely annihilated the 8th Demon Army, slaughtering more than 1 million Demons.

It took him 17 hours.

“17 hours…” Aaron often thought back to that fateful day, and to the 17 hours he spent in battle.

If he had focused a little harder, would things have turned out differently?

If he had battled with everything he had the entire battle, instead of practicing new techniques and training himself… If he had obtained enlightenment at a faster rate, if he had been just a little bit better…

Those 17 hours were a number that haunted Aaron for the rest of his life.

Minutes after Aaron entered the Demon Gate and engaged the 8th Demon Army, a widespread, clandestine operation was carried out across all of Murim.

It was an operation the Ashen Godking spent 5 entire years planning, from manipulating his own forces at seeming random, to infiltrating the human chain of command and modifying planned deployments. He even went as far as to intentionally lose dozens of key battles just to modify the position of humanity’s armies in a seemingly natural way.

All for this one day.

On the morning of the 127th day of the 5th year after the Demon Gates appeared, within 1 hour after Aaron entered a Demon Gate…

5 of the 7 Sovereigns, all of the 24 Martial Kings, 76 of the 77 Sect Leaders, and 312 of the 312 Vice-Sect Leader were assassinated.

It was a conspiracy that defied reason, carried out on a scale that appeared unfathomable.

By noon, 12 enormous Demon Gates finished spawning and unleashed the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Demon Armies upon the land. At the same time, the Ashen Godking’s ultimate trump card joined these armies: 4 previously-hidden Transcendent Demons, the only Demons in existence that had managed to break past the limits of Demonkind, as well as the assassins in charge of killing the Murim Sovereigns.

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By the time evening arrived, the 8 High Generals, all 22 Great Generals, and 212 Field Generals sent by the 6 Kingdoms and Empire were killed in battle. Tens of thousands of Lesser Generals, Captains, and other Officers also died, killed alongside millions of soldiers.

In the 12th hour after Aaron entered the Demon Gate, the last remaining Sovereign, the Blood Sovereign Sora Yunel, perished alongside a group of hidden Blood Masters and the Sect Leader of the Blood Sect. Their battle lasted a full 11 hours and 47 minutes, 10 hours longer than any of the other Sovereigns, cementing her place as the strongest Sovereign after Aaron. The Ashen Godking, surprised at the unexpected resistance, modified his plans and ordered the immediate annihilation of the Blood Sect.

In the 13th hour, the 6 Kings of the 6 Kingdoms and the Emperor of the Illustrious Empire were executed. The Capital Cities of each nation were overrun and any resistance that was raised was immediately quashed.

In the 15th hour, the remaining forces of the Blood Sect were hunted down and killed. In the same hour, Aaron’s father, Archduke Gerald Drake, died in the defense of Citadel Drakel. The other members of the Drake family perished shortly thereafter.

In the 16th hour, all remaining major nobles, most significant political figures, and the vast majority of competent commanders that had yet to die were killed, finishing a list of more than 20,000 specific targets designated by the Ashen Godking.

In the 17th hour, Aaron killed the leader of the 8th Demonic Army, the Demon Ruler Bloodrabble, the 3rd of the 9 Demon Rulers to die at his hand, and successfully closed the Demon Gate.

But by then, it was already too late.

With the notable exception of himself, every single human that the Godking judged to be a potential threat was now dead.

And it only took him 17 hours.

Aaron’s eyes flickered upward as he stared at the sky above him. The spreading Spatial Tears had turned the blue sky into a messy mix of grey, a color he found especially fitting.

“I failed, even in the end.” Aaron murmured quietly to himself, speaking with a voice so detached it was as if he was talking about someone else.

After Aaron realized what had happened, he nearly went insane with rage. The first sight welcoming his return to the Grand Alliance HQ was the head of one of his heroes, the Winter Sovereign Ayra Ninthorn, perched upon a spear.

Aaron killed every Demon he came across, but it wasn’t enough. The Ashen Godking had spread his armies out wide and purposefully ignored Aaron. He was the Strongest Under Heaven, but he was only one man.

In response, Aaron focused every iota of his being towards saving what remained of humanity.

And, for the first time in his life, the Supreme Sovereign that had never faced defeat, the genius above all geniuses, the Strongest Under the Heavens…

Failed.

Within 5 days, 99% of humanity died.

Aaron tried every thing he could, using his almighty strength to the upmost.

But, it simply wasn’t enough.

He was only one man, and the Ashen Godking was as meticulous as he was careful.

Every defensive force Aaron cobbled together collapsed inward. Without any talented or reliable leaders to draw on, every plan he made fell apart. No matter how perfect his own actions were, the lack of skilled manpower proved a fatal weakness.

The devious trap sprung by the Ashen Godking was foolproof.

By day 10, Aaron had realized how hopeless his situation was.

On day 11, he organized the remnants of the Grand Alliance and hid them in a cave deep within a random mountain range, completely abandoning any offensive effort against the Demon Armies.

On day 12, he left those remnants and journeyed to the Drake Dukedom.

On day 15, after searching for 72 hours without rest, he found the scattered remains of his family.

On day 16, he held a memorial service. Guilt, pain, loss, sadness… He was overcome with a multitude of emotions, but had no time to grieve. He was attacked 3 times within the first 10 minutes of the memorial alone. The Demons were everywhere.

By nightfall, he emptied his heart of grief and pain. He entered a meditative state that allowed him to cast aside his emotions. Over the course of an hour, he successfully modified that technique to allow him to maintain it at all times.

And then, on day 17, Aaron began a one-man war against an entire Plane of Demons.

On day 19, the Ashen Godking tracked down the last dregs of the Grand Alliance and annihilated them, noting with surprise that they managed to hide themselves far beyond his expectations. Their ultimate undoing was caused by poor leadership leading to infighting that gave off minute vibrations that the Godking’s specialized Demon Trackers were able to detect.

On day 20, Aaron surprised the Godking by successfully wiping out the smallest Demon Army, the 2nd Demon Army, in a lightning fast blitzkrieg that relied on a little-known Martial Art he had modified in his youth, the Explosive Ki Art. His enhanced version let him plant thousands of invisible bombs at key points, puppeteering the 2nd Army to their doom in a single afternoon.

In response, the Ashen Godking began shifting his focus solely towards Aaron, pulling the 1st and 3rd Demon Armies together while spreading the 4th Demon Army out to pick up the slack.

Come nightfall, 99.9999% of humanity was dead.

On day 21, Aaron engaged in guerrilla warfare against the 1st and 3rd Demon Armies, swiftly discovering that the Ashen Godking had taken countermeasures against his explosive traps, rendering them useless. At the end of the day, the 6 remaining Demon Rulers and 3 of the 4 Transcendent Demons arrived, forcing Aaron to remain in hiding.

On day 22, Aaron launched a sneak attack that killed 2 of the Demon Rulers and injured the last 4, retreating only after suffering numerous injuries against the 3 Transcendent Demons. He began developing techniques to counter the Transcendent Demons after discovering his strongest attacks failed to even draw blood. Upon realizing Aaron not only survived but was also able to escape, the Ashen Godking was shocked once more.

He had believed he was being careful to an absurd degree, and thus, failure here made no sense. He could only come to the conclusion that Aaron’s talent was even more absurd. He immediately dispatched his best Demon Trackers to the scene and began developing backup measures.

On day 23, Aaron returned before dawn and successfully assassinated 3 of the last 4 Demon Rulers, catching the Ashen Godking off-guard for the third time. He then pretended to flee, but instead developed a new transformation technique that allowed him to infiltrate the 1st Demon Army. His infiltration went undetected. The Ashen Godking was beside himself with rage, but instead of lashing out, instead began to consider activating his contingency plans.

On day 24, Aaron began dismantling the command structure of the 1st Demon Army, targeting the upper leadership at random. The Demon Trackers sent by the Godking proved to be useless, their techniques only capable of tracking after first directly detecting him, both undisguised and in person.

After nightfall came and Aaron was yet to be found, the Ashen Godking tempered his rage and changed his mindset. He decided to always assume the absolute worst when it came to Aaron, no matter how ridiculous that assumption might be.

With that in mind, the Godking went forward with his first contingency plan, and went into complete hiding, cutting off all physical contact with other Demons. He renewed his focus on Aaron, sending out all of his new orders through a series of untraceable Demonic Soul Arts.

On day 27, Aaron took down the last remaining Demon Ruler and the 1st Demon Army began to fall apart. The Ashen Godking, in turn, conscripted and dispatched every single Demonic Tracker across all of the Demonic Tribes. As a result of the increased scrutiny, Aaron stopped his attacks and focused on developing his Demonic Transformation technique to a deeper level.

On day 30, the Ashen Godking ordered the dispersion of the Demon Armies and created a special unit combining all of his Demon Trackers, the fastest of his scouts, and all 4 Transcendent Demons, with the sole purpose of killing Aaron. In the midst of that, Aaron discovered a complex pattern in the movements of the Demons and began tracking that pattern, intent on finding the Godking’s hidden command hub.

On day 32, Aaron managed to back-track his way to the Ashen Godking’s hidden HQ. He immediately infiltrated it, but instead of finding the Ashen Godking, encountered an ambush containing all 4 Transcendent Demons. Aaron attempted to flee, but after being injured and damaging his disguise, was unable to escape the notice of the Godking’s Demonic Trackers and was relentlessly pursued.

On day 33, after failing to seriously injure any of the Transcendent Demons that were hounding him, Aaron began ignoring them and chose to attack the Demonic Trackers. By the time evening fell, he had managed to wipe out 80% of the Godking’s Demonic trackers, but sustained multiple serious injuries in the process.

By the end of the day, he managed to develop a new technique that could lightly injure a Transcendent Demon. He then discovered that the Transcendent Demons were capable of instantaneous regeneration, rendering his new technique useless.

On day 35, after an extended battle that had now lasted more than 40 hours, Aaron successfully developed a stealth technique that allowed him to cut off the trail that the Godking’s Demonic Trackers followed. He then began to flee, but was slowed by the 4 Transcendent Demons that gave chase. The 4 elite Demons utilized a new Trapping Formation designed by the Ashen Godking, forcing Aaron into a state of unavoidable, constant battle. His already severe injuries worsened, leaving him trapped in a vicious cycle that he was unable to escape. The Ashen Godking, sensing that victory was just around the corner, began to feel pleased.

On day 36, Aaron developed an escaping technique that allowed him to break free from the Ashen Godking’s Trapping Formation. He then utilized one of the countless Martial Arts he’d mastered, a little-known Martial Art that let him burrow through the earth like a bizarrely fast worm.

Aaron escaped.

The Ashen Godking was dumbfounded, especially after he concluded that most of the techniques Aaron used to escape were presumably created on the spot, in the midst of complicated battles against multiple enemies that were all stronger, faster, and moving in perfect coordination, while he, himself, was grievously wounded.

For the first time since he gained awareness, the Ashen Godking began to doubt his own talent.

On day 37, Aaron further developed his stealth techniques and hid himself deep underground. He then entered a half-aware, sleeping state, resting for the first time in 7 days.

On day 39, Aaron awoke up from his rest fully recovered. He decided to remain hidden, learning a hard lesson from his last desperate escape. He chose to focus on developing new, stronger techniques, drawing from the experience of the past 6 years to gain inspiration. He began to train himself.

On day 40, Aaron entered a state of extended enlightenment. His sense of time vanished as he forgot about the world around him, his mind purely focused on unfolding the mysteries of reality. His heaven-defying talent combined with the technique he was using to suppress his emotions, inadvertently extending his period of enlightenment far beyond his expectations. As a result, his enlightenment began branching out through every Martial Art he had ever learned, including thousands of random Martial Arts he had memorized in his youth.

On day 45, the Ashen Godking successfully killed the last remaining humans. Aaron was now the sole, remaining survivor of the human race.

On day 106, the Ashen Godking slightly lessened his measures to find Aaron, but upped the secrecy and security of his hideout.

On day 384, the Ashen Godking split the 4 Transcendent Demons into groups of 2, ordering one team to continue hunting for Aaron, while the other began managing newly created Demonic Territories.

On day 509, a new Demon Ruler was born. The territories of Demonkind were divided and now successfully established. New factions of Demons began to arise. The Ashen Godking remained in hiding.

On day 809, the Ashen Godking allowed the 4 Transcendent Demons to operate individually, but expanded the unit of Demonic Trackers hunting for Aaron. He ordered the development and training of even more Trackers and research into better techniques.

On day 1429, on the same day a second Demon Ruler was born, one of the 4 Transcendent Demons was dispatched to put down a rebellion. The Ashen Godking's extended absence was stirring unrest. Nevertheless, he continued to remain in hiding.

On day 3728, after more than a decade had passed, Aaron awoke from his enlightenment.

After he gathered his thoughts, Aaron realized that he had successfully developed 27,728 new Martial Arts, including Ki Circling Arts that were far superior to all others.

On day 3729, Aaron dispersed his Ki and began to cultivate anew.

On day 3962, Aaron reached the same level of power he had possessed before dispersing his Ki, a stage called the Sovereign Gates of Life, the highest known stage a human could reach by cultivating a Ki Circling Art.

On day 4002, he broke through the limits of humanity and reached a new stage that was qualitatively stronger than before. He named that stage the Realm of Transcendence.

On day 4097, Aaron broke through the Realm of Transcendence and achieved a stage that reached the limits of his enlightenment. He named this final stage the Gateway to Heaven.

On day 4098, he emerged from the ground and visited the gravesite that housed the remains of his family. Upon arriving, he found the graves desecrated and their remains missing. He utilized one of the new techniques and began tracking down the missing corpses.

On day 4101, more than 200 miles away and buried beneath a layer of silt at the bottom of a river, Aaron found the remains of his dead father.

On day 4102, 80 miles to the east, he found the remains of his three dead sisters and his youngest brothers, the twins, covered in moss and stuck to a fallen tree.

On day 4103, he concluded all remaining trails were dead ends. He never found the corpse of his mother, his second brother, or any of the other members of his family.

On day 4104, he held a new memorial service.

On day 4105…

He resumed his hunt.

Day 4106 came and shattered the Ashen Godking’s faint hopes that Aaron had died. In a single afternoon, Aaron assassinated 1 of the 4 Transcendent Demons.

The Ashen Godking immediately grouped the 3 remaining Transcendent Demons together and called on all of the contingency measures he had developed.

On day 4107, Aaron engaged the remaining Transcendent Demons. He found that an army of 12,000 elites had appeared out of nowhere, joining with the remaining Transcedents. The ultimate force that the Ashen Godking had raised for the past 12 years specifically to kill Aaron made its debut.

On day 4108, Aaron finished killing the last 3 Transcendent Demons and destroyed the army of 12,000 elites down to the last Demon. The Ashen Godking was struck dumb.

After the ruler of Demonkind recovered, he immediately abandoned his active role of leadership and began to seek out alternative solutions.

On day 4109, after realizing he was no longer being targetted, Aaron turned his hunt to the Demons that had scattered across the world.

On day 4522, Aaron killed his 10 millionth Demon. As the number of remaining Demons grew smaller, the time it took him to find and kill them increased.

On day 5387, Aaron succeeded in reducing the Demon population by 70%.

On day 5692, the Ashen Godking began a newly created Demonic Ritual targeting Aaron, using the life force of roughly 10% of the original Demon population as a sacrifice. The Godking had managed to keep this years-long setup secret by hiding it inside a Demon Gate located at the bottom of the ocean and making the attack entirely Soul-based, creating the first ever Spatial Soul Attack Art.

On day 5693, the ritual reached completion and Aaron was hit by an enormous attack that transcended space, targeting his Soul. The attack badly injured his Soul but ultimately failed to kill him thanks to his advanced Ki cultivation. Subsequently, as a result of the unique experience the attack and resulting injuries brought, Aaron entered a new state of enlightenment focused on techniques related to the Soul.

On day 5694, the Ashen Godking was hit with a backlash that indicated failure. He then abandoned all attempts at directly attacking Aaron and went dormant to recover, spending his free time searching for a method that could kill Aaron.

On day 5748, Aaron’s enlightenment ended. He developed 412 new techniques all geared around the Soul, the first and only Soul Arts ever created by humanity.

On day 5749, he completely cured the injuries to his Soul.

On day 5750, he resumed his hunt.

On day 5921, he wiped out every Demon that remained on Earth. The location of the Ashen Godking remained unknown.

On day 5922, he began to clear every Demon Gate, killing the Demons hiding within them.

On day 6276, the Ashen Godking successfully engineered an undetectable biological plague that treated every mammal as a passive carrier and only became active upon finding a human host. He designed his Demonic Plague to have no impact on the Soul, correctly assuming that Aaron would have somehow already managed to develop a way to protect his Soul.

On day 6301, Aaron was infected with the Demonic Plague, but failed to notice. The plague remained dormant, but began to spread to all of his cells.

On day 6305, Aaron’s supernatural instincts began to flare. Despite his best efforts, he was unable to find out why. He eventually hid himself underground once more and entered into a meditative state that allowed him to focus on his surroundings with absolute precision.

On day 6309, at exactly midnight, the Demonic Plague became active.

On day 6310, precisely 1/8th of a second after midnight, Aaron’s body began to undergo mass cell death.

His organs began to break down as the Demonic Plague turned his own Ki against him, sending more than 10,000 mixed signals to his brain. Instead of directly attacking him, the plague mimicked the activation of more than a thousand different techniques. This caused the energy within him to split into countless lines that clashed against his body thousands of times over the course of that tiny 8th of a second.

Aaron managed to react to the clashing energy instantaneously, and for that reason alone, he did not immediately die.

In the split moment the plague struck, Aaron successfully redirected 1/5th of the rampaging lines of energy within him, forming a protective cocoon around his brain. In the following 1/8th of a second, he increased his control to 2/3rds of the energy lines, but not before they ruined the rest of his body.

In the subsequent 3/4ths of that first second, Aaron made the instinctive decision to abandon the last third of his Ki and decided to ignore the ruined parts of his body.

For the second time in a single second, his instincts saved his life.

By the time that first second ended, Aaron transformed what was left of his body by relying on the techniques he had developed to infiltrate the Demon Armies. A human body couldn’t function with just a brain, but a Demonic body could. He had killed countless Demons that proved that fact to him.

As luck would have it, his transformation rendered the Ashen Godking’s virus inert, because it no longer recognized him as a human. Aaron took full advantage of that lapse, sacrificing another third of his Ki cultivation to undergo emergency treatment.

As a result, thanks to his supernatural instincts and a bit of luck, Aaron managed to survive.

And, yet again, his monstrous talent allowed him to obtain enlightenment, not only discovering how he had been attacked, but also developing new techniques to protect himself, strengthen his immune system and his control of his Ki, and enhance his ability to scan himself and his surroundings down to a microscopic level.

On day 6331, Aaron ended enlightenment and made a full recovery, now immune to plagues of all kinds. He remained in hiding, opting to regain the Ki he had wasted instead of continuing his hunt.

On day 6359, the Ashen Godking concluded his attempt failed. His plague had successfully encompassed the entire planet and would have infected Aaron and become active by now. If Aaron had died, he would have detected Aaron’s remains.

He no longer found himself enraged by his failures.

Instead, the Ashen Godking began to seriously consider whether or not Aaron, and the rest of this foreign world, was being protected by some sort of Divine Creator.

Aaron’s talent was to the point where he thought there was a chance his Divine theory was accurate.

On day 6498, Aaron recovered to his peak state and resumed his hunt.

On day 8726, Aaron successfully wiped out 99.9999% of Demonkind. The Ashen Godking remained in hiding. The secretive leader of the Demons was unable to prove his theory of Divine intervention, but had decided to simply assume it was true, and based his future plans off of that assumption.

On day 9129, Aaron cleared the last Demon Gate.

On day 9827, the Ashen Godking pondered a dangerous idea that had a chance of success, but stood a strong chance of causing his own death. It was the first, and only, idea he had found that stood any chance of killing Aaron even in the face of Divine intervention.

On day 9843, Aaron tracked down and killed the last remaining Demon apart from the Ashen Godking, a stealthy demon that had moved from Demon Gate to Demon Gate before fleeing back to Earth while Aaron was distracted closing Gates. The Demon had been merged with a small piece of kelp buried on the underside of a large reef in the depths of the ocean, a thousand miles offshore.

On day 9844, Aaron realized he had successfully wiped out every Demonic trace that existed. He concluded the Ashen Godking had a method of hiding that he could not detect. Nevertheless, he continued his search while attempting to improve his methods of detection.

On day 9892, the Ashen Godking began to prepare for his final attempt to defeat Aaron.

On day 10,107, the Ashen Godking sacrificed 99.9% of his life-force to forcibly break into to the Realm of Transcendence. He then used the remaining .1% to transform himself into a Demonic Lich.

On day 10,283, Aaron felt a strange shift in the world around him. It was a feeling he had never felt before. He began to study it, puzzled and alert.

On day 12,928, after more than 7 years, Aaron had failed to understand that strange feeling or find the Ashen Godking. In the evening of this day, once again, he felt a similar, strange shift. This time, the feeling was stronger. By comparing the two feelings, he was able to reach a conclusion.

The shifting sensation he sensed felt like reality itself was starting to tear.

His instincts began to flare.

On day 12,929, Aaron tried to step up his search efforts, but found he was already trying as hard as physically possible. Irregardless of that fact, he decided he had to try harder.

On day 13,029, Aaron made a mental breakthrough. After more than 35 and a half years of constant focus, all while maintaining a meditative state that suppressed his emotions, he achieved a new mental state that allowed him to accelerate his thoughts many times over. His capacity to plan, analyze, and think was greatly increased.

On day 15,651, despite the many improvements his enhanced mind made over the years, he had yet to find the Ashen Godking. In the evening of this day, he sensed the distorted, shifting sensation that he’d felt twice before.

However, this time, that feeling never faded.

On day 15,652, exactly 43 years after humanity collapsed…

The Ashen Godking sacrificed the entirety of his Transcendent Energy to activate a Demonic Ritual. This Ritual was almost identical to the one he used to fuse the Demonic Plane with Aaron’s world. The only thing he had changed was the energy source that powered it, substituting his Transcendent power for the gargantuan life-force the original Ritual required.

On day 15,653, the Ritual failed. The Ashen Godking’s Transcendent Energy was barely enough to activate the Ritual, let alone complete it.

A backlash rippled through space as a result of the Ritual’s failure. That backlash was targeted directly at the Ashen Godking’s body and finally revealed to Aaron where he had been located:

Buried countless miles underground, hidden next to the molten core at the center of the planet.

The Ashen Godking’s body was torn apart as the space around him fractured. However, as a Demonic Lich, even one that had sacrificed all of his energy, this didn’t kill him. Instead, his phylactery appeared in the midst of fractured space, a phylactery he designed with the sole purpose of surviving a Spatial Tear.

Aaron was able to detect all of this the moment it happened. With inhuman precision, he comprehended what he was seeing and began to rip through the earth, drilling a path towards the Godking.

He was unreasonably fast to the point where he appeared to be teleporting. Aaron had activated his ultimate, self-made movement technique, the Steps That Transcend Light, by permanently sacrificing 50% of his enormous Ki cultivation.

As a result, it only took him one second to reach the Ashen Godking.

But that second proved more than enough for a black Spatial Tear to completely swallow his phylactery, erasing it from Aaron’s Plane of existence and casting it into the unknown.

Faintly, on that day, Aaron felt the first tidbit of emotion he’d had in decades.

Failure, once again.

Loss. Regret. Guilt.

And, above all else…

Exhaustion.

Fifteen thousand six hundred fifty three days and 17 hours after humanity collapsed, the dimension that housed Aaron’s planet began to fall apart, ripping itself to shreds through Spatial Storms spawned by a failed Dimensional Shift.

As his reality began to die, Aaron returned to the surface and moved to the perch he had oft rested on over the past decade: the peak of Mt. Yoreli, where once had stood the Headquarters of the Grand Alliance.

He looked up to the sky. He looked down at the ruins of his world.

And he waited to die.

The Spatial Storms grew stronger. Aaron felt the laws that guided reality begin to loosen. His vision began to grow distorted, the number of Spatial Tears swiftly overcoming everything in sight.

Tense seconds passed by as Aaron sat there, unblinking.

Abruptly, an enormous Spatial Tear rose before him, blocking out all else.

Aaron Exandier Drake closed his eyes for the last time.

The Spatial Tear enveloped him.

And…

To his unending remorse…

He did not die.

.