Divine Path System

Heaven tribe had known Neveah would attack since at least three months. But they didn't show even a trace of tension.

Even though they're incredibly strong, it seemed callous to completely ignore an enemy.

But that opinion began to rapidly change as he's introduced to the defense measures already in place.

Standing high in the sky, Aion folded his hands behind his back, watching the sprawling city below.

There was no day and night here, only aura cycles. A period of the day was more conducive to practice than another. People worked in the former and rested in the latter.

Now was the resting period. The people were either in resting meditation or out in the streets, spending away time to relax mind and body. It was the most bustling period of the hours.

Under the sky that now turned dark purple, the giant city shone like a cluster of stars.

Houses glowed in soulful blues, but there were so many of them with similar patterns that it looked like someone painted beautiful patterns with light as ink. Big business buildings showed off their wealth in shimmering lights of dazzling red.

In this design where the periphery was blue and the interior was red stood a beautiful golden yellow at the core. It was the brightest of them all, alone overshadowing rest of the city.

Golden City was the name of this place.

Varian stood beside Aion, complex emotions flashing in his eyes as he watched the grand civilization. Perhaps the grandest of them all.

'The capital of Jai is called Silver City.'

What more could affirm the greatness of an enemy than imitation?

It's the admittance to inferiority even in that imitation.

"What I'm about to show you, Defense Tests, are actually a yearly affair in our tribe." Aion spoke as he raised a finger.

A wisp of blue lit up over his fingertip and began to bulge outward, like a beast was trying to escape the cage of that flickering flame. A hint of gray surged and another power was added to the mix.

In that small boundary to which the gray-blue flame expaned was the condensed space-time power of a mid rank 2.

Varian tensed, fighting instincts urging him to either kill or retreat. Due to the silent struggle in this mysterious place, his own paths improved significantly.

But even then, he wasn't confident of instantly killing Aion.

'It'll take atleast a ten seconds.'

Ten seconds was so long that even if the city lord Eon waited until the last moment, he could still react and catch up with Varian.

Aion ignored Varian's changing expression and pointed the spinning sphere down at the city.

It looked like not larger than a fist of a child, but condensed in it was enough power to tear apart the space-time fabric of a micro galaxy.

Perhaps nothing more could be more telling that a rank 2 was close to godhood than a tear in the galaxy.

And that attack was now directed at the Golden City.

"Go." Aion flicked his finger and the sphere shot at the city almost instantly.

Patterns of runes engraved all across the city lit up at once before dimming and lighting up only at the region where the sphere was about to strike. It happened so fast that the citizens didn't even notice anything.

From the runes he learned during his confinement, Varian was able to roughly decipher that the patterns in each street consisted of multiple formations overlapped.

And each street rune was itself was a part of a bunch of larger formation of the district which also overlapped. And that was also a part of a much larger formation that covered the city.

There was a light ash smell and a puff of smoke, as if something was burned away. The street formation dimmed, as if it failed.

But the attack of the mid rank 2 was nowhere to be seen.

Aion turned to Varian, regarding the foreigner's disbelieving eyes with an amused expression.

…And then he suddenly threw a dozen more such attacks.

Varian watched in utter silence as every attack was effortlessly nullified by formations at the street level.

Aion was not holding back when throwing these attacks but he couldn't even trigger the district formations to respond!

A few minutes after the attacks passed, Varian exhaled deeply and said in confusion. "These formations are incredible but they burn a lot of aura. The smell of ash and the smoke are obvious indicators. Are you really allowed to waste so many energy resources for a demonstration?"

Aion first showed a look of surprise at Varian's deduction. But the words that followed caused him to chuckle in amusement.

With a hint of pride and arrogance, he said. "The formations you witnessed burn the least energy. We have more formations hidden underneath that cost multiple times more."

Varian tilted his head in confusion. "I didn't see any containers of aura here. A river sized liquified aura can't run even a street formation, even if it's quality is the highest. Is it aura infused with divine power?

But I didn't sense anything when the formations were triggered. At least their locations should've been percieved when t happened."

Aion shrugged and didn't give an answer.

Instead, he flicked his wrist and they appeared a little away from the city, at the entrance of the thick forest that surrounded it.

Hands behind his back, the old man strolled through the wild path. To Varian's surprise, the dense trees began to part without any intervention from the tribesman.

He secretly probed them with the power of life and even when he used the power of a rank 2, it wasn't immediately clear that these trees were unusual.

Only when he used the power of life sliver did it become apparent that these plants were modified from the source.

Glancing at the back of Aion with caution, Varian spoke in his mind.

'Samsara, scatter a few seeds here for emergency.'

(No problem~)

A few imperceptible wisps flashed away from him and scattered in the forest. If things got worse, he would be able to use the path of life to exchange himself with these seeds.

And even if his existing body got destroyed, he would be able to 'resurrect' from these seeds.

"This first plant of this forest was planted by my brother and I." Aion reminisced about the past with a smile before noticing the absentminded expression on Varian's face.

Snorting coldly, Aion flicked his wrist and they flashed through the forest, transvering a long distance. The trees thinned out and they stood in the middle of a wilderness.

"Grrr!"

"Wrrr!"

"Rrrr!"

Three wild beasts seemed to sense Varian's smell and growled from the distance, ready to pounce at him.

But when they got closer, they slammed their foot into the ground and turned to Aion. The wild beasts which were carved with esoteric runes that made them stronger than any normal species started to prostrate and howl in reverence.

Aion waved his hand and these wild beasts scrambled away.

Varian had half-expected it but it still felt ridiculous to witness it happen.

Despite being a divine ranker, Varian had to use considerable soul power to tame these wild things.

If he's still a celestial, then he wouldn't be able to enslave more than three of them. And that's him with his unconventional strength.

Normal life or soul path awakeners wouldn't even be able to control the beasts two ranks below them. Controlling a beast the same rank as theirs would remain a fantasy.

"The formations are our first line of defense, the forest also has formations which I haven't shown you and the trees of that forest. It's the second line of defense. This vast wilderness with our rune pets is the third line of defense."

Aion spoke in a casual tone, but Varian realized that this old man was still hiding a lot of information.

Of course he would hide more important information from an outsider. But the problem was that even what he revealed was too shocking.

The aura's patterns changed and Aion raised his palm as if to feel its change. "Oh, the new day is beginning. I'm looking forward to Neveah's attempt."

"I…" Varian was in a dilemma.

Historical records were clear that Neveah slaughtered Heaven tribe. And it wasn't an equal fight at all. It was a brutal massacre.

Heaven couldn't even fight back. In the high circles of Eden, the worst losers of a group, especially those who give up without fighting were called descendents of Heaven, as loser tribesmen.

But could anyone really invade a civilization like this?

Assuming Lord Eon was as strong as God Emperor, Heaven tribe alone was enough to crush the modern day Jai empire and alliance put together!

There were more than a hundred divine beasts in the wilderness! And this was a highly conservative estimate.

'Was history wrong?'

Varian began to wonder if it was all twisted. Maybe Heaven slaughtered Neveah, captured their sliver and studied their origin to evolve into the Jai race.

Maybe they didn't want to reveal the truth and were in hiding…?

[Nonsense. You have seen enough origins of the Jai race by now. You know it's false.] A soft voice said with certainty.

Recently, there were more and more things Logos didn't know. But this was one thing Logos was absolutely sure of. Varian had seen the origin of multiple Jai race powerhouses and shared the sentiment.

What's more, why would Heaven even bother to go through all the nonsense?

They could just conquer the tribes, gather the six slivers and do whatever they wanted.

'Neveah' was chased by the four tribes after they got the slivers and escaped to the Andromeda galaxy.

They had to remain passive and focus on survival for a period of time before they managed to evolve into Jai.

Bluntly put, for this period of time, they lived like rats in the gutter, running away from confrontation as much as possible.

Heaven impersonating as Neveah was less likely, but would these arrogant bastards behaving cowardly was impossible.

"Ah?" Aion raised his head, as if he recieved a message.

Varian didn't sense any soul fluctuations or for that matter any fluctuations related to divine paths.

'They're using Origin to communicate.'

"Let's go. Neveah are about to enter. We'll watch the show from my lab."

Humming a tune, Aion turned around.

Varian's heart halted for a moment before he drew in a deep breath and clenched his fists.

Rationality told him to believe what he witnessed. There's no way Heaven tribe could go to extinction.

But intuition told him to believe in fate.

Primordial Gods themselves died in the most inexplicable way, so what if Heaven tribe was so advanced?

'If they had to die, they would die.'

Varian didn't know why he suddenly thought of such a sentence but it somehow fit. If fate dictated, it didn't matter if it's Neveah or Heaven.

And now, one of them was going to die.

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