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Chapter 227: Empathy
🕑 Added 2025-03-13 15:09:05 +0000 UTCAeons do not have empathy towards the living beings.
It was a case proven by time. Every single ‘major’ war involving several Aeons affected millions, if not billions of living beings. They do not even view them as cold numbers, but rather, an ant that could be crushed to death accidentally.
So long as they achieved their ‘goals’, everything else was fine. Such was the case now.
The Cloudpeer Telescope attracted a nearby ‘Lux Arrow’, a “phenomenon” caused by Hunt. Its function was to destroy every single thing lying on its path—friends and foe apart.
Even if the Abundance were dealt with, Xianzhou could not prevent the arrows’ descent. Once it was signaled, there was no turning back.
“It is like an autonomous attack. Becoming an Aeon meant throwing away empathy…”
Aleph’s eyes flickered with black lights. His current ‘disguised’ state allowed him to use one authority.
Out of the five, he chose [Nihility] after much deliberation. After combining with [Wandering], it allowed him to erase the concept of ‘distance’ and compress them to the size of his palm.
{Analysis. This phenomena overlaps with the extracted information from the ability [Wandering]. The gods of its origin world become influenced with the authority they possess…}
‘Interesting… [Wandering]’s true form came from the god themselves…’
What he gained from the Achievement System were either items without external influence or pure abilities.
When Metatron became an ultimate skill, coupled with Elemental Sight’s upgrade due to [Infinity], Aleph was able to gain the deepest complex information on the skill.
That was how he found out that [Wandering] originated from a god’s body. It then gave him a glimpse as to what the ‘power system’ of that world was.
‘But then… Achievement Hunter turned it into a pure skill.’
It was an absurd feat. Every single bit of a god’s body possesses complex information. For a ‘mortal’, the best outcome when interacting with an unknown god’s body is death. The rest include deformation, malignant tumors, or even complete assimilation to the said god. It was nothing short of horrors from Lovecraftian mythos.
Invalidating that part of a god’s body to be used freely by a ‘mortal’ was nothing short of superb.
Aleph paused for a moment and looked at the lines of achievement in his sight.
Unlike before, the texts’ color changed from white to gold. The translucent black background did not change, however.
‘Once I deal with this… then interacting with Xianzhou’s upper echelon…’
The achievements he would earn became a lot more meaningful after this discovery.
He looked at the approaching rainbow light from afar. The distance between them could be said to be a lot, amounting to the solar system’s entire radius (1.5 light years).
Then again, to an Aeon, the physical world was a lower dimension. Distance does not matter much.
‘It should arrive… now.’
The world was sent to a standstill. Aleph’s thought acceleration sent his thoughts to unimaginable levels. The current concepts of highest numbers could not describe it.
Hum.
The rainbow light represented the light of civilization. In his eyes, it represented the cruelty of gods.
‘Killing your believers for nothing…’
His fingertip pointed towards the dazzling rainbow light.
Ripple-!
The space turned liquid-like. A series of ripples emerged after Aleph’s act. Once the light crashed into it…
Nothing followed.
Zoom-!
Crack-!
Hum-!
Despite the sounds and aftermath it created, the light died down the moment it crashed into the ‘curtain’ he made. Nihility rendered its existence meaningless, and as such, it ceased to exist.
It did not take long before the last bit of light dissipated. It took a blink to disappear from the endless dark void. Aleph reappeared inside the ship that carried the Cloudpeer Telescope.
A series of emotional fluctuations appeared on Jingtian’s eyes. Aleph did not pry into this and proceeded to speak:
“It’s done. It’s your turn next.”
*****
Empathy is a virtue.
On Earth, it was widely used as a descriptor for being ‘humane’. Its antonym was being ‘inhumane’; the lack of empathy.
The same goes true to the explored universe outside the solar system’s imaginary barrier.
The common populace looked up at the Aeons’ majesty. The upper echelons, however, were used to their ruthlessness.
Lan, the Aeon of Hunt, was considered to be on the tamer side. Yet, even they do not hesitate to kill their believers if it meant they could kill anything related to Abundance.
“It’s over.”
Fu Xuan’s voice was filled with disbelief.
The Matrix of Prescience always sent out accurate divinations. If it could not send accurate divinations, it would simply tell them that it was impossible to be divined.
“Nihility…”
She returned hastily to the Divination Commission. She buried the grievances she felt and focused on her work. After a while, they managed to unveil the sequence of events that occurred.
Everything was going fine until the borisins stepped foot into Fanghu. The Matrix stopped responding as it could not calculate the refreshed future possibilities. It only worked again once the events had transpired.
After all, recalling the past was easier than to predict the future.
“Even the past became unreadable…”
A doubt rose in her heart. They were able to read thee general events, but when it came to the more detailed information, they could not find anything useful.
Aeons do not care about having their actions examined. Only events deemed special enough would warrant a reaction like this.
This event might qualify as one.
The army of Abundance disappeared into nothingness. Followed by it was the disappearance of Lan’s Lux Arrows. These two events kept Fanghu’s casualties to the bare minimum—as if it was being projected by someone.
“An Emanator of Nihility…”
Fu Xuan was about to call the Arbiter-General when the latter called her first.
“Your teacher returned safely.”
“...”
She did not respond immediately. The grievances she buried just now erupted again. This time, it was mixed with a sense of relief and pride.
“All the things he said about fate… yet it was proven wrong.” She muttered. “I won’t meet him now. Let him be.”
“...Alright.”
Jing Yuan did not extend the conversation.
Unconsciously, a gloating smile appeared on Fu Xuan’s face. She became a lot calmer during this time.
“If it weren’t for that person…”
The sudden appearance of an Emanator was the one who broke the impasse.
The events that transpired in Fanghu were light-years long. It caused such a big commotion that millions of people knew about it by now.
Although, the ones who knew what happened were aware that this “help” might be marked with a hidden price.
“Teacher should know about it.”
Thinking of her teacher who survived a certain-death calamity, she wondered how he was going to deal with it.
Little did she nor everyone knew…
“This is a computer? Oh, it’s the lower version of this telescope.”
…he was dealing with someone far more dangerous than Abundance’s army.
