It had been three days since Ryuk had followed the Clan Leader, Doragua, into the portal, and within these three days, he had learned quite a few fascinating things.
For one, even though one could say the Aetheris Barbarians were living on the forestry planet of Manur, it was more complicated than that.
The truth was, if anyone ransacked the entirety of Manur, they still wouldn’t find any Aetheris Barbarians.
This was because they weren’t living on the planet itself, but in a different pocket of space that existed within the Manur Planet.
A different space that could only be accessed by just three Aetheris Barbarians — Elder Doragua, the brawny Aetheris Barbarian that Anteris had exchanged moves with previously, and one other person Ryuk didn’t yet know of.
Without those three, entering the true world of the Aetheris Barbarians was impossible.
It was the first time Ryuk had learned that there could be such sophistication to entering a place, that there could be a deeper reality to a world than what was revealed.
Speaking of the Aetheris Barbarians’ true world, he was currently in it, standing on the building that belonged to the Clan Leader.
It also happened to be the tallest building in town, allowing him to see almost the entire place.
The Aetheris Barbarians weren’t many, just about 5,000 or so, from what he could count.
And for one, the place did seem to share the same ecosystem as Manur.
Green grass spread everywhere the eyes could see, accompanied by chains of blue rivers that connected all over.
The houses were square, the tallest being just 70 meters high, which also happened to be the one he was currently standing.
The streets were neatly tiled, lampposts casting a soft crimson-orange glow over everything.
Gigantic beasts served as living carriages, ferrying barbarians from place to place.
Honestly, it looked like a small, peaceful village with a unique mix of cubic architecture and forestry environment, something that greatly contrasted with the Aetheris Barbarians themselves, who were so muscular and battle-hardened it was as if their home should have been a battlefield.
It wasn’t just beautiful, it was also secure.
With them living in a pocket of space and only three Aetheris Barbarians capable of granting access, outsiders, no matter how powerful, would still find it difficult to get in, even if they captured an Aetheris Barbarian.
The entire experience gave him a glimpse of how he could proceed if he ever needed to possess a world of his own in the future.
The second thing he found fascinating held more weight:
That life, certain lives, can have more value than initially perceived.
When Anteris had come back, Ryuk had seen men and women break down in tears, and he had learned why.
In the far past, the Aetheris Barbarians had met with a single foe that was unbeatable.
He had destroyed 40% of their entire population in an absolute massacre, and Anteris, the Warlord of the Aetheris Barbarian tribe, had fought with everything he had, yet lost.
In the end, when all of their deaths seemed certain, Anteris had done something every Aetheris Barbarian alive, and ever to be born, would forever remember.
He had used one last art to send away all the Aetheris Barbarians somewhere random.
The catch?
The Art exhausted him of all of his power.
He could have run and saved himself from certain demise, but in the end, he chose to sacrifice himself to let the remainder of his race survive.
A noble, selfless act, but with harsh consequences: Decades of Imprisonment.
It hit even harder for Ryuk when he remembered Anteris’s own tale, the fact that he had been the smallest among the Aetheris Barbarians.
The one who couldn’t forge because his tiny hands weren’t even able to hold the edge of the forging hammer.
In a race where worth was determined by being able to forge, how would life be for one who couldn’t even grasp the hammer, let alone carry it?
And yet, when he grew to be the strongest among them, he chose to risk his own life to ensure the survival of those who must have once looked down upon him for his difference.
It begged the question
Was it worth it?
The answer was right in front of him, the singular statue in the center of the entire settlement.
One that depicted a standing Aetheris Barbarian, his gaze raised into the air while firmly grasping two axes in both gauntleted arms.
Even after all these years, the statue remained, and now that he had returned alive to them, the joy was unprecedented.
It also gave Ryuk a reality check.
What if he had killed Anteris instead of sparing him back when they had met in the Niagara Ruin?
He had been instructed by the trial rule that only one person would leave the room alive, him or Anteris.
But Ryuk had found a loophole in the rules and sent Anteris out into a different pocket of space, his Void Rift.
But what if he had chosen to kill him instead and simply moved on to the next trial?
Anteris would have been nothing more than a blockade in his path, one removed without a second thought.
But that simple blockade was a selfless, almost foolish man who gave everything away for his race.
The hope of thousands could have been unknowingly killed, all because he had been viewed as an obstacle.
"Power..." He muttered beneath his breath, raising his palm to his face.
"It lowers the inherent value of life,"
Power makes life easy to rip away, as right now, if he so willed, he could slaughter all of the Aetheris Barbarians in this place.
This was the hard truth of power: it lowers the inherent value of life due to the ease with which it can be taken.
But sometimes, the most powerless-looking, like Anteris, can have more meaning than even the most powerful, like him.
If one loses himself to power, he or she would bring nothing but destruction to the beauty that life could hold.
His fist unconsciously clenched at the thought, his eyes regaining a deeper, almost dead calm, before a flickering white flame subtly brightened, flaring wilder within their depths.
A smile broke on Ryuk’s face.
’I’ve never thought of it like that before.’
STEP
STEP
STEP
The sound of footsteps echoed behind him, and he turned to find someone walking to him.