Chapter 1060: The First Tyrants
One particular piece of information intrigued Northern, though. Actually, several did, but this one above all others.
"You said, Sir Thalen, that the Origins must have fought a war against the Void before—which means they were likely enraged by the Chaos Prince’s attempt to contain it."
Thalen nodded slightly as he responded.
"Yes, I did. To be more precise, there had to have been a point of contact—an experience, or something far more significant that the Origins knew and the Chaos Prince did not. And it was most likely catastrophic."
Northern lowered his head for a moment, his gaze plunging into deeper thoughts.
"Then do you perhaps know why the Chaos Prince persisted nonetheless? Also, do you know his father? His mother?"
Eli was already leaning against the ship’s railing as Northern spoke. He turned and answered instead.
"His motives? I don’t know if he had any. Even if he did, they certainly didn’t show in the ruins of Alakya—the city where he inverted time and trapped them in an endless loop of suffering, making them believe the Origins were responsible while positioning himself as their savior, teaching them how to kill the very beings he’d turned them against. They certainly didn’t show when he trapped the Origin of Hope, stripped him of power, and nearly made humans themselves crush him—just to prove how useless the Origin was. The Origin of Fate was deceived and almost destroyed completely, saved only by the Origin of the Sun’s intervention."
He let out a dry laugh.
"The Chaos Prince—everything we’ve read and discovered about him—were merely the ruins of his devastation. Most of the rifts we entered were cities he had destroyed. That creature was an existence even the Origins couldn’t contain."
Northern sighed. He wasn’t surprised—he’d expected the Chaos Prince to be this devastating. But hearing it confirmed... made tension coil in his chest.
And made him truly question what the hell he was dealing with.
’Should I just turn back?’
But that was just the Chaos Prince, and thankfully, he wasn’t the one escaping. Whatever else was true, the Chaos Prince was dead.
Instead, they had to deal with his father—who had devoured his own son.
He looked at Eli.
"He was insane... Do you think his father would be far more terrifying?"
Eli looked away with a calm, distant expression, then shrugged.
"Personally, I never encountered much about his father, aside from the fact that he was one of the Mourgens."
Northern frowned slightly.
"Mourgens? I’ve never heard of them..."
Thalen glanced at Eli, then looked at Northern.
"You’ve never been to a tier VIII rift then...?"
Northern fell silent for a moment.
’That’s true... As a matter of fact, I haven’t been into nearly as many rifts as these guys. They’ve practically been doing this for decades, and I’ve only been a Drifter for what... two years?’
...Of course, he conveniently forgot that no one becomes a Drifter for two years and ends up leading Paragons into war as a Sage.
"Mourgens are a special race—some call them the first humans. But while they resemble humans, they’re not truly human. They’re not inferior, yet not quite the same either. Mourgens are exactly like humans, but they possess a certain affinity for negativity."
Thalen gestured slightly with his hands.
"A Mourgen can never be good, they say, and this was the very reason Tyranny was born. It was simply the Mourgens being Mourgens that birthed the path of tyranny—before humans and other races began walking that same path."
Northern was absorbing so much—knowledge he’d never even known existed.
Thalen smiled softly, bitterly.
"The Chaos Prince’s father was a Mourgen, or at least a half-breed."
Northern tilted his head slightly.
"You’re not certain?"
Eli’s voice cut in.
"There were only seven Mourgens—the first seven Tyrants to exist. The Chaos Prince’s father wasn’t among them, at least not according to the records. The Tyranny he ruled wasn’t depicted as part of the original seven."
"I don’t know all of them, but I’m well aware of the Tyranny of Desire, the Tyranny of Obsession, and the Tyranny of Sloth."
Eli counted them off on his fingers.
"Those are the three I’ve encountered."
Northern turned to Thalen.
He knew Thalen would know more—after all, unlike Eli, he was from the Underground.
And as expected...
"There’s the Tyranny of Ego, the Tyranny of Anger, the Tyranny of Corruption, and the Tyranny of Competition."
Northern carefully tallied the seven Tyrants in his head before Thalen added:
"Out of these seven, there’s no way the Chaos Prince’s father could have emerged from their ranks—especially not with a unique and powerful Tyranny like Madness, which is an offspring of Chaos itself."
Northern frowned slightly, making Thalen raise his brows and chuckle.
"What? You never considered it...?"
"I mean, is the ’offspring’ part supposed to be figurative? If it is, then—"
Thalen shook his head.
"Chaos literally gave birth to Madness. The child was called the Prince of Madness, but he wasn’t a Mourgen—his mother was human. The Prince of Madness must have mated with a Mourgen to conceive the Chaos Prince’s father, the Tyranny of Madness."
Northern looked down for a moment.
’This is staggering... So there was an actual family tree. And there was a Prince of Madness—Chaos’ own son. No, what’s truly shocking is that Chaos itself had a child! But if that’s true, then it’s no surprise Chaos’ great-grandson is called the Chaos Prince.’
Northern could feel countless dots connecting, yet even more questions surfaced in his mind, making it seem like he was growing more confused with each revelation.
He craved answers—every answer he could extract from them. But the Tower was hurtling forward at terrifying speed. Within mere minutes, it had already left Drywall far behind and was heading toward Fhugal. In the distance, Northern spotted a wide circular wasteland carved into the forest.
Somewhere below, he caught a glimpse of movement between the trees—something ferocious crushing through the woodland.
But it wasn’t a monster. Or rather, it was a monster, but a mechanical one. Northern watched the dark, four-wheeled creature as it rolled forward and leaped with savage speed.
The view lasted only a second—both the Tower and the mechanical beast were moving at breakneck pace.
Northern shrugged and looked away. They were so close to the Dark Continent now that he could make out the water bodies ahead.
Northern sighed and fixed his gaze forward.