"There's no time left," a tall man wearing black armor spoke to a stalwart man sitting in the middle of a corrupting cloud of sand.
The stalwart man moved his hands, and the cloud of corrupting sand parted for him. A moment later, he stepped out.
"Then, we have to go," the stalwart man said. "I hope you've said your goodbyes."
"I did," the tall man said.
The stalwart man nodded and walked past the tall man. "Bring me to it."
"Are you not going to say goodbye yourself?" the tall man asked.
"To whom?" the stalwart man asked. "Samira is happy with her life. If I return to her now, it will just bring back painful memories."
"But she's your only daughter," the tall man commented. "I'm sure that she also wants to see her father one last time."
"She really doesn't," the stalwart man said. "Her mother died alone, and the only thing she asked for was to see me one last time, but I was too busy fighting. Miriam understood what I was fighting for. Whenever we met, she said that everything's fine and that she shouldn't stop me from protecting everyone. She has sacrificed her happiness just as much as I have sacrificed mine."
"Samira doesn't see things that way, and she shouldn't. The truth is that I have abandoned them to protect everyone else. While thousands of people call me their hero, my family just sees me as an absent father. I made my choice, and she made hers."
The tall man sighed. "Very well, then. I will lead you to it."
The two men stepped out of the basement of the imperial palace and ran towards the west.
The beast would break out within a year. Sadly, they couldn't wait until then. After all, if they waited, they wouldn't be fighting a Transcending Beast anymore but something much more terrifying.
They had to fight it while it was still relatively weak and restrained.
As the two of them ran towards the west, they passed by an old man sitting on a tree stump.
The tall man ran past the old man without interacting with him. He didn't know him.
The stalwart man's eyes narrowed for a moment when he saw the old man, but in the end, he also just ran past him without saying anything.
The old man watched as they passed.
The tall man was the Imperial General. The stalwart man was the former young man.
As Kyle watched them moving toward the west, he sighed.
After unveiling the existence of the Transcending Beast and part of his power to the young man, things had deteriorated.
"Why are you not stopping it?! You have the power! You can save millions of people! Why do I have to be the one who sacrifices their happiness for the greater good?! Can't you choose somebody more talented? Why do you insist on forcing us to carry the weight of the world when lifting the world is a negligible act to you?!"
Kyle told the young man that this was just a small part of the world. This entire empire was just a training camp for Transcendents. They were supposed to face adversity and grow stronger. Sure, he could save a couple of thousand or a couple of million people, but that would come at the expense of a Transcendent.
"Are you even listening to yourself?! We are talking about millions of lives here! You're putting one individual's personal power above the lives of millions of people! That's not the right thing to do!"
When Kyle heard these words, he felt something strange. These words felt familiar.
That was when he made the connection.
The Laws of Karmic Luck.
Hadn't he essentially said the same thing about the Laws of Karmic Luck? He claimed that they were bullshit and unjust. Why would the life of one Sage be worth more than the lives of millions of people?
"I'm essentially doing the same thing as your Laws of Karmic Luck," Kyle thought as he watched the two men entering the mountain. "I am valuing one powerful person more than thousands or millions of individual lives. I am doing the same thing as you."
"Yet, we are also not the same. You chose this fight against the Cult of Final Fate. You were not their target, but you made yourself their target. You started the battle and forced us to adapt to your Laws of Karmic Luck."
"Ayuvar did not choose this war. Yours is a war of aggression, while Ayuvar just wants to survive. You implement the Laws of Karmic Luck because you want something. Ayuvar acts like this because it needs something. It's the difference between stealing an expensive jewel to become even richer and stealing an apple to survive. We are both stealing, but we're doing it for different reasons."
As Kyle fell into thought, a brutal battle broke out below the mountain.
The Imperial General and the stalwart man were trying to exhaust the Transcending Beast. The only reason they could even attempt to fight this thing was the restraints. The Transcending Beast could not move a lot, giving the two heroes a chance to retreat and regain their strength.
Sadly, the Transcending Beast also regained its strength.
Kyle sighed as he saw the two warriors becoming more desperate. They threw caution to the wind and charged at the beast.
At some point, the beast released a terrifying wave of metallic spears, which shot right at the Imperial General.
The Imperial General saw his life flashing before his eyes, and his mind went wild.
In that moment, the unsolvable riddle that had plagued him for decades was finally solved.
Everything suddenly made sense.
Powerful metal suddenly appeared in front of the Imperial General.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
However, the spears were far more powerful and broke through the metallic walls.
CRKSH!
And then, the spears punched through a body, but it wasn't the Imperial General's body.
The stalwart man stepped in front of the attack to save the Imperial General. The spears turned into pure Metal Energy, which ravaged through the stalwart man's body.
During his last moments, the stalwart man turned all of his body into a cloud of Yin-Earth, which shot towards the Transcending Beast.
The beast had to defend against the cloud, which had been created by absorbing the stalwart man's existence.
The Imperial General gritted his teeth, turned around, and fled.
The beast would still remain restrained for a couple more months, according to their calculations.
They hadn't defeated the beast during this battle, but they had essentially already won.
The Imperial General had comprehended the Law of Yang-Metal, and he could finally become a Transcendent.
As a True Transcendent, he could kill this Transcending Beast with relative ease.
Kyle watched all of this and released a shaky sigh, remembering the angry teenager from back then.
The angry teenager had become a young man. The young man had become a stalwart man, and the stalwart man had become a hero.
Kyle silently watched as the Imperial General absorbed an Energy Stone to become a Transcendent.
He broke through with ease, and with his newfound power, he finally killed the Transcending Beast.
A story of heroism, sacrifice, and triumph.
The great evil had been vanquished.
Yet, this was just one of many similar stories taking place all over Ayuvar.
"A Transcendent is born," Kyle thought. "Soon, Humanity will receive another recruit to break down the corpses of the Demons."
Kyle thought about the young man. "But it wasn't you."
Kyle sighed.
"I don't know if I should say fortunately or unfortunately."
The next moment, Kyle's body changed, and he vanished.
He focused on the terror and pain of asphyxiation for a moment.
"Barely any time has passed. A Mortal's life is too short."
"I have seen all there is to see in this life. It's time I start another one."
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