Chapter 1070 Hunger 2
\"What he says is true. They are called differently, based on their allegiance, or other factors. In the Church, they are called Saints. No one knows how many of them there are. I can tell you a bit about their power, though. This is a common legend on the Mainland, so there won't be any trouble even if you hear it. You must already have guessed that the Mainland is a dangerous place. Every day, tens of thousands die in the struggle to grow powerful, and with its vast size, it is unsurprising if a city or two is wiped out every month, too, sending all the hundreds of thousands of people that inhabit them to their graves. The tale is about one such city and a particular race which inhabited it. They were supposed to be a peaceful folk, with a culture of subservience that had been passed down for thousands of years. Their way of life was simple - they were all made up of peaceful people who did not and could not fight. They were experts in growing food, though, so the rules passed down by their ancestors were simple: if invaders came, they would be welcomed with open arms. They would be given complete control of their people and their land, on the one condition that they would not mess with their way of life. When given such a proposition, many did not see a problem with it. After all, it was this way of life which resulted in top quality food being grown, so why would they object? Over the years, many strong individuals fought over these people, but they enjoyed a long period of peace, simply paying their dues to whoever was ruling them at the moment, and ever going out of their way to make trouble. All of this changed on one fateful day, when a particular force laid their eyes on them.\"
The very mention of this force made the other two assassins react with fear. The whiskers of the feral man went low as if they did not dare to rise when this force was mentioned, and the surface of the stone man's body became brittle as if he might break into little pieces due to how scared he felt.
Husare struggled to keep her tone level, but even she had to take a pause. After that, she looked up as if she was afraid to find something, or someone there, but after seeing that there was naught but the stormy sky, she sighed with relief and continued.
\"Let me explain our reactions. Despite the fate that befalls them in the story, that force still exists to this day, and it has the tendency of killing whoever speaks ill of it no matter where they are. So, I shall continue without speaking its name.\"
Although this was interesting, Daneel nodded impatiently as he wanted them to get to the root of the matter, and she went on after shooting another look at the sky.
\"This force has a certain specialty. They are known to possess the skill of imprisoning consciousnesses and extracting power from them in ways that are not understood by anyone on the Mainland, even to this day. Only a few details are known. There are certain criteria that they used to classify consciousnesses based on how much they can be of use, and at that time, it had just been discovered that the consciousnesses of those who were brought up in sheltered and generally peaceful conditions would be of great value to their reserves, which were constantly being depleted due to the constant warring that they were used to. Without warning, they fell upon the city as soon as this discovery was made. The ruler was killed in an instant, and in the next few days, 900,000 bodies burned. The race was thought to have gone extinct due to them… But one woman survived. No one knows how she lived. Some said that she had pretended to be dead, and when they burned her kin, she let her skin burn, while still lying motionless to make it seem as if there was no life in her, too, despite the pain. After escaping, she changed her appearance and entered a force that was the enemy of the one who had killed her people. It took her three decades to reach the Heavenly Barrier, and when she did, she was said to have crossed it with no trouble, whatsoever. The reason behind this became evident due to the first thing that she did with her power. The flames of vengeance had somehow propelled her up through the ranks of power, and over this barrier that stopped so many. Merely five seconds after her ascent, she raised her hand… And 1500 of those that you call Peak Heroes fell dead on the other side of the Mainland, hundreds of thousands of kilometers away. Along with them, over 2 million weaker individuals who were all related to the ones who had massacred her race also fell dead where they stood. In one move, she broke the force which barely managed to survive due to the few at her power level that she could not touch. That… Is the power of one who succeeds in the Ascension. And that is also exactly why Lady Alistair warned us to never, ever call you by the name that you took. If that person detects it, he will strike us down, even if he cannot sense where we are due to the distance and the natural barrier that shields this continent. We are nearing our destination. Prepare to engage in battle.\"
Daneel's mind had gone blank when he had heard of the revenge of that woman.
The first thing that struck him dumb was the unimaginable kind of power that was needed to kill so many even though so much distance separated them. Daneel could scarcely believe that it was possible, but after looking at how the jump in power between realms was always exponential, he felt that it might be, at least, close the truth,
Putting that aside, the slaughter of all those Heroes might be justified, but what about those millions of individuals who had committed no sin except perhaps being born to someone evil?
The announcement of the assassin broke him out of this line of thought, but even before that, he had recognized that he had no right to ask the question.
And why was that?
Because he was weak, and she was powerful.
As the assassins paused and began to check on their weapons, Daneel motioned to the rest of the Heroes to do the same.
However, as the system took care of the task, he felt something deep, deep in his mind that had not woken up in quite some time.
Hunger.
How would it feel to have that much power? How much good could he do if he could stand uncontested even in that place? How many people like those 2 million could he save, if he was able to stand toe to toe with that woman?
The tale had awakened the hunger for power inside him, and he did not know yet whether that was a good or a bad thing.
But as Daneel heard the message from the system that everything was in order, one thought stuck in his mind as he turned to speak to the Heroes.
This hunger… Felt good.
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Note from Author(you're not being charged for this):
Hey guys, I need your help.
For quite some time now, I've been considering something. If you remember, I promised over 20 free chapters a few weeks back. This is how I was going to make it happen.
After the war, my plan is to end WDS-1, and continue the tale in WDS-2(names are tentative). There will be no time skip- only a change in setting. We will be delving into the secrets still not touched, even after all this time, along with an exciting and exotic new land that needs a whole lot of domination :D. Think of tales with MCs who have legends behind them; the new one will be a lot like that for new readers.
The reason behind this is simple: I want to invigorate the book and take it back to the heights it dwelled in before it was brought down by my actions. I don't know if I deserve a second chance, like all of you have given me, but I do know that I plan to make use of it fully.
WDS has always been let down by my lack of writing skills in the earlier chapters. This has always stopped a lot of readers until now. The improvement, when compared to these chapters, is really clear, so the plan is to bring new readers in who don't need to read WDS-1 to follow along with the story(even though this is the case, the story so far is the bedrock of the series. It will be alluded to a lot, as this is where the characters come from).
I've been planning this for months, so there will be no issues with continuation, at all, or reasons to bring hassle to you, my loyal readers. For all of you, it'll just be as if you are getting 30-40 chapters for free before I go premium!
Also, after reading the comments, I've decided to stop splitting the chapters when the new one begins. That's the plan now, at least.
What I need from you is this: do you see any problem that might not have been visible to me? I value your perspective a lot, and as I said before, this is my main income, so I am very serious about doing right by it. I will never repeat the mistakes I made before, and before going forward, I wanted your thoughts on this.
Please let me know what you think. I will be looking forward to reading the comments. Thank you!