"Karthus, do you know your crime?"
Jovian sat high upon a glittering golden throne like a supreme god-king out of myth, looking down at Karthus, whose armies and remaining forces had all been wiped out like so many bugs, and asked the question in a deep, imposing voice.
"A crime? What crime have I committed?"
Standing at the gates of the academy, Karthus lifted his chin slightly and looked up at Jovian in the sky with those calm, utterly undisturbed eyes of his.
"Foolish. Even now, you still don't understand what you've done wrong?" Jovian looked at Karthus with something like disappointment. "I truly pity your civilization. It's tragic that the Styx Galaxy has a chief god like you."
"And you aren't even one of my people, so how would you know my civilization doesn't consider itself lucky to have a chief god like me?"
Karthus shook his head and calmly refuted him.
"Hm..."
After hearing that, Jovian frowned slightly, as if thinking something over.
"Hmph..."
Seeing Jovian go silent, Karthus's lips curled upward just a little. So what if Jovian possessed supreme power? When it came to ideals, Karthus was clearly more advanced. Even the so-called ruler of the gods couldn't just strike at the Styx civilization without a proper reason. At the very least, that would be unworthy of someone in his position.
"Prepare the Great Judgment! This bastard talks too much. The known universe does not permit anyone who can talk more than I can!"
The moment Jovian realized he wasn't going to win this on words, he immediately gave the order to prepare the Great Judgment. In an instant, blazing fire bloomed across the sky above the academy.
"You..."
Karthus stared wide-eyed at Jovian, who had apparently decided to resort to force the moment he couldn't win the argument. For the first time, a flicker of anger rose in Karthus's once perfectly steady heart.
"Karthus, there is only one crime you're guilty of, provoking me again and again."
"Everyone in the known universe who has challenged me is already dead and gone. Why are you still standing here?"
Jovian looked at Karthus and fired the question back at him.
"With your tyranny and your refusal to listen to reason, all you will do is bring great terror upon the universe, wipe out every civilization in the known universe, and usher Ultimate Fear into the world!"
Karthus clenched his fists, his eyes burning with anger toward Jovian.
"Hahaha..."
"So you think you're the one bringing the universe a future?"
"You think the civilizations of the known universe can entrust their future to you? To a man who writes in a diary?"
Jovian sat high on his throne, his eyes filled with naked contempt.
"A diary? What kind of normal person keeps a diary?"
Morgana, who had been standing behind Jovian the whole time fanning him with a small folding fan, spoke with obvious disdain. She looked down on people who wrote diaries more than anyone.
"And can the stuff you write in a diary even be called your real thoughts?" Morgana shook her head. "If they're really your private thoughts, who writes them down? The things you keep buried inside are your real thoughts."
"Jovian, do you keep a diary?"
She looked at him and asked.
"I don't," Jovian answered without hesitation, then shot the question back at her. "Do you?"
"I don't either!"
Morgana shook her head. There was no way she'd ever write that crap. What would even be the point? Besides, if she ever did keep a diary, it would basically just be a blood-and-tears history of getting beaten to hell by Kayle. The title would probably be Ten Thousand Years of Getting Absolutely Destroyed by Kayle. Yeah, screw that.
"How pathetic."
Morgana and Jovian exchanged a glance, then both looked down at Karthus, their voices dripping with mockery.
"..."
Karthus was numb. He had realized it now, these two were a shameless, awful pair.
"You know nothing of true power!"
A glow flared in Karthus's eyes.
"I will show you the power of the great Void!"
The mockery from Jovian and Morgana was the last straw. It forced Karthus, who had still been wavering, to finally make up his mind. He would use the Grand Clock to bring the true Void down upon them.
"Heh..."
Jovian just laughed coldly. Seated on his throne, he looked down at Karthus as though he were watching an idiot, a circus clown making a fool of himself. What ultimate Void? As far as Jovian was concerned, there was no such thing.
"Bzzzt!"
As the Grand Clock began operating at extreme frequency, the entire academy started to tremble. The terrifying distortions in space and time were so intense that even the angels in the sky were affected.
"My king! Shall we use the Great Judgment on this blasphemer now?"
The angels, who were already strong enough to sweep through the universe, felt a sudden, instinctive unease when they saw silver ripples lighting up across Karthus's body. The stronger the angel, the more clearly she could sense the rules of the known universe convulsing and breaking apart. Leng, standing at Jovian's side, could no longer stay still. Dropping to one knee before him, she tried to obtain permission to unleash the Great Judgment on Karthus and on the entire academy, to wipe his seminary, and even the whole star system, completely clean.
"Not yet."
"I want to see what this so-called Void of his actually looks like."
Jovian didn't seem worried in the slightest. He remained seated upon his throne, calmly watching Karthus, who now held the key to the universe in his hand and was preparing to open the door between the Super Seminary universe and the outside world.
"This..."
"I understand."
Leng still wanted to say something, but when she saw the sharpness in Jovian's eyes and the absolute confidence there, the words stuck in her throat. In the end, she merely nodded lightly and stepped back to his side.
"Relax. This is nothing more than the last frenzy of a scholar."
Yan patted Leng on the shoulder. She felt that same unease herself, but her faith in Jovian was absolute. So no matter how unsettled she felt inside, she maintained her composure and elegance, standing quietly beside the man she adored and watching the disaster unfold.
"I understand..."
Leng nodded lightly to show that she did.
"Arrogance and conceit, that is the greatest flaw of you angels!"
Karthus shouted his condemnation at them.
"Heh..."
"So, are you done raving? Ready to accept my judgment now?"
Jovian curled his lips upward and looked at Karthus with contempt.
"Judge me? Nothing in the known universe has the right to judge me!"
"Open your eyes and look well! The birth of the great Void!"
"This is true Ultimate Fear!"
The silver light covering Karthus's body suddenly surged to its peak. He shone like a giant polished silver bar.
At the very instant the light on his body reached its limit, endless radiance burst outward from Karthus and spread across the entire universe.
A massive door suddenly opened in the sky.
"This is bad! Unleash the Great Judgment!"
In that instant, the angels all instinctively prepared to fire.
But...
"Too late! It's all too late!"
Karthus roared, and in the next moment, time across the entire universe seemed to stop.
The angels, and even Jovian high above on his throne, all seemed to have had their time stolen...
No, not stolen by Karthus.
It had been frozen by the Grand Clock.
"Heh..."
Looking at all things suspended in stillness, Karthus let out a cold laugh and continued manipulating the Grand Clock.
"Open!"
He raised both hands high and shouted.
At the sound of his cry, the door leading beyond the universe, to the outside world, finally opened.
"The door is open!"
Karthus stared fixedly at it, his heart full of expectation. He wanted to know what the great beings of the Void truly looked like.
The moment the door opened, what came into view was a bald man wearing a white Grecian robe.
His body shone with blinding white light. Everywhere he stepped, the laws of the universe collapsed and were born again. There was no question about it, the bald man before Karthus was a being that had completely surpassed this universe. If he wished, restarting it, or destroying it, might be nothing more than a passing thought.
"God!"
"A Void god!"
Karthus had communicated with the bald man countless times before, but this was the first time he had seen him in the physical world. The instant Karthus laid eyes on him, he knew that this was the existence he had been chasing all along. His dream was to become something like this man, an undying, imperishable being that stood above every universe and all things.
"Strictly speaking, I am not a god."
The bald man shook his head after hearing Karthus's words. Strictly speaking, not only was he not a god, he was even the enemy of some cosmic gods.
"Then you are...?"
Karthus looked up in confusion. To insignificant beings like them, this bald man was already no different from a true god.
"I am only a Watcher who walks among the countless universes of all creation."
"I never interfere. I only observe."
The bald man calmly explained his identity. He was no deity.
"A Watcher..."
Karthus found it a little hard to understand, but if he took the word at face value, then he felt he qualified too.
He often created experimental subjects and then stood above them, calmly watching whether they survived or destroyed themselves. If that was what a Watcher was, then Karthus decided he could be a Watcher too.
"What a disgusting creature..."
What Karthus didn't know was that the seemingly kind and gentle Watcher before him was actually filled with disgust. In the Watcher's eyes, what Karthus had done was not what a Watcher should do at all. The things Karthus did were just like those damned Celestials, and they revolted him.
"Watcher, please grant me supreme wisdom!"
Karthus bowed slightly and begged the Watcher to bestow endless wisdom upon him.
"Heh..."
"I already told you, I'm only a Watcher. I do not have the power to grant you strength."
The Watcher shook his head, indicating that he could do nothing for Karthus.
"This..."
Karthus seemed disappointed. In his eyes, the Watcher was already a great god. If even the Watcher could not grant him wisdom, then who possibly could?
"Is there truly nothing I can learn from you?"
"Even the slightest bit would be enough!"
Karthus grabbed the Watcher's hand and asked in utter seriousness.
"It's not that there's nothing..."
The Watcher glanced at Karthus gripping his arm, raised a brow, then calmly shook him off.
"It's not that there's nothing. I can give you a small bit of help and let you meet someone." The Watcher casually flung Karthus's hand off his arm. "If your definition of a god is omniscient and omnipotent, then he is the one you would call a god, an all-powerful cosmic deity."
"Really?!"
Karthus was thrilled. Omniscience and omnipotence, that was the realm all life pursued, the highest state of godhood.
"Of course."
"To show your respect for god, kneel."
The Watcher nodded, then patted Karthus on the shoulder, signaling him to kneel and welcome the true god.
"At once!"
Without the slightest hesitation, Karthus dropped to one knee and waited for the descent of this great deity.
He had no idea how much time passed. He only felt that something was emerging from the door. The sky trembled, space and time let out wails of pain, and even the Spacetime Gate itself began creaking and groaning as if it might collapse under the strain at any moment.
"Bzzzt!"
When golden light shone above Karthus's head, he knew without even lifting it that the great being had arrived.
Karthus desperately wanted to raise his head and behold the full face of god, but he was afraid that doing so would offend such a being, so he did not dare.
"O great god!"
The Watcher glanced at the tense Karthus, a sly grin crossing his face, then raised his voice theatrically.
"Please guide this lost lamb and awaken him at last!"
The Watcher suddenly started hamming it up like some unbelievably devout believer praying to a supreme god.
"I understand..."
"Raise your head, my child."
"All suffering has fled with my arrival."
"You shall obtain everything you desire."
That voidlike, ethereal voice suddenly rang in Karthus's ears, echoing again and again through his mind, his soul, and his hearing.
"O great god! I..."
Karthus trembled with excitement and slowly lifted his head, his eyes already damp. He was a seeker of truth, and today, he had finally reached the end of his path.
That feeling lasted right up until the moment he raised his head and saw the face of "god."
In a matter of seconds, Karthus's emotions flipped from excitement, to devastation, to hope again, and then finally to absolute despair.
"..."
Karthus stared upward at the man seated upon the golden throne and fell completely silent.
That familiar face. Those defiant eyes. That gaudy throne. That swagger spilling out from every angle.
Yes. He had just seen this man moments ago.
The very same man who had defeated Kayle, crushed the angels, and fucked every last beautiful female angel into submission, fuck, the Angel King Jovian!
"Surprise, motherfucker!"
The great deity seated upon the golden throne, shining in radiant gold, wild and arrogant, Jovian, looked down at Karthus, who now wore the expression of a man who had just eaten three pounds of teacup-dog shit, helpless and utterly despairing, and raised the middle finger of his right hand.
"It doesn't matter anymore. The universe doesn't matter anymore."
Karthus lifted his head and looked at the sky, his eyes full of despair. None of it mattered anymore. He was sick of the whole world.
"I'm exhausted. Screw it, let the world burn."
Karthus tilted his head back slightly and gazed at the countless stars glittering in the sky. If he got another life, he only wanted to become one of those stars, something mindless, something that never had to think, something that would be born in silence and die in silence.
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