novelraw Chapter 1153 - 1152 - Great Maker
Chapter 1153 - 1152 - Great Maker
Lind slowly came to in a strange room. It was metallic walls of grays. It was covered by silks, portraits, and a view into some kind of massive garden space outside one of the walls.
Purple and gold seemed to be the color theme for the decorations. He noticed what seemed to be 2 simple short swords sheathed and hanging on one wall. They looked well used and cared for.
A sliding door separated the bedroom that looked lavish but despite the luxurious decorations and some artistic statues of strange creatures with tentacles coming out of their abdomens, it was really cramped.
There was a kitchenette area like an apartment and a door that likely led to a bathroom. It felt like a simple apartment decorated up nicely to him.
The thing that made him freeze in place as he scanned the room, however, was a desk near the kitchen. It had a compact device with a black screen and interface below it that was all too familiar to him.
A computer!
It was an honest to God computer! It looked strange but maybe he was back on Earth so things had changed!
He tried to find a door but there was only a sunken in an area that was oddly shaped for a door. It had the left side with a slanted edge up to about chest height that then reversed course till it hit the top of the depression.
The other side had several blunted teeth shaped to it but no sign of a handle or anything to open it. He did see some kind of clear slider next to it on the right side.
He also noticed a screen embedded into the wall there as well.
There was no keyboard or anything but maybe there was a tablet?
He looked around at the finer details and noticed something that seemed to strongly resonate with his mind. It was on the working desk area near the computer. There was a slot with several white crystals laying next to it.
They were not much better than his thumb but clearly meant for the slot. What kind of technology was that and why was it familiar to him? It was nothing he had ever heard of on Earth.
Yet, as he looked around the room, the feeling of familiarity began to increase. He felt like he knew the room very well but could not place it at the same time.
"Ah, this is very good. A good year for it indeed." A hearty laugh and rich cultured voice suddenly boomed in the room.
Lind whirled to find a man pouring a second drink into a crystal glass from a bottle full of golden liquid. It was literally golden, not the simple golden color of whiskey he would usually think of with alcohol.
The scent, however, was intoxication made manifest!
The man had on rather refined clothes. A sharp gray vest with white doublet shirt and dark slacks. Fine leather boots covered his feet as his pale skin stood out on his hands and face. His teeth had fangs but they were not beasts.
The thing that shocked him the most, however, as an all too familiar hair style.
A fanned out wave of dark hair stuck outward from about halfway around his skull from ear to ear. There were signs of gray and the bright eyes full of mischievous joy flashed before the real ones set in.
The eyes of the all too familiar character were replaced by something terrifying.
That was right, character. Lind knew the shape of who he was seeing but none of it was real. It was George's favorite television show as a kid!
He made him watch an entire season when a movie was being promoted once!
Lind admitted it was not as bad as he thought but not worth sitting through 4 more seasons plus some television movies!
"Who are you?" Lind tried to scan the entity mimicking the one character he really liked from that season he watched but the man only smiled at him before laughing again.
"You should enjoy yourself! Life is too boring not to grasp moments of joy like this! You should try this, it really is quite good!" The man held up the golden liquid but Lind refrained from moving much at all.
Only 1 kind of being could make a memory so real it was indistinguishable from reality. A Divine Realm.
A sneer suddenly crossed the man's face.
"Do not compare me with those squabbling children. While I understand the conclusion, I do not like being compared to ants. Best to crush them before they gain true power. Bah, to Hell with them!" The man finished his glass in one gulp and gave a satisfied gasp once it was down.
"Why recreate my memory, then?" Lind felt his instincts warned him not to push the being too far. A smile crossed his face as he poured yet another drink before walking to sit on the couch near Lind.
"Relax. Sit and join me. It has been some time since something so interesting has happened. You are a lot of interesting things in 1 package by the way!" Lind frowned at that but sat across from the man in a chair.
"What happened to Haro?" Lind held up his hand only to realize his ring was gone! He looked up to find the man laughing as he examined the black ring with the sinuous green dragon on it.
"Perfectly fine. Spirit tools are babies compared to him, but then again he is still just something I created to guide True Lords after that last idiotic cataclysm." The casual tone was more terrifying than the fact his ring had come off to Lind. The being across from him viewed Divine Realm cultivators like ants so what did he think of Immortals?!
"You really can't guard your thoughts but I am encouraged by your concern for Haro. Here you go!" With a toss of his hands, the ring suddenly appeared back on Lind's right hand as if it never left!
[Haro?] He called out but the spirit only responded with his presence and nothing else.
"He won't answer, or rather can't answer at the moment. He is asleep." The man spoke as he sipped at the drink but Lind was even more terrified now. "So, since you refuse to indulge, I think we can move on. I brought you here because Heaven and Earth are displeased."
Lind frowned at that. He tried to flex his aura to get a response but nothing happened! It was like Heaven and Earth were not there! Qi was all around him, but no sense of Heaven and Earth. A giggle came from the man as he smiled ear to ear at him.
"Oh, you are beyond worries here, my good friend. Part of why I am using a memory is to have this little chat. You see, you are an anomaly that is growing in ways no one can predict. Helping 6 elementals and other cultivators by extension was laudable. I would even say worthy of being a legend, but you have strayed very far from that path." The man stood up as he began to pace back and forth in the room.
Lind felt like he was a child caught stealing the cookies from the jar!
"I just wanted a space like the Stonelight Guild had made. I just wanted to modify it like the other things I have done. I had no objection then." The man had his hands clasped behind his back as he nodded vigorously but then Lind felt a tug from his dantian.
All 18 orbs of elemental Qi floated around the man but Lind was left feeling hollow as his meridians went stone dead! He had no Qi anymore! Even his harmony had gone!
"No one was meant to do this! The fact you succeeded is not enough to excuse it! Many brats create new pathways all the time but usually they only vary by a few details. You took it all into yourself!" As if noticing Lind's distress, a mocking sigh came from him before he whisked it all back.
Emerald Qi roared through his body but Lind no longer believed he was dreaming or hallucinating in some way. He had never felt something like that and the ease of his hosts skill was far outside any documents he had ever read.
"I made that ring. I made them all, actually. I made them to guide as I said but also to monitor. True Lords and their ilk already have a lot of leeway but combine that with your Divine Bloodline, a Progenitor, and a 6 elemental as well and it all is blown out of proportion!" The man was shouting as he raised his fists in clear frustration.
"Am I to be killed, then?" Lind knew he could not resist. It would be like a bug and a windshield. He had no chance to even understand how he died!
The man whipped his fanned head at him and for a moment, death really did loom over him before being pulled back.
"It was considered but then all hope would be lost." The man now looked very tired as he waved his hands to show another familiar thing. The Milky Way Galaxy! Lind looked confused until a familiar vile Qi began to consume it in front of him.
The once glittering stars winked out and all the worlds were dust. The scene spread across the void of space to the other galaxies until all of them were gone.
"This is a final warning to you. Stop pushing to go beyond your realm or we will be forced to truly kill you stone dead. No soul, no memory, and not anything related to you will survive. A mistake was made once and now this is the future all face. No solution has worked on it either until–" The man finally looked Lind right in the eyes and the terrifying force in those eyes was nearly enough to crush him!
"Me? But the others are–" Another mocking laugh came out of the man as he smashed the bottle into the wall in anger.
"They can fight but all cultivators can fight! None of them had done anything but delay the inevitable. You are the first being that has a glimmer of hope! We can't break the rules for you but equally, we cannot allow you to break them either." A tired sigh escaped the man as he slowly sat down at the desk and put his head in his hands.
"You will be allowed to keep the Divine Key Space but no one in the Celestial Fields can ever learn you have it. Further, you can teach NO ONE about it. This knowledge must begin and end with you. You do not understand the danger of what you have done." Lind slowly sat there and tried to grasp it.
What was so bad about making a portable space like that? They existed in fixed locations and special realms were made even by Heaven Realms. So what was so bad about his having something like that?
It was only when he realized what Fiends could do with it that terror grasped his heart. No one could detect it. It would move with him through gateways, teleportation arrays, or even just tearing through space without issue.
So long as he had the key, no Immortal formation of any grade could stop him bringing whatever or whoever he wanted with him ever again. His face went pale at the thought as he could not come up with a countermeasure for it.
He had been a fool! Why had he never contemplated the dangers of such a concept?!
A sad smile spread on the man.
"You are really clever. You sacrifice a lot and have suffered so you are being given a chance. Do not make us regret it. You will not like what comes before the end if you do." Lind wanted to make an Oath but the room vanished as he felt like he was falling before his rooms returned around him.
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"Satisfied?" The rich voice was gone and replaced with a voice that would have destroyed Lind at the first syllable. The reason a memory was chosen to interact was because Lind could not survive meeting the real being.
Small figures began to appear in the room with exquisite robes on them as the floated around the man.
"You told him more than you should! We did not agree to that!" The man scoffed before turning to the small man accusing him.
"You hold too much back from that one! He needs to understand how close to destruction he is because if he dies, we may not have enough time for someone else to be born! That thing is coming and none of us can stop it now! Only he can! Fluke or not, he is all we have! Stop using your rules to ignore the risks to us all and start helping him! At the very least, curtail these dangerous experiments he keeps doing!" The man shattered the room as a blank space now was all that remained around him.
He sneered at the tiny spirits before vanishing. He had vented his anger but he gave one last thought to the tiny Immortal he had just met. For all his power, it was galling to admit he could do nothing to a weaker foe.
By the time he could act, it would all be too late. Their only hope was in the anomaly that had been born in a backwater mortal realm. It was time the spirits of Heaven and Earth woke up to that reality or they were all doomed!