Chapter 477: Battle of Wills
The massive demonic body stood in the void, so huge it seemed to cover the sky.
It made no extra move. Just by looking down, it caused all the laws in the Abyss of Demon Sealing to come to a complete stop.
This was not like those worthless Heavenly Demon vanguards.
This was the true will of "Pride," the leader of the Seven Pillars of the Heavenly Demons.
Buzz-
An invisible will spread out like a giant tsunami.
It was vast beyond imagination.
There were no earth-shaking explosions.
There was no divine light tearing through the void.
This was pure suppression of will.
Before this will, all living beings were nothing but ants.
The only choice was to submit.
Anyone touched by this will would be changed in an instant. They would lose themselves and fully accept its "Pride."
Bella’s delicate body trembled violently.
Her holy and flawless Law of Light began to shake wildly. Its glow flickered, growing bright and dim again and again.
"Aiden... be careful... this will... is devouring my Inner Spirit..."
Even though she was a Supreme God, she still found it hard to resist the true will of one of the Seven Heavenly Demon Pillars on her own.
Her eyes began to lose focus, and her knees started to bend as if she were about to kneel.
The pride of a Supreme God was being crushed without mercy before the oldest form of "Pride."
Seeing this, Aiden stepped forward and stood in front of Bella.
Boom!
The overwhelming will of Pride swallowed Aiden in an instant.
[Ding! Warning! Over-limit will impact detected. "Will Anchor" is under extreme pressure. System overload in progress!]
[Ding! Core function of the 10,000x Critical Hit System is transforming-Absolute Reason Protection. Ten-thousandfold Will Guard activated!]
In Aiden’s mind, the golden anchor suddenly burst out with a blinding divine light.
Deep within his soul, countless images flashed wildly.
Modern technology on Earth.
The rise of The White City after his transmigration.
The Great Shaw Empire College Testing.
The global tournament.
And then the divine ascension tribulation...
I am Aiden.
I come from Earth.
I fight to protect humanity and to uncover the truth of this world!
At that moment, the great power of the 10,000x Critical Hit System became an unbreakable wall of will.
No matter how the will of Pride washed over him, his Inner Spirit remained as steady as a mountain.
He would always remember who he was.
He would always remember where he came from.
And he would always remember why he fought.
Golden light surged in Aiden’s double pupils. He stared hard at the enormous demonic body.
This was not a clash of Strength.
This was a battle of wills.
If he lowered his head, he would be doomed forever.
"Ant, why have you not knelt?!"
A grand and cold voice exploded inside Aiden’s mind. It carried the command of an absolute ruler that allowed no doubt.
But Aiden did not kneel.
Instead, under the terrible pressure that could crush the Inner Spirit of a Supreme God, he slowly raised his head.
He looked at the demon of Pride, whose massive body seemed to cover the sky, and took a deep breath.
The next moment, Aiden’s voice rang across the entire Abyss of Demon Sealing.
"What are you looking for?"
"Why did you wake up?"
His voice was cold and firm, cutting through the layers of the will storm.
The demonic body paused slightly.
A trace of doubt flashed in its cold, high and mighty eyes.
Aiden looked straight into those giant eyes. He spoke each word clearly, and his voice shook the void.
"I’m not here to defeat you."
"I’m here to listen to you."
Boom!
Those simple words struck the true will of the Demon of Pride like divine thunder from the highest heavens.
In that instant, the will storm across the Abyss of Demon Sealing suddenly stopped.
The enormous real body of the Demon of Pride began to tremble violently.
It stared at Aiden.
The coldness and arrogance in its eyes were replaced by a shock too deep to describe.
It could never have imagined that this human, who was nothing more than an ant in its eyes, would not only resist its will, but also ask the same question as that man from long ago.
No.
He had gone one step further.
"I’m here to listen to you."
Those words were like an invisible blade.
They pierced through the ice that had sealed it for ten thousand years and struck a certain core deep within the soul of the Demon of Pride.
The Abyss of Demon Sealing fell into a deathly silence.
There were no more destructive law storms.
No more suffocating pressure of will.
Only dead silence.
Bella froze.
She stared blankly at Aiden’s back, her beautiful eyes filled with disbelief.
This man had forced back the attack of the leader of the Seven Heavenly Demon Pillars with just one sentence?
At that moment, a frequency Aiden had never sensed before slowly spread from the true will of Pride.
It was not an attack.
It was... crying.
It was the echo of a soul that had been sealed for ten thousand years, finally heard after someone asked, "Why are you like this?"
Bella froze on the spot.
Even The Law of Light inside her body rippled violently because of that sorrowful cry.
She had never imagined that the source of "Pride," the most terrifying and untouchable power of the Abyss, could let out such a helpless sob.
[Ding! Unknown law fluctuation detected. Analyzing...]
The system’s voice sounded in Aiden’s mind.
But in the next moment, it was drowned out by an even greater flood.
The huge demonic body that covered the sky did not speak.
But in the void of the Abyss of Demon Sealing, countless Dark Laws wove together and formed real images.
They were not words.
They were pure law frequencies, like an incredibly long memory epic, crashing straight into Aiden’s mind.
The scene before Aiden’s eyes changed.
He saw Earth in the beginning.
It was an age without the Abyss, without the world being turned into game data.
The heavens and earth had just been born, and all things were beginning to grow.
Deep within Earth, a gentle yet vast will gave birth to seven Spirit fragments.
They were the earliest forms of the Seven Heavenly Demon Pillars.
They were the first thinking forms gathered from the cosmic void when Earth was born.
They had once protected Earth together with the Lord of the Primordial.
They were the Spirit guardians of this planet.
However, the rise of the ancient civilization broke that peace.
As technology and Strength expanded, the ancient humans, who did not understand the Seven Pillars at all, saw these vast wills as monsters.
In the eyes of the weak, Strength they could not understand was danger.
An existence they could not control was disaster.
Humanity gathered the ultimate weapons of their entire civilization and tried to completely destroy the Seven Pillars.
Faced with the betrayal of the very beings they had protected, and with a blow meant to wipe them out, the Seven Pillars were forced to defend themselves.
It became a disaster that swept across the entire planet.
Laws collapsed.
Continents sank.
The ancient civilization was burned to ashes in the rage caused by its own actions.
This was the truth of the "Great Destruction."
The scene shifted again.
A mighty figure appeared, wrapped in countless rays of golden light.
It was Yves, the great ancestor of the Great Shaw Empire.
He held the Key of Destiny and used the power of a Divine Emperor to tear the wills of the Seven Pillars away from the world, sealing them deep within the Abyss.
But even at the moment the seal fell, Yves had only judged them as dangerous.
He had never tried to listen.
He had never tried to understand.
The Seven Pillars waited in the darkness for ten thousand years.
What came to them were generations of Reclassers who called themselves righteous, carrying fear and killing intent as they strengthened the seal again and again.
Until today.
A young man named Aiden stood before it with a ten-thousandfold will and calmly said:
"I’m here to listen to you."
The images shattered.
Aiden’s mind returned to reality.
In the Abyss of Demon Sealing, the overwhelming pressure of Pride had already disappeared like smoke in the wind.
Bella stood frozen at the side.
Through the law waves shared by Aiden, she had also seen those images.
It was as if she had been struck by lightning.
"So... this is the real truth?"
At that moment, the faith of a Supreme God was violently shaken.
Aiden stood in the void as the golden light in his double pupils slowly faded.
He stayed silent for a long time.
At last, Aiden raised his head and looked straight at the huge demonic body.
"You are not evil."
Aiden’s voice was soft, but every word carried great weight.
"But your counterattack caused the deaths of countless people."
"Understanding you does not mean forgiving what happened. The blood of the humans who died during the Abyss invasions will not turn white just because you were wronged."
Bella’s heart suddenly tightened when she heard this.
Angering Pride at a time like this was no different from asking for death!
However, the massive demonic body that covered the sky began to shake violently again.
Rumble-
This time, it was not anger.
It was a tremor of release.
"The truth..."
An ancient, hoarse voice, no longer carrying any hostility, sounded deep within Aiden’s soul.
"For ten thousand years, I have heard countless people beg for mercy with flattery. I have also heard countless false claims of justice."
"You are the first human who has dared to say such words in front of me."
Compared with those cowards who shouted, "You are right," just to please it, Aiden’s clear and honest view made Pride think more highly of him.
The huge phantom of the Demon of Pride began to slowly shrink.
Around them, the law chains that looked like black spider webs moved aside on their own.
This was not defeat.
It was a willing step back.
"You are quite good."
The demonic body grew smaller and smaller.
In the end, it turned into a crystal as black as ink, yet faintly shining with a gentle glow.
A broken stream of will entered Aiden’s mind:
"You are not Yves, but you... are closer to the answer than he ever was..."
"The true way to deal with us was never sealing us away. It was..."
At that point, the message suddenly seemed to be cut off by some kind of rule-based Strength.
The light on the crystal quickly dimmed, and dense chains wrapped around it once more.
"...I still cannot tell you everything."
"You are not strong enough yet."
"When your Strength truly reaches Yves’s level, come to me again, human... god."
The voice vanished completely.
The true will of the Demon of Pride once again fell into deep sleep.
Inside the Abyss of Demon Sealing, dead silence returned.