Deep beneath the Sea of the Abyss, Bexia stared at a point in the darkness. The colossal creature beneath him carried him straight into it, and in an instant, everything before his eyes changed completely.
It was a vast city, built around the Demon Lord’s palace at its center. When the great bell rang, every demon, without exception, would prostrate themselves and cry out in praise of the Demon Lord’s might.
Once, this had been the most prosperous place in the entire Abyss. But now, not a soul remained. There wasn’t a living thing in sight. It was all nothing more than an illusion of the past.
When the haze finally cleared, all that remained was an empty city, its streets lined with ruins and its roads scarred by the battles fought there. Even the once-grand palace had been reduced to rubble.
In fact, the palace was the most badly damaged place in the entire city!
Who knew how long it had been since he’d returned!
Looking at the familiar yet strange surroundings, Bexia sighed to himself.
“After you left, Master, those guys started fighting over your weapon. I wasn’t strong enough to beat them…” A soft voice sounded behind Bexia. A young girl in a black gauzy dress clutched the hem of his clothes and spoke timidly.
“It wasn’t your fault.” Bexia reached out and patted the girl on the head. Hela’s ability to transform into human form was simply a natural talent. Still, she’d grown quite a bit since then.
“But…”
“Didn’t I tell you to just hide somewhere while I was gone?”
“I…” Hela was still a child at heart, and as she spoke, she looked ready to burst into tears. Bexia’s state of mind had long since changed, but faced with such an innocent life, all he could do was keep comforting her. It took quite a while before he finally managed to soothe her.
“These are all minor problems. Once I get my original body back, everything will be restored!” Bexia said with a smile. He was very gentle with Hela. In a sense, this favored child born of the Abyss could be considered his descendant, since the Abyss itself had come into being because of him.
It was because of him that the Abyss existed as it did now!
“Come on! I can already sense where my body is!” Bexia said with a smile, striding toward the Demon Lord’s palace amid the ruins.
Bexia stopped among the palace’s broken walls and rubble. He could still make out the faint outline of some steps, along with a battered throne that was missing half of its seat.
“They took your authority and wrecked the place, too…” Hela pouted, clearly unhappy.
“Heh. I knew they wouldn’t be able to resist. I left that thing behind on purpose. How could the true authority of the Abyss be nothing more than a weapon?” Bexia smiled faintly.
The authority of the Abyss was one and the same as its power. Something like that couldn’t take physical form—unless it was a Sovereign Artifact. But his authority-bearing weapon wasn’t one. It had all been a smokescreen.
Authority had no shape or substance, and only certain beings could wield it. In the entire Abyss, besides him, the Demon Lord, only Hela, the Child of the Abyss, could wield a portion of it. Even then, her authority remained subordinate to Bexia’s. If he chose to intervene by force, he could suppress it.
Bexia slowly climbed the broken steps. As he moved forward, the shattered staircase seemed to run backward through time, rebuilding itself one step at a time as it wound upward.
The half-throne that had once sat among the ruins returned to its proper place, restored to its former imposing glory. A figure sat upon it with eyes closed. It looked exactly like Bexia did now, save for the difference in their auras.
The space around them was no longer part of the outside world. It was another, special dimension. When Bexia reached the throne, the figure seated upon it slowly rose and opened its eyes.
“You’re here.” The Bexia who had left this body behind lifted the corner of his mouth, as if greeting an old friend he hadn’t seen in ages.
“Yeah. I’m back.” Bexia nodded. The two of them stood like reflections facing each other in a mirror, utterly indistinguishable.
As they drew closer, the two bodies met like drops of water. The Bexia who had been the Demon Lord’s incarnation merged into the body Bexia now possessed. The demonic features on his body slowly faded, returning him to his original human form.
Bexia’s aura surged. The power in the Demon Lord’s body wasn’t limited to what he’d left behind when he departed. Over the years, that body had continued cultivating on its own, accumulating a terrifying amount of energy—yet it still hadn’t reached the level of a Sovereign God.
That wasn’t because it lacked energy or insight. His former self had left all that energy for him to choose how to use. After all, there was more than one path open to him.
For Bexia now, combining laws into authority was easy. But he’d always intended to work backward and derive the laws, so he didn’t choose to break through to become an Immortal God. Instead, he compressed all the energy into his body, using it to strengthen his physical form until he could reach the forbidden realm of breaking laws through sheer force.
To break laws with sheer force was to destroy them through pure power. Only power of that kind could stand against a Sovereign God’s authority. After all, that authority was built from laws. Shatter the laws within it, and the authority itself could no longer exist.
