Divine Path System

It was another fine day.

Varian finished his training and reached an important milestone.

[Adept Rank 6: 4999/5000

Assimilator Rank 6: 4999/5000

Binder Rank 6: 4999/5000 (+499)

Energy Rank 6: 4999/5000 (+999)

Matter Rank 6: 4999/5000 (+999)

Space Rank 6: 4999/5000 (+999)

Time Rank 6: 4999/5000 (+999)

< Congratulations. Now is the time for you to decide your path. Even though all paths lead to same Avenues, the journey is important.

Adept —> Paragon Body / Reaper

< Paragon Body > is the pinnacle of a perfect living body. Resurrection even from a single cell. Strong enough to shatter entire star systems. Strong resistance against any and every path.

< Reaper > is also the pinnacle but of a death body. It has strong death properties, which makes it inherently dangerous to any living being. Just being in the presence of < Reaper > would cause a great deal of damage to the living.

Assimilator —> Devouring Beast / Death Giant

< Devouring Beast > is also a path towards perfect life body. However, the path taken is different. It can be shorter, more dangerous or longer, safer. It all depends on how it's walked.

< Death Giant > is what happens when an Assimilator devours its own life essence. It feeds on other to feed itself the essence of death.

Binder —> Ignis / Anima

< Ignis > turns the fire of soul into life fire, controlling life force and soul force.

< Anima > turns the fire of soul into death fire, controlling death force and soul force.

PS: Pick carefully ]

Varian let out a deep sigh and decided to take a break. The choices were already made. Now, he just had to breakthrough.

It's not easy as it sounded though. Rank 6 to Rank 7 was a jump. Not just for practical classifications but also in divine paths themselves.

Apparenty, the divine rankers and top powerhouses see the entire journey in nine steps.

Three mortal grades, three celestial grades and three divine grades.

It made a lot more sense now.

"Master, an abnormal presence is detected at the border."

"Huh?"

Varian took a step into the air and disappeared. The next moment, he appeared on the outskirts of the solar system.

A fluctuation.

Then something began to crack. It resembled the sound of iron being pressed against iron.

A creepy, monstrous and scary voice began to leak out of the tiny nail-sized space crack.

'Wh-What the fuck is that?'

Varian didn't need to look to know that his hair on the back of the neck were standing on their ends.

"Come!"

"Surrender!"

"It's your destinty!"

The voice called out, its tone growing lower and lower with each cry.

Varian's expression hardened and he stretched out his hand. Requiem materialized in his palm and it began to throb, as if it's hungry to devour the enemy.

"Come, Surre—"

"Shut up, bitch!"

Varian's sword turned into a hammer and he slammed it forward.

The space compressed before exploding. The small crack was forcibly opened up, revealing the corpse of a squid-like creature with more than a hundred eyes.

Before Varian could inspect it, his pupils moved to the right but they slowed dramatically as they did.

A shining blue dagger reached his abdomen, moving at a normal speed but somehow too fast for him to evade.

'No, it's my timeflow that's changed.'

Varian caught the silhouttee of the figure attacking him.

A humanoid creature that had was completely black. It didn't have a face to speak of. It's like someone pulled out a shadow and gave it life.

The dagger, no matter how normal it looked, contained an incredible power of time infused into it.

Thanks to his time powers, Varian knew what would happen if he's hit even once by that weapon.

'Instant Coma and I wouldn't wake up for…30 full seconds!'

In battles at this rank, that much time was enough to die a hundred times!

He didn't have a lot of experience fighting against time rankers. But they were sure as hell deadly if you couldn't guard against them.

'The only way to get out of this—'

Varian's eyes flashed purple and a thin layer formed on the dagger. It's a very unstable material, known to collapse in milliseconds. But it's incredibly well known for its time-properties.

A ting sounded.

The dagger lodged into his abdomen.

Varian felt a pulse of time power flooding his system and things went blank.

The assasin looked at Varian who 'froze' and heaved a sigh of relief. This was a task given by Zahar Onyx herself.

Even though he's just a peak rank 7, he was able to have a direct talk with someone as great as her.

'If you do this well, you might have an audience from the Princess.'

If he could meet the Princess, even if he got no reward, he could consider his life complete.

And honestly, he would get a reward. And it'd probably be something that could quickly propel him to rank 8 and even support him all the way till peak rank 8.

Despite being overtly cruel towards her enemies, the princess was very generous to the ones that won merit.

That's why he went out of his way and decided to sacrifice a very important asset of his.

Nightmare Beast.

It was something he won more than two centuries ago. A beast that specialized in space but also had racial talent in spiritual powers, it was something that was very useful as an aide in his missions.

'If you can succeed in this mission and get what you want, then I'll be happy to give up my life. Thank you.'

The Nightmare Beast was more than happy to do this. The creature was perhaps one of the most loyal species ever. So, it didn't even hesitate.

As he looked at the unconscious man he had to kidnap and take back as well as the corpse of the creature that accompanied him for so long, something inside him seemed to break.

All the excitement of the mission, rewards and glory slowly vanished.

"What did I—"

Boom!

"Arghh!"

And someone punched him in the face.