Hell's Handbook

Carl led Kano Mai into the inside of the shard, where they had built a gigantic palace. If ordinary humans had to build such a palace, they would have taken more than a hundred years, and it would be the largest structure on the planet. But for gods, building such a place was nothing.

Kano Mai and Carl walked in to find several people already waiting there for them. Almost none of them were gods, but every single one was extremely powerful and old. In fact, two of them actually gave Kano Mai the sfeeling Carl had. In other words, they were also survivors from the first tthe universe was destroyed.

“Letintroduce you to these two over here. Just like me, they’re survivors from the first destruction, Arutus and Phyge,” Carl said to Kano Mai.

Arutus was a black, round ball that quietly floated in the air. It was a living creature from the sera as Kano Mai and was a very unique sort of creature. Most of his body was nothingness, and he was born with the ability to travel from one universe to another. Such creatures were extremely rare.

Kano Mai thought that even if his race did not die in that first destruction, they would have gone extinct by now. She was surprised to see one of his kind here.

Phyge, on the other hand, was a large bird. If Su Jin were here, he would have been very surprised, because Phyge resembled the Chinese mythical roc. His wings had feathers, but he had scales on his abdomen. And similar to the Chinese roc, Phyge was able to travel through both air and water. Perhaps the Chinese roc was actually based on Phyge’s kind.

“O great primordial deity! I am very happy to be able to meet with you.” Arutus did not have a voice, but spoke via psychokinesis. Kano Mai could sense that Arutus’ psychokinesis was terrifyingly powerful, even among all the psychokinetic people she knew since timmemorial. Su Jin’s level of psychokinesis was a drop in the ocean compared to Arutus’.

“What terrifying levels of psychokinesis. I can’t imagine what could possibly destroy you, and you probably won’t even be afraid of the will of the universe anymore,” Kano Mai complimented Arutus sincerely. She had really never seen such tremendous power before.

“That’s right. Even if the will of the universe stood before me, I will not fear him anymore. But back then, I had becone of his gods, and from that moment onward, I had no ability to surpass the will of the universe. Any powers I had were only enough to keep myself alive,” said Arutus with a sigh. He was very powerful, but because of the choice he made back then, even though he wasn’t afraid of the power that the will of the universe had and could defend himself, he was unable to go against the will of the universe. This was a regret he kept deep within his soul.

“Given how powerful both of you are, I’m not sure if you actually need my help anymore,” said Kano Mai with a smile. She wasn’t just being polite. She was truly in awe of their strength.

Compared to Arutus, Phyge had an advantage in terms of his physique. Every muscle on his body, and even every strand on his feathers, flickered with the brilliance of a god-level creature. Kano Mai felt that this creature’s body alone was invincible.

She then turned her attention to Carl, who did not look that powerful compared to Arutus and Phyge. Carl noticed her puzzled expression and could guess what she was thinking, so he smiled and said, “Honorable primordial deity, my powers do not cfrom my body itself. I… am this shard. This shard is me!”

Kano Mai got it now. What she was seeing was only a physical body for her to see and talk to. His real body was the shard itself. Of course, it wasn’t that Carl was an astronomical object shard, but that Carl had abandoned his original body and transferred his soul to the shard. The benefits of doing that were very obvious.

With a soul, the shard beca living creature. That way, it could move around freely and hide in any universe or broken space. That made it even safer for all of them.

“Your strength is truly impressive and I wasn’t just trying to be polite just now. I really think all of you would be able to fight the will the universe head on!” said Kano Mai.

But the three of them exchanged glances and shook their heads sadly. Carl said, “Honorable primordial deity, do you know how many rooms are in this palace?”

“This place is huge… I suppose there must be at least 10,000 rooms here,” Kano Mai gave Carl a serious response even though she didn’t know why he was asking her this question.

Carl nodded and said, “Besides the large hall we are in right now which we use for meetings, the rest of the space is used to create small rooms for resting in. I have a total of 78,000 such rooms in this palace. Do you know what that means?”

Kano Mai paused to think carefully, then said, “So… you can house 78,000 people here?”

“It’s not that we can house 78,000 people here, but that we DID house 78,000 people here. 78,000 of the strongest, cleverest, and most extraordinary living creatures to have lived before the first destruction!”

“We have formidable fighters, gods of the Handbook, outstanding scholars, charismatic leaders, skilled craftsmen, creative artists, all sorts of geniuses. Every single one was the pinnacle of the countless intelligent lifeforms that once lived!” said Carl in a loud voice.

“And now?” asked Kano Mai immediately.

Carl had a bitter smile on his face as he sighed and said, “Honorable primordial deity, we are not people who are barely holding onto life. Even as the old and new cycles go on and on, we have played a very important role. Each ta new cycle comes, sof those who lived here would leave and look for a way to stop these cycles from continuing. But every person who leaves would be discovered by Hell’s Handbook, then wait for death after they are done with what they needed to do.”

“If this is a safe shelter, why don’t they try to get themselves back here?” asked Kano Mai.

Carl said gravely, “That is not possible. This place is the last safe place for everyone. If Hell’s Handbook and the will of the universe finds us, everything we’ve done will go down the drain. So, everyone who should have passed on when the last cycle ended can only leave and they are not allowed to cback. Also, whenever anybody leaves, I would move this object to a different place and make sure nobody can find it.”

Kano Mai blinked in surprise. “You mean… you guys had started fighting the will of the universe even before the first destruction? And you’ve never stopped?”

“That is correct. Also, in order to fight Hell’s Handbook, we have also created The Beginning, which makes use of stechniques that the primordial deities invented, except that we have developed them and made them better. Once we activate The Beginning, we will have a system that is no poorer than Hell’s Handbook. It can groom a large number of talents too. The Beginning… will be our temple!” said Arutus.

“A new temple?” Kano Mai was stunned.

“That’s right. In order to fight the will of the universe, I think a completely different temple of gods that is separate from Hell’s Handbook is necessary. Only the talents we groom will have the chance to surpass the will of the universe and beceven higher level beings,” said Carl.

Carl and his companions were basically doing the sthing as Su Jin, but they had been making preparations for a much longer tand used many more resources. On the surface, their chance of success seemed much higher than Su Jin’s, but Kano Mai didn’t think so.

“You guys aren’t the only ones who created The Beginning, right? I would think every creature from each of the past cycles would have helped you,” said Kano Mai.

Carl nodded and replied, “That’s right. We’ve absorbed every good thing from each past cycle. That’s how we’ve been able to becstronger.”

“That’s what it looks like on the surface, but… have you never considered the possibility that… the things you absorbed were actually left there deliberately by the will of the universe?” asked Kano Mai.