Sovereign of the Karmic System

*Clatter Clatter*

Both Der and Jerigh opened their eyes in unison, and turned to look at the dark side of the room. There, they saw a man completely tied by numerous chains to the metallic walls.

"Daniel.. It’s better if you see this.." Said Der through a wisp of sound essence.

In response to Der’s words, Daniel turned around as slowly as possible, and looked in the same direction where his friends were looking, but from where he sitting, the area appeared too dark.

Despite that, his eyes were inexplicably drawn to a specific point within the darkness.. As if he couldn’t help but look at that spot.

After a few seconds spent looking at that specific dark spot of the room, Daniel quietly stood up.. His mind was drifting away, and he couldn’t keep his thoughts stably directed at what he was focusing on before.

He then took one step towards the darkness of the room, and for a reason unknown to him, he felt the need to free whatever had been locked by these chains he had heard just seconds earlier.. But instead of following his instincts, he sat back down, and closed his eyes.

At the same time, a pair of bright green eyes opened right in the spot in the darkness in which Daniel was being drawn to. These eyes shone with a bright green color, and were clear to a point where they could only be compared to two emeralds.

"Ignore him." muttered Daniel while trying to focus back on his task. He then added ".. And don’t look at his eyes." The moment Daniel had regained the lost portion of mind which had been taken over by the owner of the green eyes, he feared that the loss of focus would have caused his control over his immortal essence to be lost, but that never happened. Despite the fact that he was being controlled into doing something, he could still feel the majority of his focus being locked into what he was doing.

To him, it felt like the entity who was trying to control him, had also recognized the importance of letting him focus on his task, and therefore, had decided to avoid pushing himself too much into Daniel’s mind.

Jerigh and Der looked at each other, and just like Daniel, they closed their eyes and entered into a meditative state. The pair of bright green eyes narrowed as they observed Daniel, then, they slowly closed as well.

In the blink of an eye, twelve days passed.

Der and Jerigh were chewing on something that they had taken out of their spatial rings. They were powerful cultivators, and could go on for months without eating, but they had decided to eat out of boredom. Twelve days spent in a dark room were more than their patience could take, and they had almost forgotten about the dangers outside of the room. Fortunately, their wait was close to come to an end.

The person that was the least affected by the wait, was Daniel. He had spent years in a cell ten times worse than this one. At least here he could change his clothes every now and then, and wasn’t forced to have meaningless conversations with Sewah, just to trick his mind off of focusing on the slow passage of time.

Ever since the prisoner had closed his eyes, he had never opened them again. Only a few rattling noises could be heard every now and then, but they would soon stop. It was clear to the three of them, that the prisoner was trying to be just as quiet as the others where.

There was no doubt that, even though this man was treated as the most dangerous of criminals, he would not be able to defend himself from these monsters while weakened by those chains.

Thanks to ’Time is Precious’, Daniel had quickly become used to separate his mind into multiple tasks, and after just a couple of days, he was able to think about other matters without too many risks. He had spent the last few days thinking of his meeting with his sister, wondering if she would have recognized him, or if she was even alive.

Of course, he hadn’t forgotten in what kind of situation he had left her in.

He had left after the news of the most important discovery in the history of that planet had become known, and even though he had escaped capture, there was no doubt that if any of those powers became aware of the fact that Daniel had a sister, she would have become their next target. If not to attempt to get Daniel’s secrets out of her, at the very least, to lure him out.

His sister wasn’t the only source of worry present in his head. Der’s daughter was also one, as well as his uncle, and his two teachers.

Whenever this matters entered his mind, he would soon put them aside, as for now, he needed to reach the planet alive. Unfortunately, it appeared that the closer he got to home, the more often these thoughts would resurface.. Turning his last day on board of the ship a hell worse than it was before.

-----

Ever since a few days before, an increasingly brighter and bigger light had appeared in the vastity of space right in front of the ship, and now, it had become a gargantuan sphere, on whose surface one could see a variety of different colors. The clear blue color of the oceans, the white color of the snow field, the yellow color of the massive deserts, and the various shades of red of the valleys and forests.

The planet was so incredibly big, that each biome was hard to distinguish, and appeared like a colored grain of sand amongst a million others.

If left going, the ship would keep going towards the planet, and ultimately, it would crash on its surface.. If even a single monster were to survive the crash, they would roam the site until they would manage to find a creature, human, or beast to infect. If that were to happen, the brightly colored, and lively world would soon come to an end.

Luckily, everything that Daniel had done so far, was to prevent this eventuality.. And now, it was finally time for the last part of his plan.

At just a few hours from the time of the crash, he allowed the spatial essence that prevented the perfect crystals to dissipate, and let them fall into them reach the engine, then, waited in silence.

After mere seconds, the perfect crystals were melted into their purest form of power. The molecules of air inside them quickly burned away, leaving only the liquid state of natural essence to generate power for the propulsors.

The propulsors weren’t loud to begin with, and from where they were, they couldn’t hear a sound. Daniel was only able to witness what was happening thanks to his control over space essence.

As the two propulsors ignited with power, the ship quickly accelerated to a speed higher than before. Keeping this speed when in space was generally deemed a bad choice, as their increased speed would also mean an increased force of impact if the ship were to hit something. Also, trying to avoid an approaching item was much more difficult at that speed.

Fortunately, Daniel did not need the ship to make any sort of rapid change in course, and instead, he simply needed it to miss the planet altogether, which was still at a fairly reasonable distance. Soon after the ship caught speed, Daniel felt it make a slow turn of about thirty degrees to its left. The remaining power of the propulsors was used to stabilize the ship to its new course.

The faces of the few hundred of people that had reached the deck became white as sheets of paper. They had hoped for the ship to land, or even crash on the planet, and use pocket dimensions to escape, but now, it appeared like the ship would miss the planet.

In theory, some of them could have been able to use their pocket dimensions now, but they were not aware of the fact that the ship’s defenses had been removed by Daniel.. And even if they knew, they wouldn’t trust the people around them with the pocket dimension in which they were in.

Their safest bet was to hide, and use their pocket dimension once inside the planet. Unfortunately, without a person that had been grown inside it, they would not be allowed to enter, and would end up having to wander around the planet in hope that another ship would arrive, or make their way to the closest planet using their own power.

While the passengers started to panic, Daniel opened a spatial portal that lead from their room to the bridge, and moments later, the middle aged woman that had just used the guiding platform to veer the ship, quickly walked through.

Daniel was about to remove the limitations on the sound sphere, when suddenly.. He heard a creepy voice come from behind him.

"I found you.." said the woman with a playful tone.

A shiver ran down the backs of Daniel and the rest, and an extremely bad feeling pervaded their minds.

The woman showed a disgusting looking smile, and at the same time, her eyes started to glow of a bright red color. Her skin soon started to split, and blood came out of the cuts in large streams.

A horrific sound of breaking bones came from chest of the woman, muffled by her flesh. Soon after, two bloody fingers came out of a cut that had appeared in between her breasts.. Then a second, and a third one.

These three fingers other hooked on the woman’s skin, and pried her already split thoracic cage open. The nauseating sound of flesh ripped apart left the three of them cringing.

Like a random sack of skin, the split body of the woman fell at the feet of the person that was inside her. This person was, of course, the red-robed young man.

The clothes of the young man, despite having just come out of the body of the middle aged woman, were surprisingly clean, and only his hands were completely died in fresh blood.

In front of the eyes of Daniel, Der, Jerigh, and the prisoner, the young man moved one of his bloody hands in front of his face, and gave a slow lick to three of his fingers, almost as if savoring the taste of the woman’s blood.

Once done, he looked at Daniel, and with a satisfied grin on his face, and eyes shining of a red brighter than ever, he said "Looks like our game of hide and seek is ov-"

His voice was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of two bright green eyes.

Not only was the voice of the young man interrupted, but also his body. He was now standing still, and looked at the green eyes of the prisoners deeply.

Soon after, the body of the young man started to tremble, and to Daniel, which had fallen under the control of the prisoner once before, it was clear what was happening. The young man was fighting for the control over his mind and body with the prisoner.

Suddenly, a croaky voice came from the prisoner.. it said "Why haven’t you run yet?.. You idiots.." This voice belonged to the prisoner.

The moment the last of the prisoner’s words landed on Daniel’s ears, he opened his palm, and made the sound sphere teleport directly on it. He then approached the struggling young man, and shoved the sphere into his layer of clothes.

After that, he created a large portal that lead to the deck of the ship inside which Der and Jerigh quickly dashed through, and that closed immediately after.

Daniel, which was still in the room with the young man and the prisoner, looked at the two with clear worry, and after muttering, "I hope this isn’t a bad idea.." he removed the protection around the sound sphere, causing waves of extremely loud sound to resound through the entire ship.

Daniel knew that, from now on, he only had instants to react. So, he turned to look at the prisoner, and dived directly on him.

Just as the body of the two touched, the two of them disappeared. When they reappeared, they were on the deck.

The two rolled on the hardwood floor for a few seconds, and once they stopped, without even standing up, Daniel shouted to the group of passengers "OFF THE SHIP! NOW!"