Martial Destiny

The village chief emerged from his tent, which stood at the center of the village, and looked around.

The scene he witnessed could only be described as utter chaos.

People were running from one side to the other, bodies lay strewn across the ground, tents were on fire, and screams echoed from all directions.

'The demons are evolving at an alarming rate...' As one of the elders of the villages that would receive the players, Zwuris had some privileged information about the demons. One of these pieces of information was how the demons' power structure worked.

It was necessary to know the type of enemy to know how to face it.

So, the kingdom's intelligence had compiled an official document that described some crucial information about the invading force.

Zwuris was shocked to discover that demons and cultivators followed a very similar power structure, one could even say they were identical in some points.

The first thing to know about these demons was that they were subdivided into 7 groups: Wrath, envy, pride, lust, gluttony, sloth, and greed.

These groups were better known as families. This way of calling started after they realized that every member of a family always had a [path] similar or identical to another member of the same family.

In addition, the document also provided information about each of the paths and their main characteristics. Considering what was happening in the village, Zwuris understood that the ranked demon that was outside belonged to the house of lust.

'All Demons are capable of manipulating human minds and hearts, but none of them do it with as much mastery as those of the house of lust. A single demon from this house has enough capacity to destroy a small town with its tricks.'

'At the same time, they have the weakest physiques of all demons. Because of this, demons from the house of lust tend to walk with demons from the house of wrath.'

'Most of the villagers are not cultivators. In fact, all the cultivators who were here have already been summoned to war.' Zwuris observed the situation calmly, contemplating the next actions with caution.

Some might find the village chief's attitude strange. With all the chaos going on, instead of showing concern, Zwuris was demonstrating an alarming calm.

It was almost as if he didn't care about any of it.

But the truth couldn't be more contrary to that.

Julius, who was no longer in battle, could feel that something was wrong.

If he had been living this same situation on the morning of the previous day, when he had just entered [The Gates], Julius probably wouldn't have been able to feel anything strange about the environment.

But after having experienced the [universal energy] acting on his own body a few times, he was beginning to feel a certain familiarity with that energy.

Obviously, it was still something quite weak, but it was already there.

So, even if he couldn't point out directly what was wrong, he could identify more or less what it was.

'Is he using a skill?' What Julius was feeling at that moment was as if the world itself was approaching Zwuris of its own will.

But, at the same time, he knew that it wasn't exactly the world itself that was doing it. But rather, something present in the world.

'Is this what the [Universal Energy] is?' For the first time, Julius was able to understand a little more about the world's power system.

Zwuris, who in addition to observing the village and noticing the places in more danger, was preparing an attack. From the moment he left the tent, Zwuris had been using his own [MANA] to manipulate the world.

"To the players who will still remain, I will give you a small free lesson on [MANA] and [Universal Energy]. The people of the capital will still delve deeper into all this information, but nothing beats practice to learn a theory."

The staff that Zwuris used to support himself was now showing another utility, a greenish glow emanated from the staff and seemed to delve into the earth.

In an invisible way, the green light entered the earth and ran through it completely throughout the entire territory of the village.

As soon as the light reached a point where an enraged person was, the light would come out of the earth and begin to circulate it.

In several places in the village, the enraged people who were causing more problems began to be covered by a greenish light.

It started at the feet, then legs, thighs, abdomen, arms, and head. As soon as the green light ran through the entire body, the green light solidified, turning all the enraged into a kind of green statue.

In a single second, all the confusion had stopped, and all the remaining players were confused about what was happening.

"What happened?"

"Who did that?"

"Does anyone here have any idea what's going on?"

"They turned into green statues? They were stopped, right?"

A single second ago, the enraged were fighting fiercely against the players, but everything changed in a single instant, causing some players to make some perplexed comments.

Zwuris managed to stop all the enraged from continuing their frenzy with a single blow, demonstrating an impressive force.

'What powerful magic!' Julius couldn't help but be amazed at the magical capacity of a path focused on this side.

It is worth mentioning that even using [MANA] like all other paths, a swordsman used the skills as an aid and not as the main focus.

Unlike other paths that used [MANA] as their primary attribute...

'I think I'm starting to understand the part of primary, secondary, and tertiary attributes.'

After immobilizing all the enraged, Zwuris continued with the speech.

"[Universal Energy], as the name itself says, is a type of energy that exists in our universe, but it goes far beyond that. Everything and anything in this universe works through [Universal Energy], all laws, constructions, and anything else you think exists out there, only works through universal energy." Zwuris continued to explain as if the magic he had just cast was nothing.

"And [MANA] is a type of energy unique to an individual. Beings born with this special type of energy are called cultivators. This unique energy has the ability to manipulate the universe itself, using the universe's own energy as fuel."

"To exemplify as much as possible. Imagine [MANA] as a furnace and [Universal Energy] as firewood. By burning the [Universal Energy] we can mold it to our liking, turning anything we want into reality."

"Now let's move on to a slightly more subjective matter. Something that is just a theory in my head yet. I cannot confirm the veracity of anything I will say next."

At that moment, Zwuris seemed to be talking to no one but himself. As if he were thinking out loud. Not caring a bit about the people around him.

It is worth mentioning that the players had already discovered who was responsible for creating those green statues, so at that moment, basically everyone present who had not become a green statue was staring at him.

"I imagine that the paths are not a way to fortify ourselves. But rather, a way that the universe found to reduce our capabilities in a way that it would be able to handle."

"...As you level up, the only thing a cultivator does is alleviate the universe's restrictions on him."

"The demonstration I gave you all is nothing more than that. The strength of someone who has fewer restrictions than all of you. Someone who has already risen from the mortal level."

At that moment, Julius was able to see the information under Zwuris' head.

[Name: Zwuris][Level: Evolved]