The Demon Against the Heavens 188 A Game of Chess

The two began to move its pieces, silently challenging each other. It was as if the clash a few minutes before had never happened.

"Even the greatest of monsters can receive help from the greatest of kings," sighed the Devil; then he rested his gaze on the table set for two a little further.

The heterochromatic eyes of the King of Madonia observed the moves of his opponent, who placed the pieces in a bored way. Noticing that Iblis' gaze had shifted, Alexander asked, pointing at the table: "Why didn't we sit there?"

At the moment, they were both sitting in mid-air, although there were chairs and a fairly large table a few meters away.

The table had been there since Helial had memory. Iblis had continued to set, cook and clear the table. He seemed to be waiting for someone. However, who could he ever wait inside his Soul?

Several times Helial had tried to imagine, wondering if the table was for Iblis and Amaterasu. But after knowing their story, he had changed his mind. From what Helial understood about Iblis, there had to be something much deeper.

Yet whenever the Devil was questioned about the presence of that object, his only answer was silence.
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Who was the second place for, assuming the first was for Iblis?

The pieces on the chessboard continued to be moved without apparent effort by both of them. But each of their moves contained an incredible depth.

It was a higher level of understanding Mana. Alexander and Iblis were infusing their knowledge into a simple duel carried out on a chessboard.

If anyone had witnessed that scene, even if he had been an Immortal, his Path of Mana would probably have benefited greatly.

Iblis ran his finger over the cup of tea in his hand and slowly stroked the edge, until it created a slow and sad melody.

At the end of the game, Alexander lost.

The King showed no signs of frustration. He simply got up and approached Iblis' young disciple, lying on the ground and still unconscious.

"More than helping you, I want to help him," said Alexander, placing his hand on Helial's forehead. "Let's leave memories aside for a while. Your master never wanted to use this technique because his Mana Path is intrinsically linked to Destiny and Karma. Using a Time Block and illusory experiences to get stronger, despite its benefits, can lead to bottlenecks very quickly. Using Illusions, the risk is changing a person's destiny. "

By imagining a person's fate as a long strip of fabric, a slow-time training could be compared to cutting a large piece of fabric and stitching the ends together. What was in the middle would probably have been lost. Rather, to be more precise, it would have been like inserting some new fabric in the middle, rather than eliminating it.

According to Iblis, such a workout could lead to a deviation in a person's fate. For example, cultivating a Skill to level up would bring benefits; but, training the same Skill in an Illusion could lead to huge losses in Experience.

Therefore, unless there was a great hurry to get stronger, Iblis would have preferred avoid using this way of training as much as possible. Helial had to make his own experiences and shape his destiny first hand, not travel on a path already beaten and too linear as those found in Illusions.

If they hadn't had such contraindications, surely they wouldn't have been called Illusions.

However real that world seemed, and however real death was within it, it was nothing but an Illusion.

Alexander recognized that Iblis' theories had revolutionized his students' training and, in fact, would create many more opportunities for his disciple's growth.

However, Iblis had overlooked one thing: a terribly powerful being, Alexander, had created that Illusion.

Helial would have lived alongside the greatest King of the Age of Chaos.

Alexander was a Soul on a par with Iblis, despite the fact that his name was now forgotten.

The young man, then, had been lied to about something. It was true that in normal Illusions time was simply slowed down. But this one was created by Alexander, one of the greatest warriors who ever existed in the universe. In fact, Alexander had spoken of a Time Block rather than an Illusion. In an Illusion the Soul would have been deceived and would have changed its perception of the real world.

Time blocking was a much deeper and more obscure technique. Time itself was blocked, not the warrior's Soul; and this had significant benefits in training. The Soul would not have been absolutely affected by the Illusion, as it should have been normally, but would have lived that experience as if it had been real.

In an Illusion, the Soul was inevitably destined to suffer. The slowing down of time influenced and distorted, even if in an infinitesimal way, the Mana Path.

Unfortunately, only beings of the calibre of Iblis and Alexander could use such a technique, where time itself was frozen. Moreover, the requirements were very strict. Obviously, they could not use the technique for themselves, but only to train warriors whose level was not too high.

It would never work on an Immortal, like Siche or Kirin. Perhaps, at best, it could have brought benefits to someone like Cesar or Aure.

However, for Helial's training, Alexander intended to go much further than a simple Time Block.

Skill Activated:

Memory Seal

The King was sealing Helial's memories. He wanted to give him a second life, where he would not be born as an oppressed boy, but as a warrior among his peers. His sword would no longer bring hesitation and resentment, but would be a messenger of pride and ferocity.

Iblis had used Helial's negative emotions to let the boy better understand Curse of the Demon, and this had given him a natural inclination for the forces of Destruction.

Alexander, on the contrary, wanted to help the Devil build incredible foundations for that young man. However, how could he really probe the mysteries of Life and Destruction by living only one life? He simply could not.

Helial needed to live a second life to understand the forces of Life, the Mana that shone vigorously on warriors led by honour and dignity. The life force that permeated every single step of Alexander's Mana Path came very close to the energy of Life.

In the Age of Chaos, there had been many different Mana Paths; Life and Destruction weren't so predominant and had not been able to create a clear rift within the universe, as had happened in the following era.

Despite all this, Alexander's Mana Path would have given Helial some Illuminations that the boy could never have received, not even living alongside Amaterasu, the Lady of Life.

"If you are wrong, you shit head, the boy would repeat your own mistakes," said Iblis. "When we make a mistake, we do not only wrong us, but also others. In life it was a lesson you learned with difficulty, since half the generals who followed you either died or were killed by you, because of anger. "

"It is dangerous to lean on those who walk in front of us, but a guide who has learned from his mistakes can avoid a lot of suffering. If you had someone who could make you understand the consequences of your actions, would you have made the same choice that forced you to exist in this form?" retorted Alexander.

A strange serenity enveloped Iblis': "I did a lot of fucked-up stuff, I won't deny it. Every now and then I think I could have avoided some massacre here and there, maybe being slightly more benevolent with some shit that I stepped on, considering all the stench that I had to carry with me. But if there is something that I will absolutely never regret, Alexander, it is what led me to live like this."

"Do you enjoy condemning yourself?" Laughed the King of the Madonis.

"You have been condemned to live like a maniac. I have accomplished martyrdom, something necessary in order not to deviate from everything I believed and felt. Even today, if I had to repeat that choice now, I would take the same path."

"So you mock me because I was abandoned by my generals and my army? But is it better than knowingly abandoning people who would follow you to the end of the world?"

While two of the universe's great monsters talked about their past and the choices that had brought them to solitude, Helial's memory were slowly descending into oblivion.

Now the boy was about to be reborn as a totally new person.

Chapter end