Shen quickly reached the general area he was heading to.

To his surprise, D-ranks and even weaker Guardians tried to stop him dozens of times by blocking the corridors. He just kept running, stumbling into them and continuing unimpeded. It severely injured seven E-ranks and three D-ranks who assumed he would be gentler.

Sadly for them, he wasn't stupid enough to give the fugitives time to escape, as was these people's goal. He didn't know how fugitives managed to get into a mobile fortress but was confident it shouldn't be easy or cheap. Moving them should also pose a challenge. Still, only an idiot would get in the fortress without the means to relocate if something happened—or someone with too much confidence. Likewise, only an imbecile would pile multiple fugitives in a single place and hope they weren't found out—or that their political power would be enough to stop any investigation.

Therefore, the Guardians that Shen found guarding one of the rare corridors of a mobile fortress that had only one exit were either dumb or politically powerful. That corridor had a hundred bedrooms with closed doors. His twenty targets should be there.

102 C-ranks guarded the fugitives, 99 from 33 Battalions in a Brigade, plus the 3 Brigade-level Guardians above them. They formed an endless line in the corridors before the guarded one, with the Brigade Commander and her helpers at the far end.

They were all high elves, increasing Shen's suspicions that Long Hei had locked Samir down to keep the Queen out of it.

He smiled when he saw there were no D-ranks. At least these people were unwilling to sacrifice the weak—or self-confident that they didn't need to tire their foe with numbers. He hoped for the latter and that they weren't full of hubris.

From what he detected with his trained eyes, he would be disappointed.

"Give way," he yelled as he kept moving. They did not give way, although they should. It was just a medium offense, though, not treason. Not until he declared, "I'm deployed! Time-sensitive mission! Give way!"

As soon as he said so, the Recognition Interface flashed a warning to them; they should be getting flashing yellow notifications.

Any Guardian could already see on his name that he was deployed, but only if they looked above his head. Fortunately, the Interface would actively warn any onlooker if a Battalion Commander or higher declared their purpose aloud and the deployment was time-sensitive. Anything that dealt with capturing personnel was time-sensitive because they could try to escape.

He had timed his approach well to give them time to get out of the way.

No one did, and that made them traitors.

The system should inform them about it by turning their notifications red. But even the yellow notification would already tell them of the consequences of their actions. They were already fair game.

Shen smiled, took his spear from his ring, and swung it as soon as he reached the first C-rank while releasing his aura.

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‎ ‎

Haera Liakas sent another message to her contact in the Deployment Supervision Department. Her damn distant cousin had already been hesitant to help after the new General killed a few irrelevant people, including the Queen's son, who was just an egoistical ass and not part of the Resistance. However, after the Secret Containment Protocol was triggered, her cousin outright refused to answer her.

Haera would be there talking to him in person if she hadn't been tipped off about the C-rank coming her way. Major Anhril Farÿn charged too much for the information he sold, but it was often good, especially when paid in advance for early warnings. If he said the Exemplary Brigade Commander was coming to get her fugitives, the Commander was coming.

Still, he refused to tell what in Sharyan's tits was an Exemplary Brigade unless Haera paid more, and the Resistance's funds were limited.

Moreover, how could she justify paying so much for that information when he sometimes charged so much for so little? After getting the news of the incoming investigator, Haera had paid an astronomical price for information about the incoming Commander, but Farÿn's information amounted to: "First Lieutenant Shen is so impossibly stronger than you that it would be a waste of time to try to explain. I'll tell you more if you survive—and if you want to live, kill all non-essential personnel and hide your tracks. Now. Then, maybe, he'll not waste time on you but track other non-essential people instead." By non-essential, he meant the fugitives.

"I paid for more than that," Haera had replied. "Why is he so powerful? Does he have a domain?"

"No," Farÿn had informed before also starting to ignore her.

Haera was peak C-rank and found his words highly suspicious. Her best guess was that he had been paid to give her false information, so she would panic and do as he said. But she wouldn't be in the Close Circle if she was that stupid.

She knew of no single C-rank who could defeat all C-ranks in a Brigade unless they had a domain. Not even those old career-military fossils with supposedly high-quality secret techniques were that good. It simply made no sense.

Furthermore, she and Essaerae were at peak C-rank and had ample experience fighting together. They were the weakest of the nine Brigades, sure, but not that weak.

That said, just to be sure, she did bring all her C-ranks to tire the enemy Commander, as much as she was sure she could deal with him.

Haera frowned when the...

A human?! Really?!

Now she was sure Farÿn had lied. Earth was too young and was already blessed by how many Guardians reached D-rank in the front lines and survived until now. Wherever this C-rank had come from, he couldn't kill her. He didn't even have a mastered Law!

"Give way!" he yelled when he saw his opposition. "I'm deployed! Time-sensitive mission! Give way!" Obviously, he wanted to intimidate them instead of using his strength to go through them.

Haera snorted at the notification she got and snapped her fingers. Essaerae, by her side, yelled back at him, "We have special dispensation from the Deployment Supervision Department..."

Shen reached the first few C-ranks and released his aura while a spear appeared in his hands, already mid-swing. The three Guardians directly ahead of him only had C-tier armor, which was cut down like paper. After the spear's blade cut through their bodies, it released an invisible edge of pure and compressed Law fragments that kept traveling ahead.

Five of the C-ranks behind the first few were too slow to react, and the blade cut them without them even realizing what was happening. Another responded by using a shield and a skill. The shield broke, and his bracers cracked, but he was unscathed. His defense made half the blade disappear. The other half ceased to be when another C-rank infused his Laws in his mana, and the enemy Laws couldn't pierce through that.

"...not to get investigated by anyone below B-rank," Essaerae finished her sentence.

The enemy aura reached Haera by then. She barely felt some fear of the inevitability of defeat in the face of an impossibly strong tempest before surrounding herself with her mana and cutting it off.

She could merely ignore the feeble psychological passive effect of Shen's aura but wasn't taking any risks. Farÿn had exaggerated the human's might, but he still had some ability. Who knew if his aura was part of a larger scheme?

"Traitor!" Haera declared though it was a lie. She would need to pay a lot to get rid of the local records later and ensure her word became truth, but that was already established after she ignored the notification. At least the corpses of her people would make things easier to twist facts a little. "Kill him!"

To no one's surprise, half her subordinates immediately stepped aside. Little enough time had passed that they could pass their previous defiance of the notification as mere slowness. After witnessing Shen's ability, they decided that was the best course of action.

There were no innocents among them, but most were in it for the benefits, not because they believed in the Resistance. Even the ones that would keep fighting would insist on higher rewards later.

Haera sighed. Resisting the Queen's oppression wasn't cheap. But it was just money. As long as hope lived on, it would be worth it.

Soon, she realized hope might die that day.

Thirty C-ranks, seven with one mastered Law, used steel and magic to stop First Lieutenant Shen. Haera didn't understand what happened in any ensuing exchange. Attacks disappeared or were destroyed without rhyme or reason. People died without her ever seeing how.

The worst was an archer. One moment, there was an arrow flying Shen's way; the next moment, the arrow exploded together with the archer's head.

That made no sense! Haera had C+ agility! Shen moved with C+ agility, too, but he was using an energy she could barely feel—probably qi—and his Laws, so his agility should only be at C. It was impossible for her to fail to perceive how he was killing—

Haera growled in anger as she realized what was happening.

Damn weakling! He had no mastered Laws, but that had worked against Haera. She disregarded his Path, and he blended some weak Law of the Wind with her surroundings without her noticing, also using his aura to distract her, then used it to bend light to create an illusion about what was happening!

She had been right; his aura was part of a larger scheme.

She took her sword from the scabbard and cut the air ahead of her. Her blade cut through the Law, and she suffused her surroundings with mana. Yet, the illusion continued. He was creating it further ahead of her.

Haera got even more incensed. He was trying to sneak through her trooops with such a pathetic ability! But she wouldn't be baited into making a potential mistake. Instead of using her Path to contest against his Laws, she would refuse to play his game at all.

She ordered, "Essaerae, Law Field. Friendly fire is acceptable."

Mana came from the high elf and filled the entire corridor, closely followed by...

...a scream. Essaerae yelped and raised her hands to her head, but they never reached their goal. She fell unconscious to the ground—

No. Not unconscious.

She was dead.

Shen had used qi to force a willpower battle and crushed Essaerae's mind so swiftly and brutally that she didn't even have the chance to pull back.

Haera's eyes widened in surprise. Her emotions quickly went from a heart-wrenching sadness at the loss of her wife—while obeying Haera's command, no less!—to fear. She raised her eyes from the falling love of her life to see her murderer.

Shen lifted the veil of illusion, and Haera's fear turned into terror. There had been an illusion, but only to hide how he killed everyone, not to sneak around.

He didn't want any of them to flee out of fear.

Haera's soul trembled as she saw how he killed C-ranks with unbelievable ease. He moved around their physical and magic attacks as if they were kids swinging toy swords and blowing air from their lungs at him. Whenever his spear struck, it couldn't be stopped. He had no mastered Laws, but his Laws and stats were used in such a way that she had never even known was possible. It was so efficient that it was baffling.

It reminded her of that drow she had once investigated for the Queen, the Maiden who was so powerful yet so perfectly indoctrinated that it made Haera notice how the Queen herself forced her people to live oppressed. Haera had almost died protesting for high elven rights, but the Resistance saved her, and she joined. There, she found purpose and her sunshine.

A drow had changed her life, and now a boy who fought like a drow had come to end it.

Haera cried as she brought her Path to bear and suffused her mana with it, preparing her best attack. She might survive if she surrendered, even after harboring fugitives. There were always means as long as she wasn't dead.

But without Essaerae, what reason was there to keep going?

After she had killed Essaerae, how could she dare to keep breathing?

Her last thought and regret was that her death was so quick that she didn't even feel any pain, as she had forced Essaerae to feel in her last moment.

‎ ‎

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Shen retreated his aura after killing First Lieutenant Haera Liakas, ignoring the others who had all decided to run.

He stared at her body with fury still burning in his soul.

The more Shen considered what he had felt under the influence of Darla's Path of Honesty, the angrier he got. And the angrier he got, the stranger he found it.

Until he realized his feelings were fully about Darla's suffering.

She had known about the rules, and some secrets made sense to be kept. She had expected the consequences of her actions. In a way, she had asked for it.

Or had she?

Some secrets did not make sense. For instance, why couldn't Shen know more about talents, about the strings pulling him? And that was just one rule; he disagreed with many of them, albeit less now than when he joined the Alliance.

That was the source of Shen's ire. He was furious because that number was decreasing.

Darla's pure Path forced him to acknowledge he had never been as honorable as he thought himself to be.

Children and adults thought differently, and a different perspective changed one's beliefs. One might argue it made sense for him to change how he saw some things. Yet, Shen's beliefs had become incredibly difficult to change after he formed a True Self. If some disagreements seemed to turn into agreements, it was because he had partially disagreed with some rules on principle but not truly. He had only needed the proper justification to accept them.

Deep down, he was as bad as the people whom he intellectually knew were cruel tyrants yet liked to think of himself as a relatively good guy.

Shen hated that he was a hypocrite on a high horse. He hated that he was killing people because they were trying to prevent him from accomplishing his mission, and thus, they were traitors. He hated that he believed with everything he was that they deserved it.

Shen had broadened his Path in his last breakthrough. It now included emotions. Emotions like the deep sadness he recognized on the Brigade Commander's face. Like her resoluteness. Like her self-blame.

Shen had killed her friend, yet she blamed herself for ordering her subordinate to resist an enemy.

They were outlaws. Traitors. They deserved death. But Shen wasn't that different from them. Or from Darla—who was the same as them. He would also pay the price to uphold his beliefs if he ever had to.

The Alliance was a corrupt and imperfect organization. The military was better but also imperfect. No rule could embrace all the possibilities of the thousands of races mixed in a single multiverse-spanning empire. Yet, here he was, killing people who disobeyed because they did something the imperfect rules didn't allow.

Maybe these people were Void-sympathizers, but Shen was thinking of the larger picture. He would kill or maybe had already killed people for disrespecting rules that, ultimately, might not be that important. That he might even disagree with. He was just a cog in the machine. If one day he also didn't do what he was supposed to do, he would be discarded and replaced just as he was currently discarding these people.

Shen hated himself because he had grown to accept the need for the rotten system Liya hated so much. He hated himself because he had come to accept that monsters like the Dreamer just "happened" now and then in such a big—but needed—Alliance. He hated himself because he had become what he had sworn to destroy.

Heavens, Shen had become these people's Dreamer.

Darla's move had been only technically legal, just like the Dreamer's actions against the drow and humanity. Would Haera's friends or family members see Shen as a dog that should be put down like the one who sent him after bending the rules for her benefit?

Shen hated himself because he wasn't as noble as he thought. He hated Darla, a drow, for being as bad as the Dreamer, their True Enemy—who, like Darla, believed he was doing the right thing as he decimated entire races. Shen, too, thought he was doing the right thing by killing these C-ranks who got in the way of his mission.

Shen hated himself because he realized his ultimate goal was but a pipe dream.

At the peak of the Path of Omnipotence was a society where he dedicated what was right and wrong. Yet, the more he lived with the Limits in his True Self, the more he understood that his Omnipotence wasn't an intellectual one. It was about having the power to accomplish anything within his mental limits. It wasn't omniscience or omnipresence. In fact, it wasn't even omnipotence, but Absolute Power.

Had his Will of Omnipotence changed into Absolute Power under the effect of his True Path? Or had he just gotten to understand himself better over the years?

He didn't know, but that's who he was now.

Sure, Absolute Power was absolute. It included, for instance, the strength to pull someone from the clenches of Death itself if it resisted his will. It included forcing Reality to adapt to his wishes, turning Water into Fire and Wind into Earth. And still, it was limited by how small he was. His good intentions could do evil unless he became all-knowing.

Shen hated himself because his Absolute Power was blinded by the tininess of his ego, which was filled with hypocrisy and tyranny. But he couldn't deny it anymore. He was already becoming what he hated. Power corrupts, and unlike what he had thought before, he was no better than anyone else to resist it.

If he continued to tread his Path, it would only end in one way: he would only become another tyrant, not any better than any other in the grand scheme of things.

His beliefs could not accept that. He wasn't that much of a hypocrite. Not yet. He had seen the truth in time before he wholly accepted himself as such.

Shen hated himself.

He decided he was much worse than the people he had just killed.

He wasn't worthy of living anymore.

Were he a mere True Path Walker, that very decision would be enough to unmake his Path and kill him. He didn't merely doubt his Path; he was sure it was wrong, for it could only lead to a destination that disgusted him. The whole of his being was wrong.

But he had a True Self. It resisted even that absolute certainty. But his domain didn't.

As Shen faced the most crude and disgusting reality of his existence, his Domain of Limitless Denial, which had failed to keep him in the dark, crumbled into pieces.

Without it, his True Self started to unravel.

Without it, it was as if a veil was removed from his eyes.

The moment his Limitless Denial ceased, Shen saw all the ugliness that he represented and simply accepted some of it while rejecting other parts. His domain had blinded him to some parts of himself from the moment it had been formed, but now that it was gone, he could decide on his priorities and let go of some things while keeping others.

That, of course, only made his True Self even more unstable, as his beliefs that should be impossible to change suddenly changed—and those beliefs were so critical to his sense of self that their incompatibility with each other had caused him to seek his own death.

Maybe Shen became a better person after those changes. Maybe he became a worse person. Whatever the case, without his domain almost dividing himself, he became whole again.

He accepted himself and laughed self-mockingly as his acceptance meant he didn't want to cease his existence, after all—but it was too late.