Divine Path System

"God Emperor, Lord Emperor!"

The cry of an old man rang in a dark corner as he dragged his upper torso away from his blasted, bloodied legs.

As he moved, the bleeding barely stopped thanks to the special characteristics of his race.

But as his broken undersides pressed against the road, it stung as the gravel stung his flesh, the small stones piercing into his flesh and splashing his blood.

"No, no!"

As he moved out of the dark alley, the pungent smell of garbage, rotting food and decaying chemicals was absent.

Living here for a hundred years, he wished the rancid smell to vanish many times. It did not happen for a single day through the century.

But today that smell was gone. Replacing it was a mild rotting smell of flesh, the stinging smell of blood and the nauseating scent of feces.

With great effort, the old man hauled himself out of the alley, onto the street.

The bright, wide, brilliant street that always bustled with people even at the darkest hour was now deathly silent.

The crystal clean roads which never had a piece of trash were now littered with bloodied limbs, splintered bones and scattered organs.

The serene blue and green themes of the road were tained by the yellow, ash and red blood.

"W-Why?"

Tears flowed out of his eyes, dropping down on a tiny hand torn away from its arm.

The hand still squirmed.

With hopes crushed and resignation overtaking his spirit, the old man looked up at the sky.

Patches of gold and blue flickered, the remnants of a broken dome barrier that was supposed to protect the city.

Large ships built of carpaces, mostly beast but including humaoids, flew above the city, scanning every street for survivors.

The old man's eyes trembled as a ship paused a few miles away and then a smaller ship took off from it.

For a brief moment, his eyes wandered around, looking at the destroyed road, the broken buildings and the broken organs.

"W-What?" His eyes went wide. "There are no corpses."

The ship flashed foward, hovering a few meters away from him. With a rough sound, the door opened and two people jumped onto the street.

"No!" The old man's eyes paled as a woman with a sickly pale face stepped forward, eyes locked onto him.

There was a hole in her abdomen, the flesh inside visible, squirming.

"Join us." She stretched her hand to him.

He flinched at her touch. Soft, cold and dead.

"There will be no more pain, no more fear, no more despair." Her lips curled into a smile. "The suffering of life will end."

The old man wriggled back and the smile on her face vanished.

"Why?" Her voice was cold. "Would you rather die?"

"I…" The old man's heart nearly stopped but a stone dug into his flesh and the pain jolted him to his senses. His face contorted in rage and grief. "I will always chose death over becoming a disgusting thing like yo—arghhh!"

A beam of light fell from the sky and the old man's eyes dimmed.

Then, a silver light emerged out of his eyes, turning into a sphere. The silver sphere flew up to the largest ship over the city. And with it were thousands upon thousands of spheres.

They passed through the tight security of the vessel and entered the grand room at the center, falling into a blue fire.

Screams rang out as the fire burned the souls and gave them pain that went beyond anything a living could experience.

The old man's soul quickly went insane from the pain but the fire healed him back and then started torturing him again.

Like the millions with him, he entered a period of eternal torment.

"When do these arrogant living learn?" A sigh sounded from the part of the room where the glow of the blue fire couldn't reach.

On his black throne, Hades listened to the symphony of the screams, the torture of the arrogant living who looked down on the Undead.

'I used to be like them too.'

Once the contract with Yami vanished, Hades was able to properly think again. And the memories of his living times appeared in his mind as if they never vanished.

"Ahh!"

A groan sounded from the side.

Hades turned to the floatinng pregnant woman beside him. She was a living being but the child inside her was corrupted by death.

As a living being, he was a scientist who embarked on divine paths to learn about the truth of the world, of life and death. He too hated Undead like many of his colleagues.

They were an…imperfection in the perfect creation. A blotch that must be removed from the canvas of cosmos.

"Arghhh, please! Please save my baby!" The pleas of the woman were mustered with the last of her strength as the crimson red power corrupted her womb.

Hades turned to her, his gaze heavy. "If your baby succeeds, it'll save many lives. Lives of the living."

"P-Plea…" The woman didn't seem to pay heed to his words or maybe she couldn't even hear what he was saying.

The pain engulfing her body as the power of death and soul manipulated the unborn was enough to break most warriors.

It was a testament to the resilience of this woman. She managed so far, unlike the sixty thousand women who died.

Hades looked at her with genuine hope. Even though he's essentially a different person from who he was a living, the ideals and ideas impressed him.

If his living self wanted the questions for the sake of curiosity, he wanted it to calm the unrest in his mind.

The purpose of Undead. Why, despite being the complete opposite to all living, were they just treated as one of the many.

Why did even the primordial tribe who they descended from were people who had the powers of death without being dead themselves?

Why did nothing ever great was achieved by the Undead? The God Emperor was a living being. Keman was a living being.

Unlike him and his predecessors who primarily relied on devouring billions of dead to make strides in rank 2, they achieved that power by themselves.

No matter how genius, no matter how brilliant, an Undead never achieved anything that would go down in history as unique.

Why?

"Your baby…" Hades whispered, his pale, cold hand gently caressing the taunt skin of the woman's belly. "Might give all the answers I seek. And become a living evidence against the false accusations they mock us with."

The woman continued to plead, her voice lowering with each word uttered as the vitality in her began to crumble. The baby was about to be born.

"Yes." Hades leaned forward, eyes glowing.

A weak cry sounded from the woman and her faint breath died out. A red light glowed and the infant emerged out of her.

It was not a living thing. But it was not an Undead either.

Its soul broke and it died. The kind of death that made it impossible to turn the infant into an Undead, even for Hades.

"I see." Hades' eyes dimmed and turned dark.

With a flash, the bodies of the woman and her child were thrown out of the ship, into the dump yard ship behind.

They would quickly process the unusable corpses and use them in the construction of the ships, using them as objects of glory.

"It is as I suspected. Life is incompatible with the Undead. The two should not exist."

Neveah conquered Heaven.

Space expanded recklessly while Time flowed in just one direction.

Sera massacred Ares.

Order reigns in civilization, life and governing all celestial phenomena while Chaos was thrown to the wildnerness beyond.

Ativ and Vita, Life and Death.

"Coexisting was not a hallmark of our uniqueness, it was a mistake." Hades appeared in a stretch of dark space.

Ocassionally, flahes of red would light in the distant regions would flicker, as if there were red stars.

His perception expanded, covering countles star systems, their planets, the floating cities and independent realms.

The Jai Empire was being conquered, planet by planet, life by life.

In his mind's map, the glowing Jai Empire spanning across the Andromeda was distorted.

The blue map was now tained red of Mors or black of Nexus and the smaller green portions of Genesis.

All the three colors were inching toward the glowing silver center.

Under the invasion led by rank 2s, the Jai Empire crumbled faster than anyone expected.

There were no rank 2s at all! Not even the ones who were supposed to fake their death for emergencies.

So this wasn't even a war. Against the wrath of rank 2s, all resistence crumbled.

The only reason Hades didn't attack the capital yet was to conduct his experiments.

Neither Ophion and certainly not Asherah dared to cross him.

He was already the strongest of the three and with so much death, his strength only surged.

"Silver City." Hades focused on the the piece of silver at the jaws of red. It seemed to be the final resistance against the invaders.

Hades clenched his fist and a sea of red rose, ready to drown the piece of silver.

"This empire will fall."

God Emperor was dead. The Jai Empire would fall with him.

"And with the secrets he left behind," The corner of Hades' lips curled up and he turned back.

The milkway galaxy was now a confederation but broadly, it's still the same three empires ruling over it.

Hades stretched one hand toward the Jai Empire and the other hand towards the Alliance.

In his mind, both the galaxies glowed red.