Chapter 44 : When Hatred Takes Form

The World Will stood before the being known as Elden, silently recalling the reason it had gone so far.

In the end, its ambitions had never been particularly complicated. It had needed a vessel—something capable of protecting its world and its children from the calamity approaching them. If that proved impossible, then at the very least, it needed to conceal its world from the existence that had set its sights upon it, hiding it somewhere beyond the reach of its pursuer.

The World Will was powerful, but its consciousness was unlike that of most living beings. It possessed an extraordinarily dense awareness, yet that awareness was scattered throughout the vast expanse of its world. This peculiar nature made it difficult to destroy; there was no single body to strike, no central organ whose destruction would bring an immediate end to its existence. However, the same characteristic also imposed a limitation. For all its power, intervening directly in the physical world was far from easy.

It had considered the possibility of acquiring a body before. The thought had occasionally crossed its mind that having arms, legs, and a face might be wonderful, allowing it to interact with its children more directly rather than watching them from every corner of its world at once. Yet the desire had never grown strong enough to become an obsession.

It was rather like a human being suddenly imagining how magnificent it would be to possess wings. The idea was appealing in theory, and the thought of soaring through the sky might even stir a little envy toward the birds. But would that same human truly want to carry a pair of enormous wings everywhere, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week? Wings would be wonderful when flying, but rather inconvenient when trying to sleep, walk through a narrow doorway, or simply go about an ordinary day.

A body was much the same. If the World Will could choose, it would have preferred the ability to manifest one whenever it wished and disappear just as easily when it no longer needed it. It wanted the freedom of a body without the inconvenience of being bound to one.

Ultimately, however, the thought had never amounted to more than a passing fancy. The World Will had been complete in its own way, perfectly content with the existence it already possessed. It had no particular need to become something else merely for the sake of appearing more impressive.

But circumstances had changed, and necessity had finally outweighed its lack of enthusiasm.

To protect its world, it required a vessel capable of accommodating an immense will without collapsing beneath its weight. An ordinary body would never suffice. It needed an existence vast enough to contain the consciousness of an entire world, yet stable enough to allow that consciousness to act through it.

And that was when its attention had fallen upon the child named Elden.

Certain individuals were born with an unusually high degree of compatibility with the world they inhabited. Some called this good fortune, while others preferred to call it destiny. The terminology varied, but the underlying phenomenon remained the same: such individuals possessed an innate ability to influence the course of events around them, occasionally bending the world's unfolding possibilities in their favor without even realizing they were doing so.

Consider the present as Point A and the future as Point B. At first glance, it might appear that A led to B along a single, predetermined path. In reality, however, the future contained countless branches. B could develop into B1, B2, B3, or any of a thousand other possibilities, each of which could divide again into further possibilities, extending into an almost incomprehensible web of potential outcomes.

Most living beings could only travel along the paths available to them, their choices and circumstances determining which possibilities they encountered. Those favored by destiny, however, possessed a peculiar advantage. Without consciously understanding the process, they could influence which branch they ultimately followed, repeatedly finding themselves on paths that offered better opportunities for survival, growth, and eventual success.

This did not make them invincible. They could still fail, suffer, and die. Destiny was not a shield against every misfortune, nor did it guarantee that every desire would be fulfilled. It merely increased their chances of surviving the trials that would have destroyed others, while opening doors that might otherwise have remained forever closed.

For the World Will, this characteristic was far more valuable than it appeared.

By strengthening Elden's innate compatibility with the world, it could influence the course of events through him. Rather than attempting to force reality to obey its will directly, it could nurture the very quality that allowed Elden to move through the countless branches of possibility. It could guide him, assist him, and subtly direct circumstances toward the outcomes it desired, all while allowing the world itself to do much of the work.

It was an elegant solution to a problem that had once seemed insurmountable.

And now, after everything that had happened, that solution had finally reached its final stage.

The moment when the World Will would be born into flesh and blood was approaching.

It moved closer to Elden.

He remained motionless, his expression indifferent as he regarded the immense, featureless being before him. There was no resistance in his posture, no visible curiosity about what it intended to do. The countless lives he had experienced had become part of his existence, leaving him with an awareness so vast that the presence of another consciousness scarcely seemed worthy of a reaction.

The World Will looked at him, and something resembling pity and sorrow stirred within its eyes.

It was a strange sensation, considering that it had orchestrated the very circumstances that had brought him to this state. It knew what Elden had endured. It understood the cost of turning a living being into a vessel capable of containing such an overwhelming existence. Yet it still found itself looking at him with something that resembled sympathy.

Deep down, however, the World Will understood the truth.

That sorrow was hypocrisy.

Not an entirely useless hypocrisy, nor one born from a desire to deceive Elden for personal amusement, but a necessary one. The living beings of its world needed to believe that the force guiding them cared for them, that their suffering meant something, and that the hand reaching down to save them did not regard them as mere components in a greater design.

Perhaps, with enough time, the pretense might even become something genuine.

But for now, it was enough that the World Will understood why the illusion was necessary.

As it approached, its immense consciousness began to flow into Elden.

The process was gradual and deliberate. Its awareness gathered from every distant corner of the world, converging upon the empty center of Elden's existence before pouring into it, filling the vastness that his countless lives had left behind. It did not attempt to crush or overwrite what remained of him. Instead, its consciousness advanced with the steady inevitability of water filling an immeasurably deep basin.

Elden did not move.

He merely watched with the same indifference he had shown from the beginning.

Then, without warning, something changed.

Within the vast and seemingly boundless vessel of Elden's existence, the World Will sensed a disturbance.

At first, it was little more than a sensation - a faint current passing through the depths of an otherwise still ocean. Cold gusts of something inexplicable brushed against its consciousness, so alien to its own nature that it struggled to understand what it was perceiving.

Then the air grew cold.

An oppressive chill spread through the surrounding darkness, carrying with it a presence that seemed to have no place within the ordered structure of the world. The World Will shuddered.

It was not easily frightened.

Yet this sensation was different.

It was not simply the coldness of an approaching enemy, nor the instinctive unease that came from encountering something more powerful than oneself. It was a feeling of wrongness, as though something that should never have existed had begun to stir.

For a moment, silence swallowed everything.

Then came a faint rustling sound.

It emerged from somewhere among the innumerable memories and fragments of consciousness contained within Elden's existence, so subtle that the World Will might have mistaken it for an insignificant disturbance had its instincts not already been screaming at it to pay attention.

The sound grew louder.

And then, among the boundless sea of memories, a deep, heavy voice rang out like glass cracking beneath unbearable pressure.

Something was awakening.

Something frightening and dreadful.

The World Will slowly turned around. For the first time since it had begun merging its consciousness with Elden's, a trace of tension appeared upon its otherwise featureless face.

Behind it, a broken whisper echoed through the darkness.

"H... ha... hatred..."

The voice sounded like a radio struggling to receive a signal from somewhere impossibly distant, its words fractured and distorted by layers of static.

"Ha...ha.. hatred..ha... hahahaha."

The World Will trembled.

There, surrounded by coils of black smoke, stood a figure that seemed to have crawled out of an ancient curse.

It was humanoid - or, at the very least, it took on a form that suggested as much. Black smoke enveloped its body like a shroud, concealing most of its features. Through the shifting darkness, the faint outline of a tattered robe could barely be discerned, its ragged remnants hanging from a gaunt frame.

Its skin appeared dark and cracked, threaded with black shadows that seeped beneath its surface before vanishing again, making it look like a broken figure whose shattered pieces had been crudely reassembled.

Long, unkempt black hair spilled around its neck, while its eyes - deep crimson, the color of fresh blood - stared out from beneath the shadows. They burned with a profound hatred, cold and deeply rooted, merciless and unrelenting, as though everything that fell within its gaze deserved to perish simply for existing.

Its mouth was grotesquely deformed, twisted into a hideous curve that resembled a frozen expression of boundless malice far more than a smile.

Those smile were filled with madness.

Hatred.

And a chaos so profound that even the World Will could not immediately comprehend its nature.

The figure did not look like someone who had merely suffered. The darkness surrounding it felt older and more fundamental, as though hatred itself had found a shape and learned to stand upright.

The World Will knew that figure.

It had every reason to believe that it should not exist here, in this place, within the depths of Elden's vast existence.

Yet there it stood.

The Chosen One.

The apprentice of the Witch Queen.

The younger brother of Rowan Calder.

The Sky- Devouring Origin Mage

It was Elden Morven.