Damned Healer-Chapter 187: Absolutely Zero Mercy

Those two phoenixes were ethereal, but they shone in a transcendent, unmatched way. Their eyes looked like stars, locked onto Darian like they were reading everything about him.

But... it didn’t take long before he heard two light sighs coming from them.

"A missionary of Heaven’s Will, uh? Yeah... showed up at the exact right time," a female voice, totally emotionless, spoke. It clearly came from the ice phoenix. It was impossible to not notice that.

The fire one, though, stared at Darian with a hint of surprise. She could sense Niara’s origins, who was frozen on top of his head. After two seconds, she focused on him.

"Supreme good and supreme evil mixed together. Your fate... will either destroy or rebirth everything. I like you... you’re kinda like us in various different senses."

"How do you even know what I am?" Darian asked seriously, because back in that other universe, the Celestial Shadow’s will had suddenly acted super weird the moment it saw him. He figured now he’d finally get the answer to many of his questions.

"Easy," the cold voice replied Darian. "We can’t see a single thing inside your soul. It’s like there’s some distortion blocking our eyes and senses. We can only feel the two rings on your forehead, probably ’cause if those were hidden too, you’d end up having problems."

Darian’s eyes widened open in surprise due to those words. No way he could’ve guessed that. So that’s how the Celestial Shadow’s will figured him out instantly. That’s why it completely changed attitude and didn’t underestimate him like it normally would’ve with someone else.

Meru never told him anything about this... but now he remembered—she once said she wasn’t allowed to tell him anything really important, besides the technique and his goal. She was also immortal and couldn’t go against the karma of things.

He sighed, then took the chance to ask something that had always seemed weird to him. "How did a Spiritual Guardian even kill two Primordial Beasts? Is nine-ring power really that crazy? That was really shocking!"

"Nine rings? No. At best, the peak of a Spiritual Guardian could maybe survive one casual move from me when I was alive," the fire phoenix answered with an annoyed tone.

Darian nodded. He already knew from the book that phoenixes were one of the strongest types of Primordial Beasts, right below dragons. Not every universe produced phoenixes, and not every universe produced a Primordial Dragon either. But when they did, those beings were immortal... and terrifying.

Meanwhile, on Earth, he read that even nine-ring Spiritual Guardians weren’t immortal, and plenty of them had died of old age.

"What killed both of us were two things," the ice phoenix said, with painful emotion leaking into her voice. "It pains me to say that but... First... it was our arrogance and then... our stupidity..."

The fire phoenix spoke straight up. "We were twin sisters born from opposite poles at the beginning of our universe. Heaven’s Will already knew our nature, so it split the universe in half and separated us. But... we were arrogant and thought we were above this tiny place. So... we tried to jump to another universe. And not long after, we sensed a twin universe really close. We pushed a bit... and managed to connect both. We were twins, after all."

"And... as you can imagine... we met, instantly hated each other, and fought. We weren’t dumb enough to actually kill each other, though. We could tell we were sisters... just... we simply couldn’t get along," the ice phoenix added dryly. The phoenix couldn’t help but remember those events of the past and how everything unfolded.

"But... the connection between the universes also let mortals cross over. And they... naturally hated each other too. It didn’t take long before they started fighting... then killing... and then full-on war broke out."

The fire phoenix took a deep breath. "We didn’t want to kill each other... but we let the mortals slaughter each other in a competition between us... to see which one of us was better. Arrogance and Stupidity truly fits us well."

"You let them build up a dense, nasty collective karma," Darian finished for them, seeing the result already.

Both nodded, painfully.

"The Heaven’s Will stopped protecting us because of that..." the ice phoenix murmured. "So... karma had to be paid... eventually."

"You asked who killed us?" the fire phoenix continued seriously. "Two people from your universe. Your universe creates Spiritual Guardians... the ones who protect universes. But it also creates the evil that destroys universes."

"They call themselves Spiritual Sovereigns. They’re former Spiritual Guardians who transcended the nine rings... reaching another level. That power made them immortal... but to get there... they have to absorb all the Immortal Chaos Essence from universes."

"Immortal Chaos Essence?" Darian asked, confused.

"Yeah. To put it simply... it’s like the power core of a universe. Without it, a universe loses all its power. Your universe... is one without it, right? All universes that lose their Immortal Chaos Essence turn out like yours. You can imagine the consequences. Even though the universe still technically exists... 99% of all life just... stops existing."

Darian understood. There was something similar to that in the book, but it had a different name.

"Heaven’s Will only allowed those Spiritual Sovereigns to come ’cause of what we did. They can’t normally move between universes. They’re forced to use the Spiritual Guardian system to travel... through these so-called missions," the ice phoenix added.

"When we realized the damage we’d brought on our own universes... it was already too late. But... in that moment of desperation... two voices echoed in our minds... the Celestial Phoenixes."

Darian instantly knew what they meant. In every universe, tons of Primordial Beasts could be born... with countless phoenixes and dragons out there. But... there was a difference in power between them.

The book said that the most powerful Primordial Beasts ever were born right at the beginning of the world. Every one that came after... was weaker.

That’s why there were the two Celestial Phoenixes, who stood above all other phoenixes. Back in the war that decided the fate of the world—where the current Heaven’s Will won—they were there, standing by its side... though, of course, they didn’t really get along either.

"They cursed us for our stupidity and arrogance... but the Celestial sisters also explained a way to try and fix this," the fire phoenix continued, her voice filled with pain. "We had to sacrifice ourselves in battle, then use our souls and power to seal the Immortal Chaos Essence of both universes."

"Obviously, that was only temporary. It would take thousands of years for the seal to break. But the goal was to cleanse the karma of both universes. So, a few years later, we released 10% of our sealed power, in the form of two primordial seeds. That would attract the Spiritual Guardians. Heaven’s Will would help with that. And the natives... they’d be absolutely terrified. We were their protector goddesses, and we died to invaders. Now, our power was showing up again, being taken by those same invaders. They’d all unite, trying everything to keep our power here."

"They lost the first one. Then, another primordial seed popped up with 30% of our power... and they lost that too. That finally made the twin universes set aside their differences and team up against the enemy invaders. As the years passed, they started caring about one another, and the karma slowly began to shift. It just got a bit less dark, sure, but it was already enough to give them hope. So now, the final part—with 60%—will be released, fully unlocking the seal."

"This was all the plan of the Celestial sisters. They told us it had to be exactly three times. Because by that time, if a missionary hadn’t shown up, it meant Heaven’s Will had already wiped out the universe of the Spiritual Guardians and the Spiritual Sovereigns. The karma from their actions was also building up, and the peak would be now."

Darian took a deep breath.

Now he’d uncovered something insanely important. Those terrifying enemies his master warned him about—the ones even above the Celestial Shadow—they were exactly the Spiritual Sovereigns living right there in his own universe.

Their power... was beyond insane. That’s why Darian needed to evolve carefully and first learn how to beat the Celestial Shadow from that other universe. Only then would he even have a sliver of a chance to go up against the real enemies.

No doubt, those Spiritual Sovereigns were the rulers of his universe. They were the ones leading the Spiritual Guardians on different planets to help them devour the power of other universes. And doing that had stacked up a mountain of collective karma over time.

Because of that, if Darian failed to stop them and flip everything... Meru would have to step in and destroy Earth’s universe right along with them.

Karma wasn’t some joke. Heaven’s Will—whether it wanted to or not—couldn’t allow them to keep feeding on other universes.

But it could only act when the karma hit the right point. That’s why... Darian was the first option for a peaceful solution in that situation. But if that didn’t work... Heaven’s Will, the same one that had once been a cruel, bloodthirsty villain... would pay off that karma with absolutely zero mercy.