Duality of Shadows-Chapter 1023: The Crux Of Fate

[Eyes of the Past]

[Use?] [Yes/No]

The whale snorted coldly and didn’t hesitate to activate the ability. With their power now drastically increased, they could see several hours into the past without any difficulty. Immediately, they focused on the queen and observed the hours leading up to this event.

An image of the queen appeared in their minds. She was inside a large chamber filled with pulsating golden runes—exactly where all her former missionaries were.

Her three Primordial Chaos Items were positioned at the center of the room, connected by the runes, forming a structure resembling an extremely complex formation.

The queen had already fully mastered the Diagram of Life Energies, and with her absolute control over her three items, she was directly supporting the former missionaries.

Alm and Bruno’s eyes narrowed. The Eyes of the Past provided far more than just images—they could feel everything happening there as if they were physically present. They clearly sensed the unique power within the former missionaries being used—this was the power that emerged after the Heaven’s Will seed had fully bloomed.

Alm and Bruno were completely different from ordinary missionaries. But they knew a little about this because Almin also had that seed. He had fully awakened it, which had helped him obtain his divine soul in the past. However, the Heaven’s Will hadn’t connected with him or turned him into a missionary.

Over the years, Almin began noticing certain differences within himself. This subtle, unknown power gave him a far superior affinity for controlling the Heaven’s Will inside the cauldron. Once he discovered and started using this ability, his mastery over the item grew exponentially, making him the one with the greatest control over it.

The former missionaries were practically identical to Almin—with the difference that, in the past, the Heaven’s Will had connected to them. However, the queen had severed that connection.

Observing the past, Alm and Bruno felt those former missionaries connecting to the queen’s three items with her assistance. Once everything was ready, the queen conducted a test, channeling her maximum power and using a formation that seemed to provide infinite energy to the others.

What she had created... was a much weaker imitation of the Primordial Chaos Pillar, but with different capabilities.

The queen had already known in advance that the two items would try to go to a newly awakened universe, so she had prepared everything ahead of time. As soon as the two items appeared…

Alm and Bruno saw all the former missionaries roar as the formation flooded them with an absurd amount of power. At the same time, they were all engulfed in a shadowy mist of karma—a power drawn from countless lives that had been mercilessly sacrificed for them to use.

When the queen left her universe, all she did was manipulate the formation—the real work had been done by the former missionaries. They had managed to replicate what that man’s will had done inside the pearl, influencing the items to go straight to the queen and not raise their defenses when she captured them.

Everything happened in a second in the whale’s mind. When he returned to reality, his eyes gleamed with a dense killing intent.

"Bastards… on top of being traitors, they accepted massacring a dozen entire universes and still fucked everything up until the very end." The whale growled.

It wasn’t that the Heaven’s Will had chosen its missionaries poorly. Looking at the past of Mihkriel, Kaiyka, and even Almin, it was clear that it selected people who had lost a lot and carried an unshakable will to become strong.

This, in theory, could create individuals with a powerful Dao Heart—but only if they were guided properly. The problem was that the Heaven’s Will didn’t understand the fragile mind of a mortal. It was an entity with a subtle consciousness, born already possessing immense power.

After suffering through extreme chaos, all people eventually break mentally, which can lead to unpredictable consequences. That’s why losing memories upon reincarnation and starting over from scratch was almost a blessing.

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However, the Heaven’s Will had simply reincarnated them with all their memories intact and handed them everything they could ever want or imagine. These people never overcame their mental traumas, and worse—they weren’t even aware of how broken they were.

Spoiled by that absolute power, the moment they understood the despair and difficulty of defeating the queen, all it took was a little push for them to switch sides. They didn’t want to relive their past suffering or lose everything they had now.

By luck or fate, when the Heaven’s Will ran out of energy to help, it had unknowingly contributed to Alm and Bruno rising up. They had once been like all the others—mentally broken. The difference was that they had undergone terrifying training, which turned them into complete monsters.

Even without any outside help, Alm and Bruno had caused absolute chaos and destruction in their universe, becoming unbeatable. They hadn’t needed anything from anyone to reach the top. Only later had they managed to stabilize mentally, but that took time and finding the right people. The others weren’t capable of that—they were just spoiled brats who had been handed everything on a silver platter.

For that reason, in the past, Alm and Bruno had forgiven and trusted Ruri to take care of Kaiyka, and later, they hadn’t felt much anger over the problems Mihkriel had caused.

They had a clear understanding of what those two had gone through in the past. And even after becoming missionaries, they had found themselves cornered and had fallen back into despair. But with a little attention and guidance, they were now completely different people and had become great figures in their army.

As for the former missionaries siding with the queen… they had lost any chance of redemption.

Just like the few missionaries the whale had captured, he didn’t judge anyone—but he also wouldn’t lift a finger to help those who were willing to do anything to get ahead, even if it meant sacrificing countless universes.

To get all that energy, just taking lives wasn’t enough. Their souls were destroyed too. Everything they had was burned to generate more power.

Even back when Alm was a villain, he had limits. He only refined physical bodies, leaving the souls to reincarnate intact.

Only three seconds had passed, and the whale didn’t hesitate—he couldn’t hesitate.

With the help of those bastards, the queen had only captured those two items; she still had to fully master their power. But with them being taken so easily, she invaded their essence with her power, and it wouldn’t take long. Ignoring the pearl, she would soon completely dominate five Primordial Chaos Items.

That would happen in less than a day, and the mortal danger they felt came precisely from that.

Her power had multiplied too fast. The advantage they had now would vanish, and she’d grow strong enough to defeat them. Just running away until they got stronger… they doubted that would even be possible.

The whale moved quickly toward the queen’s universe region. He needed to confirm his suspicions.

In the next instant, he arrived near a massive black hole and felt spatial fluctuations covering an immense area. The fluctuations here were completely different from the rest of the underworld.

With a wave of his hand, Ruri stepped out from the inner universe. The moment she lifted her gaze, her eyes trembled.

"This... is an inter-universal formation… this should be impossible. Not even the Formation God can pull off something like this."

Stunned, Ruri voiced her thoughts, and the whale sighed before replying, "I can feel her celestial soul connecting everything, along with an almost infinite flow of the three life energies."

Ruri closed her eyes, focusing entirely, analyzing it carefully. The Formation God might surpass her in formations, but this structure used immortal-level space-time laws—something he couldn’t manipulate. Ruri, however, was an expert in this.

"All the universes… millions of them… are connected by a massive network. This is only possible with her power. But… every living being in these universes is linked as if they were the formation’s energy source," Ruri said, deeply unsettled.

"They’re not dead, just connected. If necessary, the formation will burn them all completely to defend itself. It’s nearly impossible to infiltrate without being detected… maybe if Master fragments himself down to almost no power and sneaks in, the queen won’t clearly detect him. But if he attacks head-on… none of them will survive."

The whale asked bluntly, "Can this formation be expanded?"

"Yes… Immortal-level space laws are extremely powerful within the current underworld. She’s using that to her advantage. If she has time and energy, she can keep adding universes indefinitely," Ruri answered, surprised by her own words.

The whale let out a dry snort. This confirmed everything.

The foundation of this formation was the queen’s current power. Right now, she couldn’t move freely between underworld domains, but as her power multiplied, she could connect all universes one by one at an insane speed.

Alm and Bruno could hide, get stronger, and fight in the future—after all, the number of universes was nearly incalculable. That would buy them time and chances to burn their karma. But… at the speed they were going, it would take at least a hundred million years to complete.

How many universes would the queen have conquered by then? Probably more than half of existence would be under her rule.

Right now, Alm and Bruno needed to kill her hundreds of times. And she didn’t even have 10% of that power yet. How could they possibly defeat her in the future, when she had so many resources to recover?

Besides, she’d become absurdly powerful. Even if the whale reached her level, the gap between them wouldn’t be that big, and she’d still be able to fight. Judging by the danger they felt, it was clear that killing her would be nearly impossible; they’d exhaust themselves before she ran out of energy.

Of course, after killing so many people, she’d lose a lot, and she wouldn’t recover quickly. They could use a hit-and-run strategy.

But… she had an abnormal power thanks to the various Primordial Chaos Items. With so much time to study them and strengthen herself, would she really be dumb enough to give them that chance? The queen couldn’t be underestimated in any way.

There was another option.

Attack now. Destroy that formation and stop her from fully mastering the power of the items she already had.

There was a chance of victory. If the formation was destroyed—since her celestial soul was being used as its core—she would be injured. That alone wouldn’t mean much since she’d recover in a second. But that would be the perfect moment for the pearl to act and for Ruri to use her mental power to invade her.

Of course, that would only be a minor nuisance, easily removed. But Ruri wasn’t weak—she could seal the queen’s power for two or three seconds. More than enough time for the whale to strike. And with her soul wounded, he could hit her celestial soul directly and kill her for real.

It all sounded great in theory. But there was no guarantee it would work. And on top of that, to execute this plan… they would have to be directly responsible for the destruction of millions of universes and countless lives.

Would the Alm of the past care? Not at all.

Maybe even Bruno, after thinking it through, would choose this path—it would eliminate a huge problem. Even if they failed to kill her, destroying this formation would take an immense effort to rebuild. Now that they knew about it, they could keep the queen under watch, stopping her from doing this again. That way, they’d practically guarantee that, in the future, they could defeat her, even if she had so many of those items.

Wouldn’t it be better to practically ensure they could kill her and end it all? Probably anyone would say yes.

But… they weren’t the same anymore.

The Crux of Fate stood before them once again. They were faced with the choice of becoming even worse villains than they had ever been. But by doing so, they would defeat the queen and fulfill their mission and vengeance.