by Pegaz
Jason slammed his fist on the table. “You’re both disappointing! Not only did you fail to bring Sarah back like the divination predicted, you’re also unable to figure out who destroyed the teleport runes!
“And you!” Jason pointed at Elder Han. “You couldn’t even win against a child! Instead, he took your arm and sword! The divination of our sect rising to the top that the Transcendent told me about is all ruined because of your incompetence!”
Both Elder Han and Chris Han were seated opposite Jason, but their heads were hung down in shame.
All John heard for the next day and half was Jason telling them how useless they were and how he’d punish them after this was all over.
After that, Jason started planning on how to get the divination back on track and trying to find out how to contact the Transcendent to ask for advice.
John made sure he passed the point of time where his past self used the Immortal Eye on everybody inside the city before he created a thread and placed Jason under his control with the Manipulate All skill.
Following John’s orders, Jason shouted at Chris, “We’ve had reports about something happening to the villages south of here. Start making this right and go investigate what’s happened. If you fail at this task, then I’ll change the divination myself by killing you as slow as possible!”
Chris stood up and bowed. “It will be done.”
He took out a sword and flew to the main city where the teleport runes were destroyed a few days ago.
Ah, so that’s why he headed in that direction. The teleport runes my past self destroyed were the long-distance ones that went to different planets. He’s headed to the city to use the local ones to get to the villages quicker.
Even if my past self didn’t kill him before he arrived, he couldn’t use the teleport runes anyway because the villages are no longer local.
John followed Chris and watched his past self ambush him during the trip, decapitating him. His past self then dragged Chris’ body and head to the cave to make Chris the new fighter puppet as punishment.
Not long after, his past self returned to the planet and sank into the earth.
John knew what was coming next, so he flew into outer space and used the time element to come to the point in time where the planet was being destroyed.
I get to watch this show once more.
The planet turned red as lava covered its surface. It turned oval-shaped as the planet’s mass shifted and not long after, the planet exploded.
This time, the generated force from the blast of the explosion couldn’t affect John, so he stayed and watched the whole thing calmly.
His past self used the leather teleport rune as soon as the blast of the explosion came towards him.
John enjoyed the planet’s destruction much more this time since he knew that no innocents were killed like he thought.
After he was finished watching the show, John used the universal map to teleport to their private planet. He followed his past self to the Sword Sect and then to the mortal world afterwards.
When his past self met Isake, John knew what would happen. To avoid this tragic outcome, John paused time, took a hair from Isake, and used the cloning technique.
But, to make it happen how it did in the past, John used a bit of Chaos Power and guided it to Isake’s soul.
Using Chaos Power, John separated a little piece of the soul and brought it out of Isake’s body before using another bit of Chaos Power to grow the soul to the same size a normal mortal should have.
This is a weird time paradox. I knew I could do this simply because it had happened in my past. If that didn’t happen, I wouldn’t know this was possible.
John then placed the piece of Isake’s soul into the clone.
When the clone dies now, that piece of soul will fly out of the grave and my past self will gain Isake’s memories from it. It will also tell my past self about the system being about to see, feel, and eat souls.
The final memories of Isake wouldn’t show me doing this either because I paused time to do it.
He then flew to a large town, unpaused time, and used his threads to make Isake an immortal. John explained how to gain power and handed Isake a few dozen Grade 9 Life Stones before telling Isake to go travelling for a few months.
He watched Isake leave and head towards another kingdom.
The person my past self kills now is just a clone, but that is also what gives me the knowledge of how to force immortality onto people, which eventually lets Luke become an immortal.
John then flew back to his past self and watched as the Isake clone went through the tests before his past self accidently killed him.
When his past self left and headed for the capital, John went to the burial site of the clone and destroyed the tombstone.
Can’t let people know that Isake’s dead, otherwise when—or if—the real one comes back, it’ll cause a riot.
Chapter 47: Peace
John opened his universal map, teleported to the Nobody Sect’s planet, and then used the time element until his past self arrived.
He watched his past self decapitate Jeremy, but when Jeremy’s decapitated head spoke and caused his past self to jump in fright, knocking down the table and causing him to fall on his ass, John almost burst out laughing which would’ve given him away.
When his past self left with the memory manipulation book, John went up to Jeremy and used some Chaos Power to separate a bit of Jeremy’s soul.
He waited for his past self to finish reading about the technique before using his Soul Manipulation skill on the piece of Jeremy’s soul and attacked his past self with the soul from behind.
Again, I only knew this was possible because it happened to me before.
Jeremy’s manipulated soul went through his past self’s head and hit his soul, which caused the manipulation technique to attempt to attack his past life’s soul.
This is what my past self’s system blocked. If I remember right, the message told me “Sider’s mind attack is ineffective on the user,” and now I know the Sider in question wasn’t O’Malley, but me.
After the attack, I realised how strong the technique was and came to terms that I couldn’t help Jamie back when Jeremy manipulated him. If I didn’t do this, then the guilt and powerlessness I felt would’ve destroyed me.
His past self then walked back to Jeremy’s decapitated head and killed him by eating his soul.
John then followed his past self back to the Northern Kingdom. When his past self found Luke, John decided to see how a Sider was born without any help.
Turning back time, John went to the time period where Luke first appeared in Newbie Town. He then turned back time some more while following Luke going back to where he first appeared.
When he got there, John saw Luke’s body lying on the ground, and as he turned back time some more, he found Luke’s body was disintegrating.
After it disappeared, all that was left was Luke’s flashing soul.
So, a Sider’s soul will come to a random location and draw in the elements that a human’s body is made from?
Going through time again, John roughly calculated that from the moment Luke’s soul appeared to when his body was formed and Luke opened his eyes was over one hundred years!
So, when I brought my soul over here and used a shortcut by creating my own body from the cloning technique, Luke’s soul was already here for almost eighty years!
John looked around while he went through time. He noticed that no animals even came close to that location—not even once!
The soul which draws in the elements must give off some kind of threat to the animals. Though that might not work on immortal creatures, so Siders might only be able to appear on planets without them.
Every Sider I’ve heard of—or whose corpses I’ve studied—seems to have originated from planets absent of immortal creatures. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
O’Malley and the other Transcendents created the plan
ets and brought the creatures from the original planet. Some turned into immortal creatures and some didn’t. Was that caused by evolution over billions of years?
John came out of his thoughts and went back to the point of time he disappeared and carried on watching his past self.
King Simon was soon killed, Luke was made an immortal before being manipulated, and his past self took over the Rogue Sect and renamed it the Nobody Sect.
John then followed his past self to the mortal worlds.
After doing all the tests, his past self made the king an immortal while manipulating him into creating a war between the two kingdoms. His past self then went to another kingdom and did the same to that king before returning to the first king and redoing the manipulation with updated orders.
John knew his past self wouldn’t come back after a certain point in time, so when his past self left, John used the Soul Manipulation on the king.
Since he was using the same skill which used the same frequency as his past self, the Soul Manipulation worked without a hitch.
John then told the king the new order he needed to follow. “You cannot use soldiers for the war. Prisoners whose punishment is death, or whose death would make the public safe, are the only people allowed to fight in this war. No stadiums that will host death fights for entertainment should ever be built.”
Finishing the manipulation, John then flew to the other kingdom and manipulated that king with the same order. He then followed his past self going through different kingdoms in different worlds, and after his past self manipulated the kings and left, he would always redo the manipulation.
When his past self went to a battlefield to check the first war between kingdoms that he thought he’d created, John used Kelly’s Create Illusion skill to create armies on both sides.
Thousands of men—holding different weapons and wearing any armour they could get their hands on—banded together and fought a similar army.
John then used the Auditory Illusion skill to create the noises of the illusions fighting each other while the Illusions Space skill made sure that the illusions didn’t disrupt each other in any way.
If I didn’t know these were illusions, they would even trick me as a Transcendent. Kelly’s skills are amazing.
After his past self left and headed for the centre of the planet, John cancelled all the skills.
When all the illusion had disappeared, John closed his eyes as he took a long, deep breath. His body became relaxed and he could feel the tension and stress leaving him.
When he opened his eyes, there was nothing but a bright white colour all around him.
Turning his head, he looked around and saw six people sitting down with their legs crossed in a fan-shaped formation. Five of them wore white Daoist robes while the sixth one wore a black Daoist robe.
I’m back in the conscious centre? How? No matter what I tried before, I couldn’t get back here.
John walked towards the six people and noticed the five in white had their arms resting on their knees, palms facing up, with their index fingers and thumbs together.
Those are the five mind parts that are using the absorbing technique.
He walked to the person dressed in a black robe. The Demon had his index and middle fingers touching his temple on the sides of his head.
The Demon was the one using the Scan? So when I turned it off, the Demon was free. When I wasn’t using the Scan, did I come up with any ideas that the Demon could influence?
He tried remembering the times when his Scan was turned off, but he couldn’t think of any ideas or actions that the Demon might have had a part of.
John looked at the Demon and noticed that its eyes were staring at him without blinking. That meant, while the Demon was following orders against its will, it still had its own thoughts and feelings.
Obviously the Demon was feeling angry towards him at that moment as its eyes were bloodshot and its nose was scrunched up. John was sure that if the Demon’s mouth wasn’t shut, it would be baring its teeth at him.
Smiling, John spoke. “Years ago, Sarah told me that the only way to get rid of you was to merge our personalities together and to confront the reason why you were born in the first place.
“I thought I had killed innocent men, women, elders, and children for something stupid like revenge. However, after going through the past while helping it along, I now realise that you were born from misinformation.
“I never killed any innocent people on the Anti-assassin Sect’s planet. The kingdoms that went to war under my orders only used their criminals to fight.
“All the people in the Adventurers’ Guild’s prison, the mortal worlds, and everyone who died to my actions were criminals and degenerates that deserved death. Safety was brought to the public when they were gone.
“Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m not saying I wouldn’t kill innocents. If Sarah or Kelly were in danger and killing innocents would somehow get them out of it, I would kill all the innocent people in this universe without a second thought.
“The difference is the motive behind it. To protect those I love, I would do anything and everything.
“I’ve gone through a lot since you were born, and I’ve realised that you could help me become stronger if we worked together. Even after transcending, that doesn’t change.
“But keeping you alive would be like having a sword across my neck. There would eventually be a day where the sword would kill me. If I die, who will protect Sarah and Kelly from then on? You? I wouldn’t let you get anywhere near them, even after my death.
“If I ignored the sword across my neck and used your method of gaining strength, the guilt and regret I would feel afterwards would only eat away at me.
“I would become somebody else after they take their toll on me. I would no longer be able to protect those I love, but instead I would fear myself influencing them. I would have to leave them for their own good.
“While I’m no Saint, I’m no Demon either! I’m at peace with my actions! My conscience is clear!”
John lifted his hand and placed his index finger on the Demon’s forehead. “I don’t need you alive, I don’t want our personalities to merge, and the reason you were born wasn’t real. Go to hell and don’t come back!”
As soon as he finished speaking, a white light shone on his fingertip and travelled throughout the Demon’s body. The black Daoist robes the Demon donned started turning white like the others. Starting from the shoes, the colour change worked its way upwards.
The Demon tried screaming, but his mouth wouldn’t move. All John heard was a muffled noise. When all the clothes turned completely white, the bloodshot eyes of the Demon turned peaceful before they closed.
The Demon personality was gone!
Chapter 48: Finished Helping
John closed his eyes while inside the conscious centre. When his eyes opened again, he was back outside.
Tilting his head back, John roared with laughter. It was a good thing he was high in the sky at this point or else all the mortals in the nearby area would become deaf. His past self would’ve heard him and would’ve tried to find the source of the noise, too.
After transcending, I stopped the system from messing with me. Now, I’ve gotten rid of the Demon personality that threatened to take over my body! I have no more worries about my mind being taken over!
I am me, and all ideas and thoughts are truly my own from now on!
Feeling something on his right hand’s nails, he looked down. He saw his black nails becoming long once more.
Knitting his brows, John concentrated on trying to shrink them again and after a few minutes, it worked.
That Demon was taking over my body one piece at a time! Now that it’s gone, I’ve gained control over my nails. Did it take over anything else? Why did it start with my nails?
He tried a few tests but couldn’t find anything else that the Demon had taken control over, so John went to turn off his Scan, but he saw something in the
system that he hadn’t seen in a long time.
Title: A Selfish Punisher.
Now I know the Demon is really gone and this isn’t one of its tricks.
After staring at the title for a second, he made all mind parts use the absorbing technique before he continued watching his past self. John had a smile on his face the entire time.
His past self fought the immortal creatures in the middle of the planet, went to the Adventurers’ Guild’s auction house, got arrested, and killed all the prisoners.
John watched Sarah wake up from the coma he caused before his past self went into his closed-door cultivation session. So, he started following Sarah.
He heard Sarah and Camellia’s talk before Sarah went to the elder’s meeting room and convinced the elders that she was a poison specialist and she was willing to teach a few people.
John watched Scott Maddox place himself in the path of four people that weren’t paying attention, poison himself, lie down on the floor, and waited for the four people to find him.
Going to Sarah’s medical practice, he watched as Sarah treated the man who she’d eventually kill. When Scott stood up and introduced himself, John saw a small ball of Soul Power exit Scott’s forehead and fly towards Sarah.
Using the time element, he reversed time for a few seconds before arriving in front of Scott, reached out and grabbed that ball of Soul Power after it left Scott’s forehead once more, before squeezing hard to destroy it.
I remember Sarah telling me about Scott’s last words.
Scott wondered why his Soul Manipulation technique didn’t work. He tried it once after Sarah cured him inside her medical practice and another time when they hunted the Rot Elephants.
Sarah told me that she saw a flash in front of Scott’s face when it failed both times. Now I know it was me destroying the technique before it had a chance to work.
If I wasn’t here, would Scott have succeeded in manipulating Sarah?
Once again, John’s hand was only millimetres away from the neck of the person he was going to kill before he stopped.
