All his life, he hadn't known cruelty. He hadn't known revenge, and he hadn't bothered to learn them, thinking of them to be beneath his mighty figure. His excellence did not deserve cruelty, true cruelty.

He hadn't known revenge, viewing it the same as cruelty. While James was in no way a virtuous man, he could be considered good in a broad manner. He wasn't evil; he couldn't be considered evil.

A little special, somewhat twisted, but the truth was, none of his actions had hurt people too much, well, not considering Jane. However, the incident had changed everything.

He had been humiliated, he had been torn, he had been burned, his visage had been taken from him. Everything had been taken from him. And while his injury did not necessarily mean he would lose his position as the next heir... it had other side effects. His capability was still there, just his darn good looks were gone.

The monster in the company. Even if everyone tried to hide it, they were slightly repulsed as they saw him. His father was the same, his mother, and everyone else as well. They were disgusted by his face.

Merely that expression had sealed their fate. The incident had taken everything from him, but it had also given him something. His inferiority complex was spurred only when someone declared them to be above him.

This declaration could come in many, many forms; some of those forms could be an expression of disgust, repulsion... and looking down at him. It was easy to trigger his inferiority complex at the time.

And so, James craved revenge. And he had it. He had his revenge against everyone involved.

He poisoned his eldest brother and watched as he begged for death, watched as his organs failed, and as his skin blackened and died, as black blood exited every orifice of his body. James recorded every second of that. He lured his second brother into a 'party', a banquet. The brute was known to attend those, and he shot him eight times.

Not in the vitals, rather, the arms, the hands, the legs, and the feet. He didn't wish to kill him like that. Then, he released a horde of hungry pigs and watched as his brother screamed for mercy as he was torn apart by swine, the same as him

He threw his eldest sister into a vat of acid and set her on fire after. Her punishment was particularly brutal because she was the one who suggested pouring acid on his face. He rigged his second sister's car and set it on fire. Unfortunately, another sister of his was also in the car at that time, leading both of them to die. He had wanted to tell them one by one. His last sister was involved, but not so much. James gave her the easy way out, forcing her to jump to her death. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

As for Jane? He plucked out her eyes, and He trapped her body in a barrel of cement and threw her in the ocean. He did his best to keep her eyes in perfect condition, so they could always glow in the same way.

But that wasn't enough. He had killed all of his siblings, but there was still a void in his heart. Yes, the one created by his parents, those who had looked down at him once his face had been burned, those who hadn't treated him right since birth. His father and his mother had always given little importance to their children.

Had they taken an active role... those pieces of trash wouldn't have ended up like that. He wouldn't have ended up like this. Furthermore, they looked at him with disgust; therefore, they thought themselves to be superior.

Shortly after killing his siblings and Jane, James left Smith Industries, something that caused an uproar. He founded GenTech. The one that ate Smith Industries piece by piece. His father's assets, his trusted friends, his investors. Everybody. James had learned everything from him, and he took everything. He killed his mother the same way he killed his second brother, replacing the pigs with rats.

But his father? He had the worst and slowest death, according to James. He had to watch as his own son tore down everything he had built. He had to watch as years and years of hard work were slowly taken away. His stock prices went down and down, he drowned in debt, and his health declined little by little.

He watched everything go down in flame, devoured by a demon he raised. James had deliberately done it like this; he could have taken his father's empire whenever he wanted, from within. But he wanted to savor it. He wanted his father to realize his mistakes slowly but surely. He wanted him to suffer the most.

He knew killing his father, like his siblings and his mother, wouldn't work. The true way to make that man suffer was to destroy everything he built, or rather, make it his own. His father was prideful as well, second only to James.

And he did make him suffer the most. The most out of everyone else. James ruined everything Samuel Smith had built. But Samuel wasn't someone who would take it all without doing anything in return.

James and Samuel died on the same day, both by an explosion. The entire building had been rigged to the brim with explosives, timed to detonate the moment Samuel's heart stopped. He took his son with him to the underworld.

But James didn't go to the underworld. He went somewhere else, another universe where he spent his time normally... that was, until others forced him otherwise. But James truly became a demon once more when two existences looked down at him.

The Abyssal conscience, and the one even above. The Universal Conscience, which despised him solely for being from another universe. The Weakest universe. I thought of him as a parasite, a bacterium.

And so, he took his revenge. He dealt a severe blow to the Abyss by detonating his own soul; he manipulated what was thought to be evil itself and made it weak, pathetically weak. He instilled a fear of himself in the Abyssal Conscience, a fear so great that it completely avoided approaching Alan.

It was scared shitless, to say the very least. Afraid that James had something else in store. That was the only reason the Abyssal Conscience stayed far, far away and focused on other matters.

However, the Universal Conscience was dealt an even heavier blow, and that was Alan Peccator himself. The one thing it had been trying to make since the beginning of existence. The Strongest Universe had tried desperately to create a Hybrid of the Dragon, God Beast, and Void Spawn races, but it had failed.

For hundreds of millions of years. It had failed, for even the strongest universe could not go against the Weave. But a human from the Weakest Universe did it. He made the existence known as Alan Peccator.

It had been he who had successfully combined the Dragon, God beast, and Void Spawn races. The Magnum Opus of the Universal Conscience. It was James who had fooled the weave and was the first to ever edit it to his liking. It was he who made Alan Peccator, and Alan Peccator was the one thing that the Universal Conscience had wanted to create for so, so long.

Furthermore, it had come from a being of the weakest universe, a universe with only a single planet full of life. It was humiliating; it was the worst thing to ever happen to it.

Valus chuckled.

"You don't have any grand purpose, like obliterating the Universal Conscience, or ruling the Dragons, God beasts, or Void Spawn."

He explained to Alan, who was curious as to the purpose of his existence. It hit him hard. He knew why he was made, but was there really nothing else? Did James not want him to do anything?

"Nothing within you will ever force you to pursue these grand goals. Nothing. James didn't add anything like that. If you do choose to do so, it will be your own choice, guided by nothing beyond your understanding.

By your own will, by your own maturing mind, as you realize the kind of life you will live. You don't have a purpose decided by someone else; you are free to make your own choice."

The corners of his mouth curled up as Alan dreaded the next words.

"Your existence was enough."

Alan closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as he came to terms with it rather quickly. Now that the seal was gone, he was able to think things more clearly. He was able to understand everything that was said, and although disappointed, he was glad.

He looked at Valus, whose lips curled up, revealing a devilish smile. Valus was happy, incredibly happy, and Alan knew why. Valus hated James, but he hated the Universal Conscience way more.

It was easy to notice that whenever he mentioned the universal conscience, the tone of his voice would deepen, and it would be filled with loathing. He didn't try to hide it further.

Alan Peccator had no other purpose than existing, as decided by James, simply because his existence was the worst blow to the Universal Conscience.

Alan let out a sigh and dismissed it all from his mind, focusing on other things. He asked.

"Tell me more about the Void Spawn and this Aether."