A deep guilt weeded its way into the 25th White Motherās heart. But, she grit her teeth and continued.
āThis universeā¦ Your universeā¦ is the youngest left of the ten thousand remaining. The day it was born was a celebration for the martial world because it was the first of its kind so trillions of years. It was a sign of hope that maybe, the laws of the cosmos had not forsaken usā¦
āAs you know, it takes time for a universe to be inhabitable, even for us martial artist. So, in the years it took, much debate took place on how to make use of this new universeā¦
āIt was selfish and greedyā¦ But, Iām ashamed to say that no one thought of you natives and how we would be encroaching on your rights. The hope of millions of populations rested on this one remaining universe because one knew how long it would take for the next universe to manifestā¦
āIn the years leading up to the moment your universe would become habitable, many wars took placeā¦ Too many to name and much too many to rememberā¦ A cycle of endless strife over the right to take something that was never ours to begin withā¦ We were fighting over the right to stifle the growth of yet another universeā¦
āā¦
āAs grand teacher told you, there are two main paths in the martial world, both of which were spurred on by the destruction of the universes.
āThereās the chaos path. The path that assumes that the destruction of the universes is simply the will of their laws. This path seeks to seep further into anarchy and accept this fate, assuming that a new rise to martial arts will come as a reward.
āThis path is filled with powerā¦ Although they claim to be in line with the laws of the universe, the very fact they wield the power that they do protests to that factsā¦
āYou yourself had felt the domineering nature of that entityās body. Even while being so far away and having will power as firm as yours, if it wasnāt for your deep seeded anger, you would have succumb to your fearā¦
āThe only way to reach such a height in the martial way is by transcending the laws of the universe itself. By definition, they never cared about the way of the universe, they only want to seek an easier path to immortality, even if that means everyone else dies!ā This was the first time the 25th White Mother truly lost control of her emotions, but she quickly tried to rein them in again.
What Dyonās master had just said was the truth, but also not as clear cut as it seemedā¦
The truth was, even those who didnāt co-sign to the chaos path were trying to transcend the laws of the universe as well. It was just that their approach was vastly differentā¦
If Dyon saw the true body of his grand teacher in person, he wouldnāt feel as though his one with heart was ready to crumble at any moment like he had when seeing the body of the entity for the first timeā¦
In the path to cultivation, there were always those two choicesā¦ To destroyā¦ Or to lift upā¦
The decision of the entity was clear. If you ever tried to go against him without a firm martial way, all of your cultivation would simply crumble in his presenceā¦ But, even worse, this didnāt just go for living beingsā¦
If the entity wasnāt restricted as he was nowā¦ His simple presence would erode the all things as we know itā¦
āThe path of chaos they take makes them vastly superior in the martial wayā¦ Through self-harm, debasing practices, and an overall lack of a moral code, they take the sanctity of cultivation and trash it completely.
āThe create artificial wills. They experiment on their own people. They kill innocents for the sake of their own improvementā¦ They ransack cultivation treasures, they horde legaciesā¦ They even set up fake worlds like the Timeless Library to stoke the hope of those who are selfless, simply to drain the universe of more and more of its resourcesā¦
āAnd they do this all in the name of Chaos. They pretend as though theyāre following the path the universe set for them, when really all theyāre doing is preying on the weak and stacking power in their favor.ā
This was the simple truth of the chaos pathā¦
Even when the dark phoenixes rampaged through the universes spreading death, they were simply doing so because it increased their own powerā¦ There was no āhigher purposeā for anyone other than themselves and their own disgusting valuesā¦ Even the lives of the people of a completely innocent universe was seen as nothing to them.
Dyonās master took a deep breath, calming herself. āI wonāt try to feed you some lie about my Ancestors coming here to protect your people. Nor will I say that it was better for us to have come than someone elseā¦ Because the truth of the matter is that we came in order to make use of your universe as wellā¦
āThe second path that martial artists take is one of balanceā¦ The hope of this path is to treat every avenue of cultivation as sacred and put in place for a reason. To see every path as just as necessary as the one before itā¦
āAs grand teacher told you, the eventual goal of our path is to help the universeā¦ We believe that the reason why universes are dying isnāt simply because we are using the energy at all, but rather because we are using that energy incorrectlyā¦
āWeāre taking this sacred energy and using it selfishly, only seeking to increase the length of our lives. But, what if this wasnāt the true martial way?ā¦
āThe path we seek is one of perfectionā¦ A path that transcends all not by stomping out the rest, but by raising them all up and combining themā¦
āA path that transcends not by destroying the universes, but by creating them.ā