âThose words carry tremendous weight...â
Although Rio was confused why a newly evolved demon who has barely even started walking the âpathâ of âascensionâ knows so much about it, he could tell that her words carried deep meanings.
Everyoneâs âpathâ is different and unique, as all beings are different and unique; some peopleâs âpathsâ seem similar, and some paths even âintersect,â sometimes creating various outcomes.
But all these different âpathsâ led to the same final destination, that is, the âdestination pointâ or lifeâs âpeak,â as they call it.
Overcoming challenges and obstacles all the way on this path is the way to ascend higher and become even better and stronger.
This is a crucial step if you want to reach SS-rank one day in the future; running away and avoiding your goal, ambition, and dreams will cause your path to collapse.
Itâs a simple yet extremely important piece of knowledge.
Usually, you experience it and find it yourself; after all, if others tell you about this, it creates problems and can even cause the collapse of your path.
Thatâs also one of the reasons why even SS-rankers donât clarify much about this topic to others.
âHow come she knows such important stuff already? From her aura, sheâs barely even an A ranker at this moment. how come sheâs already knowledgeable about stuff like this...â
Even Rio only realized these things over time while continuously walking on his own âpath.â
The door to S-rank was a major obstacle, but Rio overcame that obstacle and thus ascended to a higher realm, making him much stronger and more powerful.
This also gave him a clue about his knowledge of âPathwaysâ and how they worked.
âDid she inherit this knowledge along with her other powers and knowledge from her bloodline?â
âHer ancestral bloodline is really powerful if itâs giving her this much benefits just from being awakened...â
âI guess itâs true that werewolves are descendants of some previous demon king then; otherwise, she wouldnât have been able to inherit this much knowledge from a bloodline...â
Rio adjusted his sitting posture and leaned his back against a tree trunk while standing under it.
He has been tailing the two of them from the moment they left the house and started taking a walk.
âSo they indeed got some kind of mission from that âbeingâ in return for that much power...â
âI wonder what mission they have... donât tell me that itâs capturing the person with heavenly luck and killing him...â
The person with heavenly luck is Fade; capturing him and dealing a decisive blow to him before he can grow up is indeed something that the supreme villain would want to do.
âBut this memory fragment should have been a hundred or even two hundred years in the past from the current day, so how would they know when the person with heavenly luck appear...â
âHow will they figure out the time, location, etc...â
âThe previous holder of heavenly luck, King Allen Von Reinhart was born in the human race so perhaps they thought this time would be the same?â
The more Rio thought about this, the more confused he became.
âSearching for the heavenâs chosen in such a crude way over centuries of time period difference would be like looking for a needle in a galaxy!â
âItâs near impossible, unless you already have a perfect way to pinpoint the location...â
Instead of solving his questions, more questions rose in Rioâs heart after watching this memory fragment.
...
Time passed; Alverto and Aurora left the small wooden house and travelled together.
They went to the Demon King Palace together.
Everything played out just like Alverto had expected; his siblings laughed at him and mocked him, and even other demons who were not even from the royal bloodline laughed at him for being a coward.
But with Auroraâs support he wasnât shaken a bit; he confronted his siblings and fought them with all his might.
Alverto and Aurora created their own faction in the royal palace and recruited their own subordinates over time.
They either completely destroyed other factions or directly killed their leader to put an end to the struggles.
Alverto nearly wiped out all of his siblings and all of the other demons who mocked him and became an obstacle for him.
Even though heâs become kinder and has a gentle approach towards Aurora, heâs still a violent and blood-craving demon for others.
He became stronger and stronger as time passed; no demons could oppose him anymore.
Most of them either became his subordinates or perished fighting him.
Even his father, the demon king himself, acknowledged his position as the true heir to the throne of the demon king and declared him the only true Demon Prince of the current demon race.
This title not only increased his prestige in the demon race, but he also finally gained the attention of other races too.
Other races also noticed the presence of this demon prince, who might become a demon king in the future and be a big problem.
At that point the endless assassination attempts began.
No race wants to see the rise of a new demon king; they all wanted to destroy Alverto before he could rise to a higher level.
Those continuous and annoying assassination attempts caused massive headaches for Alverto and his subordinates.
Thus, he had no other choice but to create a hidden base where no one would disturb him and where he would be able to continue growing safely.
Up until this point, Aurora supported Alberto with the best of her abilities; she even achieved tremendous growth herself while helping him and became even stronger.
Royal Demons have long lifespans, so even if they have powerful talents, they take time to grow up, similar to how elves are.
Rio, Link, and the others grew to great heights in just a few years, but thatâs not how long-living races work.
Humans are short-living beings, so the âlawsâ of the âworldâ are more lenient to them in terms of ascension and stricter for long-living races.
Due to this reason, decades passed since the time Alverto and Aurora left that small wooden house, but they only made it rank S+ even after so many years.
If it was a human with the same talent as Alverto, he would have already become a peak SS ranker by now.
But this doesnât mean that itâs easier for humans to produce powerful individuals one after another extremely easily.
Long-living races generally have a higher potential compared to humans or other short-living races.
Humans have the highest population in the current world, yet they still only have four SS-rankers; this just shows that even if they can ascend faster, they also donât have an absolute advantage either.
For humans, most people are just ordinary folk; most of them arenât even awakeners, and even if the number is high, it means nothing.
Demons, on the other hand, are fewer in population, but nearly all of them are much stronger than an average human.
Their base talents and abilities are stronger.
...
Rio watched everything from the beginning of Alvertoâs journey.
As time had accelerated and only important memories were showing, he didnât actually have to spend decades stuck in this memory; it only took half an hour or so.
Alverto made his hidden base outside Earth and stationed nearly all of his subordinates there.
He and Aurora stayed there too; in these past decades, the two of them became even closer than before, but their relationship seemed stuck in the same place.
Alverto couldnât make any moves on Aurora, as she was weirdly oblivious to his feelings.
It is indeed true that Aurora is kind by nature and has helped him tremendously, but that is her base nature.
After spending so much time with her, Alverto has figured out that thereâs something special about Aurora.
Despite being a demon, sheâs kind to every being, she has no violent tendencies, and she cares about every living creature the same way she cares about Alverto.
For her, no one is special, and everyone is special at the same time.
In her opinion every life is precious, and sheâs equally kind to them all. Even after spending so much time with him, she doesnât have any special feelings for Alverto.
She treats him just the same as everyone.
Alverto tried to confess his feelings many times, and he tried to propose to her in various ways; in fact, he even learned from those human customs and romance novels just to impress her.
Yet he couldnât get his point through.
By this point he figured out that it would be near impossible to get Aurora to treat him differently than others; he started to miss the time when the two of them were alone and Aurora was focused only on him.
Alverto didnât forget about his mission despite all of the other problems; he used some kind of weird curse-like ability to plant curses on various people.
Over the many decades, he planted curses in many people in many races to monitor the situation.
From this, Rio finally found the reason why Alverto was able to pinpoint Fadeâs location.
That curse he planted was likely an ability given to him by that higher âbeing.â If the person with immense luck comes near the bearer of that curse, the one affected by that curse will immediately notice it.
Once that happens, the curse will trigger and make that bearer Alvertoâs puppet, and then Alverto can use that puppet to manipulate the person with heavenly luck.
Rioâs eyes narrowed, and anger flashed in his eyes when he finally noticed that Alverto had placed that same curse on Lia and Liaâs mother too, along with Kira, the original heroine.
âSo that how it is... everythingâs becoming clear now!â