Karmic ties

Sunlight came rushing in the room from the east window. It illuminated the wooden walls and floor, revealing small dust particles that resided in it. The sun kept rising until the sunlight reached the bed frame, and a bit later a green face.

The green face's expression changed to annoyance the moment it came into contact with the sunlight, and two, deep-blue eyes begrudgingly opened.

"Damn this morning sunlight!", the green boy shouted.

He rubbed his eyes, and gradually got up. He was wearing a plain white shirt and brown trousers. He walked towards the other end of the room, where the bathroom was located, while scratching his belly and yawning.

He washed his face and teeth, and then went down the stairs, where he followed the delicious smell of poultry eggs and the sizzling sound of fat into the kitchen. When he entered the kitchen he found his mother cooking breakfast and his father tightly hugging her from behind.

A smile crossed his face watching this scene, and he joyfully sighed.

"Morning!", he said.

Both Yusef and Anna turned to look at him.

One of them having a nonchalant expression while the other one was staring daggers at him.

Anna pushed Yusef away and run to hug Iono.

"How are you feeling?", she asked with a serious expression.

"I'm okay mom, why are you acting so serious?", Iono answered, puzzled at his mother's behaviour.

Yusef sighed and said, "Well, monkey, you scared the living hell out of your mother. Do you even remember what happened?", his father correctly guessed.

"I did?...What did I d-", and then the memories came rushing back making Iono's eyes widen.

"That's right, the dungeon! Damn! I must have collapsed and never came back, making my father have to look for me. He must have found me in dungeon and guessed what happened, but because of Reaper's Sorrow I wouldn't wake up. I must have scared them to death, especially mom...", Iono immediately connected the dots, and correctly assessed the situation. He turned his gaze to his mother, and saw her looking at him with both anger and love.

"I think I f*cked up...", he thought and ruefully smiled.

"Mom, I'm sorry. I'm fine, I'm okay, really. I just pushed myself to the limits again." he said while hugging his mother back.

Anna knew that Iono had a great destiny he had to accomplish from the moment she found out he had Prana. But she couldn't easily come to terms with the fact that great destiny always means great danger.

His father had lived through enough to become numb to danger, and therefore wasn't as worried. Of course, as Iono's father he was always worried to death but he knew that his son was exceptional, and most importantly, responsible. Therefore, he didn't worry as much.

Anna was looking at him with such love and worry that it made him unconsciously tear up.

"Even a monster like me can be loved this much...?", he pondered inwardly, incredibly grateful for his mother's love.

Iono was by no means a mama's boy but his parents where the only people in his life that, no matter what he did, and whether they agreed with it or not, loved him wholeheartedly.

This was something that saved Iono many times from falling into despair and getting overwhelmed by the bloodlust that he had so thoroughly tempered. After stepping on the slaughter path and becoming someone whose hands where stained with countless amounts of blood, one could easily lose themselves and become monsters that did not think about anything other than killing. It was the complete lack of mental stability and the utter lack of any kind of affection that made even their souls crave for blood.

Iono was lucky to have both his parents loving him unconditionally, and therefore did not fall into the killing frenzy that many succumbed to.

That is why, when he lost them both because of his selfish mistakes, he completely lost himself into the slaughter path.

He razed Malphas's 26th battalion to the ground, even destroying Malphas's soul.

Malpha's castle, The Palace of Deception, was filled with torrents of blood in a single night. Countless corpses of demons and dark spirits were stacked on the castle floors and on top of them, a tall, handsome, green man. With long black hair that were tied in a bun, tiny strands of them falling on his face, like ivory vines. His chest was heavily heaving as he was looking down at the demons that fell from his hands; blood had stained his arms and face. In his hands, he held the head of what appeared to be a gigantic crow. That was Malphas. This memory suddenly appeared in Iono's mind.

Killing a god, or in this case a Demon God, was very tricky and rather difficult. Gods and Demons have already discarded their physical body and exist in a spiritual one. Therefore no matter how many times it's destroyed, as long as their soul is intact they would never die. It would simply take some time for them to recover their body. A spiritual body was, in fact, simply a body made out of energy. Energy had many different manifestation and each one had it uniques characteristics, meaning there were countless different types of spiritual bodies. The soul was more powerful and tricky to deal with than the spiritual body. This was because the soul of a God or a Demon God was rather special. The cosmos had karmic laws governing it and every god and Demon God, no matter how small or powerful, had a role assigned to them. Their soul was bound to the multiverse itself as an irreplaceable position. Therefore to kill a god, you would need to sever these karmic ties, the chains that connect them to the multiverse itself. To do this one would either have to have strength higher than the multiverse itself, or pay a very, very steep price. That was to take the place of the one they killed and become a pillar of the multiverse themselves.

Most gods that were karmically tied to the multiverse were not mortals who ascended to godhood but rather, naturally formed deities that were created from the multiverse itself.

Therefore, when Iono had killed Malphas, he took Malphas's place as one of the 72 Demon Gods of Hell.

He lost himself in slaughter and was surrounded by demonoids and dark creatures of every kind that served the 72 Demon Gods.

Iono shook his head, unwilling to reminisce such things. He vowed to himself that he would rid the world of the cycle of karma, and that he would protect the people close to him.

Of course, living a peaceful life with them was not an option, and it was also the reason that he made this vow. If he could simply not increase his strength and not chase after something as grand as the universe itself, and instead live a simple peaceful life with his parents, he would do so without hesitation.

But that doesn't mean that others would simply let that be. People's greed was endless and being weak, simply meant being vulnerable to any threats with no way to defend yourself.

If Iono chose to live a simple, peaceful life, that wouldn't mean that others would accept that. The multiverse is endless and there powers beyond any imagination. Just one of them getting greedy is enough to wreck this peaceful life that Iono so craves. Therefore, he needs to become stronger, stand above the rest and let himself become the power that decides his fate.

Karma does not differentiate between good and evil, because in truth, no such things exist. Every person that is either good or evil has a reason to be. Noone is born neither good nor evil. It's the world they live in that defines that for them and therefore the laws of the university will not decide that the reason someone is good is more important than the reason for someone being evil.

As such, whenever Iono encounters such characters, that greed after what he loves, he has to make a decision, to kill or not to kill.

Killing him means gathering bad karma on himself, something that would later come back to bite him in the ass.

Letting him go, would also mean that at some point in the future that person will seek revenge, and having an enemy creeping up behind him wasn't exactly pleasant. Just because he chooses not to hold a grudge does not mean that other people do it too.

Therefore, no matter what choice he made, he would face difficulties. That's the price for obtaining strength.

Now, he can't travel all around the multiverse killing superpowers. That would not only be impossible, since the multiverse is not only infinite, but is constantly getting bigger, but also impractical seeing as he would simply spend his life chasing down villains instead of enjoying a life with the people he loves.

Therefore, he decided that he would have to change the laws of the universe themselves.

What utter boldness!

If someone else heard Iono say such a thing they would laugh themselves to death.

Going against Karma itself? Is that even possible?

What's more is that this statement wasn't made by a god, but by a tiny little Goblin...