Vile Rabbit

In the boy's second life nothing notable happened; he was born average and died just the same. The same could not be said for his third life. He was born into a royal family of one of the strongest kingdoms as a prince.

He was good-looking and talented; his life seemed perfect, with no obstacles in his way. However, he lived this life as a complete degenerate, a scum who killed anyone who looked at him too hard, someone who would not take no for an answer.

In his fourth life, things took a turn. He was born as the second son of one of the strongest bandit leaders of the same kingdom he ruled in his third life. When he was four, the royal army launched a sudden attack against his father. The outcome his father's bandits lost, and his father escaped, leaving him behind. Unable to find his father, the royal family who were his sons and daughters from his third life vented their anger on him.

They tortured him in many insidious ways but made sure not to kill him so that they could possibly use him against his father.

In his fifth life, he was born as the owner of a Colosseum where he hosted many death battles, sold slaves, and trafficked young boys and girls. This life was great; he lived how he pleased and died at the oldest age recorded for his species. After he died, his business thrived.

In his sixth life, he was coincidentally born as a slave in a Colosseum similar to the one he owned. This life was terrible.

There were countless situations like this occurring at every given moment; if not, Apexion wouldn't have noticed the pattern. To be honest, Apexion didn't really like the concept of good and bad karma, for that meant that good and evil truly existed.

This whole notion of doing good begetting good and evil begetting misfortune really didn't sit well with him, for he had committed evil under the moral compass of this concept of 'karma,' and he might be punished for it one day.

But he thought of multiple things that caused his uneasiness to fade. First, he had most definitely done more good than bad in his life. How many creatures had he granted transcendence? How many had he granted the title of "Long Live Creature"? Countless.

Second, could this concept of good and bad karma affect things at his level? Could it affect a pathfinder? To answer those questions, he had to comprehend this karma. He had already discovered it; now he just had to study it and understand it.

He continued to observe. Time passed once again, and suddenly his eyes flashed with understanding as a small ethereal rune started to bloom a meter before him. But before it could complete bloomed,

Shing! Bang!

A terrifying force, equivalent to three grand laws, descended from the vacuum, attempting to suppress and destroy the rune. His eyes flashed with coldness, and he vanished, reappearing inside the false realm with the rune. In this realm, he could use the full extent of his half 8-tier strength. His eyes began to burn with absolute dominance, and

Boom!

His domain exploded outward in an instant, enveloping everything within a thousand light-years. The force slammed into the outer barrier of his domain from all angles, the impact caused his domain to tremble slightly as if there were a cosmic earthquake.

'I just have to buy enough time for this rune to fully manifest,' he thought as his law, equivalent to that of a false grand law, pulsed, and his domain became harder.

The force, as if upset that something dared to defy it, raged with greater strength, and

Boom! Boom! Boom!

It slammed into his domain countless times like a cosmic tsunami, each impact containing enough force to collapse almost a million realms.

Crack!

Slight web-like cracks appeared on his domain. Seeing this, his eyes filled with wrath, and

[Cosmic Gaze!]

Two cosmic eyes, spanning hundreds of light-years, bloomed within his domain. They gazed down at everything, and at the same time, the law of strength began blazing around them, increasing their power tenfold and,

[Blazed!]

A terrifying, abysmal black flame exploded outwards in a circular shockwave. In an instant, it slammed into the force that enveloped his domain,

Boom!

The impact from the clash caused faint cracks to appear within millions of light-years of the false realm, whose space was thousands of times harder than the material verse's space. The heat from the flames was so intense that it caused the darkness to twist and melt slightly, like glass melting.

The force was also pushed back a little, creating a small interval in the time frame between each slam, and that interval was all that was needed for,

Shing!

The ethereal rune of his understanding of negative and positive karma completely materialized. The rune was small, 3 cm in height, shaped like a small rabbit, and its body was divided into two distinct halves down the middle.

One half was blue with a warm expression and radiated an aura of warmth and welcoming, while the other half was red in color and radiated a repulsive aura.

The moment the rune materialized, the force vanished as if it had never been there.

Apexion gazed at the vanishing force. In his eyes, that force was a type of rule engraved into the universe that would be triggered when a creature began understanding laws such as fate. Its task was to prevent the creature from materializing these laws.

He shifted his focus to the rune, his eyes shining with wonder for an instant before they shone with slight disappointment.

"A tier 6 rune and not a tier 7," he muttered to himself in an underwhelmed tone. Suddenly, something clicked, and his disappointment turned to anticipation.

Although this rune was a tier six in its true meaning, it was a concept where its starting point was at tier 6 and not 1. He could only imagine the potential this rune held.

His eyes flashed, and the rune activated. Ding! The world in his eyes shifted to black and white. He gazed around but saw nothing.

He frowned, then vanished and reappeared inside the material verse, within his experimental realm, with the rune slowly rotating around him.

His eyes shone with fascination as he gazed at the creatures that were now glowing with colorful ethereal lights in their spirit essence. The lights were a mixture of red and blue, sometimes a mixture of both.

He didn't need to think twice about what these lights represented: red meaning negative karma and blue meaning positive karma.

He suddenly gazed at his crown, which melded with his spirit, and he saw nothing no hint of karma.

'Maybe the rune is too weak to reveal the karma of beings at the divine rank,' he thought as he observed, feeling his comprehension of karma slowly increasing.

Soon, a few years passed, and he came to understand that karma was like a ticking volcano, whether positive or negative. It accumulated over time until the vessel couldn't hold it anymore, then it would explode into fortune, misfortune, or a mixture of both.

Suddenly, he vanished and reappeared inside the ascension realm with his actual body, not just his will.

'Let's see,' he thought as he raised the karmic rune toward the all-encompassing barrier above him. The rune made contact, but nothing happened.

He frowned as countless ideas flashed through his mind. He concluded that the rune was not strong enough yet; he deduced it would have to reach the level of a minor law for it to have even the slightest effect on the barrier.

He retracted his hand and gazed down at the countless creatures that were glowing brightly with negative and positive karma countless times brighter than the unawakened creatures. They were akin to stars, while the unawakened were akin to little fireflies.

He turned and gazed toward the path below his, and it was the same creatures glowing.

He locked onto Kane, the pathfinder of the martial path. He saw no karma, but at the same time, he couldn't help but frown because Kane's figure was slowly pulsating with the aura of the divine. And Before he knew it,

Boom!

Kane's body bloomed with a law that seemed to be a combination of the law of martial and self-hatred. Kane then took a step forward and engraved the divine rank of his path.

After sensing his gaze, Kane looked up at him, disregarding the distance, their eyes lock as they communicate.

A second later, he retracted his gaze and stared at the countless realms of laws around him. He couldn't help but wonder what would happen if he came into contact with them. Unfortunately for him, he couldn't leave his dimension at least not yet.

He took a single step, vanished, and reappeared back inside his research realm. He sat cross-legged, deciding not to leave until he pushed the karmic rune to the law stage.

…!