Divine Path System Chapter 1767 1767: The Lost Divine Path

"Hold on, stop!" the Architect shouted, throwing his hands up to address the furious God Emperor. "If we continue to wear each other down, this wretch will walk away the winner. Let us eliminate him first."

The God Emperor's seething rage began to subside as he shifted his focus toward Varian. He realized he had been lured into a trap, and a complex cocktail of admiration, dread, and hatred began to bubble up toward his former teacher.

Precisely because he knew the man so well, he chose to ally with an adversary he otherwise loathed. "You speak the truth. As long as he breathes, he remains a threat."

Side by side, the God Emperor and the Architect leveled their gaze at Varian, acting as if the man, who currently could not even penetrate their outer barriers, was the greatest menace of all.

"I have no idea what my father was thinking, but Varian, the Ultimate Variable, is one hell of a name to live up to." Varian braved their impending assault with a grin that held no fear.

The God Emperor and the Architect struck simultaneously.

Boom! Boom!

The force of the balance hammered against Varian's psyche, crushing his resolve to triumph and forcing the instinctual urge to perish upon him.

Varian's defenses began to buckle as he struggled to commit his full willpower to the fight.

At that exact instant, the God Emperor unleashed his technique—a strike constructed primarily from the powers of space and time.

Had the assault landed perfectly, Varian’s physical form and his consciousness would have been violently displaced into two separate timelines.

Even if he managed a swift recovery, it would have afforded them more than enough time to finish him off for good.

Accepting he couldn't deflect the strike entirely, Varian manifested a blade to sever the flow of time within his immediate vicinity.

Nothing existed save for this single, fleeting instant.

There was no tomorrow, nor was there any yesterday.

The strike hammered home, and despite the protection granted by Hortus, the effects inevitably took hold.

Though Varian’s mind and body were momentarily pulled apart, the disruption of the flow of time meant the attack could drag him nowhere except the present moment.

He seized control of his physical form just in time to intercept two subsequent blasts.

Boom!

As Varian was sent reeling, two distinct voices echoed in his head.

'Teacher, things do not need to end this way. Stand with me and I will grant you the ideal life you desire.

You shall be reborn and walk your path once more. None of the events from that night will come to pass. No fire wolf. No tragedy.

Your family will remain whole. You can live in peace with your wives within the new universe I construct. No restrictions will hold you back. Whatever your heart desires, it shall be yours.

A life devoid of pain and filled with nothing but perfection.

Think on it.

A perfect existence of pure joy.

I swear upon my very ideals that I will fulfill this promise.'

Varian discarded his former pupil's proposal without a second thought.

'Is this how you perceive my history, Thoren? It is little wonder you are such a pathetic weakling!

Had I spent my time wallowing in the tragedy of my past, I never would have reached this zenith. I am standing here not in spite of my suffering, but because of it.

If I had never encountered those trials, I never would have climbed to these heights.

Without hardship, growth is impossible. Without growth, there is no journey.

Thoren, I find your spineless, hollow plan truly contemptible!'

The God Emperor trembled, his mind flooded with murderous intent.

Meanwhile, the Architect's offer echoed in his thoughts.

'Perhaps I shall emerge victorious or perhaps you will, but you will not be the one holding the crown. It is a futile game of mutual destruction. Why not pledge yourself to me?

I will forge the world of your wishes. I will resurrect your ancestors. I will crown you the sovereign of your very own domain.

I hold the power to grant your every request!

Channel your remaining vitality into a singular, final strike against him. I will handle the rest.'

Varian let out a laugh. While the God Emperor had seemed genuinely desperate, the Architect’s arrogance remained suffocating even in this dire moment.

'You arrogant fool...'

The Architect, too, was pushed to his limit of patience.

Both entities abandoned their schemes to use Varian as a pawn against one another, deciding instead to dispose of him immediately.

The Architect raised a palm, and the cosmos flared with a sudden, blinding brilliance.

One half of the expanse was bathed in the vibrant green of life force, while the other bled the deep, suffocating crimson of death.

He brought his hand down with a ruthless motion.

The barrier separating mortality from existence was ripped asunder!

Half of Varian's frame turned 'dead,' beginning to decompose at an accelerated rate.

The God Emperor raised his own hand, summoning the long, winding river of time. He clenched his fist, and spectral versions of the past surged forward to forcefully overlay themselves upon the present Varian.

His current state of half-death was projected onto his past, draining the strength from those prior selves.

This weakening rippled back into the present, rendering him translucent, as if he were fading into non-existence.

Varian had truly reached his limit.

Yet, as the seconds ticked toward his end, he uncovered the answer he had been hunting for all along.

He hadn't been enduring a beating from two stronger opponents without reason; he had been searching for the key to dismantle them both.

The God Emperor’s might stemmed from the collective divine paths he wielded—a direct, overpowering force with no discernible weakness.

The Architect's advantage, however, resided in those materialized laws, reflecting his absolute command over the universe.

He needed to expose a fracture in the Architect's design.

But how?

That was the final piece of the enigma.

"The Path of Harmony," Varian murmured, causing a shift in the Architect's expression unlike anything seen before.

From that reaction alone, Varian knew his hypothesis was correct!

Who could have guessed that the greatest secret of the cosmos was a simple curiosity often raised by initiates? 'Space and Time possess Gravity. Life and Death possess the Soul. So why do Order and Chaos seemingly have nothing?'

As cultivators matured, they ceased asking such things. Why challenge the order of reality? It was simply how the universe functioned. What else could one do? Call the universe flawed? Or hunt for an illusionary path? Acceptance of reality was the only option.

Varian, too, had disregarded this question in his earlier years. Yet, during his desperate healing, he had crossed paths with that concept again.

The fused slivers of order and chaos had the power to mend his shattered origin, yet individual slivers could not, regardless of his efforts.

In other words, there was a void.

What defined that gap?

He pondered it deeply. Perhaps the Architect had placed a mental restriction on the very concept, preventing Varian from seizing the answer even while staring it in the face. But now, as a peak Rank 3 existence, he could finally think without those shackles.

With this final component, the entire puzzle clicked into place.

He realized the truth from the Architect himself.

The Architect was not a true Rank 3. Just as the primordial gods were not absolute Rank 3s, they were simply masters of their specific avenues. Varian had long suspected the Architect followed a similar logic, and this confrontation proved it.

He possessed two powers: the balance scale and his manipulation of materialized cosmic laws. The control could be attributed to the origin fragment, but what of the balance scale?

Balance—not mere equality, but the perfect proportion of forces to achieve a specific state.

After examining that weapon, Varian wondered if it linked to anything familiar. He dismissed the paths of space, time, life, and death. That left Order and Chaos, which had always harbored a strange, incomplete aura.

They were the only avenues capable of impacting the origin, yet they lacked a 'middle' path.

Wait… Balance, Order, and Chaos!

Varian identified the path of balance as Harmony, aligning perfectly with the concepts of Order and Chaos.

And there it was: the missing piece!

What did the Avenue of Order and Chaos contain that the separate paths lacked? Harmony!

It was not merely a middle ground; it was a bridge that allowed polar powers to form a whole greater than the sum of their parts.

This rule governed every avenue. The third path acted as a catalyst for the other two. The Soul made life dynamic rather than mechanical, while allowing death to bridge into reincarnation. Gravity acted as the fusion of space and time, binding the universe together. Harmony functioned as the state where things remained fluid yet stable.

A person's body required harmony. With too much order, it would stagnate; with too much chaos, it would dissolve. Harmony was the perfect state allowing for evolution without total collapse.

"You stole the path of Harmony," Varian declared with utter certainty.

"Rather than steal, I should say I secured it for my own designs," the Architect replied, raising his hand.

The balance scale—or rather, the Scale of Harmony—unleashed its true, terrifying power.