Power of Runes Chapter 523: A Gamble for Freedom

As the strange incidents continued, both the Heavenly and Abyssal Realms gradually tightened their security, with important vaults receiving additional protection, weaker members of powerful factions rarely travelling alone, and inspections around teleportation formations becoming increasingly strict.

Cultivation resources were delayed as transportation routes changed, merchants avoided regions where attacks had occurred, and powerful families began recalling members from distant territories while gathering forces around important locations.

When the Heavenly Realm began moving powerful Angels between important regions, the Abyssal Realm naturally noticed the movement through the spies they had secretly maintained within the Heavenly Realm for countless years, while the Heavenly Realm possessed its own spies scattered throughout the Abyssal Realm.

Neither side trusted the other enough to completely abandon their intelligence networks, even during the ten years of the Non-Aggression Treaty.

The Abyssal Realm responded by moving some of its own forces.

The Heavenly Realm noticed that movement as well.

Neither side had mobilized an army, nor did either intend to begin a war, yet both had begun preparing for the possibility that the other might.

The tension continued rising until someone finally retaliated.

An Angel from a powerful lineage who had lost someone close to him decided that waiting for another investigation to return empty-handed was no longer acceptable, secretly sending several loyal Angels into the Abyssal Realm.

Around the same time, a Devil faction that had suffered its own losses secretly sent people into the Heavenly Realm.

Neither side knew about the other, and neither had any intention of starting a war.

They simply wanted revenge.

Ash made sure they found something.

A deliberately planted trail within the Abyss led the Angels toward a group of Devils, while another trail within the Heavenly Realm brought the infiltrating Devils dangerously close to Angels searching for the supposed attackers.

The first encounter began with accusations rather than bloodshed, but neither side believed the other’s explanation, and eventually, someone attacked.

An Angel died at the hands of a Devil.

A Devil died at the hands of an Angel.

Unlike the deaths Ash had manufactured before them, these were genuine.

And that changed everything.

The bodies became proof, the survivors became witnesses, and the hatred became personal.

More Angels and Devils began crossing the boundaries between the two Realms without authorization, some seeking revenge while others simply took advantage of the growing confusion.

The casualties quickly increased, with Demi-Gods no longer being the only ones involved as Middle and Late God Rank beings began clashing, followed eventually by Peak God Rank experts.

Every stronger expert entering the conflict made the next confrontation more dangerous, while every important death created even more people seeking revenge.

The leadership of both Realms tried to suppress the situation, issuing orders against unauthorized movement and expanding their investigations, but by then, the chaos had already begun spreading beyond Ash’s control.

Old grudges resurfaced.

Rival factions began taking advantage of the confusion.

False information spread alongside genuine reports, while stolen resources, damaged formations, and unexplained disappearances continued creating new suspicions.

Ash still continued adding fuel whenever necessary, but he no longer needed to create every incident himself.

The seeds had already been planted.

Now, the chaos was growing on its own.

And beneath the still-standing Non-Aggression Treaty, the Heavenly and Abyssal Realms slowly moved closer and closer toward a conflict that neither side had officially declared.

For Ash, however, this was exactly what he wanted.

The deaths had only been the beginning.

Now, he could finally see what kind of Chaos the title [Chaos Harbinger] could truly create.

**

While on one side, Ash’s consciousness was comprehending the Runes, his body controlled by Eva was cultivating multiple aspects of himself, and his powerful clones were spreading chaos throughout the Heavenly and Abyssal Realms, there were even more things happening at the same time.

Things that could change the entire trajectory of the ongoing tale.

[Whisperer POV]

Far away from the bustling regions of Eden, an old man sat alone inside a small dwelling hidden deep within an isolated mountain range, where the surrounding forests stretched across the slopes without any signs of civilization nearby, leaving the place so quiet that only the occasional sound of wind passing through the trees could be heard.

This was where Whisperer had chosen to stay after leaving Amelia and the others, because after everything that had happened during the Day of Universal Rebirth, he no longer wanted to remain surrounded by people while being forced to watch them die without being able to do anything to change their fate.

The decision to leave his granddaughter behind had been the toughest one for him, but he knew she would be safe, and that knowledge still gave him some solace.

For years, he had been the master of the Seven Saints of Akumia, an existence who had stood at the very peak of the world he once called home and had watched generations rise and fall beneath the limits imposed upon that world, yet despite having lived for such an unimaginably long time, there had never been a day when he had felt as powerless as he did when everything began collapsing during the Day of Universal Rebirth.

He had watched the world change before his eyes, watched people he knew die, and watched powers that he couldn’t completely understand reshape everything he had spent his life protecting, while even his powers of Fate had been unable to give him a way out of that situation.

Even if he had possessed no restrictions, he knew he would still have been too powerless to stop it.

That feeling had remained with him even after the world was technically saved.

In reality, that feeling had been gnawing at his heart for a long, long time, and it was only after ’that’ day that the feeling intensified even more.

Most of the Seven Saints he had once guided were already dead, and even he himself should have been among the dead according to the Fate that had been destined for him.

Yet he was still alive.

The reason for that was simple.

Ash Burn.

Whisperer knew that better than almost anyone.

The anomaly had unknowingly changed his Fate, turning a future that should have ended with his death into something completely different, as when the worlds eventually fused together, the changes brought by that event gave Whisperer an opportunity that he had never expected to receive.

When the worlds fused together, an enormous amount of concentrated and pure energy had spread throughout the formation of the new Realm, and while most of that energy had eventually settled into the world itself, some of it had reached places that had never experienced such purity before.

Plants were among the things affected by it.

Some remained unchanged, while others underwent strange mutations after absorbing the energy, and among those changes, Whisperer had eventually discovered one after feeling a tug at his Fate, showing him a new path where he could survive.

After investigating the fruit, he realized that it could increase his lifespan.

These kind of fruits never existed in Akumia.

For someone whose Fate had already been leading toward death, that discovery was no less than a miracle.

He took the fruit.

His lifespan increased, and with that increase, his hidden potential was reignited, while the restrictions that had once limited the people of Akumia to increase their rank disappeared along with the world itself, allowing his cultivation to finally advance beyond the limit that had trapped him for so many years and eventually reach another rank, while his lifespan increased alongside it.

Whisperer quietly looked at his hands as he remembered those changes. A hand free of wrinkles, smooth and clear.

Ash had never intended to change Whisperer’s Fate. He probably didn’t even know that such a thing had happened, yet simply because Ash existed and had changed the course of the world, a Fate that should have ended in death had suddenly gained another path.

Whisperer’s gaze slowly moved toward the wooden window, where the distant mountains could be seen beneath the quiet sky.

That was perhaps the strangest part of everything, and with that strange change came something Whisperer had never expected to receive again.

A chance.

Not simply a chance to live longer, but a chance to become stronger than he had ever been allowed to become.

Yet instead of returning to Amelia after gaining that opportunity, he had deliberately chosen to disappear from everyone’s sight.

Because the problem wasn’t his lifespan anymore.

It wasn’t even his cultivation.

It was the feeling that had remained inside him since the Day of Universal Rebirth.

Powerlessness.

He had accepted those restrictions simply because there was no other choice, and after living for so long, he had simply grown accustomed to the idea that some things were beyond his reach.

But now, everything had changed.

The world that had once imposed those limits had become something else.

His cultivation had advanced.

His Fate had already been changed once.

And if Fate could be changed once, then perhaps the restrictions that had controlled his actions for countless years could also be broken.

Whisperer knew perfectly well that trying to break those restrictions could be dangerous, and there was no guarantee that he would succeed simply because his circumstances had changed.

He might die too.

But he also knew something else.

If he continued doing nothing, then he would never know.

"I don’t want to remain powerless anymore."

His quiet voice finally broke the silence of the small dwelling, and although there was no one around to hear him, Whisperer still spoke the words as if he were making a promise to himself.

"I’ve lived long enough accepting what Fate decided for me."

He slowly stood from his chair and looked toward the distant mountains, his old eyes carrying a determination that had been absent for far too long.

"Now, I want to decide for myself."

That was why he had left Amelia and the others, not because he had stopped caring about them, but because he needed to find out whether he could finally break free from the restrictions that had bound him for so long.

He had already gained a new life.

Now he wanted to see whether he could gain something even more valuable.

Freedom.

And for that, Whisperer was willing to gamble.

A gamble that had taken him a decade of preparation, and now, after all those years, he could finally begin.

**