"By doing this, aren’t you going against your ’master’? Won’t you be punished for not following the order?"
At Rio’s question, Alverto replied in a solemn tone,
"I don’t really care about punishment or anything anymore; as long as I succeed in creating ’hope’ for my kin, I will have my lifelong goal accomplished..."
"After that... whether I live or die does not really matter after all that has been accomplished..."
At that moment, Alverto stretched out his hand towards Rio and spoke in a calm yet serious tone.
"I have told you everything now; I have shared my plan with you... you also know that all I want is salvation for my people..."
"What do you say? Will you join me in this wonderful cause? Will you lend me your strength?"
Alverto’s voice carried a hint of pleading; he was desperate at this moment.
His words were sincere, and Rio can feel that Alverto really did want to save his people.
Rio could tell that if this plan succeeds, a new ’dawn’ will begin for the demon race.
Any demon who ’walks’ on the ’path’ created by Alverto will be able to control their miasmic corruption and will be able to keep their sanity.
This way, they won’t have violent tendencies anymore, and all the nations out there won’t have to worry about demon invasions every single day.
Hundreds of thousands of lives will be saved if demons stop causing incidents all over the world; the world will enter a new era of peace and development.
Alverto is trying to accomplish what King Allen Von Rienhart couldn’t do.
King Allen wanted the world to have peace; that’s why he waged a thousand-year demon extinction war to eradicate all demons from the world.
Once all demons stop existing, the world will be much more peaceful.
But that was a very inefficient idea; demons and miasma can’t stop existing even if you deploy all the forces of the world.
Alverto has chosen a much better plan; he’s not trying to eradicate, he’s trying to create a better ’Path’ for those who have fallen to miasmic corruption.
’Pathways’ are what shape a person’s mind, spirit, and body.
If a demon follows the ’Path’ of ’Salvation’ created by Alverto, it would essentially become similar to any other creature out there and would be able to live a normal life.
Despite not being a heaven’s chosen like Fade or the world’s chosen like Link, Alverto is working towards a goal that the other two should have been working for.
This is a noble cause.
Truthfully, Rio also felt like cooperating with Alverto. He also wanted the world to be peaceful.
His greatest goal is to live a peaceful life after all.
However, Rio did not take Alverto’s outstretched hand, despite being aware of all the advantages.
He walked towards the barrier and stopped a few meters away.
Alverto and Rio were now facing opposite sides. It was as if the two just could not be on the same side, and their goals and ideals will always be on the opposite ’path.’
"Most of what you said was indeed truth; I won’t deny your sincerity and I won’t deny that your goals are praiseworthy..."
"But you didn’t say everything, did you?"
Rio stared at that golden barrier shining around the altar, and his eyes narrowed a bit.
"There’s no point in hiding it from... I have mastered my sword intent to the extreme levels..."
’Moreover, I have the imperfect sword and the sword body too... my instincts are beyond the levels of a peak S ranker...’
Thinking these things, Rio spoke in a calm voice.
"I can sense the disturbance you are causing in the strings of ’Fate’..."
Originally, Rio was confused why ’Fade’ was even here, but after knowing about the mechanisms of the ’Spire of Ascension’ and Alverto’s plans, Rio has figured it out now.
"You are planning on using the ’Luck,’ ’Fate,’ and ’Destiny’ on that guy as a sacrifice..."
"There’s no way you will openly defy your ’master,’ thus you came up with an alternate method... I get it all now..."
Rio glanced at Fade and continued speaking.
"You will sacrifice his life and his everything along with the blessing of the heavens on him to create your so-called new ’Path’..."
"Even that girl Kira has tremendous luck; that’s likely why you even chose her from the start..."
Alverto put his stretched hand down at that moment but didn’t look back.
He was still facing towards the opposite side of Rio as if he also wasn’t going to change his ’path’ and was not going to face the same side as Rio.
"You are way to perceptive... yes, I am planning on doing exactly that; this way ’that being’ will not interfere, as its goal of killing the heaven’s chosen will also be accomplished..."
"It’s a win-win situation for everyone... to accomplish something big, there is always a need for a small sacrifice... you must know that much too..."
Rio nodded his head in agreement and replied in a calm voice,
"Yes, I know that... I would have agreed with you if you were only planning to sacrifice these two..."
As Rio spoke those words, both he and Alverto immediately moved and turned towards each other.
They both stared into each other’s eyes and noticed the calmness reflected in them.
"You connected your memories to this entire spire of ascension, and you connected all the strands of fate belonging to Fade to each and every floor..."
"The Spire of Ascension summoned me and the others to counterbalance everything..."
Alverto didn’t deny Rio words and replied calmly,
"Only those who might be a problem or might have some deep connection with me or Fade would have been summoned... I knew expected this much..."
"If you try to control and manipulate one strand of destiny, other get affected too; this is also the reason why the spire of ascension counterbalances everything..."
Rio nodded his head at those words.
"Yes, and the reason you are not carrying out this ritual yet is because I am still here and I am still against you..."
"I can tell that everyone else has already lost their ability to counterbalance the ripples caused by you; thus, they got expelled out of here, right?"
Alverto didn’t deny those words either.
"Yes, all those who got summoned here either died or got expelled as they lost their qualification of meddling in my plans..."
"Now only you are blocking my ’Path’ forward; that’s also why I am trying to get you out of my way..."
Rio smiled lightly at those words and replied with a calm voice,
"I would have calmly stepped away and wouldn’t have bothered with you if you weren’t planning on sacrificing so many things..."
"You... you are planning to use the concentrated strings of destiny and tremendous luck from Fade to affect the destiny of all beings..."
"You are planning on altering the ’Fate’ of the entire world and are going to sacrifice the fate of thousands of creatures for the sake of demons..."
The calm look on Alverto’s face finally disappeared at that moment. The aura around him became more violent, and Rio could feel that Alverto was more wary of him now.
"You really have a very powerful perception; you figured out all that from just looking at that barrier and from my words..."
"But I don’t regret telling you about my goals. I already had a feeling that you will never agree with me; I was just trying to buy time from the very beginning..."
Rio nodded his head those words.
"I know all that; I just wanted to know everything before doing anything... I was hoping that perhaps by some one-in-a-million chance, you really had a plan to accomplish great things without so many casualties..."
Rio stared in Alverto’s eyes and spoke with a solemn voice.
"You are planning on sacrificing the life and destiny of nearly 80 percent of creatures in the entire universe just to create a new ’Pathway’..."
Alverto didn’t back down from Rio’s stare and replied in an equally solemn voice,
"Demons will also be included in that number... creating a new ’Pathway’ means creating changes in the ’Laws’ of the ’World’ itself..."
"You need to sacrifice at least this much to create changes in the natural order of the universe..."
Fade himself is just a random guy, but he carries the tremendous connection of the heavenly luck in his body, which is his so-called ’system.’
Alverto can use that connection to connect to the ’Heavenly Luck’ itself, and then he will use the ’Spire of Ascension’ as a ’Medium’ to alter the ’Fate’ of the entire universe.
He will use the network of the strings of destiny via ’Heavenly Luck’ and sacrifice the luck, destiny, and life of more than half of the creatures in this world to alter the very principles of this world.
This way, demons in the future will have a new pathway to rely on; they will have a place in the world.
Demons now are treated like ’cancer’ to this world; all the ’laws’ of the ’world’ hate them except the ’law’ of ’miasma’ and ’corruption.’
Alverto wants to decrease the influence of these two ’laws’ on demons and make demons compatible with other ’laws’ of the world.
This way, they will not have to rely on the ’Law’ of ’Miasma’ as much as now, and they will finally be completely integrated into the natural order of this world.
Alverto was prepared to sacrifice everything he had, along with 80 percent of the entire universe, to make irreversible changes in the world.
"Your plan is even more dangerous than what King Allen tried to do back then..."
"We can never be on the same ’Path’... Our ’paths’ will always ’collide’ against each other, ’Demon Prince’ Alverto!"
Rio summoned his weapon, and Alverto did the same.
"I genuinely hoped that we should have been on the ’Same’ path too... But you have become an ’obstacle’ in my ’path.’ You must fall today, ’Dark Star’ Rio!"
Talking any further was pointless; their goals could never align with each other.
Their ideals were completely opposite of each other; now all that’s left is to fight each other.
To prove whose ideals are better, they must win against each other.