Bayrus couldn't help but smile.
He had a long robe that was made up of… a galaxy itself now that Ning was looking at him properly. The cloth was the nebulous clouds and the gems were glowing stars.
Ning had never seen something so fascinating and so terrifying at the same time.
"So you do know who I am," he said. "So my guess wasn't wrong either. You really did destroy my system."
The system kept blaring messages, but Ning couldn't do anything right now. The warnings were useless since he was not going to leave his family and run away. He would rather die than do that.
"It was a stupid system that wasn't meant to help someone but rather use them," Ning said, remembering the system from the bamboo he swallowed. "I would destroy it each and every time."
"Oh, how righteous of you," Bayrus said, his smile never leaving his face.
Ning tried his best to come up with an idea to get out of this situation. He tried asking the system, but the system was of no use at all.
He needed to buy some time for now. "Was it because of you that these Constellations went out of their way to ruin themselves just to catch me?" he asked.
"Oh yes," Bayrus said. "I told them I was here for the Energy System and that they would be working with me to get me to it. They tried to kill you, didn't they? Idiots didn't realize that you were the system itself. Well, can't blame a measly constellation for being ignorant."
'He knows about the system too,' Ning thought. "How did you know I had the system? I never made it obvious to anyone."
"Never made it obvious?" Bayrus suddenly laughed out loud as if he had heard the best joke in eons. "You were flaunting around your system so much that it would be impossible for anyone to not catch it."
Ning frowned. Was he doing that?
"I must say," Bayrus said. "I actually didn't come here for the system itself, but I am glad I did."
"What did you come here for then?" Ning asked. "To kill me?"
"Yes," Bayrus said. "Did you know how long it took to make a system that would continuously consume energy for the longest time before coming back to me? 2 Million years. Do you know how long that sort of time period is?"
Ning kept quiet.
"I was angry, so angry," he said. "I wanted to find the thing that destroyed my system and kill it. So, I followed the trail, which led me to this universe. However, the trail ran cold from there."
"I tried searching for some time, but in the end, I didn't even know where to begin with. The only reason I even stayed behind for so long was that there was a single planet with so many constellations gathered on it."
"I decided to watch what would happen here, how these cowards would tear themselves apart," Bayrus said. "However, imagine my surprise when suddenly, a portal opens up on this planet out of nowhere and when I followed that portal, it led to another galaxy. Now, I wondered who could be so powerful to do such a thing."
"Then, the very next day you teleport over to a Constellation's home space. Now, that's not something a human is able to do. So I dug around, and I found that you had recently killed a constellation, and that led me to the suspicion that you had the system."
"Of course, it was just a suspicion, so I had to wait for you to reveal yourself. I tried to get the constellations against you, but then you went ahead and disappeared again."
"I couldn't follow you, or your system would let you know I was there. So, I had to wait. I realized you had created a clone, so I created an urgency to bring you back. I made the constellations all start the apocalypse early, and as expected you were back."
"Once you started killing them, I finally realized, I was going to be face to face with the fabled Energy system," Bayrus said. "Do you know how much I've studied your system over the time I've been alive? I've spent billions of years meeting and learning about you from the other galaxies. And now, it's my turn to be the one to share that information."
"I can finally get the Energy System and test it for myself," Bayrus said.
Ning suddenly teleported, arriving behind the Galactic will as he laid his hands on its back. As long as he could touch it, it would be fine.
However, when his hands did lay on its back, Ning realized that he wasn't touching the back at all.
There was a layer of space between him and the will, and that was infinitely further away than he needed to be.
"I'm up against an Energy system, did you think I would let you touch my body so easily?" Bayrus asked.
"System, what do I do?" Ning asked, begging.
But there was nothing the system could tell him at all. A fight against a Galactic Will, one that wasn't weakened as Genesis had been, was not a fight he could ever win.
"So, I am not wrong in assuming that you are a new user of the Energy system, am I?" Bayrus asked as he turned around. "How long has it been since you got it? Let me teach you how it is done."
"Put your energy onto your palm, and burn away this layer of energy around me. That's how you will get to touch my real body," Bayrus said.
Ning was confused that Bayrus was helping him at all, but the suggestion didn't sound wrong at all. So, he did what he was told to do.
He pulled out energy that was in his system and used it to drill through the defense that the Galactic will have placed on itself. However, no matter how much energy Ning used, he could not even make a dent in that defense.
"So," Bayrus spoke. "Now that you have realized that anything you do is useless against me, can we talk about your terms of surrender?"
