The so-called Sacred Combat, what did it mean?
It was an ingrained tradition in the souls of Demigods that they would follow in moments of deep desire even without realizing its existence.
That was why these Demigods who spent their entire lives in the lower universe were partaking in a tradition only truly known to the Heavenly World.
Two Demigods would face each other.
Knowing that a head-on collision would be ineffective, forcing them to spend days or weeks fighting until one side gained the advantage or ran out of mana, they chose a different method.
They condensed the height of their laws into a single attack and pinpointed the weakness in their enemy's Divinity, aiming to end it in one blow.
Whoever could strike that blow first would win regardless of whether they dealt fatal damage or not. Because Sacred Combat was the process of cracking the other party's Divinity.
Being able to do so clearly set one apart from their opponent, and even if the opponent wished to fight more, they would lose their opportunity.
After all, a crack in one's Divinity was fatal enough even if the actual damage wasn't the same.
Winning a Sacred Combat illustrated not only one's skills and the depths of one's ideals, but it clearly outlined their perception and sight to be able to see through another's Divinity.
This wasn't an easy task at all, especially since Divinities were far more numerous than laws.
The process wasn't so streamlined in the lower universe. Since it was carried out on instinct, the people involved didn't realize the significance of their achievements.
However, the base concept was the same.
As Tiamat and the Soul Emperor stood across from each other with their Divine Energy raging, the Soul Emperor made the first move.
In what could be considered an act of grace, or the maintenance of honor, the Soul Emperor returned Tiamat's body to her.
From the air, she looked down at it warily.
"What is this?" She questioned.
"Nothing," the Soul Emperor responded.
"As it has come to this, the master's name is at stake in this battle. Advantages such as this will not be tolerated if their honor must be defended."
"Tch."
Tiamat clicked her tongue and reattached her soul to her body as if she was doing so unwillingly, however, internally, she was smiling.
If he was staking so much on this, it gave her another opening to exploit.
"Very well, however, what happens if you lose face for your master with such words?" She asked, provoking him.
The Soul Emperor's eyes rarely ever showed expression, but they were especially sharp at this time.
"That is an impossible outcome."
"Hah."
Tiamat scoffed and stretched the limbs that she could now feel again.
Once she was reacclimatized to her physical state, she summoned her mana once more.
"Then, shall we begin?"
She suppressed the hatred in her heart.
Revenge and the likes, those were her motivations to engage in this battle, but they were unimportant now.
The second she achieved victory here, her revenge would be far sweeter than if she just killed him.
Therefore, for the sake of that victory, she put all those feelings away.
She concentrated on her Divinity. She looked deep into True Death and pulled together the height of her laws.
A force that combined the bliss and the tragedy of death, a force that encompassed both good and evil, a force that represented true duality even within a singular law. That force appeared around her body and acted as fuel for her strength.
Meanwhile, the Soul Emperor did the same.
The Absolute Servitude the souls he commanded were forced into, he harnessed it to empower himself. He sacrificed them for power, and dedicated that power to the ones he served, entirely willing to lay his own life down in the same way for their sakes.
Without a single hypocritical bone in his body, viewing himself the exact same way he viewed those he controlled without prejudice or arrogance, and using that vision as grounds to call his servitude absolute, he gathered his mana as well.
The two walked up to each other without a word. The domain around the Soul Emperor was consumed and turned into an aura around his body, wispy and almost formless with just a few traces of white in its atmosphere.
It contrasted Tiamat's aura greatly, exuding a subtlety that her thick and murky black aura didn't have.
They were ten steps apart.
Tiamat had a thought.
What was the core of the Soul Emperor's Divinity?
What was it that cemented his servitude in stone?
Why did he choose to view himself as a slave, and why was he, who rose to the peak of their race, willing to be one?
The depths of his loyalty were known to all, but the reasoning behind it was a mystery.
Nine steps.
Could there have been a story between them?
Maybe the Soul Emperor received some kind of grace from the creators that made him want to serve them with all his heart.
If so, his unyielding nature would've been explainable, and the heights he saw in them would make his lack of desire for power understandable as well.
Eight steps.
It couldn't be so simple. 100,000 years of servitude couldn't be bought with such fleeting loyalty.
Perhaps the lifetime of a mortal could be supported by a life-saving grace, but with immortality came independence. The fact that this nature had no position in his heart was telling.
Seven steps.
Then, was there a deeper reasoning? Perhaps the Soul Emperor had some sort of connection to the creators that other Nox didn't have.
He might've been an illegitimate child working his hardest for their recognition, or he might have been something of a religious fanatic who would do anything to get closer to his god.
Six steps.
Five steps.
Four steps.
The Soul Emperor wasn't that type of person.
For as long as Tiamat knew of him, he was a person without a soul.
The stories told in those days of when he was young made it difficult to give this man a backstory.
He was always soulless. It wasn't something instilled in him at a later date or something he sacrificed when he gained Divinity. The reason he had no hesitation in sacrificing his sense of self for the creators was because he didn't have much of one from the start.
Three steps.
Two steps.
They were only a few feet away from each other at this point, and Tiamat realized something as she once again felt his presence from a close distance.
'It was never so complicated.'
The Nox were creatures of vice, and their creators were just as consumed by greed.
Whether they had deep-seated schemes or long-term plans for unknown purposes, they never cared enough about the Nox to show them any sort of consideration.
There was no way for the Soul Emperor to genuinely form such a mindset.
As long as he was a Nox, his mindset was inherently flawed, because he was created with a completely different nature that needed to be tamed.
One step.
Only one step remained.
And Tiamat found her answer.
'His loyalty was never natural to begin with.'
There was a flaw.
A flaw that had remained hidden for so long, one that not even the Soul Emperor was aware of.
Nobody could've thought of it because of its simplicity.
For the Soul Emperor whose character had always remained the same, nobody would've made such an assumption, especially since he'd reached his current heights.
But that was it.
There was no other explanation.
And Tiamat could intuitively feel that she was right.
'That loyalty…'
There was no more distance left to cover.
And now that she had her answer…
'...was artificially planted in him at birth.'
…it was time to attack.
