92 20 Years (1/2)

Evernight, 20 years after Clay brought himself here, abandoning his family and friends. In grief and desolation.

He would have succumbed to the sorrow if not for the will to not let that incident happen again. No matter the cost.

He blamed himself, blamed his weakness and blamed his lack of preparation for unexpected attacks, even from gods.

Revenge was out of his mind. Revenge could not have brought back his family, his friends, and their families. It was a task quite impossible even if he scoured every world, he could find that had advanced healing and resurrection techniques. He was the least optimistic about getting their soul back into bodies of flesh. Even if he studied and researched souls to an extreme extent, he really so no use for it.

He gave up on lofty goals like resurrecting them and instead built himself up in strength and power. Doing this, made him feel that a repeat of what happened would grow slimmer until it can no longer happen.

In 20 years, Clay had made Evernight the way it was supposed to be hundreds of years before the Lich god made it that way. The skies were bright with sunlight, the green fields and mountains were full of life and activity from countless animals and even magic beasts as well as miasmic beasts.

The human settlements grew in power and prosperity in order to defend themselves at night.

Clay arranged with the Lich god, that he would take back the day and the Lich god the night. This way, the world is balanced, and the urgency of survival would grind both parties into growth together.

And so, the day belonged to the humans, and the night belonged to the undead. The humans would toil and work to further themselves in the day, not holding anything back if there is daylight, and when night falls, the undead hunt also bring about their terror. Attacking the human settlements and castles in droves. The lesser undead were not as valuable as the higher level undead and even commander level ones, so they make them go and attack humans in hopes of bringing about other higher level undead.

With this arrangement, Evernight was reformed and was called by the humans, Solas. Clay became their god, and faith was directed towards him. For the last 20 years, Clay had been protecting them and upholding justice and fairness in Evernight. He set up a new Apollo's Lair on the Sun's core and had been staying there since then.

He setup an automatic smiting system which judges humans who hold evil intent and puts it into action. After which, a beam of golden light hits the offender without fail and depending on the degree of crime and offense he commits, he either gets his limbs cut off, his senses impaired temporarily or permanently, his head punched through and die. There are no warning shots or announcements. There is no need for police or temples to be built for oracles. Clay made himself overseer of humanity in this planet.

This system had been going on for 20 years and nothing has hindered Clay's growth in strength and authority in Evernight.

On the other hand, the Lich god had become their god and followed his will uncontested. Afterall, he was a Lich and right now, the highest order lich there is on the planet. He still stayed in the Forbidden Chamber and never accepted any other visitors unless it was his disciple Elkanor.

He had taken Elkanor as his disciple after Clay recommended her to him. Her achievements in research and undead technologies were top notch even with the Lich god's standards. He told Clay that Elkanor had the highest chance of ascending given time. Clay did not comment and left.

While all this was happening and the world revolving, Clay was inside Apollo's Lair in Evernight and absorbing all the radiation and energy he could and converted them into stats. He did this by continuously washing himself with these energies. His stats broke through the Billions mark after 15 years and the progress had slowed down until now.

Clay had not developed any more fun and games and just focused on the strength of his offense and the strength of his defense. Nothing else mattered.

Today marks the 20 years after Clay had come to Evernight, fleeing from Safir.

He descended stealthily and went to the Forbidden Chamber to seek the Lich god.

The Lich god felt his presence immediately and greeted him.

”Sun god, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” The Lich god was cordial to Clay ever since he felt that Clay held more power than him, even though he was the senior.

”Lich god. Skip the pleasantries. Have you found any way to ascend further than just racial upgrade? Surely there are records of others ascending further?” Clay was seriously asking for a way to grow in power. He wants to find out how to become a real god.

”As I have told you time and again, even I only found records of ascending which I tried on my self and succeeded by some stroke of luck. Other than this, I hold no other means to help you seek what you want, Sun god.” the Lich god was exasperated as he had already told Clay almost to a thousand times that he did not have the information he needed.

”Not unless you venture into the stars and find what you are looking for yourself, that'd be for the best. Both for you and Evernight.” The Lich god continued, giving Clay an idea he himself also considered some time ago.

”I see. Then I will venture to the stars and seek what I need there indeed. While I am gone, our arrangement still stands. And my eye, will continue to execute my orders according to its commands. So, you can be sure that in due time, more disciples will come to you.” Clay said only this much before he disappeared.

!!!

Even the Lich god could not trace his whereabouts and his movement as he disappeared. He was amazed and frightened. ”Just how powerful had the man grown, for him to even make an ascended like me feel like an inferior race?” the Lich god pondered and shuddered at the thought.

***

When Clay disappeared from the Forbidden Chamber, he reappeared at the same time on Apollo's Lair.

After he double checked his Automatons, no longer golems, but automatons, Clay gave another command.

”When less than 20 percent of humanity is left because of the undead, you shall mobilize and control the situation. When the situation is under control, you can go back here and watch again. This will be in a loop for as long as there're humans left in Evernight.” Clay left that command to them and slowly ascended away from the Sun. His stats had stagnated again, same with how his stats also did when he was primed for ascension. He suspected that an Ascension was in order, maybe this time, he'd achieve godhood as well.

”When I ascend to godhood, I shall settle accounts with Safir. Then I shall be able to honor the memory of my family in Alleucanth. My retainers are surely working hard in keeping the world in its place for as long as they are there.

”They've ascended as well, stronger than that Demon Azarael, keeping him in check would be easy. The rest of the world should also be under their thumb. At least, I am certain that they would make Claiomh Solais, a place worthy of my comeback. That is, if they do not think I died.” Clay lamented.

Going into the void was an easy feat for Clay now. He merely had to operate his ability to manipulate heat and some other skills. However, as Clay needed to learn how to properly breathe in space, he wanted to make his body learn it by force.

He flew into the void and started breathing in the void itself. Inhaling and then Exhaling it.

If not for his sturdy lungs and body, he would have imploded the second he went to the void. However, even the void had to bow down to his strength. No longer than 10 breaths, he heard his Ultimate skill giving him a heads up. That he learned to absorb the void into his body. Part of his lungs became the vessel for void particles which when breathed in, would go directly to that space. With spatial manipulation, it was an easy feat for Clay. This gave Clay the ability to breathe in space.

Having done this, he also made a space for water to be inside his lungs, filled it with water through magic, and closed it off until he needed it.

Without a proper destination, Clay had to expand his perception to cover a vast part of the System this Sun had. Evernight was not the only planet that supported life it seemed. He found out that a planet two planets away from Evernight also had signs of life. That was his first stop.

Clay propelled himself at light speed towards that planet. His body unhindered by anything in space, arrived in no more than 20 minutes.

Descending was no problem as well. There were no indications of intruding as he was simply too small to create any resistance in the atmosphere. Unless he flew at such a high speed while descending. Clay saw that the planet was a pure body of water. He could not detect that many signs of land mass through his Earth affinity.

The entire planet being a body of water was something even Clay was curious about. This meant that the beings that lived here and those he has been detecting since entering the atmosphere were all underwater creatures.

”Fascinating!”

Clay could not help but admire.

Landing on the surface of the water, Clay breathed in a huge gulp of air. He had been relying on his skill to breathe in the void since earlier and when he finally set foot on the planet, he found that the air, was heavier in this planet.

Without further ado, he plunged into the underwater world he detected when he encompassed the whole planet with his perception.

There were city-like structures at the bottom of the underwater world founded on the only landmass that he could detect. He visited one of the cities and immediately was also detected by this world's people. Surprisingly, they were not overly aggressive in their approach.

”Halt!”

Clay was greeted by a man riding on a giant sea creature he had never seen before. It looked like a horse that grew scales and the tail of a whale. If one were to compare it with known monsters, then it looked like Lugia but with the face of a Horsea. It was weird but also kind of expected for Clay.

After all, creatures were unique according to their evolution.

Even Clay can become some ball of heat when he releases his physical body and switches to his spiritual one.

When he heard the call to stop, it was not through the vibration in the air, rather, it was the vibration of water that was precisely targeted towards Clay. This technique was unique to the people of this planet. After all, they needed to communicate under water.

What Clay was extra curious though, was how these people along with the one who shouted looked a lot like the humans from Evernight.

Clay wanted to speak to them as well and his trusty Ultimate skill made this possible.

”Greetings! I mean you no harm. I come in peace!”

Clay chuckled in his heart as he never thought he would be the first to say this to another race in space. He had only read things like this in manga and novels after all.

”Please hold. We are aware you are not from around here. However, we still need to check whether you hold any evil intent before we let you into our cities. After all, we can't sense your strength but instead your existence only.”