THE GOD EATER

His voice was full of surprise as he said, ”I knew that law fragments came from the pathway, but I didn’t know that they also came from the world around us. In fact, it is more like the whole world is made of law fragments.”

He knew that law fragments were linked to pathways because Branch Metacs are made of them. In fact, a rank 1 Branch Metac can be made up of a single law fragment. So he always thought law fragments came from pathways.

But from what he can see in the Supreme Metac, law fragments come from the world. It is Supreme Metacs that commandeer the law fragments and change them for their own purpose.

In his sight, the Supreme Metac is constantly converting law fragments from the world to create more law fragments of hr pathway. But this wasn’t an infinite procedure.

He saw that the rate of the conversion varies. Sometimes it is slow, and sometimes it is fast. But in rare cases, the Supreme Metac stops converting law fragments entirely.

While he was wondering why the Supreme Metac would stop, he acquired more information through the Insight Stat that indicated that Supreme Metacs only convert law fragments from the world in order to maintain a certain influence on the pathway in the world.

By increasing the amount of law fragments from a pathway in the world, the influence of the pathway will be increased. So when the amount of law fragments from a pathway reaches zero, the pathway will disappear forever.

The lack of influence will make it difficult for Metacs of the pathway to be upgraded since the materials that contain the law fragments needed for the upgrade will become scarce. And when the amount of law fragments of that pathway falls to zero, even Branch Metacs of the pathway will disappear and stop appearing.

But from what he could see, there is a limit to the level of influence that a pathway can have in the world. So when the pathway reaches this limit, the Supreme Metac will slow down its conversion of law fragments until it stops converting completely.

After understanding this, he said with sudden realization, ”This must be why Dao Lords can have more than one pathway. They just have to convert the law fragments of one pathway into the law fragments of the pathway they need.”

”Law fragments aren’t dangerous things like divine beings make them out to be. They are just bits of information. The only reason the law fragments of another pathway are dangerous to us is that we can’t prevent the clash of instructions from different pathways.”

At this point, he stopped using the Insight Stat to gain understanding from the Supreme Metac. He withdrew his senses from the star at the core of the constellation and instead looked inwardly into the core of his Cave Heaven.

He focused on Fenrir and thought to himself, saying, ’What is Fenrir, though? I really don’t know. I only know that Fenrir is at least a three-dimensional structure like Supreme Metacs.’

’Fenrir is not a simple three-dimensional structure, though. Not only can it use the Branch Metacs of different pathways, which should be impossible, but it can also use the Core Metacs and Divine Metacs of different pathways.’

’If I am to guess what Fenrir is, I would say Fenrir is an operating system, not a program like Metacs. If I am right and Fenrir is really an operating system, I would be the hardware. I think that is fitting since the stronger I become, the stronger Fenrir becomes.’

From his limited perspective, the operating system is the entire world as a whole. This is because the world is what will execute the instructions of a pathway and produce an output.

The more he thought about it, the more reasonable he found his explanation to be. He nodded and said to himself, ’Even if Fenrir is not an operating system, it should be a virtual machine with its own set of rules, which is why it can circumvent the rules that bound pathways in the main operating system.’

As his gaze swept through the core of his Cave Heaven, he saw his Life Fire. The sight of the Life Fire made him snort and say, ”This is why I can’t use Core Metacs and Branch Metacs anymore. It will burn any Branch Metac or Core Metac that comes near it and break it down into law fragments.”

”Even Divine Metacs are not exempt from this. Only the Divine Metacs that make up the Life Fire won’t be burned by the Life Fire. But that Divine Metac will still use up some lifespan to maintain the Life Fire when it is activated.”

”As for the Divine Metacs that are not part of the source of the Life Fire, they too will be broken apart by the Life Fire. They will be broken into bits of law fragments and the Life Spark that gives them the ability to burn lifespan for power.”

”So the Life Fire is to blame for the woes of us divine beings. It is why we have to burn lifespan every time we use a Divine Metac. But if I am being honest, even if divine beings could use Core Metacs, the power output would be too weak.”

”Core Metacs can’t be combined, so divine beings won’t be able to combine them into an ultimate attack as they can do with Divine Metacs. Then there is the fact that Core Metacs don’t have the complexity and stability needed to channel and withstand the power of the Cave Hsaven.”

”Therefore, even if divine beings could use Core Metacs, they would not be satisfied with it because it would not let them use the full potential of their power. Therefore, divine beings will always opt to use Divine Metacs in a fight for their lives.”

After he said this, he remembered what Muni had said about ancient cultivators. What he remembered made him say, ”I wonder if ancient cultivators also needed to use lifespan for power.”